200 EVOLUTION 



Thus will arise a congenital predisposition to 

 the modifications in question." 



" The plasticity still continuing, the modi- 

 fications become yet further adaptive. Thus 

 plastic modification leads, and germinal varia- 

 tion follows; the one paves the way for the 

 other." 



" The modification, as such, is not inherited, 

 but is the condition under which congenital 

 variations are favoured and given time to get 

 a hold on the organism, and are thus enabled 

 by degrees to reach the fully adaptive level." 



Yet another consideration. Although we 

 do not know of any case of the transmission 

 of a modification as such, or even in a repre- 

 sentative degree, we, of course, agree with 

 Weismann in admitting that modifications 

 may have secondary effects on the germ-cells, 

 and thus on the offspring. In this way " nur- 

 ture " may come to have a racial importance. 

 Nor can we forget that the environment of 

 mammalian mothers is bound to have an 

 influence on the unborn young, which shares 

 the maternal life so closely. Apart from the 

 " mysterious wireless telegraphy of ante- 

 natal life," there is a sharing of the diffusible 

 substances carried by the blood. 



THE ROLE OF FUNCTION. We cannot go 

 back to the cruder forms of the Lamarckian 



