I have found the first point as
much as I can treat within the limits of this present article, and
will avail myself of the hospitality of the Universal Review next
month to deal with the second.
The proposition which I have to defend is one which no one till
recently would have questioned, and even now, those who look most
askance at it do not venture to dispute it unreservedly; they every
now and then admit it as conceivable, and even in some cases
probable; nevertheless they seek to minimise it, and to make out
that there is little or no connection between the great mass of the
cells of which the body is composed, and those cells that are alone
capable of reproducing the entire organism. The tendency is to
assign to these last a life of their own, apart from, and
unconnected with that of the other cells of the body, and to cheapen
all evidence that tends to prove any response on their part to the
past history of the individual, and hence ultimately of the race.
Professor Weismann is the foremost exponent of those who take this
line. He has naturally been welcomed by English Charles-Darwinians;
for if his view can be sustained, then it can be contended that use
and disuse produce no transmissible effect, and the ground is cut
from under Lamarck's feet; if, on the other hand, his view is
unfounded, the Lamarckian reaction, already strong, will gain still
further strength.
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