“It is necessary,” he exclaims, “to plainly and emphatically state” (Why so much emphasis? Why not “it should be stated”?) “that Professor Semper and a few other writers of similar views” { 227a} (I have sent for the number of “Modern Thought” referred to by Professor Ray Lankester but find no article by Mr. Henslow, and do not, therefore, know what he had said) “are not adding to or building on Mr. Darwin’s theory, but are actually opposing all that is essential and distinctive in that theory, by the revival of the exploded notion of ‘directly transforming agents’ advocated by Lamarck and others.”
It may be presumed that these writers know they are not “adding to or building on” Mr. Darwin’s theory, and do not wish to build on it, as not thinking it a sound foundation. Professor Ray Lankester says they are “actually opposing,” as though there were something intolerably audacious in this; but it is not easy to see why he should be more angry with them for “actually opposing” Mr. Darwin than they may be with him, if they think it worth while, for “actually defending” the exploded notion of natural selection—for assuredly the Charles-Darwinian system is now more exploded than Lamarck’s is.
What Professor Ray Lankester says about Lamarck and “directly transforming agents” will mislead those who take his statement without examination. Lamarck does not say that modification is effected by means of “directly transforming agents;” nothing can be more alien to the spirit of his teaching. With him the action of the external conditions of existence (and these are the only transforming agents intended by Professor Ray Lankester) is not direct, but indirect. Change in surroundings changes the organism’s outlook, and thus changes its desires; desires changing, there is corresponding change in the actions performed; actions changing, a corresponding change is by-and-by induced in the organs that perform them; this, if long continued, will be transmitted; becoming augmented by accumulation in many successive generations, and further modifications perhaps arising through further changes in surroundings, the change will amount ultimately to specific and generic difference. Lamarck knows no drug, nor operation, that will medicine one organism into another, and expects the results of adaptive effort to be so gradual as to be only perceptible when accumulated in the course of many generations. When, therefore, Professor Ray Lankester speaks of Lamarck as having “advocated directly transforming agents,” he either does not know what he is talking about, or he is trifling with his readers. Professor Ray Lankester continues:—