428 F. A. BATHER [December 



gradually. Who then shall decide whether they are the results of 

 adjustment de novo in each case, or whether they are the inherited 

 results of prior adjustment ? So far the history of the controversy has 

 shown every test-case to be capable of two interpretations. 



In Lecture IV., " Lamarck," a third consideration is brought forward. 

 Dr. Brooks tries to show that inheritance of modifications, even if 

 admitted, would not produce such a world as we know. This he does 

 by citing a number of instances in which the modifications affect other 

 species {e.g. the bee's sting, the serpent's poison), or other individuals 

 than the ones exhibiting them {e.g. the rabbit's white tail) ; also 

 modifications for the good of the species, occurring only in non-repro- 

 ductive individuals, and therefore incapable of inheritance. He main- 

 tains that " in all cases the structure, habits, instincts, and faculties of 

 living things are primarily for the good of other individuals than the 

 ones that manifest them" (p. 88); "there is nothing anomalous or 

 exceptional " in the instances which he selects. This does not mean 

 that the serpent's tooth is useful to the rabbit, or that bees sting us 

 for our moral edification. None the less it is a hard saying, and 

 difficult of application to such protective structures as the carapace of 

 the tortoise, or to such (apparently) useless characters as baldness. 



In the vast majority of instances this " general law " can be nothing- 

 else than that an organism has such structure, faculties, etc., as enable 

 it to produce offspring. But we are told, every character is primarily 

 for the good of others. Senile characters, which, as in the Ammonites, 

 appear ever earlier in succeeding generations, may be explained as due 

 to the direct action of the environment, or perhaps in some roundabout 

 way by natural selection. But imagination boggles at the idea that 

 they were of use to offspring born long before the characters appeared. 



The deeply interesting Lecture V. adduces migration as instance of 

 an action for the preservation of the species, but often leading to the 

 loss of the individual, i.e. an action for the good of others, and therefore 

 not explicable on Lamarckian principles. But though natural selection 

 be admitted, no multiplication of similar instances can disprove the 

 operation of the Lamarckian factor. 



Lecture VI. attacks the evolutionist philosopher, he who holds not 

 merely that the universe has evolved, but that its evolution in that 

 particular way was a necessity from the beginning, and that all was 

 latent and determined in the primal nebula. Not that this philosophy 

 may not be correct, but that it is, as Huxley said, premature. 



A note shows the fallacy of Galton's and Weismann's view that the 

 ancestors of an individual are doubled for each generation that one 

 traces them back. The fallacy lies in the omission to recognise the 

 almost inevitable inter-breeding. 



Lecture VII. continues the criticism of Galton. His data " fail to 

 prove that the ' principle of organic stability ' owes its existence to 

 anything except past selection ; that regression to mediocrity occurs 



