Professor Lankester and Lamarck 233 
though more freely in the offspring of those subjected to 
special causes of constitutional disturbance. Mr. Darwin 
has further proved that these slight variations can be 
transmitted and intensified by selective breeding.” 
Mr. Darwin did, indeed, follow Buffon and Lamarck in at 
once turning to animals and plants under domestication 
in order to bring the plasticity of organic forms more easily 
home to his readers, but the fact that variations can be 
transmitted and intensified by selective breeding had been 
so well established and was so widely known long before 
Mr. Darwin was born, that he can no more be said to have 
proved it than Newton can be said to have proved the 
revolution of the earth on its own axis. Every breeder 
throughout the world had known it for centuries. I 
believe even Virgil knew it. 
“ They have,” continues Professor Ray Lankester, “ in 
reference to breeding, a remarkably tenacious, persistent 
character, as might be expected from their origin in connec- 
tion with the reproductive process.” 
The variations do not normally ‘‘ originate in connection 
with the reproductive process,” though it is during this 
process that they receive organic expression. They origin- 
ate mainly, so far as anything originates anywhere, in the 
life of the parent or parents. Without going so far as to 
say that no variation can arise in connection with the 
reproductive system—for, doubtless, striking and successful 
sports do occasionally so arise—it is more probable that 
the majority originate earlier. Professor Ray Lankester 
proceeds :— 
“On the other hand, mutilations and other effects 
of directly transforming agents are rarely, if ever, trans- 
mitted.” Professor Ray 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 uncom- 
