336 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



syllables ; and I do not know that a more striking fact can 

 be adduced at the present stage of the Weismann controversy 

 than is this fact which he has thus himself unconsciously 

 suggested, namely, that the young of the only talking animal 

 should be alone in presenting — and in unmistakably pre- 

 senting—the instinct of articulation. Well, such being the 

 state of matters as regards this particular case, in the course 

 of a debate which was held at the Newcastle meeting of the 

 British Association upon the heredity question, I presented 

 this case as I present it now. And subsequently I was met, 

 as I expected to be met, by its being said that after all the 

 faculty of making articulate sounds might have been of con- 

 genital origin. Seeing of how much importance this faculty 

 must always have been to the human species, it may very 

 well have been a faculty which early fell under the sway 

 of natural selection, and so it may have become congenital. 

 Now, be it remembered, I am only adducing this case in 

 illustration of the elusiveness of Weismann's theory. First 

 of all he selects the faculty of articulate speech to argue that 

 it is a faculty which ought to be instinctive if acquired char- 

 acters ever do become instinctive ; and so good does he deem 

 it as a test case between the two theories, that he says Jrom 

 it alone we should be prepared to accept the doctrine that 

 acquired characters can never become congenital. Then, when 

 it is shown that the only element in articulate speech which 

 possibly could have become congenital, actually has become 

 congenital, the answer we receive is a direct contradiction 

 of the previous argument : the faculty originally selected as 

 representative of an acquired character is now taken as repre- 

 sentative of a congenital one. By thus playing fast and loose 

 HTith whatever facts the followers of Darwin may adduce, the 

 followers of Weismann bring their own position simply to 

 this : — All characters which can be shown to be inherited 

 we assume to be congenital, or as we term it, " blastogenetic," 

 while all characters which can be shown not to be inherited, 

 we assume to be acquired, or as we term it, " somatogenetic " — 

 and this merely on the ground that they have been shown 

 to be inherited or not inherited as the case may be. Now, 

 there need be no objection to such assumptions, provided 



