1891.] Are Acquired Variations Inherited ? 203 
mann’s theory of Evolution. This must be kept in mind in 
analyzing every argument advanced by his school. (The idea is 
that variations are definite only so far as they are limited by the 
specific nature of the organism, by special phenomena of nutrition, 
or in some cases by environment acting directly upon the germ- 
cells? See Query 3. They are indefinite so far as they arise from 
the fortuitous union of diverse germ-plasmata.) * 
I have made it clear in the introduction that this is no longer a 
matter of ignorance, as it was professedly with Darwin: 
“I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations, so 
common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, 
and in a lesser degree with those under nature, were due to 
chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it 
serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each 
particular variation.” 
I have already quoted Lankester upon this principle, and refer 
below to a passage in which he reiterates it and carefully defines 
the sense in which “indefinite” is employed by him. Prof. 
Thiselton Dyer, a leading English botanist, has supported this 
position : * 
“If with Prof. Lankester we say that the combinations are 
kaleidoscopic, I do not see that we go beyond the hits -e 
area of fortuity is narrowed down to the variable constitution of 
the ovum. . . . And this is quite in accord with the remark of 
Weismann that variation is not something independent of, and in 
some way added to, the organism, but is a mere expression for the 
fluctuations in its type.” 
30 See Biol. Mem., p. 410. 
itely more than 
31 See Biol. Mem., p. 275. “ Natural Selection must b ble to do infin 
eh: > << a ag | 1 $ t isti Jiffe es (aris ing by these fortuitous 
combinations) in the required direction.” 
32 “ Origin of Species,” 6th edition, p. 106. 
83 The latest is in Nature, March 6th, 1890. ‘‘ This disturbance of the parental body (I 
d it to the shaking f a kaleidoscope), and with it of the germs which it carries, 
resulting in “ sporting ” or “ variation ” in the offspring, is, it should hardly be needful to 
state, a totally different thing to the definite acquirement of a structural character bya 
parent, . k and the transmission to offspring of that particular acquired structural 
character.” 
3 See Osborn. “Paleontol. Evidence,” etc. 
