Mr. F. W. Headley on Evolution. 
By R. F. Licorisu, M.D. 
Mr. F. W. HEADLEY is to be congratulated, from the Lamarckian point 
of view, on the soundness of his conclusions as to the course of organic 
evolution as expressed in the May number of this Journal. And yet, 
strange to say, I have to protest against Ais interpretation of Lamarck 
as stated therein. Lamarck never stated, nor did he intend others to 
believe, that evolutionary changes are brought about by means so 
simple as implied by Mr. Headley when he states in his article: “The 
idea that the crawling of bees or other insects over plants, or anything 
in the environment, can have produced flowers, is too great a strain on 
the credulity of an ordinary man,” as an illustration of Lamarckian 
views. He says, “or anything in the environment,” yet farther on in 
the article (page 362) he makes the environment play a somewhat 
different 7éle, and he attempts rightly enough, so far as the explanation 
goes, to explain how it works. He says: “The environment offers 
to animals all that they require, and lets them take what they want in 
any way they choose.” Now that is so, and it applies with equal force 
to plants. We should remember that the environment of plants 
includes all conditions capable of acting on them above the surface of 
the earth as well as beneath it. What Lamarck contended for was 
that plants are modified chiefly through their nutritive processes, and 
we can well assume that flowers were so evolved; changes in the 
nutritive processes leading to change in reaction to other environ- 
mental factors. 
Now, so little has Lamarck been understood in this respect, that 
even one of Huxley’s acumen and knowledge has been led by the 
misunderstanding to make statements absurd and misleading. In 
“Lay Sermons and Addresses,” article “Origin of Species,” Huxley 
thus writes: “It is curious, however, that Lamarck should insist, so 
strongly as he has done, that circumstances never in any degree directly 
modify the form or organisation of animals, but only operate by 
changing their wants, and consequently their actions; for he thereby 
brings upon himself the obvious question, How then do plants, which 
cannot be said to have wants or actions, become modified? To this he 
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