BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 75 



caves because their ancestors were adjusted to do without the use 

 of eyes." ^ 



Another paper by H. F. Osborn of Columbia is of interest 

 because it re-emphasizes the value of the theory of variation by 

 " organic selection " formulated some years ago by Baldwin and 

 himself in this country and by Lloyd Morgan in England. Bald- 

 win gives this explanation: " It claims that it is possible for 

 intelHgent adaptations, or any sort of 'modification' made by the 

 individuals of one generation, to set the direction of subsequent 

 evolution, even though there be no direct inheritance of acquired 

 characters from father to son." ^ 



Osborn, in the paper cited, contends for law-abiding rather 

 than fortuitous variations,^ and formulates his own theory as 

 follows: — 



The life and evolution of organisms continually center around the proc- 

 esses which we term heredity, ontogeny, environment and selection; these 

 have been inseparable and interacting from the beginning; a change intro- 

 duced or initiated through any one of these factors causes a change in all. 

 First, that while inseparable from the others, each process may in certain 

 conditions become an initiative or leading factor; second, that in complex 

 organisms one factor may at the same time be initiative to another group of 

 characters, the inseparable action bringing about a continuously harmonious 

 result.* 



An additional citation may well be made from a recent work by 

 Professor Loeb of the Rockefeller Institute because of his recog- 

 nized authority. Professor Loeb has endeavored to reduce all 

 life to terms of the physical and chemical interaction.^ While 

 discrediting the theory formulated by Former, that the results of 

 muscular activity may be inherited by their effect on the central 

 nervous system and through this on the germ plasm, he goes on to 

 say: — 



If we thus deny the immediate influence of the central nervous system on 

 the germ, and assume a chemical theory of heredity, it might still be possible 

 that the central nervous system could influence heredity indirectly, in so far 



1 Fifty Years of Darwinism, pp. 183, 189. 



2 Story of the Mind, p. 34. Cf. Conn, Method of Evolution^ pp. 306 ff.; also 

 Thomson, Darwinism and Human Life, p. 169. 



' Fifty Years of Darwinism, p. 225. * Ibid., p. 238. 



^ Especially in his Mechanistic Universe. 



