APPENDIX II 357 



orations, since he was well acquainted with, the life-history of both 

 Protophyta and Protozoa. 



It would not be right, since Dr. Adami has made a point of 

 alluding to me, that I should leave his statements unnoticed, as I 

 should have done had he not referred to me by name. — I am, etc., 



E. PAY LANKESTER. 

 London, W., July i. 



II. Feom the British Medical Journal, July 21, 1917 



To the Editor of the British Medical Journal 



Sir — Sir E. Pay Lankester, it appears, falls foul of the term 

 " academic biologist." By labelling a man as " academic " it is in 

 general meant to imply that such a one is more concerned with up- 

 holding the teaching and tradition of the Schools than with the 

 advance of his subject. Had I wished to demonstrate to your readers 

 what I meant by this term, I could not possibly have afforded a 

 more perfect instance than, by his letter in your last issue, Sir Ray 

 has himself presented. 



Take, for example, his treatment of my use of the term " direct 

 adaptation," ascribed to Spencer, and of my demonstration that 

 this surely exists among the bacteria. Herbert Spencer wrote 

 (Principles of Biology, 1898 edition, vol. i. page 528) : " There go on 

 in all organisms certain changes of function and structure that are 

 directly consequent on changes in the incident forces — inner changes 

 by which the interchanges are balanced and equilibrium restored. 

 But ... we see that the modified conditions to which organisms may 

 be adapted by direct equilibration are conditions of certain classes 

 only. Besides direct there must be indirect equilibration." Where 

 is the difference between my " specific modification in response to a 

 specific alteration in environment withim limits to be presently * laid 

 down " (Sir Ray manages to leave out the phrase in italics) and 

 Spencer's " certain changes . . . that are directly consequent," etc. ? 

 Later, in the abstract of my second lecture, which was in Sir Ray's 

 hands, it is pointed out that experiments can be so made as to remove 

 all possible question of chance variation and survival of those forms 

 alone which had exhibited variation in a favourable direction 

 (Spencer's indirect equilibration), so " that there was within certain 

 limits direct adaptation in the Spencerian sense, direct equilibration 



1 In my fourth lecture. By the closing paragraph of my first, as again by 

 the invitation sent him to be present at the series, Sir Ray was advised that 

 other lectures were to follow in which my theme would be developed, but of 

 this he takes no notice. 



