i 4 4 INSECTS AND HEREDITY 



This appears to me to be only a verbal difficulty. 

 Before attempting to prove whether a certain class of 

 characters can be inherited, it is essential to be able to 

 decide whether a given character which it is proposed to 

 test belongs to the class. If a satisfactory criterion can 

 be reached we can proceed with the test even though the 

 name ' acquired ' be by our definition denied to the cha- 

 racter after transmission by inheritance. The interest of 

 the result would remain all the same. If the character 

 were there — appreciable, measurable, — the effects would 

 be incalculable in their importance, and would not be 

 diminished one iota by the consideration that the name 

 would no longer apply. Sir Edward Fry's criticism does 

 indeed suggest a change — and I think a desirable change — 

 in the statement of the problem. For the question ' Are 

 acquired characters hereditary?' it would be more accurate 

 to substitute ' Can the acquired characters of the parent 

 be handed down as inherent characters in the offspring ? ' 



It is in no way necessary that the acquired elements of 

 a character should be disentangled from the inherent 

 elements, if only we can prove that the character as a 

 whole is dependent upon a controllable external cause, 

 and is therefore itself controllable. In fact we speak of 

 a character as ' acquired ' just as we speak of an article 

 as ' manufactured ', although the result itself is a complex 

 of the properties of natural substances and of changes 

 introduced by art. 1 



Lamarck's Second Law a contradiction of his First Law. 



Before leaving these general introductory considerations 

 and proceeding to weigh the evidence offered by the 

 insect world, it is of importance to demonstrate that there 

 is an inconsistency in the teaching of Lamarck and his 

 followers which, startling as it is, was never noticed until 

 pointed out by Professor E. R. Lankester in 1 894. 2 



' Normal conditions of environment have for many 



1 For an interesting discussion on the relation between 'acquired' 

 and ' genetic ' characters see Adam Sedgwick's Presidential Address to 

 Section D of the British Association at Dover {Report 1899, pp. 759-66). 



a Nature, vol. li, 1894, P- i°2- 



