Two METHODS OF MEETING NEW CONDITIONS. 6 1 



In the second place, if the new conditions are slowly introduced, 

 as is often the case in geological changes, innate variation, combined 

 with high reproductive powers, may enable them to meet the changes as 

 well as do those endowed with much higher powers of accommodation ; 

 but in cases of sudden change, high powers of accommodation will 

 often preserve the group from extinction till time has been given for 

 the accumulation of what Uoyd Morgan has called ' ' coincident varia- 

 tions."* When accommodation thus opens the way for successful 

 selection, Professor Baldwin calls the process "organic selection.'' I 

 am disposed to raise the question whether the term ' ' coincident varia- 

 tion," suggested by Lloyd Morgan, does not meet the case more ex- 

 actly; and when the variations are accumulated, may it not be well 

 to call the process "coincident selection"? Let it, however, be care- 

 fully noted that a slow change of conditions, either in the relations of 

 the organism to the environment or in the relations of the individuals 

 of the organism to each other, may result in the gradual transforma- 

 tion of slightly varying habitudes and aptitudes through election and 

 selection, even when the range of individual accommodation is very 

 small, and when the degree of variation in inherited qualities is not 

 large, in any one generation. 



7. In the case of Civilized Man, especially when exposed to sudden change, 

 Accommodation overshadows and controls all other influences: (i) by 

 Organic Selection, that is, by giving time for the action of Natural Selection, 

 and (2) by the success of Accommodation and Tradition, removing the need 

 of special variation in order to survive. 



The great importance of accommodation is often seen in birds and 

 mammals, and pre-eminently in man. The power of man to occupy 

 every land, of every clime, that is not entirely devoid of vegetation, or 

 continuously capped with ice, is due to his powers of accommodation. 

 By accommodation he overcomes his enemies ; by accommodation he 

 wins nourishment in hitherto untried fields; by accommodation he 

 protects himself against the extremes of heat and cold, to which he 

 would soon succumb if fortified simply by the inherited characters of 

 , his body thus far attained, unaided by artificial clothing and shelter. 

 But even in the case of man, who is able by his arts to adjust himself 

 to great extremes of climate, there have arisen different races, with 

 special adaptations to different climates in their inherited characters. 

 If the average child of tropical Africa and the average child of Green- 

 land should exchange homes and training, both would be heavily 



* See "Habit and Instinct " (London, 1896), pp. 3i2ff ; also "Animal Behavior " 

 (1900), pp. 39, 115; also Baldwin's "Development and Evolution,'' AppendixA. 



