334 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



we not assume a similar process to have occurred with the eyes 

 of insectivorous birds to whom a microscopic search for insects 

 becomes a necessity of life ; whilst the soaring Vulture has de- 

 veloped a long-sightedness which enables it, if not to see the 

 quarry, at all events to discern its distant companion descending 

 to the same. We have said we may be accused of Lamarckism, 

 because it does not seem to be allowed by many of the followers 

 of Weismann that an acquired character may be capable of being 

 perpetuated and accentuated by the action of " Natural Selec- 

 tion."* 



As with insects, we know little of the sight perceptions of 

 other and much more highly developed animals. When in South 

 Africa, I kept a young Baboon, who seemed pleased, at the 

 decline of day, to mount a low roof, and watch the setting sun. 

 I gazed at the same, but did we both see a similar appearance ?t 

 Turner could see and paint a sunset unappreciable by the senses 

 of ordinary men who possess similar organs of sense. What did 

 my Baboon see as he gazed in the same direction as myself? 

 The question seems unanswerable. Could it have faithfully 

 drawn and painted what it saw, such a picture could only appear 

 to my senses as an exact representation of what I now see, and 



Essays,' vol. ii. p. 11). Aud again he remarks : — " The Lamarckian hypo- 

 thesis has long since been justly condemned, and it is the established practice 

 for every tyro to raise his heel against the carcase of the dead lion" {ibid. 

 p. 12). When the devoted disciples of Weismann, aghast at the least argu- 

 ment for some amount of direct environmental change or inheritance of 

 acquired character, raise the cry of " Lamarckism," we are reminded of the 

 XXXII controversial stratagem described by Schopenhauer: — " If you are 

 confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of getting rid of it, or, at 

 any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by j)utting it into some odious cate- 

 gory ; even though the connection is only apparent, or else of a loose 

 character. You can say, for instance, ' That is Manichseism,' or ' It is 

 Ariauism,' or ' Pelagianism,' or ' Idealism,' or ' Spinozism,' or 'Pantheism,' 

 or ' Brownianism,' or 'Naturalism,' or 'Atheism,' or 'Rationalism,' 

 ' Spiritualism,' ' Mysticism,' and so on " {' The Art of Controversy,' Bailey 

 Saunder's trausl. pp. 41-2). 



'■'•'• H. M. Bernard has apparently used a similar argument for " the 

 transmission of acquired characters by inheritance, this inheritance coming 

 in as a natural term at the end of a long series of individual acquire- 

 ments" (' Nature,' vol. 1. p. 546). 



f According to Topinard, " the organ of vision is similar in man, the 

 anthropoid apes, the pithecians, and the cebians " (' Anthropology,' j). 95). 



