The Humour of Homer and Other EssaysButler, Samuel
History
The Humour of Homer and Other Essays
Butler, Samuel
Essays; Greek wit and humor -- History and criticism; Homer -- Humor
This is why Charles-Darwinians, from Professor Huxley downwards,
have kept the difference between Lamarck's opinions and those of Mr.
Darwin so much in the background. Unwillingness to make this
understood is nowhere manifested more clearly than in Dr. Francis
Darwin's life of his father. In this work Lamarck is sneered at
once or twice and told to go away, but there is no attempt to state
the two cases side by side; from which, as from not a little else, I
conclude that Dr. Francis Darwin has descended from his father with
singularly little modification.
Proceeding to the evidence for the transmissions of acquired habits,
I will quote two recently adduced examples from among the many that
have been credibly attested. The first was contributed to Nature
(March 14, 1889) by Professor Marcus M. Hartog, who wrote:--
"A. B. is moderately myopic and very astigmatic in the left eye;
extremely myopic in the right. As the left eye gave such bad images
for near objects, he was compelled in childhood to mask it, and
acquired the habit of leaning his head on his left arm for writing,
so as to blind that eye, or of resting the left temple and eye on
the hand, with the elbow on the table. At the age of fifteen the
eyes were equalized by the use of suitable spectacles, and he soon
lost the habit completely and permanently. He is now the father of
two children, a boy and a girl, whose vision (tested repeatedly and
fully) is emmetropic in both eyes, so that they have not inherited
the congenital optical defect of their father. All the same, they
have both of them inherited his early acquired habit, and need
constant watchfulness to prevent their hiding the left eye when
writing, by resting the head on the left forearm or hand. Imitation
is here quite out of the question.
"Considering that every habit involves changes in the proportional
development of the muscular and osseous systems, and hence probably
of the nervous system also, the importance of inherited habits,
natural or acquired, cannot be overlooked in the general theory of
inheritance. I am fully aware that I shall be accused of flat
Lamarckism, but a nickname is not an argument."
To this Professor Ray Lankester rejoined (Nature, March 21, 1889):--
"It is not unusual for children to rest the head on the left forearm
or hand when writing, and I doubt whether much value can be attached
to the case described by Professor Hartog. The kind of observation
which his letter suggests is, however, likely to lead to results
either for or against the transmission of acquired characters. An
old friend of mine lost his right arm when a schoolboy, and has ever
since written with his left. He has a large family and
grandchildren, but I have not heard of any of them showing a
disposition to left-handedness."
From Nature (March 21, 1889) I take the second instance communicated
by Mr. J. Jenner-Weir, who wrote as follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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