76 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



Thus, parts differently situated, differently constituted, 

 meant normally for different functions, are capable of 

 performing the same duties and even of manufacturing, 

 when necessary, the same pieces of the machine. Here 

 we have, indeed, the same effect obtained by different 

 combinations of causes. 



Whether we will or no, we must appeal to some inner 

 directing principle in order to account for this convergence 

 of effects. Such convergence does not appear possible 

 in the Darwinian, and especially the neo-Darwinian, theory 

 of insensible accidental variations, nor in the hypothesis 

 of sudden accidental variations, nor even in the theory 

 that assigns definite directions to the evolution of the 

 various organs by a kind of mechanical composition of 

 the external with the internal forces. So we come to 

 the only one of the present forms of evolution which re- 

 mains for us to mention, viz., neo-Lamarckism. 



It is well known that Lamarck attributed to the living 

 being the power of varying by use or disuse of its organs, 

 and also of passing on the variation so acquired to its 

 descendants. A certain number of biologists hold a 

 doctrine of this kind to-day. The variation that results 

 in a new species is not, they believe, merely an accidental 

 variation inherent in the germ itself, nor is it governed by a 

 determinism sui generis which develops definite characters 

 in a definite direction, apart from every consideration of 

 utility. It springs from the very effort of the living being 

 to adapt itself to the circumstances of its existence. The 

 effort may indeed be only the mechanical exercise of cer- 

 tain organs, mechanically elicited by the pressure of ex- 

 ternal circumstances. But it may also imply consciousness 

 and will, and it is in this sense that it appears to be under- 

 stood by one of the most eminent representatives of the 



