WEisMAisrN'g THEo:air op heredh'y ^^'^ 



that his two greatest critics, Spencer and 

 Haeckel, would look with much favor on a 

 theory the acceptance of which would make 

 necessary the re-writing of those many vo- 

 lumes which constitute their lifework. Lan- 

 kester, himself no mean authority, in trans- 

 lating Haeckel's "History of Creation," feels 

 constrained to say in the preface, "I feel it 

 due to myself to state that I do not agree 

 with him as to a very large part of his views 

 on classification, and as to his belief in the 

 necessity of assuming the 'transmissibility of 

 acquired characters/ Readers who have gained 

 an interest in these questions from the brief 

 statements of the present work must, with- 

 out assuming that Professor Haeckers judg- 

 ment is final, go on to study for themselves 

 the works of Weismann and others which are 

 mentioned with perfect fairness in these 

 pages." 



And Joseph McCabe, the translator of his 

 "Riddle of the Universe," and "Last Words 

 on Evolution," has this to say in his intro- 

 duction to the latter, written two years ago, 

 'To closer students, who are at times impa- 

 tient of the Lamarckian phraseology of Haec- 

 kel — to all, in fact, who would like to see 

 how the same evolutionary truths are ex- 

 pressed without reliance on the inheritance 



