xliv MUTATION, MENDELISM, ETC. 



likely to be yielded. That, in few words, is the treatment 

 accorded by Bateson to adaptation. 



8. The Study of Adaptation Stimulates and does not 

 Bar the Way of Inquiry. 



Professor J. B. Farmer, F.R.S., has recently main- 

 tained that the explanation which Natural Selection 

 offers of the origin and growth of certain adaptive 

 features in plants, not only fails to explain the pheno- 

 mena, but actually stands in the way of an inquiry into 

 the sequence of events by which they are developed in 

 the individual. 1 Such a conclusion seems to me at 

 variance with the constitution of the human mind, and 

 the psychology of curiosity. Any point of view which 

 makes a set of scientific facts more interesting to man 

 increases the probability of their forming the material of 

 investigation. A few days ago I was passing some cases 



1 Presidential Address to Botanical Section of British Association, 

 1907. I refer to the following passages : — 



' . . . I would venture to express the opinion that much real harm is done 

 by the toleration of an uncritical habit of mind, all too common, as to the 

 significance of structures which are regarded as adaptive responses to 

 stimuli of various sorts. It is not enough to explain the appearance of a 

 structure on the ground of its utility ; properly speaking, such attempts, 

 so far from providing any explanation, actually tend to bar the way of 

 enquiry just where scientific investigation ought to commence.' 



' That many of the responses to such stimuli are of a kind to render 

 the organism " adapted " to its environment no one, of course, will 

 dispute ; but to put forward the adaptedness as an explanation of the 

 process is both unscientific and superficial. The size and the spherical 

 shape of duckshot are admirably adapted to the purposes for which duck- 

 shot is used; but this affords no insight into the necessary sequence 

 of cause and effect, which makes the melted lead assume the characters 

 in question as it falls down the shot-tower.' 



1 But many people still find consolation and satisfaction in an anthropo- 

 morphic and somewhat slipshod application of a kind of doctrine of 

 free-will to matters that really call for rigorous examination into the causes 

 which, under given conditions, must inevitably and of necessity bring 

 about their definite result.' Report, pp. 675-6. 



