102 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



advance in the history of the earth. There are 

 three main considerations supplying an explanation 

 of the progress of life. These are the laws of 

 organic growth, the laws of natural selection, and 

 the laws of heredity. Under the first, we recognise 

 the force everywhere operating for biological advance. 

 Eimer 1 has done admirable service in concentrating 

 on the laws of growth, when attention had become 

 engrossed with natural selection. In course of his 

 research, Eimer has brought into prominence, inherit 

 ance of acquired characters, thus supporting Darwin 

 against Weismann, who had reduced inheritance 

 of acquired characters to a minimum. The first 

 grand impression made upon us in observing the 

 facts now ascertained is, that all animal growth, as 

 presented in individual life, tends towards the per 

 fecting of its own specific form, as it advances towards 

 maturity. An organism is developed according to a 

 plan which seems at every moment to be in advance 

 of the stage actually reached/ 2 The life-movement 

 has a fixed destination. Persistence of species is 

 the assured result lying nearest the surface, and just 

 beneath, appears the evidence that all individual 

 growth, whatever the species to which it belongs, 

 tends towards the perfect model of its own order of 

 life. Thus when we have reached the third con 

 sideration named, it will appear that heredity is in 

 its first intention a law of biological advance. Life of 

 all orders is, in course of the individual development, 

 unconsciously striving towards a clear gain in 



1 Organic Evolution and Laws of Organic Growth, by Dr. G. H. 

 Theodore Eimer. 



2 Human Experience, Cyples, p. 495. 



