The Wallaceian School 
merely help to elucidate some of the problems 
which confront the biologist. Thus the question 
of the inheritance of acquired characters, while 
full of interest, has no very important bearing 
on the question of the making of species. 
The Wallaceians hold the doctrines which 
have been set forth above as those of the Neo- 
Darwinian school. It is incorrect to call those 
who pin their faith to the all-sufficiency of natural 
selection Neo-Darwinians, because Darwin at no 
time believed that natural selection explained 
everything. Darwin moreover was a Lamarckian 
to the extent that he was inclined to think that 
acquired characteristics could be inherited. His 
theory of inheritance by gemmules involved the 
assumption that such characters are inherited. 
It is Wallace who out-Darwins Darwin, who 
preaches the all-sufficiency of natural selection. 
For this reason we dub the school which holds 
this article of belief, and to which Weismann, 
Poulton, and apparently Ray Lankester belong, 
the Wallaceian school. Weismann has put forth 
a theory of inheritance, that of the continuity 
of the germ plasm, which makes this inheritance 
a physical impossibility. We believe that the 
Wallaceians have erred as far from the truth as 
the Lamarckians have, because, as we shall show 
hereafter, a great many of the organs and struc- 
tures displayed by organisms cannot be explained 
on the natural selection hypothesis. Those who 
25 
