ABSTRACT
The new biological orthodoxy behaves just as the old biological orthodoxy did. While biologists admit, or rather assert, that the peculiarity in the blacksmith’s arm which was born with him is transmissible, they deny, or rather do not admit, that the other peculiarities of his arm, induced by daily labour—its large muscles and strengthened bones—are transmissible. In the days before Darwin, those who occupied themselves with the phenomena of life, passed by with unobservant eyes the multitudinous facts which point to an evolutionary origin for plants and animals; and they turned deaf ears to those who insisted on the significance of these facts. If “natural selection is a mere phrase,” how can Mr. Darwin, who thought it explained the origin of species, be regarded as wise? The inheritance of acquired characters is disputed by biologists, though he thinks it is not.
