METHODS 129 



Consequently, if we apply the Darwinian language to the 

 independent units which go to make up the cell, we shall 

 find that the cell behaves exactly as it should in Lamarck's 

 theory ; that is, having been long subjected to certain deter- 

 mined conditions, under whose influence it continues to 

 live, it will fatally end by being adapted to these conditions 

 just so far as its nature allows. There will take place in it 

 partial assimilations and destructions which, guided by 

 Natural Selection, will end by transforming its mechanism 

 into the mechanism needed. 



But this result will be obtained only in case the living body 

 continues to live. When we subject a living being to new 

 conditions we do not know beforehand that it will not 

 die of them. All we can say is that, if it does not die, it 

 will accustom itself to them just so far as its mechanism 

 allows no one does more than he can. 



Thus, by a subterfuge, we apply the Darwinian method, 

 not directly to the living individuals, but to the smallest 

 independent units which go to constitute such individuals ; 

 and thus we patch up an agreement between Darwin's 

 theory and that of Lamarck between selection of chance 

 variations after the fact and direct adaptation. But it is 

 only a subterfuge and with it we in reality adopt whole and 

 entire Lamarck's idea that the medium acts on the inmost 

 tissues of a living being by means of the mechanism which 

 that living being is. 



A great American paleontologist, Cope, without going 

 into these considerations, has acknowledged that there may 

 be two methods of variation in the living being cinetogenesis 

 and physiogenesis. 



The first genesis of variations by movement comprises 

 those cases in which the influence of the surrounding medium 

 first sets going the entire mechanism of the individual and 



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