SLOWNESS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 435 



as the environing conditions change, the species must readapt 

 itself to the new conditions, and the never-ceasing movement 

 within the germ-plasm must in 9,999 cases out of 10,000 present 

 a variation which can be selected by natural selection ; and all 

 those individuals presenting this variation will be selected, while 

 those who do not present it will be eliminated. Through the 

 mechanism of amphimixis, as we have seen, the adaptation of 

 the species is brought about and maintained by means of the 

 constant and ever-renewed intermingling of germ-plasms which 

 present the requisite favourable variation. The direct action 

 of chmate is, indeed, capable of efEecting variations, but its action 

 has certaiuly been exaggerated by Lamarck and, among biologists 

 of to-day, by Delage. Thus the process of readapting a species 

 is necessarily slow ; for the numerous somatic modifications 

 effected during the lifetime of the individual are not inherited, 

 and the change of environment is rarely so brusque and violent 

 as to require a brusque and violent transformation of the whole 

 species. In the majority of cases, when a sudden cataclysm 

 brings entirely new conditions into force, the old species succumb, 

 being unable to adapt themselves with sufficient rapidity to the 

 new conditions. 



It is otherwise with traditional progress. Here, once begun, 

 progress is far more rapid than is the case with organic progress. 

 We say " once begun." For Bagehot has long since pointed out 

 the great difficulty which primitive peoples, tied down to certain 

 customs and traditions, experience in breaking loose from these 

 traditions ; which, originally indispensable, subsequently become 

 obstacles to further progress. The great necessity, the indis- 

 pensable necessity, for primitive peoples, as Bagehot has re- 

 marked, is the integration of the tribe or the clan ; and this can 

 only be attained by unanimous adherence to a common leader 

 and a common pohty, the latter being summed up in a common 

 tradition. " The first thing to acquire is, if I may so express it, 

 the legal fibre ; a poUty first — ^what sort of polity is immaterial ; 



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