FACTS 245 



Fritz Miiller's Principle 



For the sake of recounting the origin of species, we shall 

 not take up again the line of consideration followed out in 

 recounting the individual evolution of a being. Our com- 

 parison between reproduction and a moult that suppresses 

 the persistent skeleton is enough to show that the same 

 language would be applicable. We can even transform our 

 symbolic formulae by comprising the result of an entire 

 individual life in a single equation and repeating for the 

 transmission of acquired characters what we have said of 

 the acquisition itself. 



Let 0,1, a 2 , . . . a n be the initial hereditary patrimonies of 

 successive generations ; and let 6 1? & 2 , - b n be the total 

 educations of each individual life. We can then represent 

 by the symbolic formula (a n x b n ) the whole vital function- 

 ing taken all together of the individual who is the nth term 

 of the series ; and we shall have this series of symbolic 

 equations : 



i + (i x bj = a 2 

 a* + (a 2 x 6 2 ) 3 



The series of these symbolic equations represents specific 

 evolution just as the corresponding series represented in- 

 dividual evolution. 



A complication arises from the fact that, for the most 

 part, each child is the issue of two parents ; and so the 

 hereditary patrimony of the nth generation will not be a n , 

 but a compromise between two different patrimonies belong- 

 ing to two different individuals ; and this may be represented 

 symbolically by 



(<* + '.\ 

 V 2 )' 



