LAMARCICS PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 249 



that Lamarck can be ignored or passed over in a couple 

 of sentences. I only find Lamarck's name twice in the 

 1859 edition of the 'Origin,' once on p. 242, where 

 Mr. Darwin writes: "I am surprised that no one has 

 advanced this demonstrative case of neuter insects, 

 against the well-known doctrine of Lamarck;" and 

 again, p. 427, where Lamarck is stated to have been 

 the first to call attention to the " very important dis- 

 tinction between real affinities and analogical or adaptive 

 resemblances." How far from demonstrative is the par- 

 ticular case which in 1859 Mr. Darwin considered so 

 fatal to " the well-known doctrine of Lamarck " — which 

 should surely, one would have thought, include the 

 doctrine of descent with modification, which Mr. Darwin 

 is himself supporting — I have attempted to show in 

 'Life and Habit,' but had perhaps better recapitulate 

 briefly here. 



Mr. Darwin writes : " In the simpler case of neuter 

 insects all of one caste, which, as I believe, have been 

 rendered different from the fertile males and females 

 through natwal selection. . . ."* He thus attributes the 

 sterility and peculiar characteristics, we will say, of the 

 common hive working bees — " neuter insects all of one 

 caste " — to natural selection. Now, nothing is more 

 certain than that these characteristics — sterility, a 

 cavity in the thigh for collecting wax, a proboscis for 

 gathering honey, &c. — are due to the treatment which 

 the eggs laid by the queen bee receive after they have 

 left her body. Take an egg and treat it in a certain 

 way, and it becomes a working bee ; treat the same 

 • ' Origin of Species,' ed. 1, p. 239 ; ed. 6, p. 231, 



