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CHAPTER XVII. 



PROFESSOR RAY LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 



Being anxious to give the reader a sample of the 

 arguments against the theory of natural selection from 

 among variations that are mainly either directly or 

 indirectly functional in their inception, or more briefly 

 against the Erasmus-Darwinian and Lamarckian sys- 

 tems, I can find nothing more to the point, or more 

 recent, than Professor Ray Lankester's letter to the 

 Athenmum of March 29, 1884, to the latter part of 

 which, however, I need alone call attention. Professor 

 Ray Lankester says : — 



"And then we are introduced to the discredited 

 speculations of Lamarck, which have found a worthy 

 advocate in Mr. Butler, as really soKd contributions to 

 the discovery of the mrw causes of variation ! A much 

 more important attempt to do something for Lamarck's 

 hypothesis, of the transmission to offspring of structural 

 peculiarities acquired by the parents, was recently 

 made by an able and experienced naturalist. Professor 

 Semper of Wurzburg. His book on " Animal Life," 

 &c., is published in the ' International Scientific Series.' 

 Professor Semper adduces an immense number and 



