RELATIONS AND SURROUNDINGS. 149 



and their surroundings and between organs and the 

 work they must do, come about? 

 There are several possible views : 



1. The organisms may have been created in adjust- 

 ment with the surroundings. In this event we have no 

 way of discovering the real causes of the harmony. This 

 has long been the view of most people. 



2. Scientists believe, however, that the harmony and 

 adaptation we see are the result of gradual growth, change, 

 and development through the ages. The differences 

 among evolutionists are as to how this development 

 has come about. It is agreed that the changes which 

 produce the adjustment are in the animals rather than 

 in the surroundings, although the surroundings do change 

 somewhat. It is further agreed that the surroundings 

 have such a life-and-death influence over the animals 

 that ultimately they must come into essential adjust- 

 ment to the surroundings or die. 



At this point evolutionists part company. One school 

 thinks that the environment acts directly on an individual 

 and forces it to change because of this action, and that 

 this individual transmits some part of this change to the 

 next generation; this new generation, if again acted on 

 by this same environment, will change even more fully 

 than its parent did, and thus, generation by generation, 

 there will be an increasing harmony between the organism 

 and the forces about it, through the inheritance in one 

 generation of the acquirements of the preceding. 



Another school does not believe that the changes which 

 come to an indvidiual in its lifetime, as the result of the 

 direct action of the environment upon it, can be trans- 

 mitted to the next, but rather that in the many variations 

 which every family shows some variations will be more 



