208 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



ence of use and disuse, accumulated through inheritance? 



That is, if we accept Plate's analysis that the theory is 



really not one of a battle of the parts, but of 



The battle of e , 



the parts theory the effects of functional stimuli. And however 

 is a special case ^he p rO poser of the theory may protest against 

 such an apparent violent setting over of it from 

 the category of selection (Darwinian) theories into that of 

 the inheritance of use (Lamarckian) theories, I believe that 

 most of us will see the justness of Plate's analysis. I do 

 not believe that Roux's theory in any way strengthens the 

 selection conception. To my mind, indeed, it is simply a 

 concession of the inadequacy of selection to initiate adapta- 

 tion, and a welcome and satisfying explanation of how such 

 an initiation may occur in many cases, in certain cases, that 

 is, of active adaptations. Plate's argument that natural 

 selection must be the only explanation for the cases of 

 passive adaptations and hence may be held capable for 

 accounting for the active ones, has no conviction for me, for 

 I do not believe that natural selection is the only possible 

 explanation of the passive cases. In fact, I cannot conceive 

 it to be a possible explanation of the initiation of these cases. 

 And I am glad to find in Roux's theory even if it be not 

 exactly applied in Roux's own sense a mechanical expla- 

 nation of the possibility of initiating certain fine and delicate 

 inner adaptations. 



Organic Selection. An interesting attempt to escape from 



the dlfficulHeir^wmch are imposed on one by an absolute 



adherence to Weismann's doctrine of the impos- 



tion* g orthoplasyi sibility of the inheritance of acquired characters 



or ontogenetic coupled with a belief in the inadequacy of the 



selection, . , 



slight fluctuating germinal variations to afford 



handles for the action of natural selection, is the theory va- 

 riously called organic selection, or orthoplasy, proposed by 

 Baldwin 8 and Osborn 9 in America, and Lloyd Morgan 10 in 

 England. This theory, which might also be called one of 



