150 THE THEOKY OF EVOLUTION 



determined. Thus can Lamarck explain the origin 

 and preservation of the types. 



Some modes in which, according to palaeontology, the 

 formation of differently constructed organic forms pro- 

 ceeded viz. increase of size, specialization, regression 

 can certainly be partially explained as Lamarck proposes. 



(2) N eo-Lamarckism. 



(i) Statement. We have seen how Lamarck ex- 

 plained organic adaptation. He ascribed to the organism 

 itself the faculty, in the first place, of recognizing in 

 some way the newly arising requirements, of perceiving 

 such, and then, by willed and conscious (?) efforts, of 

 meeting the new needs and altering the organs con- 

 cerned in a purposeful manner. The adaptation to 

 a purpose which we now see completed before us is 

 thus the result of striving towards the purpose by the 

 organism itself : it is a self-adaptation. 



This self-adaptation Darwin has denied, and in its 

 place put the survival of such as, by chance, are the 

 fittest. That was a mighty retrograde step as con- 

 trasted with Lamarck, as is gradually more and more 

 recognized. The natural historians and philosophers 

 who in the last few years have again, in large numbers, 

 reverted to Lamarck's ideas, term themselves neo-La- 

 marckians and partly as of the ( psychobiological school/ 1 



1 As their chief representatives, who also have published formal pro- 

 grammes, we may mention : A. Pauly (Darwinismus und Lamarckismus), 

 A. Wagner (Der neue Kurs in der Biologie), the GescMchte des Lamarckismus, 

 and some smaller writings. R. H. Franc 5 (Das Leben der Pflanze., Stuttgart, 

 1905-1908) cannot be placed on the same level as the other investigators 

 named, despite Professor Wagner's defence. 



