CHAPTER III 



ADAPTATION AND INFLAMMATION 



(1905) 



[I republish this chapter as representing an intermediate stage, 

 one in which, while I recognized fully the fact of the survival of 

 the fittest, and, at the same time, was convinced that direct 

 equilibration or adaptation was a very real factor in pathological 

 processes, I did not see fully how to harmonize the two. 



To-day my attitude is expressed in the following theses : 



(i.) That individual variation is not primarily due to any 

 inherent tendency on the part of living matter to vary. On the 

 contrary, living matter is capable of being varied according to its 

 environment. 



(ii.) That when individuals of a species are exposed to a 

 particular environment they do not present multitudinous 

 variants of all orders. On the contrary, alteration of environ- 

 ment of a particular order gives origin to a particular order or 

 series of variations, of which that grade will survive and be 

 perpetuated which represents the most complete equilibration 

 between the organism and its surroundings. 



(iii.) That " chance," it is true, enters in connexion with 

 the results of gamogenesis, but here the variation from either 

 parental type due to amphimixis is not progressive : it remains 

 within the limits of the properties inherent in the particular 

 species, and what is more, with indiscriminate mating tends to 

 become less and less marked in successive generations. Gamo- 

 genesis, that is, tends to preserve the mean, not to encourage 



1 Being a reprint of a section of an article upon Inflammation, as revised 

 in the second edition of Professor Allbutt's System of Medicine, 1905. 



161 M 



