rancais_, Paris, 1870; Packard, _op. cit._; also Claus, _Lamarck als
Begruender der Descendenzlehre_, Wien, 1888; Haeckel, _Natural History
of Creation_, Eng. transl. London, 1879; Lang, _Zur Charakteristik der
Forschungswege von Lamarck und Darwin_, Jena, 1889.]

[Footnote 22: See Huxley's article "Evolution in Biology,"
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (9th edit.), 1879, pp. 744-751, and Sully's
article, "Evolution in Philosophy," _ibid._ pp. 751-772.]

[Footnote 23: See Haeckel, _Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und
Lamarck_, Jena, 1882.]

[Footnote 24: _Origin of Species_ (6th edit.), p. xvii.]

[Footnote 25: _The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, Vol. 1. p. 83.
London, 1887.]

[Footnote 26: A. R. Wallace, _My Life, a Record of Events and
Opinions_, London, 1905, Vol. 1, p. 232.]

[Footnote 27: _My Life_, Vol. 1. p. 361.]

[Footnote 28: P. Geddes. article "Biology." _Chambers's
Encyclopaedia._]

[Footnote 29: _Origin of Species_ (6th edit.), p. xv.]

[Footnote 30: _Life and Letters_, II, p. 301.]

[Footnote 31: _Science Progress_, New Series, Vol. 1. 1897. "A
Remarkable Anticipation of Modern Views on Evolution." See also Chap.
VI. in _Essays on Evolution_, Oxford, 1908.]

[Footnote 32: See Prof. Patrick Geddes's article "Variation and
Selection," _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (9th edit.) 1888.]

II

THE SELECTION THEORY

BY AUGUST WEISMANN

_Professor of Zoology in the University of Freiburg_ (_Baden_)

I. THE IDEA OF SELECTION

Many and diverse were the discoveries made by Charles Darwin in the
course of a long and strenuous life, but none of them has had so
far-reaching an influence on the science and thought of his time as
the theory of selection. I do not believe that the theory of evolution
would have made its way so easily and so quickly after Darwin took up
the cudgels in favour of it if he had not been able to support it by a
principle which was capable of solving, in a simple manner, the
greatest riddle that living nature presents to us,--I mean the
purposiveness of every living form relative to the conditions of its
life and its marvellously exact adaptation to these.

Everyone knows that Darwin was not alone in discovering the principle
of selection, and that the same idea occurred simultaneously and
independently to Alfred Russel Wallace. At the memorable meeting of
the Linnean Society on 1st July, 1858, two papers were read
(communicated by Lyell and Hooker) both setting