GERMINAL SELECTION 471 



shall be in the foreground and find expression, and which shall 

 remain in the background, and latent ? Or is it enough to 

 suppose that the cytoplasmic soil — the cell — in which the 

 analogous determinants find themselves, and environmental 

 influences in the widest sense, decide which determinants are 

 to be liberated and to find expression ? Weismann suggests 

 that we may reach a clearer possible image of occurrences if we 

 introduce the concept of struggle. 



The analogous determinants need not all be of equal strength, 

 and when they liberate their biophors in the appropriate area 

 there may be a struggle amongst these ; or long before it comes 

 to the actual liberation and dissolution of determinants there 

 may be a struggle between them. They are by hypothesis 

 living units, feeding, growing, and multiplying, and if there are 

 inequalities amongst them, as there may well be, since some 

 are older and others younger and since they have had diverse 

 histories, then there may be struggle amongst them, and here 

 too — as in the wider world of nature — the weaker may go to 

 the wall. Moreover, the analogous determinants need not be 

 all different from one another ; similars may, so to speak, support 

 one another in development, while incompatibly different forms 

 may be in a minority and have little chance of asserting them- 

 selves. All this is apt to become anthropomorphic speculation, 

 but then the determinants are alive. 



