Dr. Romanes' Article in the Contemporary Review for June

Abstract

MY attention has been directed to an article entitled “Recent Critics of Darwinism,” by Dr. Romanes in the June number of the Contemporary Review. While the anonymous writer of a recent article in the Edinburgh Review is rightly exposed for quoting what he believes to be the opinions of men whose writings he can never have read, or at least can never have understood, it is somewhat unfortunate that Dr. Romanes should have fallen into the similar error of not making himself acquainted with views which he professes to express. He states (on page 841) that while Cope, Semper, Geddes, and Seebohm have argued “that any proof of natural selection as an operating principle opens up the more ultimate problem as to the causes of the variations on the occurrence of which this principle depends,” Weismann and Poulton, on the other hand, “have not so much concerned themselves with this more ultimate problem.” As it is unlikely that Dr. Weismann will have the opportunity of replying to this statement, it is only right to point out that this eminent zoologist has most certainly concerned himself very earnestly with this ultimate problem, and that his original and important theories upon the subject will be found in two of his recent papers, viz. “Die Continuität des Keimplasma's als Grundlage einer Theorie der Vererbung,” Jena, 1885, and “Die Bedeutung der sexuellen Fortpflanzung für die Selektions-Theorie,” Jena, 1886.