Heredity, Variation and Geniics 39 



III. 



Objections can certainly be raised to bar instant 

 assent to the doctrine of a cloistered seclusion of 

 the germ-plasm. Whence the infinite possibility 

 of variations without help from without, the accu- 

 mulated gains of development through the ages, 

 the exhaustless evolution of new energy without 

 any corresponding involution, the eternal unfold- 

 ing of things without a precedent infolding ? 

 Although it is true that by calling the variations 

 spontaneous it is not supposed that they are 

 special creations springing into miraculous being 

 inexhaustibly, meant only to imply that although 

 coming somehow from somewhere the unknown 

 causes of their origin and initial sproutings are 

 yet mysteries, it is still asking much in the absence 

 of positive knowledge to grant all the creative 

 independence claimed for them. The causes 

 and laws of variational origins may after all have 

 no small bearing on the question whether acquired 



what they do or do not imply. Is thought reason, or is it 

 strictly only conscious reason? And if ever unconscious reason, 

 where and by what is the rational work done ? The doctrine of 

 rational materialism, I imagine, is that a static reason or ratio 

 in mental structuralization which becomes explicit in thought 

 is implied in the justly proportionate or ratio-na.1 constitution : 

 reason invisible structure, as structure is visible reason. If 

 reason in mental structure becomes by some most subtile 

 process of cerebral reflection conscious, is that really more 

 wonderful than for a wondering savage to see himself by 

 reflection in a mirror ? 



