10 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



Inborn characters are known to be transmissible 

 from parent to offspring. Thus the parent transmits 

 arms, legs, eyes, and his other inborn characters. 

 Even when an inborn character appears for the 

 first time in a family it tends to be transmitted. 

 For example, a man born blind tends to have 

 blind children ; a man born with six fingers tends 

 to perpetuate his peculiarity. Lamarck held, as 

 people in all ages have held, that characters 

 acquired by parents are also transmissible to some 

 extent, and that evolution results from their 

 accentuation during succeeding generations. 

 Lamarck's theory is rejected totally by the modern 

 followers of Darwin. They deny that acquirements 

 are ever transmitted from parent to offspring, and 

 assign quite a different cause for evolution. Even 

 at the cost of some repetition, it is worth our while 

 to dwell a little on this point. When it is under- 

 stood, the rest of this essay will present few 

 difficulties. 



If, as Lamarck alleged, a child inherits his 

 father's acquirement, it must follow that he differs 

 from his father in that he has inborn the peculiarity 

 which the parent acquired. He differs at birth 

 from what his father was at birth. He therefore 

 makes a different start in life. Suppose, for 

 instance, an athlete developed his muscles to an 

 abnormal degree by taking more than a normal 



