CHAPTER VI 



CONTACTS WITH DARWINISM, continued, 



ADAPTATION 



jT^daptation, or suitableness, with an implied meaning of 

 having been suited by some particular agency, is a subject that 

 has been as much discussed as any in biology, and especially 

 since the publication of the theory of natural selection, which is 

 essentially based upon it. Under that theory a new organism 

 only comes into existence because it is an adaptational improve- 

 ment upon that from which it is derived. In other words, im- 

 provement in adaptation is the only reason for which new organisms 

 are evolved. But the only thing that shows that they are new 

 organisms is a structural or morphological difference between 

 them and other forms, even if the latter be obviously closely 

 related to them. It was, therefore, taken for granted (it could 

 hardly be otherwise) that the 7norphological or structural characters 

 were the expression of the adaptation that had gone on, and therefore 

 had, themselves, a greater or less adaptational value. 



Once this was fully realised, there was a great rush into the 

 study of adaptation, especially during the 'eighties and early 

 'nineties of last century. But in spite of all the work that was 

 put into it, no one ever succeeded in showing that even a small 

 percentage of the structural characters, that were the reason why 

 plants were divided into so many families, genera and species, 

 had any adaptational meaning or value whatever. No value 

 could be attributed to opposite as against alternate leaves (or vice 

 versa), to dorsal against ventral raphe, to opening of anthers by 

 pores or by slits, and so on. 



In the characters of the plants of average moist climates (often 

 called mesophytes, as occupying the middle position), it was very 

 difficult to find anything that could be called in any way adap- 

 tive, except those general characters which are common to most 

 of the higher plants and occur in almost every kind of conditions, 

 such as roots (which are adapted to taking up food), leaves 

 (adapted to forming food by aid of the energy of light taken in), 

 flowers, fruits, seeds, etc. But as one went outwards to either 

 extreme, to the water plants (hydrophytes) on the one side, or to 



