XXIX 
WITH DARWIN FORWARDS 
T is difficult not to sympathize with the idea 
that there must be some hereditary entail- 
ment of at least a representation of many of the 
individual gains made by living creatures during 
their lifetime. It is difficult to shut out the belief 
that individual experience must somehow count in 
racial evolution. Thus it is not surprising that we 
should often hear the slogan “ Back to Lamarck!” 
The importance of the questions raised is so great 
that no apology is needed for an attempt to suggest. 
the other side of the case. We must remember 
Herbert Spencer’s conviction, that “a right answer 
to the question whether acquired characters are or 
are not inherited underlies right beliefs, not only in 
Biology and Psychology, but also in Education, 
Ethics, and Politics... . A grave responsibility 
rests on biologists in respect of the general question, 
since wrong answers lead, among other effects, to 
wrong belief about social affairs, and to disastrous 
social actions.” These words should remove all 
trace of polemical argumentation from our inquiry. 
The central question is this: Does a structural or 
functional change directly induced in the body of an 
individual organism as the result of some peculiarity 
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