﻿334 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



congenital tendency ; and all that is proved by such cases as 

 those above supposed, where the offspring of gouty parents 

 become gouty notwithstanding their abstemious habits, is that 

 in such offspring the congenital tendency is even more pro- 

 nounced than it was in their parents, and therefore did not 

 require so much inducement in the way of unguarded living 

 to bring it out. Now, here again, without waiting to consider 

 the relative probabilities of these two opposing explanations, 

 it is enough for the purposes of the illustration to remark 

 that it is obviously impossible to disprove either by means 

 of the other, or by any class of facts to which they may 

 severally appeal. 



I will give only one further example to show the elusiveness 

 of Weismann's theory, and the consequent impossibility of 

 finding any cases in nature which will satisfy the conditions 

 of proof which the theory imposes. In one of his papers 

 Weismann says that if there be any truth in the Lamarckian 

 doctrine of the transmission of acquired characters, it ought 

 to follow that the human infant should speak by instinct. 

 For, ever since man became human he has presumably been 

 a talking animal : at any rate it is certain that he has been 

 so for an innumerable number of generations. Therefore, by 

 this time the faculty of language ought to have been so 

 deeply impressed upon the psychology of the species, that 

 there ought to be no need to teach the young child its use 

 of language ; and the fact that there is such need is taken 

 by Weismann to constitute good evidence in proof of the 

 non-transmissibility of individually acquired characters. Or, 

 to quote his own words, " it has never yet been found that 

 a child could read of itself, although its parents had throughout 

 their whole lives practised this art. Not even are our children 

 able to talk of their own accord ; yet not only have their 

 parents, but, more than that, an infinitely long line of ancestors 

 have never ceased to drill their brains and to perfect their 

 organs of speech. . . . From this alone we may be disposed 

 to doubt whether acquired capabilities in the true sense can 

 ever be transmitted." Well, in answer to this particular case, 

 we have first of all to remark that the construction of even 

 the simplest language is, psychologically considered, a matter 



