The Making of Species 
acquired characters are not commonly inherited 
in those organisms in which there is a sharp 
distinction between the germinal and the somatic 
cells. 
It is nothing short of a misfortune that 
Haeckel’s History of Creation, which seems to 
be so widely read in England, should be built 
on a fallacious foundation. It seems to us that 
this work is calculated to mislead rather than to 
teach. 
Our attitude is not quite that of the Wallaceian 
school, which denies the possibility of the in- 
heritance of acquired characters. In practice, 
however, the attitude we adopt is as fatal to 
Lamarckism in all its forms as the dogmatic 
assertions of the Wallaceians. It matters not 
whether acquired characters are very rarely or 
never inherited. In either case their inherit- 
ance cannot have played an important part in 
evolution. All those theories which rely on use- 
inheritance as a factor in evolution are therefore 
in our opinion worthless, being opposed to facts. 
Our attitude, then, is that the inheritance of 
acquired characteristics, if it does occur, is so 
rare as to be a negligible quantity in organic 
evolution. 
We may add that the position which we occupy 
will not be affected even if the Lamarckians do 
succeed eventually in proving that some acquired 
characters are really inherited. Such proof would 
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