INSUFFICIENCY OF LAMARCKISM 83 



increasing strain, is extremely probable, seeing that use 

 strengthens an organ. But the variation of the antlers them- 

 selves cannot be similarly explained, for the antlers are not 

 active, but passive structures. 



Having thus briefly examined the Lamarcldan theory as 

 applied to the transmission of mutilations and of instinct, and 

 with reference to the phenomena of coadaptation, we are led to 

 reject it all along the line as an hypothesis which is not merely 

 unproved, but which stands, on the one hand, in contradiction 

 to the facts ; and which, on the other, is inapplicable, even were 

 it true, to large categories of cases. 



Note on the Hekeditaky Tkansmission of Epilepsy. 



Since writing the above we have received a communication from 

 Dr. Maurice de Fleury, than whom no one is more competent to express 

 an opinion in regard to the hereditary transmission of epilepsy. Dr. de 

 rieury entirely confirms us ia our scepticism as to the hereditary trans- 

 mission of this disease. Speaking from personal experience of eighty-seven 

 cases of epilepsy, Dr. de Pleury writes : " Never once have I observed 

 that the parents were epileptic. On the contrary, I have always noted 

 that they were not epileptic." Dr. de Fleury states expMcitly that the 

 children of epileptic parents are degenerate, and that an accident may 

 cause the general pathological condition of such degenerate offspring to 

 manifest itself as epilepsy. This confirms what we said above. In the 

 same way a syphihtio patient may beget a child with a deformed skull 

 who becomes epileptic. But this has nothing to do with the hereditary 

 transmission of epilepsy itself, which Dr. de Fleury considers to be a 

 non-transmissible disease. 



Note on Instinct. 



It is frequently urged against Weismann's position that the instinct of 

 the hound which causes it to remain motionless when in sight of game 

 — an instinct undoubtedly hereditaiy — has been acquired under domesti- 

 cation, and has become so greatly strengthened by use in the course 

 of successive generations that it is now inborn in the race. It is to be 

 remarked, in the first instance, that this instinct is very differently 

 developed in different individuals. The sportsman knows well how to 

 distinguish, even in a litter, between the effective pups and the indifferent 

 ones. In the second place, it must be remembered that the hunting 

 instinct of the hound has not by any means been wholly acquired under 

 domestication. This instinct is but a variation of the hunting instinct 



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