DARWINISM ATTACKED. 3* 



produced from germ-plasm, this variation being wholly- 

 fortuitous and fluctuating according to some (the belief of 

 Darwin and his followers), or, according to others, this 

 variation following certain fixed or determinate lines (de- 

 terminate variation, orthogenetic variation, etc.) ; (2) that 

 amphimixis, *'. e., bi-parental parentage, is the principal 

 cause of variation, it seeming logical to presume that indi- 

 viduals produced from germ-cells derived from the fusion 

 of germ-plasm coming from two individuals more or less 

 unlike would differ slightly from either of the parental 

 individuals; and (3) that congenital variation is due to the 

 influence of the ever-varying environment of the germ-cell 

 producing individuals. The objections to any one of these 

 theories may be very pertinent, as when one says regarding 

 the first that calling a thing "inherent" is not clearing up in 

 any degree a phenomenon for which we are demanding a 

 causo-mechanical explanation; or of the second that it has 

 been proved 7 that individuals produced parthenogenetically, 

 that is, from an unmated mother, vary and in some cases 

 vary even more than do other individuals of the same species 

 produced by amphimixis ; or of the third that as far as our 

 study of the actual processes and mechanism of the produc- 

 tion of germ-cells and of embryos has gone, we have found 

 no apparent means whereby this influence of the ambient 

 medium can be successfully impressed on the germ-plasm. 

 But however pertinent the objections to the why of varia- 

 tion may be they do not in any way invalidate the fact that 

 variations do continuously and inevitably occur in all indi- 

 viduals, and that while many of these variations are recog- 

 nisably such as have been impressed on the individual during 

 its personal development as immediate results of varying 

 temperature, amount or kind of food, degree of humidity, 

 etc., to which it may be exposed in its young life, others 

 seem wholly inexplicable on a basis of varying individual 

 environment and are certainly due to some antenatal influ- 



