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DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN
II
POST-DARWINIAN QUESTIONS
HEREDITY AND UTILITY
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
DARWIN AND AFTER DARWIN. An Exposition of theDarwinian Theory and a Discussion of Post-DarwinianQuestions.
1. The Darwinian Theory. 460 pages. 125 illustrations.Cloth, $2.00.
2. Post-Darwinian Questions. Edited by Prof. C.Lloyd Morgan. 338 pages. Cloth, $1.50.Both volumes together, $3.00 net.
AN EXAMINATION OF WEISMANNISM. 236 pages. Cloth,$1.00.
THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. Edited by Charles Gore, M.A.,Canon of Westminster. Second Edition. 184 pages. Cloth,gilt top, $1.25.
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
324 Dearborn Street, Chicago.
DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN
AN EXPOSITION OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY
AND A DISCUSSION OF
POST-DARWINIAN QUESTIONS
BY THE LATE
GEORGE JOHN ROMANES, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
II
POST-DARWINIAN QUESTIONS
HEREDITY AND UTILITY
FOURTH EDITION
Chicago London
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1916
CHAPTER 1 COPYRIGHTED BY
The Open Court Publishing Co.
Chicago, Ill., 1895
PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
As its sub-title announces, the present volume ismainly devoted to a consideration of those Post-DarwinianTheories which involve fundamentalquestions of Heredity and Utility.
As regards Heredity, I have restricted the discussionalmost exclusively to Professor Weismann's views,partly because he is at present by far the most importantwriter upon this subject, and partly becausehis views with regard to it raise with most distinctnessthe issue which lies at the base of all Post-Darwinianspeculation touching this subject—the issue as to theinheritance or non-inheritance of acquired characters.
My examination of the Utility question may wellseem to the general reader needlessly elaborate; forto such a reader it can scarcely fail to appear thatthe doctrine which I am assailing has been brokento fragments long before the criticism has drawn toa close. But from my previous experience of thehardness with which this fallacious doctrine dies,I do not deem it safe to allow even one fragment ofit to remain, lest, hydra-like, it should re-develop into[Pg vi]its former proportions. And I can scarcely thinkthat naturalists who know the growing prevalenceof the doctrine, and who may have followed the issuesof previous discussions with regard to it, will accuseme of being more over-zealous in my attempt to makea full end thereof.
One more remark. It is a misfortune attendingthe aim and scope of Part II that they bring meinto frequent discord with one or other of the mosteminent of Post-Darwinian writers—especially withMr. Wallace. But such is the case only becausethe subject