Sir E. Ray Lankester in a letter in _Nature_, 21st March, 1912, dissented from the mode of treatment of this point by Sir Archdall Reid and presumably also by Dr. Dixey in the words “It is not, I think, permissible to say that the normal characters which arise in response to normal conditions are with equal fitness to be described as ‘acquired.’” As to what is a normal character and what are normal conditions there may be much reason for difference of opinion, but I have said enough of this discussion to show that the terms “acquired” and “character” would afford a biological Pascal some such food for criticism as did the term “probable” in his _Provincial Letters_. The less these two terms are employed the less misunderstanding there will be of certain problems. It has been held that “discussing words is often indescribably tiresome, but it is better than misunderstanding them,” which is most true. In a world teeming with the life of plants and animals, and in the branch of science which seeks to interpret them, where we enter upon the unknown much sooner than in any other sphere of science, Weismann has set out to prove or maintain the most stupendous negative ever framed by the human mind. It would require generations of men to _prove_ this negative, if it were probable, and his case rests mainly on the assumed weakness of his opponents. So what is needed and demanded from the neo-Lamarckians is the production of a few well-attested and verified facts, and, as he admits himself, then it must follow as the night the day that his followers will surrender his characteristic dogma. The more cautious leaders and teachers of the day say that this has not taken place and ask for facts, more facts and still more facts, and this attitude is both judicious and judicial, for example in a teacher so eminent as Professor J. Arthur Thomson. Scientific men, in such a position as he occupies with grace and distinction, owe a serious debt of loyalty to ultimate truth and to the inquiring minds of the young students of to-day and to-morrow. Those who are in a position of inferior responsibility and honour, and more freedom, just rank and file members of the Commons’ House of Parliament, may be pardoned if they do not exhibit an excess of deference to authority and if they think for themselves. Two Questions. There are before the Scientific jury to-day two very vivid questions. (1) Can modifications in the structure of an individual organism, occurring as a result of its experience, be transmitted? (2) What is the cause of variation? If, as Weismann taught, the answer to No. 1 is in the negative, there is little use here in trying to answer No. 2, for from the present point of view the two stand or fall together in the study of Initiative in Evolution. Such _distributional_ answers to No. 2 as Bateson and de Vries may offer do not concern my purpose.