236 DARWIN AND PALEONTOLOGY 



new parts, it was natural to first have recourse to 

 the doctrine of the transmission of acquired char- 

 acters, because it is a well-known principle that 

 certain organs are definitely directed or guided 

 along adaptive lines by use. By reference to my 

 papers of 1889 and 1890, it will be seen that it 

 was in seeking an explanation of direction^, I was 

 led to support the Lamarckian principle. I do 

 not propose to discuss this enormous question 

 here. Cope concentrated his whole energy on 

 trying to demonstrate Lamarckianism from pa- 

 leontology, but ended in a logical failure, or non 

 sequitur, because the explanation will not apply 

 to all cases. Here again I beheve that experi- 

 mental zoology rather than paleontology is the 

 best field of research, and that the Lamarckian 

 principle should not be finally abandoned until 

 it is tested by a prolonged series of experiments 

 extending over many years. It is well known 

 that Darwin, for the very reason that he thought 

 he saw in it a working explanation of a directing 

 influence on heredity, finally adopted the La- 

 marckian principle and proposed his hypothesis 

 of pangenesis. This was also the ground of my 

 first conclusion of 1889, yet owing in the first 

 instance to a trenchant criticism by Poulton, I 

 have for the time abandoned this Lamarckian 

 interpretation, since quite apart from the difiicul- 

 ties in the field of heredity, paleontology appears 

 to oflFer many objections to it. The objections 

 are simply these: that a very large number of 



