Originative Factors in Evolution. By J. A. Thomson. 445 



additions ? . . . " Mr. Bateson does not mean, of course, tliat the 

 lower animals were evolved from the higher, or any nonsense of 

 that sort. He asks us, however, not to think of the primordial 

 forms of life as necessarily verv simple. We are to think of them 

 as richly endowed with initiatives and potentialities. He is 

 particularly inclined to this view because his extraordinaril}^ fine 

 experimental work has led him to conclude that most of the 

 novelties that appear nowadays in garden and breeding-pen are 

 due to the removal of hindrances that suppress or mask underlying 

 qualities, or to the unpacking of a crowded treasure-box and 

 placing assorted jewels in special caskets. Everyone knows of 

 the large number of beautifully coloured Sweet Peas that have 

 been put on the market in recent years. Hut few people realize 

 that these have been derived from one wild Pea, and not by 

 adding on new excellences, but by successive removals — by 

 unpacking the treasure-box. Mr. Bateson appears to believe that 

 the reason why we are not all geniuses is not that we have not 

 got it in us, but that we cannot get it out — of prison. When the 

 genius emerges it is not a new achievement that has been made, 

 it is that certain hindrances or inhibitors have been removed. So 

 the process of evolution has been a succession of liberations, rather 

 than of achievements, gains by loss. 



In this interesting theory we recognize two truths, first, that 

 when genuine living creatures did first appear as going concerns, 

 they had within them the secret of a possible glorious future 

 (" ce n'est que le premier pas que coiite ") ; and, second, that many 

 apparently novel acquisitions are due to the removal of some 

 inhibitor, or some mask, or some complexity in the inheritance. 

 We are unwilling, however, to accept Pi-ofessor Bateson's picture 

 as a complete one, and that for several reasons. 1. The first is, 

 that it makes the origin and nature of the primordial organisms 

 too utterly miraculous if we suppose them to have had such a 

 rich stock of initiatives and implications. 2. It seems to lead to 

 a too mechanical picture of evolution, as if it were just an age- 

 long unrolling of a stupendous gramophone record. Time is 

 required for unrolling the record, but time does not count for 

 the gramophone as it counts for the organism, ivliich trades tvith it. 

 Space is required for unrolling the record, but space does not 

 count for the gramophone as it counts for the organism, ivJiich 

 traces tcith its environmevt. 3. Given an artistic genius, we may 

 assert that all that he did in the last forty years of his life was 

 in him when he was twenty-one. But is this necessarily an 

 accurate statement? His achievements at thirty may be the 

 product of his hereditary nature admittedly well-expressed at his 

 coming of age, but also of what he has made of his life and his 

 chances, and of what society has made of him. The organism works 

 on a compound-interest principle ; especially in its mental aspect 



