CHAPTER VII 

 Heredity and Environment 



IN science one of the most successful Teutonic warriors 

 appears to be Weismann, who imposed his yoke 

 on the larger part of the biological world. They would 

 still seem happy under it, even if uneasy at times, and, 

 perhaps, more doubtful than they appear. It is the duty 

 of the orthodox to disclaim doubt and to profess belief 

 with fervency. This is especially binding upon those who 

 occupy the pulpit : if the priests of neo-Darwinians, 

 that cult purified of pangenes, use, and disuse, and the 

 transmission of acquired characteristics, showed hesita- 

 tion and ceased to preach dogmatics, their reputations 

 would be ruined, and the congregation become a lost 

 flock. Too little stress is laid on the vices of orthodoxy 

 for, not only does it make men blind, it makes them cling 

 to untenable positions. It would be more than terrible 

 to discover that theirs was the worship of no translated 

 but a vanished god. For did not Zeus himself die, and 

 is he not buried in Crete ? 



I do not propose in a short chapter to deal with the 

 whole case for the transmission of acquired or altered 

 characteristics, either on its theoretic or experimental 

 side. But it has already been suggested in this book that 

 to neglect relative speculation, that is to say, speculation 



dealing with like phenomena on different planes of life, 



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