484 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE: 



direction of inborn swarthiness had time to appear and 

 establish itself. 



It seems to some quite incredible that the same modifica- 

 tion should be hammered on for a thousand generations 

 without inducing germinal changes in the same direction, 

 but the difficulty is to find any direct or indirect evidence. 

 It is likely enough that the long continuance of a particular 

 modification might produce a metabolic change which might 

 affect the germ-plasm, but the point is whether the effect on 

 the germ-plasm would be to provoke a variation in the same 

 direction as the modification. Mr. J. T. Cunningham and 

 others have suggested that a well-defined modification may 

 be followed by the liberation of some very specific hormone 

 from the affected tissues, which might be carried to the germ- 

 cells and there find a nidus for subsequent operations. But 

 this remains a conceivable interpretation of what we do not 

 know to be a fact. 



(c) Another consideration must not be forgotten, that it 

 is in the personal life of the creature that the germinal 

 variations are expressed, used, and subjected to criticism. 

 The germ-cell or implicit individuality determines the cards, 

 but it is the developed organism that plays them. It is 

 highly probable that the adult creature sometimes seeks out 

 a situation where its idiosyncrasy tells. Prof. James Ward 

 has emphasised the importance of this organic selection. 

 Environment selects organisms, but an organism may also 

 select its environment. 



4. The Organism as a Historic Being. 



The central idea in heredity is the persistence of a specific 

 organisation and the associated specific activity. The past 

 lives on in the present. The category of organism includes 



