Present-Day Rationalism; Critically Examined (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...although belonging to different archetypes. Compare Cactacece of Mexico with Euphorbias, Stapelias, etc., of South Africa. The progressive Evolution of the archetypes as well as the direct adaptations to external conditions shown by them cultural experiments are independent of selection." 1 1 Origin of Sf cries, p. 16. 1A Text-book of Botany, Introduction, p. 3 (1903). I have already called attention to Dr. Schimper's Botanical Geography on a Physiological Basis. In other words, it is interpreted by "Adaptation to the Environment ." He was one of the contributors to this Text-book. IV HEREDITY OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS, A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION As the raison d'etre of this book is the refutation of the basis of Materialistic Monism, this chapter must be considered as subsidiary to Evolution by Adaptation. Darwin saw clearly that Evolution could not go on unless acquired characters were hereditary. But Weismann steps in with his theory of germ-plasm and limits heredity to its agency, denying that the soma can acquire characters which can be communicated to the germ-plasm, as being too deep-seated, and so become hereditary. My object, therefore, is limited to proving that the soma does acquire characters, and that too in plants long before there are any reproductive organs present. These latter, however, viz., the flowers and fruits, do reproduce the characters, when their seeds grow up, which were acquired by the vegetative organs of the parents. In the third page of The Origin of Species, Darwin speaks of "the strong principle of inheritance so that any selected variation will tend to propagate its new and modified form ." This "tendency to heredity" was fully corroborated by M. E. A. Carriere so long ago as 1865, ...