THE THEORY OF DESCENT 273 



most clearly seen what the logical assumptions of pure 

 Lamarckism are. Next to Cope, August Pauly l may be 

 said to be the most conscious representative of a sort of 

 so-called psychological vitalism, which indeed Lamarckism 

 as a general and all-embracing theory must have as its 

 basis. 



THE ACTIVE STORING OF CONTINGENT VARIATIONS AS A 



HYPOTHETIC PRINCIPLE 



This point will come out more fully, if now we turn 

 to study a certain group of principles, upon which dogmatic 

 Lamarckism rests : I say principles and not facts, for there 

 are no facts but only hypothetic assumptions in this group 

 of statements. We do know a little about adaptations, at 

 least to a certain extent, and it was only about the sphere 

 of the validity of a law, which was known to be at work 

 in certain cases, that hypothetical additions were made. 

 In the second group of the foundations of Lamarckism we 

 know absolutely nothing ; accidental variations of form 

 are supposed to occur, and the organism is said to possess 

 the faculty of keeping and storing these variations and of 

 handing them down to the next generation, if they happen 

 to satisfy any of its needs. 



But these needs are not of the actual type, brought 

 forth by a change of the functional state of the individual, 

 as in the case of adaptations : they are of a somewhat 

 mysterious nature. A glance at the theory of the origin 

 of the movements which are called acts of volition in the 

 human child may serve to elucidate what is meant. 



1 Darwinismus und Lamarckismus, Miinchen, 1905. 



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