CATALYSIS AS THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 257 



gests any casual mechanism at the physico-chemical level. The 

 index has one entry under "Evolution, causes of," which refers to 

 a section of Prof. E. G. Conklin's paper "Embryology and Evolu- 

 tion," entitled "The Causes of Development and Evolution," 

 where Conklin states: 



"The causes of the development of an individual or of the 

 evolution of a species are twofold, internal and external. The 

 internal causes are represented by the organization of the germ 

 cell, the external by surrounding conditions; the internal causes 

 may be called heredity, the external causes environment. . . . 



"The character of development depends primarily upon the 

 nature (that is, the heredity organization) of the egg concerned, 

 and secondarily upon the environmental stimuli. The former 

 determines all the possibilities of development and its main 

 course; the latter determines which of these possibilities are 

 realized and modifies more or less the course of development. 



"Entirely similar causes are at work in the evolution of races 

 or species. With true insight Charles Darwin wrote many years 

 ago: 'Although every variation is either directly or indirectly 

 caused by some change in the surrounding conditions, we must 

 never forget that the nature of the organization which is acted on 

 essentially governs the result.' Whether these variations are first 

 wrought in mature organisms and then transferred in some un- 

 known way to the germ cells, as Lamarckians assert, or whether 

 they first appear in the germ cells, as Weismann and his followers 

 maintain, is a secondary, although important, consideration, into 

 which we will not enter here. In conclusion it may be confidently 

 asserted that the causes or factors of the evolution of the species 

 and of the development of an individual are fundamentally the 

 same." 



The view here maintained is that catalysis is the basis of both 

 individual development and evolution. However, all this deals 

 with our origin, not with our destination, which is considered in 

 the last chapter. 



REFERENCES 



1 Incidentally, it may be mentioned that Aristotle was a surprisingly keen observer, 

 even though he did record many erroneous notions of his time. In Historia Ani- 

 malium (Book 4 Part I, Thompson's translation) Aristotle stated: "The octopus, by 

 the way, uses his feelers either as feet or hands; with the two which stand over his 

 mouth he draws in food, and the last of his feelers he employs in the act of copula- 

 tion. . . ." Only recently has this observation been confirmed. J. T. Cunning- 



