merit of Darwin that he explained by his theory of selection the correlation of the laws of heredity and adaptation that Lamarck had recognised, and pointed out the true way to reach a causal interpretation of evolution. The phenomenon that it is most imperative to recognise in this connection is the inheritance of functional variations. Jean Lamarck was the first to appreciate its fundamental importance in 1809, and we may therefore justly give the name of Lamarckism to the theory of descent he based on it. Hence the radical opponents of the latter have very properly directed their attacks chiefly against the former. One of the most distinguished and most narrow-minded of these opponents, Wilhelm His, affirms very positively that "characteristics acquired in the life of the individual are not inherited." The inheritance of acquired characters is denied, not only by thorough opponents of evolution, but even by scientists who admit it and have contributed a good deal to its establishment, especially Weismann, Galton, Ray Lankester, etc. Since 1884 the chief opponent has been August Weismann, who has rendered the greatest service in the development of Darwin's theory of selection. In his work on The Continuity of the Germ-plasm, and in his recent excellent Lectures on the Theory of Descent (1902), he has with great success advanced the opinion that "only those characters can be transmitted to subsequent generations that were contained in rudimentary form in the embryo." However, this germ-plasm theory, with its attempt to explain heredity, is merely a "provisional molecular hypothesis"; it is one of those metaphysical speculations that attribute the evolutionary phenomena exclusively to internal causes, and regard the influence of the environment as insignificant. Herbert Spencer, Theodor Eimer, Lester Ward, Hering, and Zehnder have pointed out the untenable consequences of this position. I have given my view of it in the tenth edition of the History of Creation (pages 192 and 203). I hold, with Lamarck and Darwin, that the hereditary transmission of acquired characters is one of the most important phenomena in biology, and is proved by thousands of morphological and physiological experiences. It is an indispensable foundation of the theory of evolution.