REVIEW OF THE POSITION 21 



Many of the observations and experiments are well-known and only 

 a mere mention of them need be made here, they are such as Mr. 

 J. T. Cunningham's observations on the effect of light on the under 

 surface of flounders, Kammerer's on the changes in the colour of 

 salamanders to surrounding objects, and others by him on certain 

 amphibia and reptiles especially alytes held by Professor McBride 

 to be convincing, though the latter are to be repeated at the London 

 Zoological Society's gardens and are therefore sub judice — others 

 on brine-shrimps, on the effects of change of food on bee-grubs 

 and tadpoles, and of the change of level of environments of certain 

 cereals — others by Henslow on plants which have never been refuted, 

 and many by the late Prince Kropotkin. The latter have appeared 

 at length in certain issues of the Nineteenth Century in September 

 1901, March 1912, October 1914, and the last in January 1919, and 

 they deal both with plants and animals, and are too numerous to 

 be mentioned here individually. 



Again, Professor Dendy as President of the Zoological Section 

 of the British Association of Science in September, 1914, devoted 

 most of his address to the subject of Lamarckism and firmly claimed 

 as a necessary factor of evolution " the direct response of the 

 organism to environmental stimuli at all stages of development, 

 whereby individual adaptation is secured, and this individual 

 adaptation must arise again and again in each succeeding genera- 

 tion." He also maintains this position in several passages in his 

 important work Outlines of Evolutionary Biology published in 1912. 



A statement by Professor Bower, President of the Botanical 

 section of the British Association of Science in 1914 should also 

 be noted : "I share it (the doctrine in question) in whole or 

 in part with many botanists, with men who have lived their lives 

 in the atmosphere of observation and experiment found in large 

 botanical gardens and not least with a former President of the 

 British Association, viz., Sir Francis Darwin." 



Professor Adami, in 1917, published an original work called 

 Medical Contributions to the Study of Evolution in which from 

 his extensive knowledge of the subject he deals with evidence of 

 inheritance of acquired characters in lowly organisms as well as 

 higher animals from the point of view of pathology. 



Enough has been stated here to show that the dogma of 

 Weismann or Lamarckian factors in organic evolution, qua authority, 

 has been in poor case during recent years, and it remains for me now 

 to add my small quota of the authority of facts. 



