WITH DARWIN FORWARDS 223 
hold a position of skepticism as to the transmissi- 
bility of acquired characters. This skepticism was 
early hinted at by Kant, His, Pritchard, and others, 
and afterwards expressed in a masterly way by 
Galton and by Weismann. For many years there 
continued a searching criticism of case after case 
of alleged transmission of acquired characters, and 
now there is widespread agreement with Sir Ray 
Lankester’s pronouncement, that one of the notable 
advances of post-Darwinian etiology has been 
getting rid of all trace of the Lamarckian theory 
of the transmission of individually acquired char- 
acters or somatic modifications. Of recent years, 
however, there have been many, and of course 
welcome, signs of a “ Back to Lamarck” reaction, 
originating perhaps in Samuel Butler, and diversely 
expressed by Semon, Cunningham, Hartog, Francis 
Darwin, Bergson, Russell, Darbishire, and others. 
We may be permitted to refer in particular to 
Rignano, the genial, indefatigable, and disinterested 
editor of the brilliant journal Scientia—a sound 
organon of pacific internationalism. Now, back to 
Lamarck let us certainly go to try to understand 
his position more thoroughly, as Russell has done in 
his Form and Function (1916). Back to Lamarck 
let us certainly go in order to discover whether we 
cannot, without disloyalty to the known facts, 
re-utilize the Adriadne thread which guided the early 
explorer of the evolution-labyrinth. But do not 
let us return to Lamarck by brushing aside forty 
years’ skeptical scrutiny of evidence, or under a 
