PROFESSOR LANKESTER AND LAMARCK. 275 



of directly transforming agents are rarely, if ever, trans- 

 mitted. Professor Eay" Lankester ought to know the 

 facts better than to say that the effects of mutilation 

 are rarely, if ever, transmitted. The rule is, that they 

 will not be transmitted unless they have been followed 

 by disease, but that where disease has supervened 

 they not uncommonly descend to offspring.* I know 

 Brown-S^quard considered it to be the morbid state 

 of the nervous system consequent upon the muti- 

 lation that is transmitted, rather than the immediate 

 effects of the mutilation, but this distinction is some- 

 what finely drawn. 



When Professor Eay Lankester talks about the 

 "other effects of directly transforming agents " being 

 rarely transmitted, he should first show us the directly 

 transforming agents. Lamarck, as I have said, knows 

 them not» "It is little short of an absurdity," he 

 continues, " for people to come forward at this epoch, 

 when evolution is at length accepted solely because of 

 Mr. Darwin's doctrine, and coolly to propose to replace 

 that doctrine by the old notion so often tried and 

 rejected." 



Whether this is an absurdity or no. Professor Lan- 

 kester will do well to learn to bear it without show- 

 ing so much warmth, for it is one that is becoming 

 common. Evolution has been accepted not "because 

 of" Mr. Darwin's doctrine, but because Mr. Darwin so 

 fogged us about his doctrine that we did not under- 

 stand it. We thought we were backing his bill for 



* See Mr. Darwin's " Animals and Plants under Domestication, " vol. 

 i. p. 466, &e., ed. 1875. 



