244 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



adaptation of individuals to circumstances, he decomposed 

 the adaptation into factitious elements just as each of us 

 decomposes his own actions by taking account of the psycho- 

 logical language with which we are familiar. In fact ? 

 Lamarck expressed adaptation by bringing in an inter- 

 mediary stage of need. Such an animal, under such cir- 

 cumstances, experiences such needs, which determine the 

 animal to act in such and such a way ; and only for this 

 second part of adaptation the act resulting from the need 

 did he establish the law cc the function creates the organ." 



Darwin, not understanding the importance of Lamarck's 

 work, imagined the language of natural selection after the 

 fact. In Darwin's system all variations are fortuitous and 

 not adaptive. This enables us to explain a certain number 

 of things, especially in cases where the mechanism is not too 

 complicated ; and for this reason. Darwinians oftenest 

 choose their examples in the vegetable kingdom. With 

 animals it is impossible to dispense with Lamarckian ex- 

 planation ; and I have already shown a bond of union 

 Avhich may be established between the Lamarckian 

 and the Darwinian theory by applying the language of 

 natural selection after the fact, not to animals nor even to 

 the cells of animals, but to the smallest units susceptible of 

 independent variations. Yet even this is but a subterfuge, 

 and it would be better to take Lamarckism frankly as a 

 result of the direct and reversible influence of the colloid 

 mechanism on the chemical mechanism on one side, and on 

 the anatomical mechanism on the other. 



However this may be, by using now Lamarck's language 

 and now Darwin's, we are able, not to recount in detail 

 the progressive evolution which has led up to each present 

 species, but at least not to suffer amazement in presence of 

 the wonders of animal co-ordination. 



