Chapter I: Preface

As its sub-title announces, the present volume is mainly devoted to a consideration of those Post-Darwinian Theories which involve fundamental questions of Heredity and Utility.

As regards Heredity, I have restricted the discussion almost exclusively to Professor Weismann's views, partly because he is at present by far the most important writer upon this subject, and partly because his views with regard to it raise with most distinctness the issue which lies at the base of all Post-Darwinian speculation touching this subject--the issue as to the inheritance or non-inheritance of acquired characters.

My examination of the Utility question may well seem to the general reader needlessly elaborate; for to such a reader it can scarcely fail to appear that the doctrine which I am assailing has been broken to fragments long before the criticism has drawn to a close. But from my previous experience of the hardness with which this fallacious doctrine dies, I do not deem it safe to allow even one fragment of it to remain, lest, hydra-like, it should re-develop into its former proportions. And I can scarcely think that naturalists who know the growing prevalence of the doctrine, and who may have followed the issues of previous discussions with regard to it, will accuse me of being more over-zealous in my attempt to make a full end thereof.

One more remark. It is a misfortune attending the aim and scope of Part II that they bring me into frequent discord with one or other of the most eminent of Post-Darwinian writers--especially with Mr. Wallace. But such is the case only because the subject-matter of this volume is avowedly restricted to debateable topics, and because I choose those naturalists who are deservedly held in most esteem to act spokesmen on behalf of such Post-Darwinian views as appear to me doubtful or erroneous. Obviously, however, differences of opinion on particular points ought not to be taken as implying any failure on my part to recognize the general scientific authority of these men, or any inability to appreciate their labours in the varied fields of Biology.

G. J. R. CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

NOTE

Some time before his death Mr. Romanes decided to publish those sections of his work which deal with Heredity and Utility, as a separate volume, leaving Isolation and Physiological Selection for the third and concluding part of _Darwin, and after Darwin_.

Most of the matter contained in this part was already in type, but was not finally corrected for the press. The alterations made therein are for the most part verbal.

Chapter IV was type-written; in it, too, no alterations of any moment have been made.

For Chapters V and VI there were notes and isolated paragraphs not yet arranged. I had promised during his life to write for Mr. Romanes