242 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY 



aggregates of molecules. On the hypothesis of germinal 

 selection the properties of the animals which develop 

 from the biophors are extended to the biophors them- 

 selves. It was surely a desperate plight which evoked 

 this notion ! It is, as William James said about Mr 

 Bradley's intellectualism, mechanism in extremis ! 



We seem forced to the conclusion — and this is 

 the result to which all this discussion is intended to 

 approximate — that variations, heritable variations at 

 least, arise spontaneously. That is, there are organic 

 differences which have no causes, a conclusion against 

 which all our habits of reasoning rebel. Yet it may be 

 possible to argue that the problem of the causes of 

 variations is really a pseudo-problem after all, and 

 that there is no logical reason why we should be com- 

 pelled to postulate such causes. When we think of 

 organic variability, do we not think, surreptitiously it 

 may be, of something that varies, that is, something 

 that ought to be immutable but which is compelled to 

 deviate ? But what is given to our observation is 

 simply the variations among organisms. 



Let us think of the crude minting machines of 

 Tudor times which produced coins which were not very 

 similar in weight and design. From that time onward 

 minting machines have continually been improved, 

 each successive engine turning out coins more and 

 more alike in every respect, so that we now possess 

 machines which stamp out sovereigns as nearly as 

 possible identical with each other. Yet they are not 

 quite alike, and this is because the action of the engine, 

 in all its operations, is not invariably the same. In 

 imagination, however, we make a minting machine 

 which does work perfectly, and turns out coins abso- 

 lutely alike, but this ideal engine is only the conceptual 

 limit to a series of machines each of which is more nearly 



