xiv FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS 421 



necessary to do this, in order that materials for the exercise 

 of a selection should exist. Darwin and Wallace's law is then 

 only restrictive, directive, conservative, or destructive of some- 

 thing already created. I propose, then, to seek for the origin- 

 ative laws by which these subjects are furnished ; in other 

 words, for the causes of the origin of the fittest." 1 



Mr. Cope lays great stress on the existence of a special 

 developmental force termed "bathmism" or growth -force, 

 which acts by means of retardation and acceleration "without 

 any reference to fitness at all ;" that "instead of being controlled 

 by fitness it is the controller of fitness." He argues that " all 

 the characteristics of generalised groups from genera up (ex- 

 cepting, perhaps, families) have been evolved under the law of 

 acceleration and retardation," combined with some intervention 

 of natural selection ; and that specific characters, or species, 

 have been evolved by natural selection with some assistance 

 from the higher law. He, therefore, makes species and genera 

 two absolutely distinct things, the latter not developed out of 

 the former ; generic characters and specific characters are, in 

 his opinion, fundamentally different, and have had different 

 origins, and whole groups of species have been simultaneously 

 modified, so as to belong to another genus ; whence he thinks 

 it " highly probable that the same specific form has existed 

 through a succession of genera, and perhaps in different epochs 

 of geologic time." 



Useful characters, he concludes, have been produced by the 

 special location of growth-force by use ; useless ones have been 

 produced by location of growth-force without the influence of 

 use. Another element which determines the direction of 

 growth-force, and which precedes use, is effort; and "it is 

 thought that effort becomes incorporated into the metaphysical 

 acquisitions of the parent, and is inherited with other meta- 

 physical qualities by the young, which, during the period of 

 growth, is much more susceptible to modifying influences, and 

 is likely to exhibit structural change in consequence." 2 



From these few examples of their teachings, it is clear that 



1 Origin of the Fittest, p. 174. 



2 Ibid. p. 29. It may be here noted that Darwin found these theories 

 unintelligible. In a letter to Professor E. T. Morse in 1877, he writes : 

 "There is one point which I regret you did not make clear in your Ad- 



