with the germinal elements of the female (as in ordinary fertilisation) but also by direct contact with the general tissues of the female. And this again would prove that the fundamental postulate of the theory of Germ-plasm is erroneous-i.e., the postulate of the continuity of germ-plasm, or of its perpetual restriction to a "sphere" of its own. This, as all who are acquainted with the literature of the subject will at once perceive, would be a serious blow to the whole Weismannian system. But, as we have seen, the current Lamarckian interpretation of the fact in question involves the supposition of a physiological machinery so inconceivably complex that instead of serving to corroborate the theory of gemmules (or of physiological units) it would go to render that theory incredible.*

If, however, we turn to plants, we find a considerable number of facts which unquestionably demonstrate the only point which this interpretation has been adduced to suggest. For these facts show that, in not a few cases, the germinal matter of pollen-grains is capable of asserting its influence beyond the ovules to the somatic tissues of the ovary, and even to the flower-stalk of the mother plant. Here, then, we have simple and conclusive evidence of the material of heredity exercising a direct influence on somatic tissues. How this well-known fact is to be met by the theory of Germ-plasm is a question which does not seem to have thus far engaged the attention of Professor Weismann, or of any of his followers. For particulars touching this phenomenon, so highly important in its relation to the theory of Germ-plasm, I cannot do better than refer to the eleventh chapter of Darwin's work on the "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication."

Finally, in his concluding paragraph, Mr. Spencer gives us a brief statement of what he regards as the logical standing of the issue between the Neo-Darwinians and the Neo-Lamarckians. He says that the onus lies with the former to disprove the inheritance of acquired characters; and he complains that the days indeed are evil

As already indicated, I cannot gather from his remarks on the subject which, if any, of the alternative interpretations of the phenomena that we are considering Mr. Spencer adopts. From the following sentences it would appear that he assigns yet a third interpretation, and this as the only possible one. For he says of these phenomena: "They prove that while the reproductive cells multiply and arrange themselves during the evolution of the embryo, some of their germ-plasm passes into the mass of somatic cells constituting the parental body, and becomes a permanent component of it. Further, they necessitate the inference that this introduced germ-plasm, everywhere diffused, is some of it included in the reproductive cells subsequently formed (CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, March, p. 452). This appears to mean that the influence of a previous sire can only be explained by supposing that the developing embryo inoculates the somatic tissues of its mother with hereditary material derived from its father, and that the maternal tissues afterwards reflect some of this material (or its influence) to the still unripe ovarian ova. If this be the hypothesis intended, it seems to me more complex than any of the three which I have suggested. But, be this as it may, we certainly cannot agree that such an hypothesis is "proved" by the facts, or that the latter "necessitate" the inference as to its being some of the embryo's germinal matter which enters the unripe ova.

when a Right Honourable lecturer represents the inheritance of acquired characters as an exploded doctrine." Presumably the

allusion is to Mr. Balfour. But, if so, it seems to me unfortunate, for I am persuaded that there is no one at the present time more capable of taking an accurately logical view of this whole subject; and, as far as I can remember his rectorial address, it did not by any means indicate that he regarded the question as closed. However, letting this pass, if Mr. Spencer had said that the onus lies as much with the school of Weismann to disprove the inheritance of acquired character as it does with the school of Darwin to prove such inheritance, his statement would have been less open to challenge. But the statement as it stands can scarcely be justified. For it is designedly exclusive of the question touching the amount and quality of evidence which can be adduced in favour of the transmission of acquired characters. The statement expressly refers to the antecedent standing of this doctrine (the question of actual evidence in its favour being postponed to a subsequent paragraph), and therefore it is open to the following retort. We all agree that Natural Selection is a true cause of adaptive modification in species, while we do not all agree that such is the case with the so-called Lamarckian Factors; hence it is for those who believe in those factors to give reasons for the faith that is in them. What, then, is the true logical standing of the issue as a whole? It would appear to be as follows:

All Neo-Darwinians will doubtless agree with Professor Lankester, who founds their case upon the principle of parsimony-Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem. We may not needlessly multiply hypothetical causes in our explanations of given results ; Natural Selection is a known cause of adaptive modification in species; the Lamarckian Factors are but hypothetical causes; besides, they are not necessary; therefore, away with them.

To this the Neo-Lamarckians may legitimately answer: True, we may not needlessly multiply hypothetical causes; but our position is that the causes in question are neither hypothetically adduced nor

needlessly entertained. On the contrary, we believe that there is a large body of evidence in proof of their occurrence; and we further believe that, but for their occurrence, the process of organic evolution could never have been what it has been. Our adversaries seem to forget that the question in debate is the very question which they quietly beg, viz., as to whether Lamarckian doctrines are void of evidence and unnecessary, or sustained by facts and indispensable.

So far it is evident that the Neo-Lamarckians have the best of the argument. Indeed it cannot be said that so far their opponents are advancing any argument at all. When Darwin himself so emphatically held that the Lamarckian Factors are not only well substantiated by evidence, but are also necessary as supplements to Natural Selection,

!

the onus is clearly as much on the side of Neo-Darwinians to show that his opinion was wrong, as it is on the side of his followers to show that his opinion was right.

