FACTS OF INHERITANCE 169 



assertiveness and " endeavour after well-being " 

 which characterise living creatures. We must 

 advance beyond the conventional view that the 

 environment is like a net closing in upon passive 

 victims, which can only escape if they have been 

 fitted by germinal variation (or acquired modifica- 

 tion) to pass through some of the meshes ; we 

 must recognise, as a fact of life, what Lamarck 

 and many others have discerned, that organisms 

 actively assert themselves against this closing 

 net, and by active endeavour (also, of course, a 

 variational character when traced back) may 

 win their way through. At certain levels every 

 one is actively on the outlook for " a niche of 

 organic opportunity." In his " Luck or Cunning ? " 

 Mr. Samuel Butler asked, " Do animals and plants 

 grow into conformity with their surroundings 

 because they and their fathers take pains, or 

 because their uncles and aunts go away ? " The 

 accurate answer is that the question is wrongly 

 put, for even those who most believe in the 

 negative importance of uncles and aunts going 

 away will be willing to admit, likewise, the positive 

 importance of " taking pains/' A rehabilitation 

 of the Lamarckian position perhaps depends on 

 making clear what the " effort " of the creature 

 amounts to, and what it really means. 



INDIRECT IMPORTANCE OF MODIFICATIONS. 

 But there is another important consideration, 

 which has been stated independently by Profs. 

 Mark Baldwin, Lloyd Morgan, and H. F. Osborn, 

 namely, that adaptive modifications may act as 

 the fostering nurses of germinal variations in the 

 same direction. We have referred to this else- 

 where, but it may give greater completeness to 



