[221] Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, iv., 1888, pp. 156: 27 plates. See also American Naturalist, Sept., 1888, xxii., p. 808, and Sept., 1894, xxviii., p. 333.
[222] Carl H. Eigenmann, in his elaborate memoir, The Eyes of the Blind Vertebrates of North America (Archiv für Entwickelungsmechanik der Organismen, 1899, viii.), concludes that the Lamarckian view, that through disuse and the transmission by heredity of the characters thus inherited the eyes of blind fishes are diminished, “is the only view so far examined that does not on the face of it present serious objections” (pp. 605–609).
[223] “Hints on the Evolution of the Bristles, Spines, and Tubercles of Certain Caterpillars, etc.” Proceedings Boston Society of Natural History, xxiv., 1890, pp. 493–560; 2 plates.
[224] E. J. Marey: “Le Transformisme et la Physiologie Expérimentale, Cours du Collège de France,” Revue Scientifique, 2me série, iv., p. 818. (Function makes the organ, especially in the osseous and muscular systems.) See also A. Dohrn: Der Ursprung der Wirbelthiere und das Princip des Functionswechsels, Leipzig, 1875. See also Lamarck’s opinion, p. 295.
[225] “On the Inheritance of Acquired Characters in Animals with a Complete Metamorphosis.” Proceedings Amer. Acad. Arts and Sciences, Boston, xxix. (N. S., xxi.). 1894, pp. 331–370; also monograph of “Bombycine Moths,” Memoirs Nat. Acad. Sciences, vii., 1895, p. 33.
[226] In 1885, in the Introduction to the Standard Natural History, we proposed the term Neolamarckianism, or Lamarckism in its modern form, to designate the series of factors of organic evolution, and we take the liberty to quote the passage in which the word first occurs. We may add that the briefer form, Neolamarckism, is the more preferable.
“In the United States a number of naturalists have advocated what may be called Neo-Lamarckian views of evolution, especially the conception that in some cases rapid evolution may occur. The present writer, contrary to pure Darwinians, believes that many species, but more especially types of genera and families, have been produced by changes in the environment acting often with more or less rapidity on the organism, resulting at times in a new genus, or even a family type. Natural selection, acting through thousands, and sometimes millions, of generations of animals and plants, often operates too slowly; there are gaps which have been, so to speak, intentionally left by Nature. Moreover, natural selection was, as used by some writers, more an idea than a vera causa. Natural selection also begins with the assumption of a tendency to variation, and presupposes a world already tenanted by vast numbers of animals among which a struggle for existence was going on, and the few were victorious over the many. But the entire inadequacy of Darwinism to account for the primitive origin of life forms, for the original diversity in the different branches of the tree of life forms, the interdependence of the creation of ancient faunas and floras on geological revolutions, and consequent sudden changes in the environment of organisms, has convinced us that Darwinism is but one of a number of factors of a true evolution theory; that it comes in play only as the last term of a series of evolutionary agencies or causes; and that it rather accounts, as first suggested by the Duke of Argyll, for the preservation of forms than for their origination. We may, in fact, compare Darwinism to the apex of a pyramid, the larger mass of the pyramid representing the complex of theories necessary to account for the world of life as it has been and now is. In other words, we believe in a modified and greatly extended Lamarckianism, or what may be called Neo-Lamarckianism.”
[227] Studies in the Theory of Descent. By Dr. August Weismann. Translated and edited, with notes, by Raphael Meldola. London, 1882. 2 vols.
[228] “The Influence of Physical Conditions in the Genesis of Species,” Radical Review, i., May, 1877. See also J. A. Allen in Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoöl. ii., 1871; also R. Ridgway, American Journal of Science, December, 1872, January, 1873.
[229] Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey Territories, 1873. Pp. 543–560. See also the author’s monograph of Geometrid Moths or Phalænidæ of the United States, 1876, pp. 584–589, and monograph of Bombycine Moths (Notodontidæ), p. 50.