228 Lamar ckian Heredity and Teleology 



gate differences, that variations are not sufficiently numerous 

 nor sufficiently wide in distribution. These are considered 

 by selectionists as being mainly of an a priori character, 

 even as objection to natural selection, and hence, as offering 

 no positive ground whatever for belief in the inheritance of 

 acquired characters. Of course, at the best, they would 

 only serve to give presumptive support to Lamarckian 

 inheritance. 



§ 2. General Effects and Specific Heredity 



The advocates of the hypothesis of Lamarckian inheri- 

 tance often fail to distinguish between the effects produced 

 upon the offspring by the general influences of the envi- 

 ronment upon the whole organism — e.g. malnutrition, 

 toxic agents, such as alcohol, etc. — and the specific modifi- 

 cations of particular parts and functions, arising suppos- 

 edly from mutilation, use, the stimulation of particular 

 organs, etc. Effects of the former sort are not denied by 

 selectionists; but they claim that this sort of effect pro- 

 duced upon the offspring is rather a disproof than a proof 

 of the Lamarckian view. For example, the effect of 

 alcoholic excess is not an increased tendency in the 

 children to drink alcoholic beverages, — whatever alcoholic 

 tendency there may be in the children is accounted for as 

 already congenital to the parents, — but certain general 

 deteriorating or degenerative changes in the nervous 

 system or constitution of the offspring, manifesting itself 

 in hysteria, scurvy, idiocy, malformations, etc., which 

 the parents did not have at all. Furthermore, the 

 mechanism required to accomplish the two sorts of effect 

 respectively are widely different. The general effects of 

 the first sort, upon the offspring, are due simply to the 



