Organic Evolution As The Result Of The Inheritance Of Acquired Characters According To The Laws Of Organic Growth - Tapa blanda

Heinrich Theodor Eimer, Gustave

9781408637456: Organic Evolution As The Result Of The Inheritance Of Acquired Characters According To The Laws Of Organic Growth

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ISBN 10: 1408637456 ISBN 13: 9781408637456

Editorial: Read Books, 2008

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PREFACE. BEFORE I became acquainted with this work of Professor Eimer, I had been for some time growing more and more dissatisfied with the uncritical acceptance accorded to Professor Weismanns theories of heredity and variation by many English evolutionists. Even before I studied Weismanns writings, I had become convinced that selection, whether natural or, artificial, could not be the essential cause of the evolution of organisms. I was inclined to attach more importance to the problem of the causes of variation than to any of the other problems considered by Darwin, and among these causes it seemed to me that the most powerful were functional activity and external conditions. I was thus led to believe that a deeper insight into the phenomena of evolution would ultimately be obtained by pursuing the line of inquiry suggested by Lamarck, than by continually searching for new instances of adaptation to be explained by the Darwinian formula. When I saw that many of the ablest British biologists accepted Weismanns dogma that acquired characters are not inherited, it seemed to me that they were abandoning the richest vein of knowledge under a mistaken guide, and I cherished the hope of finding time and opportunity to add by my own researches to the evidence that the effects of the conditions of life extend beyond a single generation. I was therefore delighted to find that Weismann had to contend with a formidable opponent in his own country, and concluded that I could not for the present oppose the progress of his views in England more effectively than by publishing a translation of Professor Eimers arguments. I have endeavoured as far as lay in my power to express my authors ideas and reasoning in language which should be English in words, construction, and style. I am well aware that my object has not been perfectly attained, that the book contains in almost every page internal evidence of its German origin. But I hope nevertheless that the translation is sufficiently English to be readable, and that I have preserved the full force and the exact significance of Professor Eimers exposition. I have not in any way presumed to intrude myself between my author and the reader in the text of the work, but I mill take the present opportunity of expressing some of the reasons of my uncompromising opposition to Weismanns theories and views. One of the fundamental assumptions of Weismanns theories is that acquired characters are not inherited. Only this year he has published an essay on this subject under the title Ueber die Hypothese einer Yererbung von Yerletxungen. In this paper he criticises cases which have been adduced as evidence that scars or artificially-produced malformations ark sometimes inherited. One case to which he draws particular attention is that of a peculiar cleft in the lobe of a certain mans ear, which was interpreted by Dr. Emil Schmidt as evidently due to the inheritance of a similar cleft in the ear of the mans mother. The cleft in the ear of the mother was known to have been caused by an injury. When the mother was between six and ten years old, her ear-ring was accidentally torn out, and the lobe of the ear was split from the hole through which the ring passed down to its edge. After the two divided surfaces had healed together, a cleft was left round the external edge of the wound...

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