In our opinion “not proven” is the proper verdict on the question of the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characters in the higher animals. One thing is certain, and that is that acquired characters are not commonly inherited in those organisms in which there is a sharp distinction between the germinal and the somatic cells. It is nothing short of a misfortune that Haeckel’s _History of Creation_, which seems to be so widely read in England, should be built on a fallacious foundation. It seems to us that this work is calculated to mislead rather than to teach. Our attitude is not quite that of the Wallaceian school, which denies the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characters. In practice, however, the attitude we adopt is as fatal to Lamarckism in all its forms as the dogmatic assertions of the Wallaceians. It matters not whether acquired characters are very rarely or never inherited. In either case their inheritance cannot have played an important part in evolution. All those theories which rely on use-inheritance as a factor in evolution are therefore in our opinion worthless, being opposed to facts. Our attitude, then, is that the inheritance of acquired characteristics, if it does occur, is so rare as to be a negligible quantity in organic evolution. We may add that the position which we occupy will not be affected even if the Lamarckians do succeed eventually in proving that some acquired characters are really inherited. Such proof would merely help to elucidate some of the problems which confront the biologist. Thus the question of the inheritance of acquired characters, while full of interest, has no very important bearing on the question of the making of species. The Wallaceian School