Lamarckians (taking their name from a French biologist who lived in the early nineteenth century) claimed that it is impossible to explain evolution by chance occurrences: for such huge steps to have occurred as, for instance, the emergence of the human eye, there would have to have been such myriad interlocking coincidences as to be inconceivable: what possible evolutionary advantage could there have been in the emergence on their own of one or two still useless facets of the complex totality of the human eye which only functions when it is complete? For explanations to make sense there had to be taken into account the likelihood of some directing or at least coordinating force among the plethora of required mutations: and it did seem, yes, that this might be provided by the possibility of what had been of advantage to parents being in some way genetically passed on. This would not mean, for instance, that a parent who had lost a limb would pass on to an offspring this lack of a limb: Lamarckians suggested that only such characterises might be passed on as would be of advantage in coming to terms with the environment.
But this sort of talk was anathema to Darwinists, ostensibly because there was no means of explaining scientifically how this learning on the part of parents could be transmitted to the genetic material, the cells of which could be shown (or so it was believed)
to be quite separate from the cells of the other parts of the body. But it seems to me now (of course, no scientist talked like this at the time) that there was some rage or even terror amongst biologists at the suggestion that what a person had acquired (or not acquired!) during a lifetime might be passed on to offspring: what a burden of responsibility this would place upon a parent! Every failure would be perpetuated; every fault would make a person accountable for ever.
During the early years of the twentieth century the situation remained confused: neither Darwinists nor Lamarckians seemed able to answer the objections that each put up against the other. Then there was the rediscovery by people like my father of Mendelian genetics — theories about inheritance suggested by Mendel fifty years earlier but not at the time taken up. These described how innumerable small differences occurring naturally in genetic material could be seen, by an understanding and application of mathematics, to account for the larger changes in living forms seeming to occur just when a change in the environment, as it were, provoked or required them: it was as if (my mother had used an image that was coming into vogue at the time) there were indeed all sorts of latent mutations hanging about waiting to be encouraged to emerge from what might be called a 'gene pool'. This image, it was true, did not seem very explicit about what it actually referred to; but then experts such as my father could retreat behind their jargon — or behind their claim that such a matter could properly only be understood by mathematicians.
But then, just when geneticists like my father seemed to be getting the business sorted out, or at least protected, there turned up on the scene this Viennese biologist called Kammerer who appeared to claim once more that Lamarck was probably right — in certain circumstances parents could, yes, be shown to transmit by heredity to their offspring characterics which they had acquired during their lifetimes.
Kammerer was this thin man with a high forehead and brushed-back hair; he had come on to our lawn and had kissed my mother's hand: my father was banging his tennis racket against his leg.
This was on a Sunday afternoon; there were the men in blazers and white flannels on the lawn. They were playing croquet; at any moment they might be playing leap-frog. Dr Kammerer was looking round the garden as if he were sizing up possible escape routes; or perhaps manoeuvres for survival on this strange planet.
My father said 'Do you play tennis?'
Dr Kammerer said 'I sometimes play.'
My father said 'I can lend you a pair of shoes.'
Now I knew about my father's ways of playing tennis: he used a tennis court as some sort of battle-ground on which to engage with the people (and these seemed to be most people) against whom he felt aggression. He was, I suppose, quite a good player for his age; he put great energy into his game; he would serve and rush to the net; he would leap to and fro volleying; he would prance backwards towards the baseline slashing at high balls as if they were seagulls or vultures attacking him. Sometimes I would be his partner in a foursome and it seemed to be his aim, at the net, never to let a ball reach me. Once there was a very high lob and my father came staggering back; it was obviously my ball; I tried to get to it; my father and I collided and he fell on top of me. I remember the bright amused look in his eye as people ran up to us as if he might have done me some injury.
Now Dr Kammerer was saying 'Oh I don't need any shoes!'
My father said 'You can't play in those.'
Dr Kammerer said 'I will play in bare feet.'
He sat on the grass and took off his shoes. My mother watched him. When he looked up he seemed to wink at my mother.
Then he took off his jacket and jumped up and down on his toes. He had trousers that were much narrower than the trousers of my father's friends. He looked elegant. Trousers at that time were apt to be like the screens behind which one undressed in a doctor's consulting-room.
My father said 'Well I suppose you'll need a racket!'
Dr Kammerer said 'Or shall I use my bare hands!' He smiled, not quite catching my mother's eye.
She said 'You don't have to play, you know!'
He said 'Oh I think I do!'
In fact Kammerer played tennis well. But he seemed to treat it not so much as a game — an activity in which someone had to win and someone to lose — as an exercise in practising some quite solitary proficiency. He stood halfway up the court near the service line and played most of his shots from there; he did not rush to the net nor come prancing back; he stayed roughly where he was and when balls came near him he volleyed or half-volleyed them for the most part expertly, and when balls did not come near him he turned and watched his partner solicitously. When it came to his turn to serve
he seemed reluctant and even slightly bewildered about this; but then he pulled off some quick cutting serves that went into the corners of his opponents' court and were quite often aces. He appeared to be somewhat apologetic about these: but not too much, as if he were anxious lest this might seem condescending.
My father on the other side of the net heaved and leaped and dashed about like a seaclass="underline" I thought — Kammerer is a keeper at a zoo and he is throwing my father fish. When the score had reached something like six all my father said 'You've played quite a bit!'
Dr Kammerer said 'In my time.'
My father said 'Shall we play sudden death?'
Dr Kammerer looked to where my mother and I were sitting, and where Watson was coming out with tea-things on to the lawn. He put his hand on his heart. He said 'As a matter of fact, I think what I would love is some tea!'
My father said 'Ah, it's a business keeping fit!'
We sat on deckchairs on the lawn. Dr Kammerer sat next to my mother. He glanced at her sideways quickly from time to time; my mother seemed to know that he was doing this but to be pretending not to know; but in such a way that Dr Kammerer would know that she knew. I was thinking — If Dr Kammerer is some mutation, is it that he knows, without talking, what people are up to?
Sometime in the course of tea Dr Kammerer turned to me and said 'You do not like tennis?'
I said 'Not really.'
He said 'Why not?'