These references will suffice to show that Darwin is in full accord with
the main argument of Lamarck. In fact, the curious hypothesis of
pangenesis that Darwin advanced was invented partly to account for the
inheritance of acquired characters. Despite the hesitancy that Darwin
himself felt in advancing this view, and contrary to Huxley’s advice, he
at last published his provisional hypothesis of pangenesis in the
twenty-seventh chapter of his “Animals and Plants under Domestication.”
Darwin’s Hypothesis of Pangenesis
The study of bud variation, of the various forms of inheritance, and of
reproduction and of the causes of variation, led him, Darwin says, to
the belief that these subjects stand in some sort of relation to each
other. He says: “I have been led, or rather forced, to form a view which
to a certain extent connects these facts by a tangible method. Every one
would wish to explain to himself, even in an imperfect manner, how it is
possible for a character possessed by some remote ancestor suddenly to
reappear in the offspring; how the effects of increased or decreased use
of a limb can be transmitted to the child; how the male sexual element
can act not solely on the ovules, but occasionally on the mother form;
how a hybrid can be produced by the union of the cellular tissue of two
plants independently of the organs of generation; how a limb can be
reproduced on the exact line of amputation, with neither too much nor
too little added; how the same organism may be produced by such widely
different processes, as budding and true seminal generation; and,
lastly, how of two allied forms, one passes in the course of its
development through the most complex metamorphoses, and the other does
not do so, though when mature both are alike in every detail of
structure. I am aware that my view is merely a provisional hypothesis or
speculation; but, until a better one be advanced, it will serve to bring
together a multitude of facts which are at present left disconnected by
any efficient cause.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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