Some Fragmentary Interpretations 267 



the utility criterion, therefore, even though we may not 

 accept the precise method of selection portrayed above. 



2. This does not tend, however, to give support to Mr. 

 Spencer in looking to 'race-experience' for the origin of 

 the categories of knowledge. Spencer's theory has been 

 admirably criticised by Professor James, who thinks that 

 the forms of knowledge must be looked upon as variations, 

 not as accumulations from the repeated impressions of the 

 environment. In support of James' argument we may 

 add what to me seems an insurmountable objection 

 that Spencer's position requires the transmission of such 

 impressions by heredity 1 a notion which James was one 

 of the first to combat and a claim for which no evidence 

 is forthcoming. The position developed above assumes 

 variations, with constant systematic determination in the 

 individual's experience ; in this the control of the environ- 

 ment is reflected. We then need a theory of evolution 

 which will account for the determination of race-progress 

 in the lines thus marked out by the individual. 



3. This requirement seems to be met by the theory 

 of Organic Selection, developed in the preceding pages, 

 considered as supplementary to natural selection in the 

 way of securing lines of determinate evolution. According 

 to this view, those individuals which successfully accommo- 

 date to the environment live and keep alive, through hered- 

 ity, the congenital variations which they exhibit. To these 

 are added further congenital variations which are again 

 selected. Thus variations are secured in definite lines in 



1 Cf. the dogmatic utterance of Wundt apropos of instinct : " The assump- 

 tion of the inheritance of acquired dispositions or tendencies is inevitable, if 

 there is to be any continuity of evolution at all. We may be in doubt as to 

 the extent of this inheritance; we cannot question the fact" {Human and 

 Animal Psychology, p. 405). Hoc atque anno 1892! 



