CHAPTER II. 



THE STANDPOINT OF BIOLOGISTS 

 Lamarck's View on Heredity. 



IN this chapter I shall invite attention to what 

 the biologists have discovered concerning racial 

 change, and the conditions under which the change 

 occurs. 



Before the simultaneous publication in 1858 by 

 Darwin and Wallace of their " Law of Natural 

 Selection," biologists believed in the Lamarckian 

 view of heredity, a notable follower of Lamarck 

 being our own Herbert Spencer. Lamarck briefly 

 sums up his views in the following passage : " All 

 that nature has caused individuals to acquire or lose 

 through the circumstances to which their race has 

 found itself for a time exposed, and consequently, 

 through the predominant exercise of certain organs, 

 or through a failure to exercise certain parts, it pre- 

 serves through heredity to the new individuals that 

 are produced by them, provided the changes acquired 

 are common to the two sexes, or to those that have 

 produced these new individuals." Now this view is 

 the one that is popularly held to this day, and it is 



