88 WHAT IS LIFE 



principle or force in Nature are also guilty of a 

 mere verbal explanation, such a retort on super- 

 ficial examination would appear to have some 

 force. But there is really no resemblance between 

 the two conditions, as will be shown in the con- 

 cluding chapter of this book. 



To return to the question of adaptations ; when 

 your hardened opponent of all esoteric explanations 

 is sore gravelled to account for a fact " adapta- 

 tion " is the steed on which he usually declares to 

 win. Thus Weismann, endeavouring to account 

 for behaviour on the part of a tubularia, which, to 

 say the least of it, hardly seems to harmonise with 

 the theories of that distinguished biologist, 1 says : 

 " This also appears to us to be adaptive, and does 

 not surprise us, since we have long been ac- 

 customed to recognise that what is adapted to an 

 end will realise this if it be possible at all," and 

 again, in a passage in which we have Nature 

 broughti in in the manner above alluded to : " It 

 was, so to speak, not worth Nature's while to 

 make such adaptations ". It must be quite obvious 

 to any person who thinks that such an explanation 

 Adaptation is really no explanation at all. A mowing-machine 

 of machines . g nQ fo^t adapted for keeping a lawn smooth 



and a pump for raising water from a well, but 

 both of these are so adapted because they have 



1 The Evolution Theory, ii., 9. 



