PROFESSOR LA NKESTER AND LA MARCH. 273 



tions were ascribed to the conditions of existence, and 

 to use and disuse, but a concluding paragraph cannot 

 be allowed to override a whole book throughout which 

 the variations have been kept to hand as accidental. 

 Mr. Eomanes is perfectly correct when he says * that 

 "natural selection" (meaning the Charles-Darwinian 

 natural selection) " trusts to the chapter of accidents 

 in the matter of variation ; " this is all that Mr. Darwin 

 can tell us ; whether they come from directly trans- 

 forming agents or no he neither knows nor says. 

 Those who accept Lamarck will know that the agen- 

 cies are not, as a rule, directly transforming, but the 

 followers of Mr. Darwin cannot. 



" But showing themselves," continues Professor Eay ' 

 Lankesterj " at each new act of reproduction, as part 

 of the phenomena of heredity. Su-eh minute ' sports ' 

 or ' variations ' are due to constitutional disturbance " 

 (No doubt. The difference, however, between Mr. 

 Dafwin and Lamarck consists in the fact that Lamarck 

 believes he knows what it is that so disturbs the con- 

 stitution as generally to induce variation, whereas Mr. 

 Darwin says he does not know), "and appear not in 

 individuals subjected to new conditions " (What orga- 

 nism can pass through life without being subjected to 

 more or less new conditions ? What life is ever the 

 exact fac-simile of another ? And in a matter of such 

 extreme delicacy as the adjustment of psychical and 

 physical relations, who can say how small a disturb- 

 ance of established equilibrium may not involve how 

 great a rearrangement ?), " but in the offspring of all, 

 * Nature, Aug. 6, 1886. 



