484 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE: 



direction of inborn swarthiness had time to appear and 

 establish itself. 



It seems to some quite incredible that the same modifica- 

 tion should be hammered on for a thousand generations 

 without inducing germinal changes in the same direction, 

 but the difiicultj is to find any direct or indirect evidence. 

 It is likely enough that the long continuance of a particular 

 modification might produce a metabolic change which might 

 affect the germ-plasm, but the point is whether the effect on 

 the germ-plasm would be to provoke a variation in the same 

 direction as the modification. Mr. J. T. Cunningham and 

 others have suggested that a well-defined modification may 

 be followed by the liberation of some very specific hormone 

 from the affected tissues, which might be carried to the germ- 

 cells and there find a nidus for subsequent operations. But 

 this remains a conceivable interpretation of what we do not 

 know to be a fact. 



(c) Another consideration must not be forgotten, that it 

 is in the personal life of the creature that the germinal 

 variations are expressed, used, and subjected to criticism. 

 The germ-cell or implicit individuality determines the cards, 

 but it is the developed organism that plays them. It is 

 highly probable that the adult creature sometimes seeks out 

 a situation where its idiosyncrasy tells. Prof. James Ward 

 has emphasised the importance of this organic selection. 

 Environment selects organisms, but an organism may also 

 select its enviromiient. 



§ 4. The Organism as a Historic Being, 



The central idea in heredity is the persistence of a specific 

 organisation and the associated specific activity. The past 

 lives on in the present. The category of organism includes 



