354 



TRANSMISSION 



as proof of the inheritance of acquired characters, the student 

 must be on his constant guard, and he must be extremely care- 

 ful in the generalizations he allows himself to make in this partic- 

 ular field of study. 



This subject has been greatly complicated by a mass of tradi- 

 tion that has grown up around it. The average man assumes 

 that the effects of environment are transmitted. He does not 

 stop to inquire seriously into the subject. He considers all 

 doubt on this point as foolishness ; but that which he considers 

 as good proof is, in many cases at least, anything but proof. 



As if this were not enough, the naturalist on his part has still 

 further muddled the matter by a most unfortunate and con- 

 fusing, not to say inaccurate, use of terms. Traditions may be 

 ignored for purposes of study, but not so with terminology, 

 which should be exact and accurate. The two most unfortunate 

 terms that ever crept into evolutionary studies are " congenital " 

 and " acquired." 



Characters congenital and acquired. It is a custom with 

 evolutionists to assume that every adult individual is in posses- 

 sion of two kinds of characters : first, those which were born 

 into it (the congenital) ; second, those which were forced upon 

 it by the conditions of life or picked up as the result of experi- 

 ence (the acquired). They then proceed to the very natural 

 assumption that the congenital characters, having been derived 

 by inheritance, will in turn be transmitted ; after which they 

 raise what would seem to be the final question, Are the 

 acquired characters transmitted ? Thus is the field of discus- 

 sion staked out, and no such battle royal (of words) was ever 

 fought out in modern times except over questions theological 

 as has been waged over the question of the inheritance (or 

 transmission) of acquired characters. 1 



1 This is the question that has divided the neo-Lamarckians and the neo- 

 Darwinians, and almost the entire host of evolutionists for the last twenty years 

 have ranged themselves on one side or the other of this dispute and have 

 allowed themselves to be identified with one or the other of the hostile camps. 



As the special opponent of the theory of the transmission of acquired char- 

 acters, the student should read Weismann, particularly his Essays on Heredity, 

 his Germ Plasm, and his Germinal Selection. 



The most vigorous and accessible, if not the most able, champion of the 

 transmissionists is perhaps Romanes in his Examination of Weismannism and 



