34 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



illustration of the theory of Natural Selection. 

 My special purpose," he continues, " has been to 

 contribute to the theory by placing it in its proper 

 relations to philosophical inquiries in general." ^ 

 This able critic in America and Henry Fawcett 

 in England represent a class of thinkers who have 

 taken and still take a very important part in up- 

 holding the theory of Natural Selection. It is not 

 necessary to be a biologist in order to compre- 

 hend the details and the bearings of this theory. 

 They were at the very first understood by able 

 thinkers who were not scientific men or who fol- 

 lowed some non-biological science, when natural- 

 ists themselves were hopelessly puzzled. And at 

 the present time such support is of the highest 

 importance when within the hmits of the sciences 

 most nearly concerned the intense and natural 

 desire to try all things is not always accompanied 

 by the steadfast purpose to hold fast that which 

 is good. 



LAMARCK'S HYPOTHESIS AND THE HERED- 

 ITARY TRANSMISSION OF ACQUIRED CHAR- 

 ACTERS 



The greatest change in evolutionary thought 

 since the publication of the Origin was wrought, 

 after Darwin's death, by the appearance of that 

 wonderful and beautiful theory of heredity, 

 which looks on parents as the elder brother and 

 sister of their children. In this theory, itself 

 an outcome of minute and exact observation, 



' Life and Letters, III, pp. 143, 144. 



