64 GERMINAL SELECTION. 



the degeneration of superfluous parts, that a her 

 of acquired characters would perform, without rei 

 ing necessary so violent an assumption. I have al 

 conceded that many transformations actually do 

 parallel to the use and disuse of the parts,! that tl 

 fore it does really look as if functional acquisitioi 

 the individual life were hereditary. But if it be t 

 that passively functioning parts, that is, parts w 

 are not alterable during the individual life by func 

 obey the same laws and also degenerate when the; 

 come useless, then we shall scarcely be able to n 

 our assent to a view which explains both cases, 

 certainly cannot be the physiological function -w 

 provokes modifications in the individual, which 

 then subsequently transmitted to the germ and in 

 way made hereditary, if funcHonless parts also ch 

 when they become useless. It is precisely this use 

 ness, then, from which the initial impulse eman 

 and the primary modification is not in the soma 

 in the germ. 



The Lamarckians were right when they mainta 

 that 'the factor for which hitherto the name of nal 

 selection had been exclusively reserved, viz., pers 

 selection, was insufficient for the explanation of 

 phenomena. They were also right when they decl 

 that panmixia in the form in which until recent 

 held the theory was also insufficient to explain 

 degeneration of parts that had grown useless, but 



' Poulton has adverted to the fact that this is neve 

 less not always the case; for example, it is not so witl 

 teeth, whose shape it had also been sought to reduc 

 the mechanical effects of pressure and friction. See 

 Theory of Selection" in The Proceedings of the Boston 

 ciety of Natural History, Vol. XX., page 389. 1894. 



