No. 383.] VARIATION VERSUS HEREDITY. 825 
The point of view suggested in this paper corrects some of 
these inconsistencies. 
One of the difficulties, which seems to be removed by the 
new point of view, is seen by noting the simple phenomenon 
which takes place in any concrete case of natural selection. 
First : In any particular case of selection it is necessary ¢hat 
some character, which has appeared for the first time in the 
course of the growth of a particular organism, should reappear 
in its offspring. The character is said to be “transmitted ” ; 
it “survives”; it is “preserved” in the offspring. In order 
to be thus “preserved,” it ceases to be a divergent and vari- 
able element in individual growth, and becomes a regular or 
hereditary character in the descendants. 
So far as the character itself is concerned it was produced 
without any precedent before it was found to be either profit- 
able or unprofitable, and in being preserved it is simply repro- 
duced. So far as the principle of modification is concerned, 
the offspring which reproduces the variable character of its 
parent is /ess variable than its parent, and if natural selection 
causes the preservation of the character, to that extent it is 
effective in checking evolution. 
Secondly : It is to be observed that that which takes place 
in the varying individual differs in degree, not in kind, from 
the ordinary processes of growth, or individual development. 
Variation is not some peculiar mode of action,of an organism, 
but it is the same process by which the individual builds up 
its hereditary characters. In the ordinary growth, as the organ- 
ism develops from the germ to the adult each step of progress 
in development is, for the cells undergoing the development, 
a process of variation from the behavior of the parent cells 
from which they arose. So long as the varying does not 
exceed the varying of previous organisms, the process is called 
individual development, and is purely hereditary. Whenever 
the varying results in producing structure not hitherto pro- 
duced, it is evolution. 
On the assumption that this hereditary process of reproduc- 
„tion is a necessary and fundamental function of organisms, it 
is necessary to assume that some new law comes into opera- 
