116 THE PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION 



individual body compete with each other for 

 nourishment/ When insufficient food is available 

 such differential distribution as may occur is 

 rather a result of coordinated processes of the 

 organism as a unit than of struggle among its 

 several parts as competing units. 



Roux's intraselection likewise assumes that the 

 relationship existing between the parts of an organ- 

 ism exerts a determinative influence upon their 

 evolution. Certainly the interaction of coordinated 

 parts must have an influence upon their develop- 

 ment in the individual, but from the point of view 

 of this work each is a part of the environment of 

 the others, and any influence which it may exert 

 is environmental in nature. 



Coincident selection, too, which is the organic 

 selection of Baldwin and Osborn, has had its vogue 

 among those who were reluctant to consider the 

 environment in evolution, but it is little more than 

 an evasion. It is based upon the concept of indi- 

 vidual adaptations which preserve the species until 

 similar hereditary characters appear through other 

 — unfortunately obscure — means. As Herbert has 

 logically shown, this hypothesis defeats its own 

 purpose in failing, by the assumption of effective 

 individual adaptations, to provide any basis for 

 the elimination of the individuals which fail to 

 produce hereditary modifications. 



* Textbook of Evolution and Genetics, p. 407, 1929. 



