H. F. O shorn 339 



" This hypothesis, if it has no limitations, brings about a 

 very unexpected harmony between the Lamarckian and Darwin- 

 ian aspects of evolution, by mutual concessions upon the part 

 of the essential positions of both theories. While it abandons 

 the transmission of acquired characters, it places individual 

 adaptation first, and fortuitous variations second, as Lamarck- 

 ians have always contended, instead of placing survival condi- 

 tions by fortuitous variations first and foremost, as selectionists 

 have contended." 



[From the American Naturalist, November, 1897.] 



" On April 13, 1896, I formulated the matter in a paper 

 before the Academy entitled ' A Mode of Evolution requiring 

 neither Natural Selection nor the Inheritance of Acquired 

 Characters,' which has since appeared in Science} Professor 

 Baldwin, of Princeton, and Professor Lloyd Morgan, of Uni- 

 versity College, Bristol, had at the same time independently 

 reached the same hypothesis, and Professor Baldwin has aptly 

 termed it ' Organic Selection.' Both writers have presented 

 valuable critical papers upon it, including in Science and Nature 

 a complete terminology for the various processes involved. I 

 concur entirely in their proposal to restrict the term ' Variation ' 

 to congenital variation, to substitute the term ' Modification ' 

 for ontogenic variation, and to adopt the term ' Organic Selec- 

 tion ' for the process by which individual adaptation leads and 

 guides evolution, and the term ' Orthoplasy ' for the definite and 

 determinate results. 



" The hypothesis, as it appears to myself, is, briefly, that 

 ontogenic adaptation is of a very profound character ; it enables ani- 

 mals and plants to survive very critical changes in their environ- 

 ment. Thus all the individuals of a race are similarly modified 

 over such long periods of tune that, very gradually, congenital 

 variations which happen to coincide with the ontogenic adaptive 

 modifications are collected and become phylogenic. Thus there 

 would result an apparent but not real transmission of acquired 



characters. 



1 Cited in extenso above. 



