THE PROBLEMS PRESENTED 25 



in his small book on Physiological Psychology, with reference to the 

 inheritance of acquired characters, tnat it is a " proposition which 

 most biologists at the present time are inclined to deny because 

 they cannot conceive how sucn transmission can be effected. 

 Nevertheless the rejection of this view leaves us with insuperable 

 difficulties when we attempt to account for the evolution of the 

 nervous system, and there are no established facts with which it is 

 incompatible." 1 I am aware that in the scheme of observed 

 nature there is evidence of no iron necessity, that the convenience 

 of psychologists should be provided for, and they, like others of us, 

 have to do the best they can with the tools and the materials which 

 exist, and I agree with Professor Thomson in his remark on Mis- 

 understanding No. 1, ■' that our first business is to find out the facts 

 of the case, careless whether it makes our interpretation of the 

 history of life more or less difficult," 2 but I am persuaded that he 

 will not treat lightly such a statement, from such a source, on such 

 a subject as that I have quoted from Professor McDougall. As 

 to his second statement on the same page " that in the supply of 

 terminal variations, whose transmissibility is unquestioned, there is 

 ample raw material for evolution " it is important as an opinion, 

 and no more, and there is in the present connection, an elusivene ss 

 about it which prevents one allowing it to pass. It should be noted 

 that stress is laid upon the term " variations " and from the context 

 this means congenital full-blown " characters " such as those that 

 Weismann says are provided in the germ guided by selection. At 

 any rate, initial modifications are not signified by Professor Thom- 

 son's remark. So for evolution of forms of life it is possible the 

 assertion may be true, but apart from distribution of variations, 

 under the process called amphimixis, some starting point is required 

 for the initial and wholly useless stages of many variations. These 

 may or may not become " characters " or adaptive. 



What the Problems are not. 



The ground may be cleared here by saying what our problems 

 are not. There is no question as to whether Lamarckism or 

 Darwinism represents the predominant partner in the story of life ; 

 there is no question of the " relative importance of natural selection 

 and the Lamarckian factors in organic evolution," though such a 

 question may arise when once Lamarckism has received its passport 

 from the authorities ; but the time is not yet. Nor is it a question 

 as to the reason why adaptive modifications are so constantly 



1 Physiological-Psychology, 1911, p. 156. 

 3 Op. cit., p. 179. 



