340 Appendix A 



" What appears to be new, therefore, in Organic Selection is, 

 first, the emphasis laid upon the almost unlimited powers of 

 individual adaptation ; second, the extension of such adapta- 

 tion without any effect upon heredity for long periods of time ; 

 third, that heredity slowly adapts itself to the needs of a race i?i a 

 new environment along lines anticipated by individual adaptation^ 

 and therefore along definite and determi7iate lines. 



" Professor Alfred Wallace has recently indorsed this hypoth- 

 esis in a review of Professor Morgan's work. Habit afid 

 Instinct, in the March, 1897, number of Natural Sciefice in the 

 following language : ' Modification of the individual by the 

 environment, whether in the direction of structure or of hab- 

 its, is universal and of considerable amount, and it is almost 

 always, under the conditions, a beneficial modification. But 

 every kind of beneficial modification is also being constantly 

 effected through variation and natural selection, so that the 

 beautifully perfect adaptations we see in nature are the result 

 of a double process, being partly congenital, partly acquired. 

 Acquired modifications thus help on congenital change by giv- 

 ing time for the necessary variations in many directions to be 

 selected, and we have here another answer to the supposed 

 difficulty as to the necessity of many coincident variations in 

 order to bring about any effective advance of the organism. 

 In one year favorable variations of one kind are selected and 

 individual modifications in other directions enable them to be 

 utilized ; in Professor Lloyd Morgan's words : " Modification 

 as such is not inherited, but is the condition under which con- 

 genital variations are favored and given time to get a hold on 

 the organism, and are thus enabled by degrees to reach the 

 fully adaptive level." The same result will be produced by 

 Professor Weismann's recent suggestion of " germinal selection," 

 so that it 7107V appears as if all the theoretical objections to the 

 " adequacy of natural selectio?i " have been theoretically answered."* 

 (Italics our own.) 



" Moreover, in course of discussion of this subject with my 

 friends Professors Lloyd Morgan, Baldwin, and Poulton, a very 

 fundamental difference of opinion becomes apparent ; for they 



