Weismann.

During the period 1894–1899 there was a dramatic proclama­tion on the part of one of the greatest living biologists, which was, in the cosmos of biology, what the Proclama­tion of the Empress-Queen of India was in 1876, and it is not out of place to remind the reader that the fates of the two Imperial utterances have been somewhat different. In 1895 Weismann issued his official statement of doctrine which was to crown the work of his life, an essay on Germinal Selection. From Freyburg in November, 1895, he wrote a preface to his address delivered on September 16th in that year to the International Congress of Zoologists at Leyden. This formed an epoch in biological thought and there lived none so well qualified as Weismann to stand forth as its interpreter. The well-translated, forcible language, and lucid thought leave the reader in no manner of doubt as to his meaning. It took a wider form in his final book on the Evolution Theory, but the germinal and essential thoughts of the latter were contained in the former. From 1895 onwards the praise of Weismann was in all the churches. Probably no modern worker in the fields of heredity and evolution has done so much as Weismann towards raising great issues and removing some ancient misconceptions; but it is one thing to raise great issues and another to solve them. In this he has signally failed, nevertheless biological theory would be the poorer if he had not made the attempt. Reflec­tion, the work of other biologists, and the remorseless hand of time have shaken the edifices then raised. I will here only bring forward a few of the most illuminating passages of the 1895 essay, and then refer to the handling of Weismann’s work by Romanes.

This trenchant essay contains fifty-seven pages, of which reasoning forms the greater part. As to the facts it might well pass for an essay from Professor Poulton’s pen, for Weismann’s special province of insects occupies nearly all the evidence from facts. Outside this highly specialised group there are exactly fifty-three lines, or one and a half pages, which deal with other animal groups, and there are four casual allusions to plants occupying twelve lines in all! In the essay of 1909 on the Selection Theory this treatment of animated life in the world is improved upon and thirteen out of its forty-seven pages refer to animals outside his favourite group of insects. Such exclusive dealing with these little things does not commend the reasoning, at any rate to a neo-Lamarckian; such a circle is too select for him.

Weismann’s Twelve Points.

The most striking remarks from the 1895 essay on germinal selection are:—

1. “The real aim of the present essay is to rehabilitate the principle of selection. If I should succeed in reinstating this principle in its imperilled rights, it would be a source of extreme satisfac­tion to me.”[14]

2. Speaking of the whole theory of selection he claimed to have found a position “which is necessary to protect it against the many doubts which gathered around it on all sides like so many lowering thunder-clouds.”[15] And he speaks on page 26 of “the flood of objections against the theory of selection touching its inability to modify many parts at once.”

Thus Weismann stood forth to defend the crumbling edifice of Darwinism and threw his shining sword into the scales, a scientific Athanasius “contending for our all.” Again is seen a friend of Darwin from another camp than that of Mendel, whose support needs to be received with some caution. Toujours en vedette is a useful rule.

3. Speaking of adaptedness in animated nature he says, “We know of only one natural principle of explana­tion for this fact—that of selection.”[16]