Active Causes of Organic Evolution 187 



and adapted flowers that now the cKmax is seen in such fam- 

 ilies as Orchidacese, Lamiacese, and Asteracese. We may not 

 yet be able, in the biological realm, to apply Newton's law 

 strictly, which declares that "action and reaction are equal 

 and opposite"; but in antiserum action and prophylactic agents; 

 in changed chemical food stimuli, and the exact modifications 

 these effect, as cited (p. 285) for Saprolegnia; in the varying 

 polarity of the gemmae of Marchantia under varying light 

 stimuli; in the exact stereo-molecular action of the sperm 

 nucleus of one plant species when it fuses wdth the egg of an- 

 other species, we see a few of very many proofs that environal 

 agents act on organisms, and that these respond at first physi- 

 ologically, but later and surely we nearly always find that the 

 physiological responses start and continue to produce definite 

 morphological results, that then become the measuring line 

 by which the degree and intensity of environal energizing 

 agents can be gauged. 



It will readily be noted, then, that the above views recognize 

 and involve the constant presence of exact and continuous 

 lines — or to use Faraday's expression "tubes" — of energy, that 

 traverse every organism, and every cell of each organism, in a 

 manner that has become continuous, uniform, and hereditary. 

 These so act that they exactly place molecules, or groups of 

 energized particles, of appropriate chemical composition for 

 each cell or organ concerned, in exactly the same relation to 

 each other and to the organisms as a whole. Like all colloid 

 boches, these molecules are at times capable of mobile adapt- 

 ation amongst themselves to a limited degree. But, when 

 any of the tubes of energy gradually increase in strength, 

 increased formation of molecules along these lines will occur. 

 When, however, the flow of the tubes becomes by degrees 

 modified to the extent of substituting a new atom, atoms, or 

 molecules, a new character thus gradually is given to the organ 

 or organism, in which the energy has thus effected change. 



We are well aware that not a few eminent evolutionists 

 still reject Lamarck's Law as alike unproven and superfluous. 

 But if environment does not constantly affect and mold every 



