l^OZ.] 103 [Ryder. 



Hoeckel also proposed for the process of the development of the indi- 

 vidual the term ontogeny, genesis of the individual being. The displays 

 of energy, in time and space, controling the process of development, 

 both racial and individual, that is, the phylogenetic and ontogenetic pro- 

 cesses, are now admitted on all hands to run more or less closely parallel. 

 When old characters tend to reappear very early in ontogeny, it is explained 

 that this is a case of reversion, atavism or palingeny. If, on the other 

 hand, a new character tends to appear very late in the ontogeny, it is 

 explained that it is because such a feature was late in appearing in the phy- 

 logenetic or racial hi&tory, it is therefore said to have arisen from compar- 

 atively recent variations of the type form, or to be ecenogenetic. Tlie 

 regis'ration upon the germinal matter of organisms of these developmental 

 tendencies to reappear in a certain sequence and relation, in time and 

 space, comprehends what is generally understood by the term heredity. 



Hereditary phenomena are therefore ontogenetic, and in so far as the 

 latter repeat an ancestral history they are phylogenetic. That is, the ener- 

 gies of individual development reflect or e|)itomize in the sequences and 

 relations of their display those which have attended the evolution of the 

 race. 



Thus far the use of these terras, which have become current and well 

 understood in biological literature, seems to be justified, in that they stand 

 for a formula which is so largely true in spite of occasional discrepant 

 facts that we must accept these words as brief or shorthand expressions 

 for two great biological principles. 



Adaptation of the organism to its conditions of life is now, as it always 

 has been, a very difficult subject. Some have supposed it to be due to 

 variation of the potentiality of the germinal matter derived from the two 

 sexes, or to Amphimixis, and that the individual variations thus produced 

 that were unfitted for survival were eliminated by natural selection. 

 Others have maintained that there is more or less evidence of the occur- 

 rence of direct adaptation or adjustment of the organism to its surround- 

 ings with accompanying variation, and that consequently the energies 

 developed within and without the organism had to do with the pro- 

 cess of adaptation and the origin of variations. The development of 

 adaptations was, therefore, according to this latter view, a resultant con- 

 sequent upon the interaction of two sets of forces, namely, those developed 

 within and also those developed without the organism. Natural selection 

 in this case was also supposed to be operative as the agent eliminating the 

 unfit. Weismann, Lankester and others have defended the first view. 

 Ii*ckel, Cope, Spencer and even Huxley (the latter with some reserve, 

 perliaps) have supported the latter opinion. Darwin himself was inclined 

 to the last to ascribe a certain influence to external agencies, and also to 

 use and disuse, in doing which he showed his leaning towards what has 

 since his death been regarded as the more distinctly L imarckian view of 

 the origin of variations. 



Prof. Cope has sought to establish a recognition of the factor of energy 



