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Updated: May 19, 2025
In revising the MS. of my lecture on "Weismann's Theory of Heredity" for publication, I found the following sentence, referring to Johannes Mueller. "He failed to fill the gap his destructive criticism had created." This sentence gives to the ear a sense of rhythm that is somewhere interrupted and disturbed.
Wilson has good reason for his "steadily growing conviction that the cell is not a self-regulating mechanism in itself, that no cell is isolated, and that Weismann's fundamental proposition is false." But, granting the force of these criticisms, the question still remains, Is the special effect of use or disuse transmissible? Would the blacksmith's son have a stronger right arm?
For a more exhaustive and detailed criticism of Professor Weismann's position, I would refer the reader to an admirably clear article by Mr. Sidney H. Vines, which appeared in Nature, October 24, 1889. I can only say that while reading Professor Weismann's book, I feel as I do when I read those of Mr. Darwin, and of a good many other writers on biology whom I need not name.
Mr. Wallace, who does not appear to have read Professor Weismann's essays themselves, but whose remarks are, no doubt, ultimately derived from the sequel to the passage just quoted from page 266 of Professor Weismann's book, contends that the impossibility of the transmission of acquired characters follows as a logical result from Professor Weismann's theory, inasmuch as the molecular structure of the germ-plasm that will go to form any succeeding generation is already predetermined within the still unformed embryo of its predecessor; "and Weismann," continues Mr.
"We have already seen in the earlier part of this chapter that many instances of change, imputed to the inheritance of acquired variations, are really cases of selection." And the rest of the remarks tend to convey the impression that Mr. Wallace adopts Professor Weismann's view, but, curiously enough, though I have gone through Mr.
I have not found any further attempt in Professor Weismann's book to deal with the evidence adduced by Mr. Darwin to show that mutilations, if followed by diseases, are sometimes inherited; and I must leave it to the reader to determine how far Professor Weismann has shown reason for rejecting Mr. Darwin's conclusion.
On the other hand, there are beardless as well as bearded races in the world; and, by crossing them, you could, doubtless, soon produce ups and downs in the razor-trade. Only, as Weismann's school would say, the required variation is in this case spontaneous, that is, comes entirely of its own accord.
Other excellent signs are the recent issue of a translation of Weismann's important essays on this and kindred subjects, the strong support given to his views by Wallace in his Darwinism, and their adoption by Ray Lankester in his article on Zoology in the latest edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Huxley's Writings, passim. Haeckel's "Natural History of Creation." Weismann's "Studies in the Theory of Descent" and subsequent papers. Romanes's "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution." Lankester's "Degeneration." Fiske's "Darwinism and Other Essays." For adverse criticism of Darwin, read Mivart's "Genesis of Species," and the Duke of Argyll's "Unity of Nature."
Notwithstanding Professor Weismann's objections, the balance of evidence appears to favor the view that the Lamarckian factor of acquired variations stands as the complement of the Darwinian factor of natural selection in effecting the transmutation of species.
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