November 13, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



725 



pointed out the imperfection of instinct)* ; the 

 point of difference between us being in their in- 

 terpretation with reference to the inheritance 

 of acquired characters. I hope the charge of 

 obscurity which he brought against my Science 

 articles holds to a less degree of the fuller pres- 

 entation of the case against Lamarckism in 

 the papers in the Naturalist. I may express the 

 wish — in the way of a friendly suggestion of a 

 reciprocal kind to Prof. Mills — that he take up 

 the arguments which I have advanced to show 

 that the Lamarckian view of heredity is not en- 

 titled to the exclusive use of the principle of use 

 and disuse, but that evolution may profit by the 

 adaptations of individual creatures without the 

 inheritance of acquired characters, through 

 what I have called Organic Selection, and show 

 why they do not apply. 



As to the * newness ' of the general view 

 which I have published, that is a matter of so 

 little importance that I refer to it only to dis- 

 avow having made untoward claims. Of course, 

 to us all ' newness ' is nothing compared with 

 'trueness.' As to the working of so-called 

 Social Heredity, I am not aware that I called 

 the position new, i. e., that social influences do 

 aid the individual in his development and 

 enable him to keep alive. This had been 

 taught by Wallace, and later was signalized — 

 as a note on my papers points out in Nature — by 

 Ritchie and by Weismann. What I thought was 

 new about Social Heredity was the name, which 

 seemed to me appropriate for reasons given 

 in the Naturalist articles, and also the use made 

 of it to illustrate the broader principle of Or- 

 ganic Selection — which latter principle I did and 

 do still think to be new. A word in regard to it. 



If we give up altogether the principle of modi- 

 fication by use and disuse, and the possibility of 

 new adaptations in a creature's own lifetime, we 

 must go back to the strictest Preformism . But to 

 say that such new adaptations influence phylo- 

 genetic evolution only in case they are inherited, 

 is to go over to the theory of Epigenesis. Now 

 what I hold is that these individual adaptations 

 are real {vs. Preformism), that they are not in- 

 herited {vs. Epigenesis), and yet that they influ- 



* The phrase ' half -congenital, ' referred toby Profs. 

 Mills and Bumpus, was used as expressive rather than 

 as a suggestion in terminology ! 



ence evolution. These adaptations keep cer- 

 tain creatures alive, so put a premium on the 

 variations which they represent, so ' determine ' 

 the direction of variation, and give the phylum 

 time to perfect as congenital the same functions 

 which were thus at first only private adapta- 

 tions. Thus the. same result may have come 

 about in many cases as if the Lamarckian view 

 of heredity were true. A case of special mi- 

 portance of this is seen in intelligent adaptations^ 

 and one of the most interesting fields of intelli- 

 gent adaptation as that of social cooperation.* 

 The general principle, therefore, that new 

 adaptations effected by the individual may set the 

 direction of evolution without the inheritance of 

 acquired characters is what I considered new and 

 called Organic Selection (also for reasons set 

 out in the Naturalist articles). 



Prof. Cattell, writing with thorough apprecia- 

 tion of the principle (in The Psychological Re- 

 view, September, 1896, p. 572), cites Darwin's 

 doctrine of Sexual Selection as a case from 

 the literature. This case also occurred to me 

 this summer. Apart altogether from the truth 

 or falsity of Sexual Selection, the use which 

 Darwin made of it was directly in the way of 

 what it seemed well to me to call Organic 

 Selection. Sexual Selection would be, if proved, 

 a particular and special case of Organic Selection. 

 But Darwin, as I think — subject to correction 

 by those more familiar with the literature — 

 found the importance of Sexual Selection in the 

 fact that it took effect directly in the pairing of 

 mates and so influenced posterity. I do not 

 know that Darwin advanced the general truth 

 that all personal adaptations which were of 

 'selective value' — i. e., which were useful 

 enough to enable a creature to escape with his 

 life — would bring about indirectly the sort of 

 effect upon pairing that Sexual Selection would. 

 But whether he did or not, if that be true, then 

 evidently the special case of Sexual Selection 

 does not cover the whole influence, and there is 

 the same reason for giving the whole influence 

 or 'factor' a name that Darwin had for giv- 



* These are the two main cases dealt with in my 

 Science articles, and to my mind (speaking for no 

 one else) the main interest attaching to the imper- 

 fection of instinct, discussed lately by various writers 

 in these pages, is that it shows this ' factor ' at work. 



