68 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



ignorant of a valuable concession lately made to them 

 by the General Post Office. In course of exchanging 

 helices with a correspondent in France, I found that 

 it cost me a shilling to return boxes that he had sent 

 for a penny. Our local officials assured me this was 

 all right, but I wrote to the General Post Office, and 

 have received the following letter, which will be 

 useful to those who, like myself, want to get foreign 

 helices by exchange. It runs thus : — 



General Post Office, 

 Si/i February, 1892. 



Sir, — In reply to your letter of the 27th ultimo, I 

 beg to state that the packets in question containing 

 conchological specimens are, in strictness, only 

 transmissible to the colonies and foreign countries at 

 the letter or parcel rate of postage ; but in compliance 

 with the earnest desire expressed in a memorial 

 recently addressed to the Postmaster General by a 

 number of persons engaged in scientific pursuits, 

 instructions have been given for such specimens to be 

 allowed to pass at the sample rate, viz., id. for a 

 packet weighing under 4 oz. The Department 

 cannot, however, guarantee the due delivery abroad 

 of packets so prepaid, inasmuch as they do not come 

 within the definition of sample packets as prescribed 

 by the Postal Union. I am, sir, your obedient 

 servant, 



J. E. Sifton. 



Re Rev. J. W. Horsley. 



I presume I am right in'deducing from the above 

 that a box of specimens weighing, say, six ounces 

 would cost a comparatively large amount, but if the 

 contents were divided into two boxes or parcels 

 weighing three ounces each, they could be sent to 

 any country in the Postal Union for two pennies. I 

 do not think the last paragraph of the letter need 

 frighten us ; for if, as I find, France has no objection 

 to send us a box for 10 centimes, I do not suppose 

 she would refuse to receive it back for a penny. — 

 J. W. Horshy. 



Neo-Darwinism, etc. — Although I think that 

 discussions on the highly-contentious and quibble- 

 evoking problems of evolution are rather to be 

 deprecated in the present state of science, yet it is 

 hard to resist offering a few remarks on the various 

 matters so clearly put forward in the series of con- 

 tributions entitled " Neo-Darwinism " published in 

 last year's volume. Let me distinctly observe that I 

 am not an evolutionist, so that all that concerns me 

 here is to endeavour to discover which theory of 

 evolution is a scientific one and which is not. With 

 this proviso, and commencing with Lamarck's views, 

 it may be broadly asserted that of the three means of 

 transmutation viewed subjectively, so to speak, the 

 first is not so unscientific, nor the second quite so 

 preposterous as is stated ; while again, after a very 

 fair translation of his second law, an objection is 



raised that it offers no explanation of the phenomena 

 of adaptation, the first law, which does do so in the 

 only possible scientific way, is not even mentioned. 

 Further on, after recalling that Lamarck's laws are 

 "a mere a priori speculation not supported by a 

 single fact of observation or experiment " — a statement 

 which, to say the least of it, is not a bit too mild — 

 the luminous principle, theory, vera causa, process, 

 factor, etc., of natural selection is held to rest secure 

 on the threefold " factors " of variation, of heredity, 

 and of the struggle for existence. Of these three the 

 first two are not, properly speaking, factors at all, 

 while the last, viz., the struggle for existence, is the 

 primary factor in the Darwinian hypothesis, and, as 

 originally conceived, a more utterly baseless, 

 imaginary, and loosely indefinite conjecture anent 

 the phenomena of life was never foisted on the world 

 in the name of science. It would be absurd to deny 

 that Sir C. Lyell was very nearly right when he 

 declared Darwin's doctrines viewed fundamentally to 

 be a "modification of Lamarck's doctrine of develop- 

 ment and progression." The "modification" simply 

 consisted in adopting mechanical forces in lieu of 

 physiological ones, and in introducing the element of 

 fighting and contention where Lamarck merely 

 indicated the needs and habits of the organism, the 

 latter being again more subjective, as it were, and 

 getting nearer the life of the process. It seems pretty 

 certain that if the late C. Darwin had been a true 

 scientist, the phantom of analogy between artificial 

 selection and natural selection would never have been 

 raised. Moreover, the not very astounding preva- 

 lence of Darwinism in this country can be most 

 adequately explained by considering that it was found 

 to accord well and fitly with the character, not the 

 ideas, of those individuals who rushed so eagerly to 

 embrace it. Finally, as to whether the Lamarckian 

 or Darwinian views is more in accordance with the 

 highest, best, most scientific and sympathetic idea of 

 animate life, I leave to the judgment of the intelligent 

 reader. The question of heredity is a very difficult 

 one, and the science of embryology, which bears upon 

 jt, is only in its infancy. The various views and 

 theories anent this subject are, so far as my know- 

 ledge goes, very fairly and clearly explained, and 

 described in the papers under review. The very 

 useful table annexed will show that out of the six 

 theories four and a half are in favour of, and only one 

 and a half are against the doctrine of the transmission 

 of acquired characters, a proportion that does not 

 much magnify the importance of the statement that 

 "no one doubted, until quite recently, that characters 

 acquired during the life of the individual were 

 hereditary." The point of paramount interest here 

 for an outstander is not so much as to which theory 

 of heredity is right or wrong, but as to which theory 

 if carried out would effect the transmutation of 

 species, etc., most readily and thoroughly. Certain 

 learned professors have held that upon Weismann's 



