20 INITIATIVE IN EVOLUTION 



Three " lighthouses " of this metaphorical sort have thus 

 been afforded by the work of Weismann, represented by the Pharos 

 of old, Winstanley's Eddystone lighthouse and that of Smeaton. 



Authority. 



We have then Weismann and Professor Bateson definitely 

 ranged against the position taken in this volume as to a cause or 

 origin or variation and the inheritance of acquired characters. 

 To these we must add the great weight of Sir E. Ray Lankester's 

 opinion lately given in a reply to Professor Adami that " it is very 

 widely admitted (more correctly " claimed ") that no case of the 

 transmission of what are called acquired characters from parent 

 to offspring has been demonstrated in so far as those higher animals 

 and plants which multiply by means of specialised egg -cells and 

 sperm -cells are concerned. " 



It is not necessary to mention more than these " three 

 mighties " of the biological world. 



Many others such as Prof. J. Arthur Thomson and Prof. W. K. 

 Brooks, of Johns Hopkins University, are still unconvinced as to 

 Lamarckian factors and ask for more evidence, and they have many 

 to support them in their opinion and claim. There is often a tone 

 of weariness, as well as wariness in their remarks on the matter. 



In favour of the neo-Lamarckian position, with which stands 

 or falls the suggested cause of variation, there is a growing body 

 of opinion, with the mention of which I conclude this review. 



1. The accomplished writer of Form and Function, Mr. E. 

 S. Russell, says the theory of Lamarck " although it had little 

 influence upon biological thought during and for a long time after 

 the lifetime of its author, is still at the present day a living and 

 developing doctrine." 1 



2. Sir Francis Darwin from the Presidential Chair of 

 the British Association of Science in Dublin in 1908 pioclaimed 

 his adherence to the mnemonic theory of heredity, foreshadowed by 

 Samuel Butler and inaugurated by Semon, a condition of which is 

 that acquired characters are inherited. This caused much stir 

 in the camp of " our friends the enemy." 



3. Observations and experiments at variance with germinal 

 selection and its negative presupposition have been rapidly 

 accumulated from the work of botanists and zoologists who were 

 prepared to appeal to the tribunal of natural processes ; though 

 Weismann and some of his followers, with some reason, look upon 

 the evidence from plants as a weak link in the chain of evidence. 



1 p. 215. 



