A rejoinder to Professor Weismann / by Herbert Spencer.

  • Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A rejoinder to Professor Weismann / by Herbert Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Weismann proceeds to deal with the argument which, with various illustrations, I have several times urged—the argument that the natural selection of fortuitously-arising variations cannot account for the adjustment of co-operative parts. Very clearly and very fairly he summarises this argument as used in The Principles of Biology in 1864. Admitting that in this case there are “ enormous difficulties ” in the way of any •other interpretation than the inheritance of acquired •characters, Professor Weismann before proceeding to assault this “ last bulwark of the Lamarckian principle,” premises that the inheritance of acquired characters cannot be a cause of change because inactive as well as active parts degenerate when they cease to be of use: instancing the “ skin and skin-armature of crabs and insects.” On this I may remark in the first place that an argument derived from degeneracy of passive structures scarcely meets the case of development of active structures; and I may remark in the second place that I have never dreamt of denying the efficiency of natural selection as a cause of degeneracy in passive structures when the degeneracy is such as aids the prosperity of the stirp. Making this parenthetical reply to his parenthetical criticism I pass to his discussion of this particular argument which he undertakes to dispose of. His cheval de bcctaille is furnished him by the social insects —not a fresh one, however, as might be supposed from the way in which he mounts it. From time to time it has carried other riders, who have couched their lances with fatal effects as they supposed. But 1 hope to show that no one of them has unhorsed an antagonist, and that Professor Weismann fails to do this just as completely as his prede- cessors. I am, indeed, not sorry that he has afforded me the opportunity of criticising the general discussion concerning the peculiarities of these interesting creatures, which it has often seemed to me sets out with illegitimate assumptions. The supposition always is that the specialities of structures and