XIV 
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS 
421 
necessary to do this, in order that materials for the exercise 
of a selection should exist. Darwin and Wallace’s law is then 
only restrictive, directive, conservative, or destructive of some¬ 
thing already created. I propose, then, to seek for the origin¬ 
ative laws by which these subjects are furnished; in other 
words, for the causes of the origin of the fittest.” 1 
Mr. Cope lays great stress on the existence of a special 
developmental force termed “ bathmism ” or growth-force, 
which acts by means of retardation and acceleration “without 
any reference to fitness at allthat “instead of being controlled 
by fitness it is the controller of fitness.” He argues that “ all 
the characteristics of generalised groups from genera up (ex¬ 
cepting, perhaps, families) have been evolved under the law of 
acceleration and retardation,” combined with some intervention 
of natural selection ; and that specific characters, or species, 
have been evolved by natural selection with some assistance 
from the higher law. He, therefore, makes species and genera 
two absolutely distinct things, the latter not developed out of 
the former; generic characters and specific characters are, in 
his opinion, fundamentally different, and have had different 
origins, and whole groups of species have been simultaneously 
modified, so as to belong to another genus; whence he thinks 
it “ highly probable that the same specific form has existed 
through a succession of genera, and perhaps in different epochs 
of geologic time.” 
Useful characters, he concludes, have been produced by the 
special location of growth-force by use ; useless ones have been 
produced by location of growth-force without the influence of 
use. Another element which determines the direction of 
growth-force, and which precedes use, is effort; and “it is 
thought that effort becomes incorporated into the metaphysical 
acquisitions of the parent, and is inherited with other meta¬ 
physical qualities by the young, which, during the period of 
growth, is much more susceptible to modifying influences, and 
is likely to exhibit structural change in consequence.” 2 
From these few examples of their teachings, it is clear that 
1 Origin of the Fittest, p. 174. 
2 Ibid. p. 29. It may be here noted that Darwin found these theories 
unintelligible. In a letter to Professor E. T. Morse in 1877, he writes : 
■“There is one point which I regret you did not make clear in your Ad* 
