XX 



attitude of the parvenu remains generally on the inferior level peculiar to his 

 birth or former environment ; hence the French proverb : " Froitez le Russe, votis 

 trouvercz le Tar tare". No subsequent teachings of morality or religion alter the 

 nature of him whose inherited inferior moral development unfits him for 

 its reception ; his natural egoism makes him the born criminal in the well- 

 conditioned state ; it depends only on the conditions of life in what manner this 

 will find expression. In the domai^i of science the same may be observed ; 

 the disciples generally adopt the dicta of the master but they elaborate these 

 from their own cultural level. The theory of evolution, similarly, is at the 

 present day universally accepted scientifically which implies that every species 

 must be considered as being, as a rule, in a condition of continuous evolutional 

 change, but in spite of this the old view of immutability of species frequently 

 overrides that of biologists. Darwin as wel as Lamarck, indeed, conceived 

 living nature as being in a condition of constant evolutional change, interrupted 

 now and again temporarily by some cessation in development, but the theory 

 of mutation again assumes an unchanging condition as the rule, only now and 

 again interrupted by so-called mutations, approaching thus in this respect the 

 old view, just alluded to ; but since the cause of their appearance remains 

 completely hidden this theory strongly reminds us, in fact, of distinct creative 

 acts in which the Creator alone is either disregarded or indicated by a note of 

 interrogation. For this reason I can only consider this theory as a retrogression 

 in the domain of the doctrine of evolution. 



Now when I consider the detailed observations made by lepidopterologists 

 on the frequently very slight modifications in colour and markings in many 

 species and note how, purely on such differences, all kinds of species and 

 subspecies have been based, I fancy I can see much of the old conception of 

 the immutability of species in this method. For if they had grasped the bio- 

 logical principle of the evolutional mutability they would have understood that 

 these numerous differences, each of little significance in itself and running into 

 each other, can be nothing but so many expressions by wich the same evo- 

 lutionary processes manifest themselves in proportion to the individuality of each, 

 processes amongst which, in Lepidoptera, that of colour evolution especially 

 comes to the front. 



While the mutability of a species is, indeed, acknowledged it is yet considered 

 to be a fixed entity ; but that each individual, belonging to any species, inde- 

 pendently plays its part in the universal evolution process is still very little 

 understood. 



The processes in question nevertheless operate in this manner. The power 

 governing the processes oi change, to which the species is subject, affects every 



