EVOLUTION IN GENERAL 277 



embryogeny, or ontogeny. The genes were regarded as material, 

 or causal, particulate agencies in the organic, bodily component 

 called the germ-plasm. But it may be that individual embryo- 

 genies do not repeat themselves exactly and so a race of organisms 

 may undergo transformism. Something is supposed to be 

 involved in the transformist process and this is the occurrence 

 of a " mutation " — a new gene, or genes, come into existence. 

 How ? It has been observed that when breeding organisms are 

 exposed to the action of certain physical agencies the development 

 of the ova generated by them may undergo change so that the 

 race undergoes transformism and this kind of effect is interpreted 

 as due to the origin of new genes. Somehow or other the environ- 

 ment " induces " change in the genes. It is, then, new genes that 

 are involved in evolutionary processes. 



91^. Emergent Evolution. It is not compatible with the 

 extension of material-energetic conceptions to all organic pheno- 

 mena that change should just occur and without some material- 

 energetic '' cause." On the other hand, the amplification of the 

 conception of evolution to include the origins, say, of mentality, 

 the religious feeling and God is difficult if we are to trace such 

 evolutionary changes to genes induced by the agencies of the 

 environment. It has been said, then, that such products of 

 evolution simply " emerge." As an example of emergence the 

 formation of water from the gases oxygen and hydrogen is taken. 

 The " reactants " are O2 + 2 Ho and the resultants are 2 HoO. 

 But there is said to be something in the water that was not in 

 the reacting gases : the " property " of liquidity is said to 

 " emerge " from the reaction of the gases, Oo — 2 Ho. It is not 

 difficult to see the confusion in this notion. We imagine a 

 " Newtonian universe " of mass-points (atoms) moving in accord- 

 ance with Newton's laws and attracting or repelling each other 

 with forces that are functions of their distances apart. Each mass- 

 point is given position and force-co-ordinates (6 in all) and we 

 have the system, Oo ^ 2 Ho. If now there are changes in the 

 co-ordinates we have the system 2 HoO : the system O2 -^ 2 H2 

 " appears " to us as a mixture of gases and that which we call 

 2 H2O '' appears " to us as a liquid, but since we assume some 

 satisfactory resolution of the " mind-body " problem in both 

 phases we may let the " appearances " cancel out and simply 

 say that the property, liquidity, is the change of co-ordinates in 



