OBJECTIONS TO 'SELF-ADAPTATION' 153 



If these variable colours represented the beginnings 

 of ordinary fixed colour variations the species would 

 lose and not gain by the change. The essence of the 

 protective value is the power of being concealed in each 

 of several different environments, and hereditary trans- 

 mission of the results would only injure the individuals 

 of the next generation. The intricacy of the processes 

 by which the stimulus gives rise to each appropriate 

 colour-effect is no difficulty to the interpretation based 

 on Natural Selection — 'an agency capable of dealing 

 with complex physiological relationships in precisely 

 the same way that it deals with all other kinds of 

 variations V 



The barren conception of ' self-adaptation ' — the hypo- 

 thesis that organisms possess a constitution which compels 

 them to react adaptively, breaks down when we find the 

 adaptation is only possible by means of a specialized 

 and complex train of physiological sequences. 



We must remember that the species we investigate 

 are ' heirs of all the ages ', thoroughly inured to experi- 

 mental research, past masters in the art of meeting 

 by adaptive response the infinite variety of stimulus 

 provided by the environment. If we remember this 

 we shall always be on our guard against a too hasty 

 interpretation based on the fundamental properties of 

 protoplasm. 2 



The hypothesis that organisms are so built that 

 they must produce useful variations seems to be little 

 more than the old 'internal developmental force', or 

 ' innate tendency towards perfection', in a modern dress. 

 Furthermore, a consideration of the essential meaning 

 of adaptation proves the futility of any such attempt at 

 explanation. The ultimate object of adaptation is to 

 obtain food, to escape enemies, or to subserve reproduc- 

 tion. The most conspicuous adaptations manifested by 



1 Professor Meldola in Nature, vol. xxxviii, r888, p. 389. See also 

 Professor Meldola's Presidential Address in Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1896, 

 pp. lxx, lxxi ; and the first scientific paper published by him, viz. Proc. 

 Zool. Soc, 1873, p. 153. 



2 Nature, vol. lxxi, 1905, p. 244. 



