66 THE FOUR SEGREGATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
Coincident selection rests on the protective and, therefore, control- 
ling influence of accommodation rather than adaptive variation, during 
several generations of first encounter with great changes. 
11. Coincident Election Illustrated. 
Any form of election when introduced and protected from failure by 
variation and selection I call “coincident election.”’ A ship bearing a 
number of families of Europeans is wrecked on an island of the cen- 
tral Pacific, where the only land product available for food is the 
cocoanut, while the sea is swarming with fish, sea-weeds, crabs, 
shellfish, ete., furnishing a large variety of nourishment. One-half 
of the shipwrecked people are by nature fond of the water and are 
able to secure an abundance of food. The others, unable to swim 
and dreading the sea, seek their support from the barren land and 
are so hard pressed for food that most of them perish, while some of 
them overcome their instincts and seek food from the sea, though at 
a disadvantage as compared with those who are at home in the water. 
In time the arts of fishing, and swimming, and diving, and canoe 
building and navigating are so fully developed that a thrifty and vig- 
orous colony is established, in which the type of election, both reflexive 
and environal, is determined by the relations of the community to the 
sea. But these relations to the sea were made possible by the fact 
that part of the community were by nature endowed with some meas- 
ure of aptitude for such a life. If all had been as destitute of such 
aptitudes as a colony of gorillas the whole colony would have per- 
ished, unless perchance a few might have led a precarious existence, 
subsisting entirely on cocoanuts. Such a case would be an example of 
coincident election. 
12. Endonomic and Coincident Influences Contrasted and Defined. 
Isolation, selection, partition, and election are controlled by endo- 
nomic influences when the relations of the group to the environment 
are liable to be turned in different directions according to the pre- 
viously attained innate aptitudes or acquired habitudes of the indi- 
viduals from whom the colony springs. This action becomes most 
manifest when the isolated sections of the group are exposed to the 
same environment that surrounds the original stock; but there may 
also be alternative methods of dealing with a new or greatly changed 
environment, and in such cases endonomice influences are present. 
If inherited aptitudes are the controlling influence preceding and 
shaping the habitudes, then the partition and election are said to be 
coincident. If acquired habits and other powers of accommodation 
are the controlling factors, then the isolation and selection are said to 
