THE EVOLUTION PROCESS 233 



leave life's wonder-feast readers and writers 

 alike ? Here, then, in preceding chapters 

 have been offered summaries and interpreta- 

 tions not a few: some are master-keys, tested 

 by long and world-wide use, others awaiting 

 trial and verification; but most, surely, of 

 some applicability. In conclusion, and not 

 as dogmatically pressed, but suggestively 

 offered, the reader may be interested in some 

 brief outlines of a different reinterpretation of 

 the evolution process one not as yet fully 

 published, still less seriously criticized by 

 other biologists; one suggested at the close 

 of our "Evolution of Sex," outlined in scattered 

 papers and lecture syllabuses, and with its 

 beginnings compressed into a too dry abstract 

 at the close of the old " Britannica " article 

 44 Variation and Selection," many years ago. 



Let us start from the acceptedly known, 

 from Darwin's natural selection, and this of 

 " indefinite " variations, and express the pro- 

 blem before us in the words of Weismann : " We 

 certainly cannot remain at the purely empiri- 

 cal conception of variability and heredity as 

 laid down by Darwin in his admirable work. 

 In the first enthusiasm over the newly dis- 

 covered principle of selection, the one factor 

 of transformation contained in this principle 

 has been unduly pushed into the background 



