INADEQUACY OF NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 665 



thus modified by " a fortuitous concourse of atoms." Now if this 

 is an allowable supposition in respect of the " determinants," and 

 the varying organs arising from them, why is it not an allow- 

 able supposition in respect of the organism as a whole ? Why not 

 assume " a fortuitous concourse of atoms " in its broad, simple 

 form ? Nay, indeed, would not this be much the easier ? For 

 observe, this co-adaptation of numerous co-operative parts is not 

 achieved by one set of variations, but is achieved gradually by a 

 series of such sets. That is to say, the " fortuitous concourse of 

 atoms " must have occurred time after time in appropriate ways. 

 We have not one miracle, but a series of miracles ! 



Of the two remaining points in Professor W^eismann's first 

 article which demand notice, one concerns his reply to my argu- 

 ment drawn from the distribution of tactual discriminativeness. In 

 what way does he treat this argument ? He meets it by an argu- 

 ment derived from hypothetical evidence — not actual evidence. 

 Taking the case of the tongue-tip, I have carefully inquired 

 whether its extreme power of tactual discrimination can give any 

 life-saving advantage in moving about the food during mastica- 

 tion, in detecting foreign bodies in it, or for purposes of speech ; 

 and have, I think, shown that the ability to distinguish between 

 points one twenty-fourth of an inch apart is useless for such pur- 

 poses. Professor Weismann thinks he disposes of this by observ- 

 ing that among the apes the tongue is used as an organ of touch. 

 But surely a counter-argument equivalent in weight to mine 

 should have given a case in which power to discriminate between 

 points one twenty-fourth of an inch apart instead of one-twentieth 

 of an inch apart (a variation of one-sixth) had a life-saving 

 eflRcacy ; or, at any rate, should have suggested such a case. 

 Nothing of the kind is done or even attempted. But now note 

 that his reply, accepted even as it stands, is suicidal. For what 

 has the trusted process of panmixia been doing ever since the 

 human being began to evolve from the ape ? W^hy during thou- 

 sands of generations has not the nervous structure giving this 

 extreme discriminativeness dwindled away ? Even supposing it 

 had been proved of life-saving efficacy to our simian ancestors, it 

 ought, according to Professor Weismann's own hypothesis, to 

 have disappeared in us. Either there was none of the assumed 

 special capacity in the ape's tongue, in which case his reply fails, 

 or panmixia has not operated, in which case his theory of degene- 

 racy fails. 



All this, however, is but preface to the chief answer. The 

 argument drawn from the case of the tongue-tip, with which 

 alone Professor Weismann deals, is but a small part of my argu- 

 ment, the remainder of which he does not attempt to touch — 



