362 Appendix B 



II. Professor Conn ^ 



" One of the most recent contributions to the method of evo- 

 lution has the merit of having been conceived independently 

 by three different naturalists, and recognized from the first as 

 a factor of significance by prominent advocates of both the Neo- 

 Darwinian and Neo-Lamarckian schools. It has been called 

 organic selection. The sources from which this idea sprung were 

 quite different, its authors being, one a psychologist, one a pale- 

 ontologist, and the third a naturalist who has made a special 

 study of instincts. From such different standpoints the argu- 

 ments that have led to the theory have been somewhat varied. 

 In general it may be said that these naturalists came to this 

 theory because they felt the inadequacy of Natural Selection, as 

 previously understood, to account for all the facts, and because 

 they felt that the Lamarckian factor is at least doubtful, and, 

 even if true, is perhaps not sufficient to meet the demands made 

 upon it. The theory of organic selection is, in a sense, a com- 

 promise between the views of the two chief schools. With 

 Neo-Darwinism it abandons the inheritance of acquired charac- 

 ters, but with Neo-Lamarckism it puts the influence of acquired 

 characters foremost in guiding the course of evolution." 



Ontogenetic Variations 



" In the first place a sharper contrast than ever is drawn be- 

 tween such variations as result from heredity and those which 

 arise from the direct action of the environment upon the individ- 

 ual. This is, of course, simply the difference between congenital 

 and acquired variations, but the latter are now regarded as form- 

 ing a much larger share in the make-up of an individual than 

 has previously been supposed. The life of an individual may 

 be supposed to begin at the time of the fertilization of the ^g'g. 

 By this time all the hereditary traits that he is to receive are 

 already combined in the egg, ?>., all his congenital characters 

 are within him. But from this moment there begin to act upon 



1 From The Method of Evolution, by H, W. Conn, 1900, pp. 303 f. 



