chap, in.] ORGANIC STABILITY. 19 



apparently exhaust all reasonable possibilities : first, that 

 in which each element selects its most suitable immediate 

 neighbourhood, in accordance with the guiding idea in 

 Darwin's theory of Pangenesis ; secondly, that of more 

 or less general co-ordination of the influences exerted on 

 each element, not only by its immediate neighbours, but 

 by many or most of the others as well ; finally, that of 

 accident or chance, under which name a group of agen- 

 cies are to be comprehended, diverse in character 

 and alike only in the fact that their influence on the 

 settlement of each particle was not immediately directed 

 towards that end. In philosophical language we say 

 that such agencies are not purposive, or that they are 

 not teleological ; in popular language they are called 

 accidents or chances. 



Filial Relation. — A conviction that inheritance is 

 mainly particulate and much influenced by chance, 

 greatly affects our idea of kinship and makes us con- 

 sider the parental and filial relation to be curiously 

 circuitous. It appears that there is no direct hereditary 

 relation between the personal parents and the persona] 

 child, except perhaps through little-known channels of 

 secondary importance, but that the main line of 

 hereditary connection unites the sets of elements out 

 of which the personal parents had been evolved with 

 the set out of which the personal child was evolved. 

 The main line may be rudely likened to the chain of a 

 necklace, and the personalities to pendants attached to 

 its links. We are unable to see the particles and 



C 2 



