. OcTOBER, 1914.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 291 
evolution. Even the lowest organisms learn by experience how to make 
effective response to environment stimuli, and some modification of the 
protoplasm must take place which renders the act easier with practice. 
Every cell takes in a certain amount of potential energy in the form of 
food for its own use, and there is usually something to be handed on to its 
descendents. The principle may be expressed as a Law of the accumulation 
of surplus energy. 
Given an accumulation of surplus energy progressive evolution must 
follow. The egg cell might be regarded as an accumulation of surplus 
energy, and thus it was possible to avoid the troublesome question of the 
inheritance of acquired characters. Slow successive variation is not chance 
variation, but is due to fundamental properties of living protoplasm, and is 
necessarily cumulative. The recapitulation of phylogenetic history in the 
individual is a logical necessity if evolution has taken place, for even the 
higher organisms start with the cell. The cell divides and the daughter 
cells may remain in union and forma colony. Succeeding cells no longer 
remain all alike, but become differentiated into two groups, which we call 
Somatic cells and germ cells. Evolution is a continuous process, but 
with the introduction of the sexual process it became broken up into 
a series of ontogenies, at the close of which the organism has to go back 
and make a fresh start in the unicellular condition—the somatic cells 
become exhausted in their conflict with the environment and perish, 
leaving the germ cells to take up the running. The latter take no 
part in the struggle for existence to which the body is exposed. They 
simply multiply and absorb nutriment under the protection of the body, 
and therefore retain their potential energy unimpaired. Under suitable~ 
Conditions—i.e., if exposed to the pfoper environmental stimuli—these give 
tise to new organisms like those from which they originated. 
One necessary condition is the union of the germ cells in pairs to form 
Zygotes or fertilised ova. But the sexual process might be left out of 
Consideration, for organic evolution must have taken place if no such event 
a8 amphimixis had ever occurred. The behaviour of an organism at any 
moment depends on two sets of factors, the nature of its own constitution 
On the one hand, and the nature of its environment on the other. 
Throughout the whole course of ontogeny an organism must repeat 
with approximate accuracy stages passed through by its ancestors; at every 
Stage it does what its ancestors did under like conditions. 
An organism inherits two things, a certain amount of protaplasm loaded 
with potential energy, and an approximate environment, and one is useless 
