334 



The Journal of Heredity 



jNIendelian characters may be deter- 

 mined by hormones which need neither 

 be proteins nor specific or by enz>Tnes 

 which also need not be specific for the 

 species of genus. Such a conception 

 would remove the difficulties w^hich the 

 work on Mendelian heredity has seem- 

 ingly created not only for the problem 

 of evolution bvit also for the jjroblem 

 of the harmonious character of the 

 organism as a whole." 



THE SURVIV.\L OF THK FITTEST 



Above all. the role of blind chance 

 must be em])hasized. Harmonious 

 combinations finally are evolved, be- 

 cause an immense number of com- 

 binations has been tried and the un- 

 successful ones rejected. Many fail- 

 ures are destroyed, even today, in the 

 struggle for existence; and the multi- 

 plication of creations has been going on 

 for perhaps a billion years. In each 

 generation many new combinations 

 were produced by chance; most of 

 them were incapable of living iDut the 

 occasional one that represented better 

 adaptation to its surroundings lived 

 and multiplied. 



10. No one would claim that science 

 today can offer a mechanical explana- 

 tion of all the problems of life. But in 

 the mechanist's view, so many seem- 

 ingly metaphysical problems have 

 yielded to a physicochemical explana- 

 tion, that there is no justification for 

 denying that all the rest can i)robably 

 be explained in the same way, as 

 scientific research proceeds. The idea 

 that "living" matter contains some 

 "vital princijile" which makes it differ- 

 ent in kind from "ekael" matter is to 

 him worthless. The idea that the 

 development of the embryo is controlled 

 by some invisible guiding force, some 

 mysterious influence of an unascertain- 

 able nature, following a mystically pre- 

 established plan or design, is for him 

 obsolete. He sees no rocm in the body 

 for any soul, no room in the world for 

 any directing force except the kind cf 

 chance that governs the fall of dice 

 from a box. The "mystery of life" is 

 for him a mystery in the sense that it is 

 so complicated as to be difficult of 

 investigation. In any other sense, he 

 would admit no more mystery in life 

 than in the effervescence of a seidlitz 

 powder. 



A. G. A. Publications Wanted 



Many of the ])ublications of the 

 American Genetic Association arc out of 

 print, and it is impos.sible for members 

 who desire to complete their files, or to 

 obtain complete sets, to do so. The 

 following numbers of the association's 

 magazine are particularly in demand 

 for this purpose : 



American Breeders' Magazine, Vol. 

 iii, Xo. 4. 



JoiRN'.M.OF IJHRICDITV, \'()1. V (1914), 



No. 1. 



Journal of Heredity, Vol. vii 

 (1916), Nos. 1, 2,and4. 



The secretary of the asfociaticn will 

 be glad to receive copies of any of the 

 above, in good condition. He will ex- 

 change for any one of them a copy of 

 Vol. vi, Proceedings of the i^merican 

 Breeders' Association (a descri]:tion of 

 which will be found on the inside 1 ack 

 cover of this issue), or will credit a 

 member with three months' extension of 

 his membershij), for each one of the 

 above magazines returned. 



Exi)enses for crime in Ohio increased 

 six and one-half times as ra];idly as the 

 population in eight years, 1906 1914, 

 says Dr. Thomas H. Haines in Bulletin 

 Nc. 5 of the Bureau of Juvenile Re- 

 search. The best way to remedy this 

 is to remove the causes of crime, and 

 the best way to get at the causes is to 



The Prevention of Crime 



stvul\- the ^■()ung cfl'enders. 



I Knee Ohio 

 established a State clinic for all con- 

 victed yciung ( fl'enders, and before any 

 young delinquent is sentenced, a radical 

 search for the causes of his dclineiuency 

 is rrade. This Bureau, of which Dr. 

 Haines is clinical director, has tak^n 

 an enlightui.d stand in eugenics. 



