130 ORGANIC EVOLUTION — THE FACTORS 



spermatheca ? And if the tissues in general, why not 

 the tissues on the surface of the ovary in particular ? 

 At any rate this is clear, that while there is not a 

 particle of evidence to show that the female acquires 

 and transmits traits from a previous sire, there is some 

 evidence to show that her germ cells do. 



We have now reviewed the whole of Mr. Spencer's 

 articles so far as they deal with " The Inadequacy of 

 Natural Selection," and taking the counter-arguments 

 into consideration, I think he can hardly be said to 

 have established his case. But in a foot-note (p. 33) 

 he mentions a series of experiments which at first 

 sight certainly prove, or seem to prove, that acquired 

 traits may sometimes be transmitted, Brown-Sequard 

 severed the sciatic nerve in some guinea-pigs ; epilepsy 

 thereupon supervened, and was apparently inherited by 

 the offspring subsequently bom, for they also were 

 epileptic. Weismann's attempted explanation that 

 certain hypothetical microbes entering the wound 

 caused epilepsy in the parent, and infecting the 

 unborn offspring, produced epilepsy after birth in them 

 as well, appears to me improbable and far-fetched. 

 However, Mr. Spencer himself does not attach very 

 much importance to Browh-Sequard's experiments. 

 He says of them in the pamphlet we have under 

 consideration — " Let me say I do not commit myself 

 to any derived conclusions ; " and in a previous publica- 

 tion he says — 



"Considerable weight attaches to a fact which 

 Brown-Sequard discovered quite by accident in the 

 course of his researches. He found that certain artifi- 

 cially-produced lesions of the nervous system, so small 

 even as a section of the sciatic nerve, left after healing 

 an increased excitability which ended in liability to 

 epilepsy ; and there afterwards came out the unlooked- 

 for result that the offspring of guinea-pigs which thus 



