Has the Case for Direct Organic Adaptation been Fully Stated?

Abstract

THE heading of this letter is in the form of a question for the following reasons: (1) It is impossible to keep pace with the literature on the subject of Evolution while engaged on any other absorbing work; and (2) so many giants have been engaged in the discussion, that it requires courage even to suggest that a point has been overlooked. It seems to me that nothing could be added to Herbert Spencer's convincing arguments that acquired characters must somehow be transmitted. I wish merely to suggest a method of describing this transmission which I have, never yet seen in print, and which, I must think, is not generally recognised, inasmuch as it modifies Weismann's “contradictory facts” into not insuperable difficulties.