It is infinitely more attractive than the gloomy aspect of passivity apparently offered by Darwinism. An intelligent being which considers itself a link in the long chain of evolution may, under Lamarck’s theory, be confident that its striving and efforts for improving its abilities, both bodily and mental, are not lost in the biological sense but form a small but integrating part of the striving of the species towards higher and ever higher perfection. Unhappily Lamarckism is untenable. The fundamental assumption on which it rests, namely, that acquired properties can be inherited, is wrong.
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