20 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



the very view which the new school of biologists have 

 set themselves to combat. 



Lamarck would have accounted for the long neck 

 of the giraffe by supposing that in remote ages its 

 ancestors were short-necked like other animals, but 

 that it exercised this neck in browsing off high trees, 

 that the necks elongated in consequence of this 

 stretching, and that this elongation was transmitted 

 by heredity, although even by imperceptibly slight 

 degrees, from one generation to another, until the part 

 gradually grew to the present length. Lamarck would 

 cordially have agreed with the modern educationalist 

 in the belief that the children of a man who gives him- 

 self to learning will have better head-pieces than if the 

 father had been a soldier or professional cricketer. 



In this Lamarckian view of heredity we have two 

 ideas ; first, that fresh characters may be acquired 

 during an individual's lifetime, due to the action of 

 his surroundings or environment ; and secondly, that 

 these fresh characters are transmitted to the offspring 

 and may produce in time marked racial change. 

 The first idea is undoubtedly and admittedly true. 

 The build of a soldier, a clerk, a ploughman, and an 

 athlete is distinctive ; the horn that grows upon a 

 mechanic's hand, and the development of the muscles 

 of a blacksmith's arm, are commonplace facts. It is the 

 second idea, the supposed transmission of these acquired 

 characters, which is now so seriously called in question. 



