CHAPTER VI 



ADAPTATIONS 



PROFESSOR E. B. WILSON * says, " What- 

 ever position we take, the same difficulty is 

 encountered, namely, the origin of that co- 

 ordinated fitness, that power of active ad- 

 justment between internal and external 

 relations, which, as so many eminent bio- 

 logical thinkers have insisted, overshadows 

 every manifestation of life." 



They might well say so. 



The word fitness at once suggests 

 mechanism. The different parts of a 

 watch would not make a watch unless they 

 were made to fit into each other. The 

 same holds true if it be a living mechanism. 

 Moreover, it is not the materials out of 

 which this mechanism is composed which 



* The Cell in Development and Inheritance, p. 329. 

 133 



