354 ENVIEONMENT AMONG MEN 



of modifications are not cumulative. Unless in every successive 

 generation the modification is induced, it will not reappear. 

 Secondly these modifications on the whole tend, as in the case 

 of the effect of disease upon temperament, to be connected with 

 a condition of things that acts as a drag upon progress rather 

 than as a spur to progress. The reason for this is clear in the 

 light of what has been said in the last chapter. It was there 

 shown that the germinal constitution among species in a state 

 of nature has come to be through the action of selection of such 

 a kind that under certain stimuli it gives rise to a certain form. 

 This form is that which is best adapted to meet the normal 

 features which characterize the niche in the organic world which 

 the species occupies. Large modifications only become apparent 

 when the species or certain members of it are no longer subject 

 to their normal environment. To meet the new surroundings 

 a somewhat different germinal constitution would give a better 

 response. In other words the most satisfactory conditions are 

 those under which considerable modifications do not arise. 



Lastly we may again refer to a point that has already been 

 alluded to. Great stress has been laid by certain authors, for 

 instance by Professor Kidgeway, upon the influence of the 

 environment upon man. Eidgeway in one passage speaks as 

 follows : ' My argument was, and is, that as the ice sheet receded, 

 man passed upwards from the south or south-east into Europe, 

 and settled in the three southern peninsulas, gradually spreading 

 northwards over the Alps and extending eventually up to the 

 Baltic. As they gradually spread upwards, under the influence 

 of the environment (and in the environment I, of course, include 

 food), they grew less dark, those of them who settled permanently 

 along the axis of the Alps tending to have shorter skulls, while 

 those who had passed upwards earliest became the most blonde 

 and tallest people in the world.' ^ It is clear from other passages 

 that Eidgeway is including two very different things under the 

 phrase — the influence of the environment. He is thinking of the 

 production of modifications such as have been studied here, and 

 also of the elimination of certain types under the influence of the 

 environment. He does not make it as clear, as is perhaps desirable, 

 to which of these two factors he attributes most importance. 

 But what is more relevant to our argument is that to include 



' Ridgeway, J. A. I., vol. xl, p. 13. 



i 



