GERMINAL SELECTION. 45 



in the utility of the modification itself, and this also 

 seems to me intelligible from the side of the theory. 

 For as soon as personal selection favors the more 

 powerful variations of a determinant, the moment that 

 these come to predominate in the germ-plasm of the 

 species, at once the tendency must arise for them to 

 vary still more strongly in the plus direction, not solely 

 because the zero-point has been pushed farther up- 

 wards, but because they themselves now oppose a 

 relatively more powerful front to their neighbors, that 

 is, actively absorb more nutriment, and upon the whole 

 increase in vigor and produce more robust descendants. 

 From the relative vigor or dynamic status of the parti- 

 cles of the germ-plasm, thus, will issue spontaneously 

 an ascending line of variation, precisely as the facts of 

 evolution require. For, as I have already said, it is not 

 sufficient that the augmentation of a character should 

 be brought about by uninterrupted personal selection, 

 even supposing that the displacement of the zero-point 

 were possible without germinal selection. 



Thus, I think, may be explained how personal selec- 

 tion imparts the initial impulse to processes in the 

 germ-plasm, which, when they are once set agoing, 

 persist of themselves in the same direction, and are, 

 therefore, in no need of the continued supplementary 

 help of personal selection, as directed exclusively to 

 a definite part. If but from time to time, that is, if 

 upon the average the poorest individuals, the bearers 

 of the weakest determinants, are eliminated, the varia- 

 tional direction of the part in question, now reposing 

 on germinal selection, must persist, and it will very 

 slowly but very surely increase until further develop- 

 ment is impeded by its inutility and personal selection 



