No. 62G] 



ADAPTATION 



203 



natal development of many higher ors-aiiisms. we need 

 only refer the reader to what we have already said about 

 the ''contmgent" character of even intelliuent action. 

 But it seems likely that the claims of the ])>yelio-vitali>ts 

 (e. g., Pauly and France) are largely fantastie, and that 

 voluntary struggle toward an end has not jilayed the im- 

 portant role in organogenesis which they iniai;iiie that 

 it has. The greater part of the functioning of the organ- 

 ism probably consists in blind responses to external or 

 internal stimuli— blind in the sense of having no con- 

 scious end in view. Thus regarded, they are in no way 

 different from the responses already considered under 

 (a), save that we there dealt with the effects of external 

 stimuli alone. 



Accordingly, we may repeat here that so far as these 

 functional responses — and the organs tlie\- jxTleet ai e 

 adaptive, their adaptiveness must have arisen, in the lirst 

 instance, by the selection of contingent vai'iations. I ii- 

 der this head are to l)e inehi<h'd ( 1 ) tlie i)reservatioii of 

 those individuals which chanced to make appropriate 

 responses (natural seh'ction ) : and i il) the making liabit- 

 nal on successive generat ion- of iti(li\ i(hials of resjxMises 

 which chanced to fulfil a ui\-en need when lirst expe- 

 rienced (Lamarckism). The onl\ olhei-altei-nat ive wnuld 

 seem to be some sort of inscrntalile foreknowledge on tiie 

 part of the organism of every need to be experienced, and 

 of the way in which this need could be satisfied. Such a 

 conception would obviously carry us beyond the field of 

 scientific explanation, but I shall none the less consider 

 it in its proper place. 



It is not my purpose here to discuss the arguments for 

 or against either the Darwinian or the Laniarckian ])rin- 

 ciple. It is my object merely to i)()int out that hotli 

 theories rest on the scjr, fmn , m <nn n;ni nr n>n,ih,>. <>( 

 variations which irrrr <>i inimill >i coHlnnh ut nr 



