Inheritance of Acquired Characters 
charged with refusing to believe that acquired 
characters are inherited because they ‘“ cannot 
conceive the means by which it could be effected,’ 
may it not be said with equal justice that many 
Neo-Lamarckians believe that acquired char- 
acters are inherited, not on evidence thereof, 
but because if such characters are not inherited 
it is very difficult to account for many of the 
phenomena presented by the organic world ? 
In many of the lower animals, as, for example, 
the hydra, the germinal material is diffused through 
the organism, so that a complete individual can 
be developed from a small portion of the creature. 
In such circumstances it seems not improbable 
that the external environment may act directly 
on the germinal substance, and induce changes 
in it which may perhaps be transmitted to the 
offspring. If this be so, it would seem that 
some acquired characters may be inherited in 
such organisms. Very many plants can be 
propagated from cuttings, buds, etc., so that we 
might reasonably expect some acquired characters 
to be hereditary in them. The majority of 
botanists appear to hold Lamarckian views; but 
on the evidence at present available, it is doubtful 
whether such views are the correct ones. 
Plants are so plastic, so protean, so sensitive 
to their environment that their external structure 
appears to be determined by the external con- 
ditions in which they find themselves quite as 
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