3 3 2 Problems of Organic Adaptation 



ter of germinal modifications must be explained in some 

 other way. The assumption that individually acquired adap- 

 tations of parents are directly inherited by their offspring 

 and thus become racial is not supported by any critical 

 evidence. 



Furthermore, there are many adaptations that benefit 

 the species at the expense of the individual. For example, 

 in many instances the reproductive instincts lead directly 

 to the death of the individuals concerned; every male bee, 

 every male and female salmon, goes to its certain death 

 in perpetuating the species. Such adaptations that are for 

 the good of the race but lead to the death or injury of the 

 individual cannot be explained by the Lamarckian theory 

 that racial adaptations are merely individual adaptations 

 that have become hereditary. 



Samuel Butler, Bergson, Bernard Shaw, and many others 

 maintain that the evolution of adaptations cannot be ex- 

 plained except on the basis of Lamarckism. Herbert Spencer 

 said, "If there is no inheritance of acquired characters, there 

 is no evolution" ; but it is evident that Spencer did not define 

 with sufficient clearness what he meant by "acquired char- 

 acters." In one sense random mutations are acquired char- 

 acters, but they are not somatic modifications due to use or 

 disuse. Sumner says, "The imperative demand for directed 

 germinal variations can be met only by assuming the in- 

 heritance of acquired characters. . . . Adaptations 

 have come about not because of their harmlessness but be- 

 cause of their utility." But in spite of theoretical neces- 

 sities, it is a fact that mutations occur in many directions; 

 they are multifarious, and in their origin they do not seem 

 to be directed any more than "the course that the wind 

 blows." The directing comes after their appearance and 

 through the elimination of the less fit. 



