1896.] A New Factor in Evolution. 547 
it tends to keep up old movements; but it secures new adapta- 
tions, since it provides for the overproduction of movement 
variations for the operation of selection. This kind of selec- 
tion, since it requires the direct codperation of the organism 
itself, I have called ‘ Organic Selection.’ ” 
The advantages of this view seem to be somewhat as fol- 
lows: 
1. It gives a method of the individual’s adaptations of func- 
tion which is one in principle with the law of overproduction and 
survival now so well established in the case of competing organisms. 
2. It reduces nervous and mental evolution to strictly paral- 
lel terms. The intelligent use of phylogenetic variations for 
functional purposes in the way indicated, puts a premium on 
variations which can be so used, and thus sets phylogenetic 
progress in directions of constantly improved mental endowment. 
The circular reaction which is the method of intelligent adapta- 
tions is liable to variation in a series of complex ways which 
represent phylogenetically the development of the mental func- 
tions known as memory, imagination, conception, thought, ete. 
We thus reach a phylogeny of mind which proceeds in the 
direction set by the ontogeny of mind,* just as on the organic 
side the phylogeny of the organism gets its determinate direc- 
tion from the organism’s ontogenetic adaptations. And since 
it is the one principle of Organic Selection working by the 
same functions to set the. direction of both phylogenies, the 
physical and the mental, the two developments are not two, 
but one. Evolution is, therefore, not more biological than 
psychological (ref. 2, chap. x, xi, and especially pp. 383-388). 
3. It secures the relation of structure to function required by 
the principle of “use and disuse” in ontogeny. 
4, The only alternative theory of the adaptations of the in- 
dividual are those of “ pure chance,” on the one hand, and a 
“creative act” of consciousness, or the other hand. Pure 
chance is refuted by all the facts which show that the organ- 
ism does not wait for chance, but goes right out and effects new 
adaptations to its environment. Furthermore, ontogenetic 
8 Prof, C. S. Minot suggests to ne that the terms “ontopsychic” and “ phylo- 
psychic” might be convenient to mark this distinction. 