How, then, does the matter stand when we pass from these merely antecedent grounds of logic, to the real battlefield of facts? Here the questions are three in number. (1) Do we meet with facts in organic nature which cannot be explained by the theory of Natural Selection? (2) Are any of these facts capable of being explained by the theory of Use-inheritance ? And (3), Is there any further evidence in favour of this theory? The answers to all these questions must be provisionally in the affirmative, at all events, until the NeoDarwinians shall have more effectually disposed of the evidence already extant in the lines B and C, especially, in my judgment, the indirect evidence adducible under the headings 1 and 2. Indeed, the facts which I have myself collected under these headings, and which I hope soon to publish, appear to me in themselves sufficient to prove that some principle of adaptive evolution, other than and supplementary to Natural Selection, must have been concerned in the production of organic types. Therefore, even if by means of their new theory of heredity, or otherwise, the Neo-Darwinians should ever be able to disprove the possibility of use-inheritance, I should be driven to adopt the belief of Asa Gray, Nägeli, Virchow, and not a few other naturalists-the belief, I mean, that there is in nature some hitherto unknown principle of adoptive modification, which is at present almost as unsuspected as was the principle of Natural Selection some half-century ago.

HIPPOLYTE TAINE.

RANCE is discrowned. A little while ago it was her privilege

FRANCE is discrowned.

to possess two of those encyclopædic minds which contain in themselves the whole knowledge of their time, which sum up all its tendencies, intellectual and moral, and look out upon nature and history from an elevation which enables them to obtain something like a bird's-eye view of the universe. Within five months these two men, so unlike in personal character and in the qualities of their work and thought (and therefore all the more, the two of them, an incarnation of the diverse aptitudes of their race and country), these two, universally recognised as the most authentic exponents and the most authoritative teachers of the generation which flourished between 1850 and 1880, have been taken from us in the plenitude of their powers, M. Renan in October, at the age of sixty-nine, and M. Taine in March, at the age of sixty-four.

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I will not indulge in the easy and deceptive pastime of drawing a parallel between them, nor weary the reader with a catalogue of forced and illusory likenesses and contrasts in order to pass a judgment on their relative merits as idle as it would be impertinent. will only point out in passing that both these men-true children of our democratic modern society-rose, by dint of their own genius and efforts, from a position of humble obscurity to fame and honour; that each (like so many of the great writers of this century—like Chateaubriand, like Victor Hugo, like Lamartine) lost his father in early life, and was brought up by a mother whom he tenderly loved ; and that, apart from the circumstances which drove the one from his seminary and the other from the public schools, the life of each was unmarked by any adventure other than the adventures of the intellect, and was devoted without interruption to literary or professorial labours,

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lightened by the simple pleasures of the fireside or the circle of friends. Each took science for his mistress, and scientific truth for his end and aim; each strove to hasten the time when a scientific conception of the universe should take the place of the theological conception; but while M. Taine believed it possible, without ever venturing beyond the narrow limits of acquired and demonstrable fact, to lay the foundations of a definite system, M. Renan delighted himself with the visionary glimpses of sentiment and reverie into the domain of the uncertain, the unknown, and even the unknowable, and loved to throw fresh doubt upon established conclusions, and to warn other people against a fallacious intellectual security. Moreover, the action of Renan had something contradictory about it. He was claimed by thinkers of the most opposite tendencies. He paved the way, to some extent, for the momentary reaction we see around us against the positive and scientific temper of recent times. In his irony, as in his flights of fancy and of hope, he seems to soar above his time and above his own work. M. Taine's work, on the other hand, while more limited in range, has a solid unity and a rigid logical consistency; and it is in strict relation with the time in which he lived, at once acting powerfully upon it, and giving it its fullest and most complete expression.

I.

Taine was the theorist and the philosopher of that scientific movement which in France was the successor of the romantic movement. The romantic movement itself the work of the generation of 1820-1850-had been a reaction against the hollow, conventional, and sterile art and thought of the age which preceded it. To the narrow and rigid rules of the classical school of the decadence it opposed the broad principle of the freedom of art; for the servile imitation of antiquity it substituted the discovery of new fountains of inspiration in the works of the great masters of all times and countries; while the dull uniformities of a mechanical style gave place to the varying caprices of individual taste, and the narrowness of a tame and timid ideology to the broad horizons of a spiritual eclecticism which found room and recognition for all the great doctrines that in their turn have swayed and captivated the minds of men, and which even professed to reconcile philosophy with religion. But, brilliant as was this epoch of our intellectual history, with its men of genius and its works of art-much as it did for the emancipation of taste and thought, and much as it gave to both art and literature of life and colour and newness, it still fell short of fulfilling the hopes it had inspired. It was mistaken in asserting as a basal principle of art that liberty which is only one of its essential