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the  great guess of the greatest of naturalists concerning the memory of
living matter.
I dare say the public will not object to this, and am very sure that none of
the admirers of Mr. Charles Darwin or Mr. Wallace will protest against
it; but it may be as well to point out that this was not the view of the
matter taken by Mr. Wallace in 1858 when he and Mr. Darwin first came
forward as preachers of natural selection. At that time Mr. Wallace saw
clearly enough the difference between the theory of  natural selection
and that of Lamarck. He wrote:-
 The hypothesis of Lamarck - that progressive changes in species have
been produced by the attempts of animals to increase the development of
their own organs, and thus modify their structure and habits - has been
repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers on the subject of varieties
and species, . . . but the view here developed tenders such an hypothesis
quite unnecessary. . . . The powerful retractile talons of the falcon and
the cat tribes have not been produced or increased by the volition of
those animals, neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to
reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its
neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among
its antitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh range
of pasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked companions,
and on the first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them
(italics in original). {182a}
This is absolutely the neo-Darwinian doctrine, and a denial of the mainly
fortuitous character of the variations in animal and vegetable forms cuts
at its root. That Mr. Wallace, after years of reflection, still adhered to
this view, is proved by his heading a reprint of the paragraph just quoted
from {182b} with the words  Lamarck s hypothesis very different from
that now advanced ; nor do any of his more recent works show that he
has modified his opinion. It should be noted that Mr. Wallace does not
call his work  Contributions to the Theory of Evolution, but to that of
 Natural Selection.
Mr. Darwin, with characteristic caution, only commits himself to saying
that Mr. Wallace has arrived at almost (italics mine) the same general
conclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; {182c} but he still, as in 1859,
declares that it would be  a serious error to suppose that the greater
number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation, and
then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations, {183a} and
he still comprehensively condemns the  well-known doctrine of inher-
ited habit, as advanced by Lamarck. {183b}
As for the statement in the passage quoted from Mr. Wallace, to the ef-
fect that Lamarck s hypothesis  has been repeatedly and easily refuted
by all writers on the subject of varieties and species, it is a very surpris-
ing one. I have searched Evolution literature in vain for any refutation
of the Erasmus Darwinian system (for this is what Lamarck s hypothesis
really is) which need make the defenders of that system at all uneasy. 
The best attempt at an answer to Erasmus Darwin that has yet been made
is  Paley s Natural Theology, which was throughout obviously written
to meet Buffon and the  Zoonomia.  It is the manner of theologians to
say that such and such an objection  has been refuted over and over
again, without at the same time telling us when and where; it is to be
regretted that Mr. Wallace has here taken a leaf out of the theologians
book. His statement is one which will not pass muster with those whom
public opinion is sure in the end to follow.
Did Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example,  repeatedly and easily refute
Lamarck s hypothesis in his brilliant article in the Leader, March 20,
1852? On the contrary, that article is expressly directed against those
 who cavalierly reject the hypothesis of Lamarck and his followers.  
This article was written six years before the words last quoted from Mr.
Wallace; how absolutely, however, does the word  cavalierly apply to
them!
Does Isidore Geoffroy, again, bear Mr. Wallace s assertion out better? In
1859 - that is to say, but a short time after Mr. Wallace had written - he
wrote as follows:-
 Such was the language which Lamarck heard during his protracted old
age, saddened alike by the weight of years and blindness; this was what
people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet barely closed, and what
indeed they are still saying - commonly too without any knowledge of
what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at secondhand bad cari-
catures of his teaching. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]