﻿52 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



himself so decidedly held that these causes are neces- 

 sary as supplements to natural selection, the burden 

 of proof is quite as much on the side of Weismann 

 and his followers to show that Darwin's opinion 

 was wrong, as it is on the side of Darwin's followers 

 to show that it was right. Yet, notwithstanding the 

 elaborate structure of theory which Weismann has 

 raised, there is nowhere one single fact or one single 

 consideration of much importance to the question 

 in debate which was not perfectly well known to 

 Darwin. Therefore I say that all this challenging 

 of Darwinists to justify their " Lamarckian assump- 

 tions" really amounts to nothing more than a pitting 

 of opinion against opinion, where there is at least as 

 much call for justification on the one side as on the 

 other. 



Again, when these challenges are thrown down by 

 Weismann and his followers, it appears to be forgotten 

 that the conditions of their own theory are such as 

 to render acceptance of the gauge a matter of great 

 difficulty. The case is very much like that of a 

 doughty knight pitching his glove into the sea, and 

 then defying any antagonist to take it up. That this 

 is the case a very little explanation will suffice to 

 show. 



The question to be settled is whether acquired 

 characters are ever transmitted by heredity. Now 

 suppose, for the sake of argument, that acquired 

 characters are transmitted by heredity — though not so 

 fully and not so certainly as congenital characters — 

 how is this fact to be proved to the satisfaction of 

 Weismann and his followers? First of all they 

 answer, — Assuredly by adducing experimental proof 



