NEOLAMARCKISM 3gg 



main simply corresponds to artificial selection; in 

 the latter case, man selects forms already produced 

 by domestication, the latter affording sports and 

 varieties due to change in the surroundings, that is, 

 soil, climate, food, and other physical features, as 

 well as education. 



" In the case also of heredity, which began to 

 operate as soon as the earliest life forms appeared, 

 we have at the outset to invoke the principle of the 

 heredity of characters acquired during the lifetime 

 of lowest organisms. 



" Finally, it is noticeable that when one is over- 

 mastered by the dogma of natural selection he is 

 apt, perhaps unconsciously, to give up all effort to 

 work out the factors of evolution, or to seek to work 

 out this or that cause of variation. Trusting too 

 ■■kQplicitly to the supposed vera causa, one may close 

 hisisyes to the effects of change of environment or 

 to the necessity of constant attempts to discover the 

 real cause of this or that variation, the reduction or 

 increase in size of this or that organ ; or become 

 insensible to the value of experiments. Were the 

 dogma of natural selection to become universally 

 accepted, further progress would cease, and biology 

 would tend to relapse into a stage of atrophy and 

 degeneration. On the other hand, a revival of 

 Lamarckism in its modern form, and a critical and 

 doubting attitude towards natural selection as an 

 efficient cause, will keep alive discussion and investi- 

 gation, and especially, if resort be had to experi- 

 mentation, will carry up to a higher plane the status 

 of philosophical biology." 



Although now the leader of the Neodarwinians, 

 and fully assured of the " all-sufficiency " of natural 

 selection, the veteran biologist Weismann, whose 

 earlier works were such epoch-making contributions 

 to insect embryology, was, when active as an in- 



