FINAL CAUSES 117 



discovered goes to prove it to be true, though the process 

 may have been a gradual one, and only perfected through 

 very many generations. 



In fact. Evolution is based on tlie principle that 

 protoplasm /ms within it an infinite potentiality of adap- 

 tation ; and when our author objects to M. Littre's 

 expression about organised matter having the power of 

 adapting or adjusting itself, he does not refute it by say- 

 ing, " Let men but think of it, and they will own that 

 there does not exist a sort of entity called organised 

 matter, endowed, one knows not why or how, with the 

 property of attaining ends ; what really exists is a 

 totality of solids, liquids, tissues, canals, hard parts and 

 soft parts — in a word, an incalculable totality of second 

 causes and blind agents, that all unite in a common 

 action, which is life".^ Now, this, in a sense, is true ; but 

 it is not one whit the less true that it is, so to say, a 

 plastic whole ; for, although when a creature is once born 

 into the world, and has grown to maturity, it can rarely 

 change its form much after that, any more than " the 

 leopard its spots " ; ^ yet, by the power of inherent ad- 

 aptability, its offspring can during growth acquire a form 

 and structure different in some degree from the parent's ; 

 and so after several generations can produce a new species, 

 abounding in so-called "ends" which were not to be 

 found in the original ancestral form. 



It is, in fact, just this plasticity of organised matter 

 (for want of a better expression), to which is due the 

 marvellous results which, per se, have all the appearance 



ip. 221. 



^ This expression, as symbolical of fixity, is singularly inappropriate, 

 for the colour of the skin of even one and the same animal is extremely 

 variable, according to circumstances, as is the case with trout, frogs, and, 

 above all, the chameleon, 



