Darwin should have felt constrained to close the chapter of
Charles-Darwinism as a living theory, and relegate it to the
important but not very creditable place in history which it must
henceforth occupy. It is astonishing, however, that Mr. Wallace
should have quoted the extract from the Origin of Species just
given, as he has done on p. 412 of his Darwinism, without betraying
any sign that he has caught its driftlessness--for drift, other than
a desire to hedge, it assuredly has not got. The battle now turns
on the question whether modifications of either structure or
instinct due to use or disuse are ever inherited, or whether they
are not. Can the effects of habit be transmitted to progeny at all?
We know that more usually they are not transmitted to any
perceptible extent, but we believe also that occasionally, and
indeed not infrequently, they are inherited and even intensified.
What are our grounds for this opinion? It will be my object to put
these forward in the following number of the Universal Review.
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