Art and Science 



condemned. His tone, however, is so off- 

 hand, that those who have little acquaintance 

 with the literature of evolution would hardly 

 guess that he is not much better informed on 

 this subject than themselves. 



Returning to the inheritance of acquired 

 characters, Professor Weismann says that 

 this has never been proved either by means 

 of direct observation or by experiment. " It 

 must be admitted," he writes, " that there are 

 in existence numerous descriptions of cases 

 which tend to prove that such mutilations as 

 the loss of fingers, the scars of wounds, &c., 

 are inherited by the offspring, but in these 

 descriptions the previous history is invariably 

 obscure, and hence the evidence loses all 

 scientific value." 



The experiments of M. Brown-Sequard 

 throw so much light upon the question at 

 issue that I will quote at some length from 

 the summary given by Mr. Darwin in his 

 "Variation of Animals and Plants under 

 Domestication." 1 Mr. Darwin writes : 



" With respect to the inheritance of struc- 



1 Vol. i. p. 466, &c. Ed. 1885. 

 287 



