Mr. F. W. Headley on Evolution. 



By R F. Licorish, M.D. 



Mr. F. W. Headley is to be congratulated, from the Lamarckian point 

 of view, on the soundness of his conclusions as to the course of organic 

 evolution as expressed in the May number of this Journal. And yet, 

 strange to say, I have to protest against his interpretation of Lamarck 

 as stated therein. Lamarck never stated, nor did he intend others to 

 believe, that evolutionary changes are brought about by means so 

 simple as implied by Mr. Headley when he states in his article : " The 

 idea that the crawling of bees or other insects over plants, or anything 

 in the environment, can have produced flowers, is too great a strain on 

 the credulity of an ordinary man," as an illustration of Lamarckian 

 views. He says, " or anything in the environment," yet farther on in 

 the article (page 362) he makes the environment play a somewhat 

 different role, and he attempts rightly enough, so far as the explanation 

 goes, to explain how it works. He says : " The environment offers 

 to animals all that they require, and lets them take what they want in 

 any way they choose." Now that is so, and it applies with equal force 

 to plants. We should remember that the environment of plants 

 includes all conditions capable of acting on them above the surface of 

 the earth as well as beneath it. What Lamarck contended for was 

 that plants are modified chiefly through their nutritive processes, and 

 we can well assume that flowers were so evolved ; changes in the 

 nutritive processes leading to change in reaction to other environ- 

 mental factors. 



Now, so little has Lamarck been understood in this respect, that 

 even one of Huxley's acumen and knowledge has been led by the 

 misunderstanding to make statements absurd and misleading. In 

 " Lay Sermons and Addresses," article " Origin of Species," Huxley 

 thus writes : " It is curious, however, that Lamarck should insist, so 

 strongly as he has clone, that circumstances never in any degree directly 

 modify the form or organisation of animals, but only operate by 

 changing their wants, and consequently their actions ; for he thereby 

 brings upon himself the obvious question, How then do plants, which 

 cannot be said to have wants or actions, become modified ? To this he 



46 



