192 EVOLUTION 



elated : it is the fountain of change ; it is 

 aggressive, insurgent, even riotous, in its mul- 

 tiplication ; it struggles, it even chooses. 

 Rightly or wrongly, Function was also appre- 

 ciated : use and disuse have then- organic 

 consequences, and for Darwin these were, at 

 least in part, transmissible. Similarly the 

 Environment was appreciated, alike in mould- 

 ing and in pruning. Finally was added the 

 idea of Nature's environmental and adaptive 

 sifting the essentially new and triumphant 

 doctrine of Natural Selection. 



The post-Darwinian scepticism as to the 

 transmission of functional and environmental 

 modifications might seem to involve a denial 

 of the evolutionary importance of anything 

 but the varying organism and the winnowing 

 environment; but what it really means is that 

 the previous appreciation of the evolutionary 

 importance of function and of environment 

 was not subtle enough. We ask, therefore, 

 wherein the importance of function and en- 

 vironment may consist, if there is no direct 

 transmission of the individual modifications 

 which they undoubtedly produce. This in- 

 volves a careful inquiry into the relation 

 between organism and environment. 



RELATIONS BETWEEN ORGANISM AND EN- 

 VIRONMENT. (1) It is impossible to separate 





