The question to be settled is whether acquired characters are ever transmitted by heredity. Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that acquired characters are transmitted by heredity--though not so fully and not so certainly as congenital characters--how is this fact to be proved to the satisfaction of Weismann and his followers? First of all they answer,--Assuredly by adducing experimental proof of the inheritance of injuries, or mutilations. But in making this answer they appear to forget that Darwin has already shown its inefficiency. That the self-styled Neo-Lamarckians have been much more unguarded in this respect, I fully admit; but it is obviously unfair to identify Darwin's views with those of a small section of evolutionists, who are really as much opposed to Darwin's teaching on one side as is the school of Weismann on the other. Yet, on reading the essays of Weismann himself--and still more those of his followers--one would almost be led to gather that it is claimed by him to have enunciated the distinction between congenital and acquired characters in respect of transmissibility; and therefore also to have first raised the objection which lies against the theory of Pangenesis in respect of the non-transmissibility of mutilations. In point of fact, however, Darwin is as clear and decided on these points as Weismann. And his answer to the obvious difficulty touching the non-transmissibility of mutilations is, to quote his own words, "the long-continued inheritance of a part which has been removed during many generations is no real anomaly, for gemmules formerly derived from the part are multiplied and transmitted from generation to generation[29]." Therefore, so far as Darwin's theory is concerned, the challenge to produce evidence of the transmission of injuries is irrelevant: it is no more a part of Darwin's theory than it is of Weismann's to maintain that injuries _are_ transmitted. [29] _Variation under Domestication_, ii. 392.