66 GERMINAL SELECTION. 



personal selection^ as it was enunciated by Darwin and 

 Wallace, that of histonal selection as it was estab- 

 lished by Wilhelm Roux in the form of a "struggle 

 of the parts," and finally that of germinal selection? 

 whose existence and eflficacy I have endeavored to sub- 

 stantiate in this article — ^these are the factors that have 

 co-operated to maintain the forms of life in a constant 

 state of viability and to adapt them to theii- conditions 

 of life, now modifying them pari passu with their en- 

 vironment, and now maintaining them on the stage 

 attained, when that environment is not altered. 



Everything is adapted in animate nature^ and has 

 been from the first beginnings of life ; for adaptiveness 

 of organisation is here equivalent to the power to exist, 

 and they alone have had the power to exist who have 

 permanently existed. We know of only one natural 

 principle of explanation for this fact — that of selection 



'^ As the highest stage of selective processes must be re- 

 garded that between the highest biological units, the colonies 

 or cormi — a stage, however, which is not essentially different 

 from personal selection. In this stage the persons enact the 

 part that the organs play in personal selection. Like their 

 prototypes they also battle with one another for food and in 

 this way maintain harmony in the colony. But the result of 

 the struggle endures only during the life of the individual 

 colony and can be transmitted through the germ-cells to the 

 following generation as little as can histological changes 

 provoked by use in the individual person. Only that which 

 issues from the germ has duration. 



2 This statement has often been declared extravagant, and 

 it is so if it is taken in its strict literalness. On the other 

 hand, it would also seem, by a more liberal interpretation, as 

 if there existed non-adaptive characters, for example, rudi- 

 mentary organs. Adaptiveness, however, is never absolute 

 but always conditioned, that is, is never greater than outward 

 and inward circumstances permit. Moreover, an organ can 



