SECT, xiv.] INTRODUCTION. 75 



SECTION XIV. 



SOME CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF BlOLOGY IN VIEW OF THE FACTS 



OF VARIATION. 



Enough has now been said to explain the aim of the Stud\ 

 of Variation, and to shew the propriety of the choice of the facts 

 of Meristic Variation as a point of departure for that study. 

 Before leaving this preliminary consideration, reference to some 

 cognate subjects must be made. 



It has been shewn that in view of the facts of Variation, 

 some conceptions of modern Morphology must be modified, while 

 others must be abandoned. With the recognition of the sig- 

 nificance of the phenomena of Variation, other conceptions of 

 biology will undergo like modifications. As to some of these a 

 few words are now required, if only to explain methods adopted in 

 this work. 



1. Heredity. 



It has been the custom of those who have treated the subject 

 of Evolution to speak of " Heredity " and " Variation " as two 

 antagonistic principles ; sometimes even they are spoken of as 

 opposing "forces." 



With the Study of Variation, such a description of the pro- 

 cesses of Descent will be given up, even as a manner of speaking. 

 In what has gone before I have as far as possible avoided any 

 use of the terms Heredity and Inheritance. These terms which 

 have taken so firm a hold on science and on the popular fancy, 

 have had a mischievous influence on the development of bio- 

 logical thought. They are of course metaphors from the descent 

 of property, and were applied to organic Descent in a time when 

 the nature of the process of reproduction was wholly mis- 

 understood. This metaphor from the descent of property is 

 inadequate chiefly for two reasons. 



First, by emphasizing the fact that the organization of the 

 offspring depends on material transmitted to it by its parents, 

 the metaphor of Heredity, through an almost inevitable confusion 

 of thought, suggests the idea that the actual body and consti- 

 tution of the parent are thus in some way handed on. No one 

 perhaps would now state the facts in this way, but something 

 very like this material view of Descent was indeed actually de- 

 veloped into Darwin's Theory of Pangenesis. From this sugges- 

 tion that the body of the parent is in some sort remodelled into 

 that of the offspring, a whole series of errors are derived. Chief 

 among these is the assumption that Variation must necessarily 

 be a continuous process ; for with the body of the parent to start 

 from, it is hard to conceive the occurrence of discontinuous 

 change. Of the deadlock which has resulted from the attempt 



