THE THEORY OF DESCENT 28*7 



see the individual organism endowed with a morphogenetic 

 power, inexplicable by Lamarckism, but far exceeding the 

 organogenetic faculty assumed by that theory, would it 

 not be most reasonable to conclude from such facts, that 

 there exists a certain organising power at the root of the 

 transformism of species also, a power which we do not 

 understand, which we see only partially manifested in the 

 work of restitutions, but which certainly is not even touched 

 by any of the Lamarckian arguments ? There does indeed 

 exist what Gustav Wolff has called primary purposefulness 

 (" primare Zweckmiissigkeit "), at least in restitutions, and 

 this is equally unexplainable by Darwinism and by the 

 dogmatism of the Lamarckians. 



o 



But before entering into this area of hypothesis, let us 

 mention a few more objections to be made to the theory 

 of the contingency of form as put forward by Lamarckians. 

 In the first place, let us say a few words about the 

 appropriateness of the term " contingency " as used in this 

 connection. The forms are regarded as contingent by 

 Lamarckians inasmuch as the variations which afterwards 

 serve as " means 5: to the " needs >; of the organism occur 

 quite accidentally with regard to the whole organism. 

 It might be said that these " needs ' are not contingent 

 but subject to an inherent destiny, but this plea is excluded 

 by the Lamarckians themselves, when they say that the 

 organism experiences no need until it has enjoyed the 

 accidental fulfilment of the same. So the only thing in 

 Lamarckian transformism which is not of a contingent 

 character would be the psychological agent concerned in it, 

 as being an agent endowed with the primary power of 

 feeling needs after it has felt fulfilment, and of judging 



