lotka: efficiency in organic evolution 



363 



fitness of the individual, it was pointed out, depends on the 

 various errors to which he is prone in each of the three funda- 

 mental steps of the receptor-effector cycle: 



1. In the receptor step: 



2. In the intermediate step: 



3. In the effector step: 



Errors of observation. 



a. Errors of mentation (errors against 



logic, etc.) 



b. Errors of valuation, i.e., errors in the 



choice among several (seemingly) 

 possible actions, i.e., departures from 

 that choice which would make r a 

 maximum.^ 

 Errors of operation. 



Qualitatively our analysis may be said to be completed when 

 we have thus recognized the several factors that enter into 



^ On this point the reader is referred to the author's paper "An Objective 

 Standard of Value Derived from the Principle of Evolution," this Journal, vol- 

 ume IV, 19U, pp. 409, 447, 499. 



The writer wishes to take this opportunity to correct an error which has crept 

 into the paper cited — an error which does not, however, in any way affect the 

 main conclusions of that paper, as applied to our present purposes. 



A constant has by an oversight been dropped out of equation (27), pp. 448 and 

 449. For, after k' had arbitrarily been made equal to unity (equation (20)) we 

 were no longer at liberty to select labor as the standard commodity; or, vice versa, 

 if it is deemed convenient so to select our standard commodity, then k' cannot 

 be made unity, but must appear in equation (27), which should thus read 



= k' 



^1 



(27a) 



This unfortunately means that the indirect method suggested in the paper 

 cited, for establishing the actual numerical ratio between the theoretical (objec- 

 tive) and the practical standard of value, fails, and we are driven back to the 



resort of actually determining - for at least one commodity. The prospects 



of this being accomplished in the near future seem somewhat slender, though 

 there is one special case in which something can perhaps be done. The writer 

 may have occasion to return to this point in a later communication. 



In point of fact it is more convenient to adopt the first of the two alterna- 

 tives mentioned above, to discard the use of labor as the standard commodity, 

 and to put k' = l, so that 



Vx = — 





(27b) 



This is the convention here followed. 



