428 F. A. BATHER [DECEMBER 
gradually. Who then shall decide whether they are the results of 
adjustment de novo in each case, or whether they are the inherited 
results of prior adjustment? So far the history of the controversy has 
shown every test-case to be capable of two interpretations. 
In Lecture IV., “ Lamarck,” a third consideration is brought forward. 
Dr. Brooks tries to show that inheritance of modifications, even if 
admitted, would not produce such a world as we know. This he does 
by citing a number of instances in which the modifications affect other 
species (eg. the bee’s sting, the serpent’s poison), or other individuals 
than the ones exhibiting them (eg. the rabbit’s white tail); also 
modifications for the good of the species, occurring only in non-repro- 
ductive individuals, and therefore incapable of inheritance. He main- 
tains that “in all cases the structure, habits, instincts, and faculties of 
living things are primarily for the good of other individuals than the 
ones that manifest them” (p. 88); “there is nothing anomalous or 
exceptional” in the instances which he selects. This does not mean 
that the serpent’s tooth is useful to the rabbit, or that bees sting us 
for our moral edification. None the less it is a hard saying, and 
difficult of application to such protective structures as the carapace of 
the tortoise, or to such (apparently) useless characters as baldness. 
In the vast majority of instances this “ general law” can be nothing 
else than that an organism has such structure, faculties, etc., as enable 
it to produce offspring. But we are told, every character is primarily 
for the good of others. Senile characters, which, as in the Ammonites, 
appear ever earlier in succeeding generations, may be explained as due 
to the direct action of the environment, or perhaps in some roundabout 
way by natural selection. But imagination boggles at the idea that 
they were of use to offspring born long before the characters appeared. 
The deeply interesting Lecture V. adduces migration as instance of 
an action for the preservation of the species, but often leading to the 
loss of the individual, 7.e. an action for the good of others, and therefore 
not explicable on Lamarckian principles. But though natural selection 
be admitted, no multiplication of similar instances can disprove the 
operation of the Lamarckian factor. 
Lecture VI. attacks the evolutionist philosopher, he who holds not 
merely that the universe has evolved, but that its evolution in that 
particular way was a necessity from the beginning, and that all was 
latent and determined in the primal nebula. Not that this philosophy 
may not be correct, but that it is, as Huxley said, premature. 
A note shows the fallacy of Galton’s and Weismann’s view that the 
ancestors of an individual are doubled for each generation that one 
traces them back. The fallacy lies in the omission to recognise the 
almost inevitable inter-breeding. 
Lecture VII. continues the criticism of Galton. His data “fail to 
prove that the ‘principle of organic stability’ owes its existence to 
anything except past selection; that regression to mediocrity occurs 

