Active Causes of Organic Evolution 181 



When further he remarks "in organic anagenesis there is 

 absorption of energy; dissipation of energy is only known in 

 the functioning of organic structure, which is catagenetic; 

 not in their progressive evolution, which is anagenetic," he 

 failed to realize that, up to the first appearance of organisms 

 in the world, the entire process of cosmic evolution had been 

 one great anagenetic procession, while at the same time dissi- 

 pation of energy was knoum in the functioning (a perfectly 

 exact inorganic word) of inorganic structures, as when hydro- 

 gen and oxygen were split asunder amid volcanic changes; or 

 through the functioning of hot iron and water vapor; or by 

 the chemotactic functioning of some metals on acids; or by 

 the mutual functioning of magnesium or related alkali and 

 water. 



Environal action then is a great cosmic function that is 

 ever in play. When environment ceases to act, and when 

 bodies amid an environment cease to respond, we have reached 

 an inert dead world, where inorganic and organic agencies 

 alike have no play. It would be hard to imagine such, how- 

 ever. In the consideration of organic environal action, we 

 would consider it necessary that the principles reached in the 

 last chapter be kept ever in view. For, if several organisms 

 have branched off along lines of evolutionary modification, 

 and some show at repeated points along those lines repeated 

 capacity to form red pigments, multicellular hairs, thick or 

 thin cuticle, and other modifications of cell detail, while others 

 show no such tendency, such is proof, along with the many 

 other confirmatory cases cited, that every organism inherits 

 not merely protoplasm or a nucleus, but also the inherent 

 chemical capacity to develop or to suppress many compounds, 

 according to the stimulating or retarding nature of the envir- 

 onment. 



The calling forth of the response as a fixed hereditary char- 

 acter seems always to be slow in action, and, where an organ- 

 ism, or group of organisms, suddenly becomes exposed to an 

 unaccustomed environal surrounding, death may ensue. Even 

 where the response occurs by pigment formation, wall thick- 



