NOVEMBER 19, 1897. ] 
“use-inheritance’ (as Himer, who calls the de- 
termination secured by this means Orthogen- 
esis); Weismann says, ‘germinal selection; I 
have suggested ‘ Organic Selection’ (the result- 
ing determination of evolution being called by 
me ‘Orthoplasy’); others say, ‘determinate 
variation ’ (continued in the same direction for 
successive generations) ; Professor Osborn says, 
‘determinate variation’ with ‘organic selec- 
tion.’ Determinate variation, then, in the proper 
meaning of that term, is only one way of ac- 
counting for determinate evolution ; and to my 
mind, it is not the true way; at any rate it is 
not at all involved in the theory of ‘organic 
selection’ as I have advocated it. 
Let us look more closely at ‘determinate 
variation.’ Supposing that by variation we 
mean ‘congenital variation,’ then we may ask: 
When are variations determinate? When for 
any reason they are distributed about a mean 
different from that required by the law of 
probability or chance. The problem of deter- 
minate variations is purely one of distribution ; 
and is to be investigated for each generation, 
quite apart from its holding for a number of 
successive generations (and so giving ‘ determi- 
nate evolution’). 
Further, the possible determinateness of vari- 
ation is to be distinguished carefully from the 
extent or width of variation. By ‘extent’ of 
variation is meant the limits of distribution of 
eases about their own mean; while relative 
determinateness means the distribution of cases 
about a mean established in the earlier gen- 
eration. The question of determinate vari- 
ation is: Has any influence worked to make the 
mean of variation of the new generation different 
from that which should be expected from the char- 
acters of their parents, * whatever the extent of 
variation. 
*T expressly avoid saying what this mean is, 7. e., 
what the contribution of each parent is to the aver- 
age individual of their offspring ; but the work of 
Galton goes far to establish it. Much more investi- 
gation is needed on this point of making out what is 
indeterminate variation ; how insecure, therefore, the 
claim that variations are determinate! The drift of 
recent statistical studies goes, however (as far as I 
am familiar with them ), directly toshow that in 
their distribution—considered apart from their ex- 
tent— variations follow the probability curve. 
SCIENCE. 
ol 
2. AsI have said in a recent article * the as- 
sumption of the paleontologists (Osborn, loc. cit., 
pp. 584-5) that because certain fossils show de- 
terminate progress—determinate evolution, there- 
fore there must have been determinate variation, 
seems to me defective logic. It is one pos- 
sibility among others, certainly, but only one. 
And as I held in the same article, instead 
of being necessary as a support for organic se- 
lection, the latter comes as a new resource to 
diminish the probability that the variations 
have really been determinate in these cases. 
They may be cases of orthoplasy involving or- 
ganic selection working as an aid to natural 
selection upon ‘coincident’ variations which 
are yet not determinate but fortuitous in the 
strict sense. 
3. Without going into the question, I may 
yet point out that the position taken by Pro- 
fesser Poulton in the matter of the relation of 
natural to organic selection is, as he says, that 
advocated by me (with some of the same argu- 
ments) ; but it may be recalled that I gave 
natural selection still further emphasis by mak- 
ing the ‘functional selection from overproduced 
movements,’ whereby motor accommodations 
are secured, itself a case of natural selection 
broadly understood. Ihave recently drawn up 
a table showing the various sorts of ‘ selection’ 
under the distinction of ‘means’ and (immedi- 
ate) ‘result,’ finding some twelve sorts of selec- 
tion. I venture to reprint this table here, with 
the remarks which accompany it in my book on 
“Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental 
Development’ (Macmillan, 1897), hoping that it 
may be discussed. The terms in the table which 
relate to social evolution are fully explained in 
the book ; they are not so essential to the topic 
now before us. 
The table and the remarks upon it (loc. cit., 
Appendix B), slightly revised, are as fol- 
lows : 
“The various sorts of ‘Selection’ which it 
seems well to distinguish in different connec- 
tions may be thrown together in the following 
table, the corresponding sections of the book 
(as far as there are such sections) being in each 
case given in brackets in the table beside the 
description : 
* The Psychological Review, July, 1897, p. 397. 
