208 Inheritance of Acquired Characters 
theory of Weismann, of the selective utility of every 
inborn character which happens to be a repetition of a 
functional adaptation induced by reaction to any external 
influence whatever, is very doubtful, and in any case far 
from having yet been proved; yet the utility of one part 
of these acquired characters is proven and indubitably 
established. And indeed it is just from this utility that 
one of the strongest arguments against the presumed 
non-inheritance of acquired characters is derived. 
Since in fact the usefulness of some functional 
adaptations to the individual is great and sometimes 
extremely great, it must immediately follow from that, 
according to Weismann’s view, that the inheritance of 
acquired characters is itself the result of natural selection. 
For the species in which this inheritance began to mani- 
fest itself even though to a slight extent would certainly 
have had an advantage over the others, just because the 
adaptation to the environment in their descendants could 
go on with ever increasing rapidity. 
“As modifications acquired by use during life,” writes 
Cope, “‘are necessarily useful, it follows that if one accepts 
the post-Darwinian or Weismannian theory the only mode 
of acquisition of useful variations which we know is 
excluded from the process of organic development.” 
“Each generation should commence, in the matter 
of useful characters acquired by use, at the same point 
at which its ancestors had commenced, so that an accumu- 
lation or development of these characters would hardly 
be possible. The influence of the environment as well 
as the energies of the living being would be incapable 
of developing in a given generation more than only that 
which this generation could acquire during its single life. 
How could evolution, then, account for the law, which 
