262 THE THEORIES OF EVOLUTION 



formulate an approximative law. Its method con- 

 sists in taking living individuals in the condition of 

 assimilation pure and simple, that is individuals which 

 are not varying but simply maintaining themselves 

 through assimilation in the same condition. Then the 

 various disturbances this condition may undergo (vari- 

 ations) are observed, regardless of their origin, and 

 the result attained is judged afterwards, when the 

 various individuals have passed through the sieve of 

 natural selection. 



"Lamarckism on the other hand does not consider 

 variation apart from life itself, that is apart from 

 assimilation. It pays no special attention to assimila- 

 tion pure and simple (for there is no such thing in 

 reality), but to assimilation as the result of organic 

 activity or the functioning of organs." 



Thus Le Dantec comes to the idea around which 

 his whole system revolves, the idea of "functional 

 assimilation." All physiologists since Claude Ber- 

 nard have held that organic matter suffers loss in 

 periods of activity and recuperates in periods of rest. 

 "This is considered," Le Dantec writes, "as an evi- 

 dent truth, and is never seriously questioned by physi- 

 ologists; and still it is merely a preconceived idea 

 derived from a certain dualistic prejudice from which 

 even Claude Bernard could not free himself. He 

 thought that the type of activity we can observe in 

 laboratories could not be the essential of life and that 



