Darwin and the humanities / [James Mark Baldwin].

  • Baldwin, James Mark, 1861-1934.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Darwin and the humanities / [James Mark Baldwin]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    himself might be taken to include all that Darwin believed and taught. The term ‘ Darwinism ’ has come, however, to be applied to the theory of Natural Selection alone, together with those extensions and developments of it which preserve its essential conception ; and this restriction of the meaning of the term is the more necessary since the principal theory which has been developed historically in opposition to Dar- win’s, the Lamarckian theory, was also held by Darwin, as supplementary to Natural Selection. It is quite necessary, indeed, to set the Lamarckian part of Darwin’s views apart from the Darwinian part, and to consider the latter alone as true ‘ Darwinism.’ Lamarck held to evolution, and worked out a theory of its actual working.1 He supposed that the forces of the en- vironment worked directly to modify individual animals ; and also that these were greatly modified by their own efforts, habits, and activities during life—that is, by ‘ use and dis- use.’ The modifications of both sorts, occurring continually, were then inherited from generation to generation, the result being a continuous change in certain directions which in time produced the enormous differences found between different species. The critical and essential factor in this theory, of course, is that of the inheritance by the offspring of the specific modifications undergone by the parents; for without this there would be no accumulation of changes from one generation to another. This was singled out, therefore, as distinctly the ‘ Lamarckian factor.’ It is known variously as the principle of ' inheritance of acquired characters,’ ‘ use- inheritance,’ ‘ Lamarckian inheritance,’ ‘ Lamarck’s principle.’ 1 The reader may consult Prof. H. F. Osborn’s From the Greeks to Darwin, for an exposition of the theories of evolution held before Charles Darwin. See also Delage and Goldsmith, Les Theories de revolution.