REVIEW OF THE POSITION 19 



and of the origin of species in the uni -cellular organisms are the 

 Lamarckian factors, just as in the multicellular the only cause of 

 these is natural selection. Thus we see standing at the critical date, 

 1892, the first Eddystone lighthouse of Winstanley, a greater and 

 more important structure than the old pharos. 



Germinal Selection. 



It can hardly be doubted that one of the " thunderclouds " 

 threatening Darwinism, of which Weismann spoke in 1895, was 

 this examination of Weismannism by Romanes. As the case stood 

 then some fresh strategy was needed if victory for Darwin was to 

 be won, at least so the great leader said. It must be remembered 

 that it was the personal selection of Darwin which was held to be 

 in danger. Accordingly germinal selection was brought forth and 

 remained the basis of Weismann's later Evolution Theory of 

 1904 and 1909. Romanes did not live to see or assist in the disproof 

 of this ambitious piece of work so that his " examination "is so far 

 incomplete. 



The position of germinal selection is defined in Weismann's 

 statement that " it is the adaptive requirement itself that produces 

 the useful direction of variation by means of selectional processes 

 within the germ." Here it is in a nutshell. The theory itself 

 is consistent, and clearness has been added to tho earlier evolution 

 theory by the claim that a struggle for nutriment occurs within 

 the fertilised ovum between the innumerable determinants of the 

 different parts, so that maintenance or victory over weaker deter- 

 minants takes place. Thus we have a survival of the fittest in petto 

 in the germ analogous to that of the individual organisms as we see 

 them. There is of course a resemblance here to the cellular or 

 histonal selection of Roux, but his doctrines are not weighted with 

 the intolerable dogma of the non-inheritance of acquired characters. 

 But ultimately this conception of germinal selection has to come 

 down and bow to the tribunal of facts, and the remark of Weismann 

 on Lamarckism which has been already quoted, " It seems to me 

 that an hypothesis of this kind has performed its service and must 

 be discarded the moment it is found to be at hopeless variance with 

 the facts," confronts the consistent Weismannian. And I venture 

 to say here that germinal selection is represented by the Eddystone 

 lighthouse of 1756-9 erected by Smeaton. 



The grounds for this statement are afforded by numerous facts 

 and experiments, to which in the later chapters I propose to add a 

 few fresh ones, and by a growing body of opinion and authority 

 in favour of Lamarckian factors in evolution. 



c 2 



