JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



by " the Direct Action of the conditions of Life producing Definite 

 Results."* 



Professor Warming, of Copenhagen, in describing adaptations among 

 " xerophytic " plants, i.e. of dry countries, as Mexico, &c, says : " I answer 

 briefly to the question which arises — namely, whether these adaptations 

 to the medium should be regarded as a result of natural selection, or 

 whether they owe their origin to the action, in modifying forms, exercised 

 directly by the conditions of the medium. I adopt this latter view . . . 

 the characters of adaptation thus directly acquired have become fixed." t 



M. Costantin, speaking of Arctic plants, says : " We are led to think, 

 so to say, invincibly, that one can only explain the general characters of 

 Arctic plants by adaptation— e.g., if all Arctic plants are perennials, it is 

 because they live near the Pole. It is the conditions of life which have 

 created this hereditary character." t 



As another illustration, Professor Warming, of Copenhagen, and Fritz 

 Muller, in Brazil, have both recorded the fact that certain species which 

 are non-cliinbing herbs when living in the open, become climbers when 

 growing in the semi-darkness of adjacent forests. 



Lastly, aquatic plants will often grow better and stronger in air than 

 when submerged ; but the whole anatomical structure is at once altered 

 to suit aerial conditions. 



The preceding are just a few cases ; but the reader must understand 

 that the Power of Responding to New Conditions of Life, and of forming 

 Structures in direct adaptation to them, is a Universal Natural Law. 



The reader will now realise why I call this Responsive power with 

 Adaptation the " True Darwinism," for Darwin suggested it. Of course, 

 it is more or less of the nature of a revival of Lamarck's theory, but it has 

 the advantage of excluding his errors, and is based on an infinite amount 

 of facts, as far as plants are concerned. 



It is not my province to carry it into the animal kingdom ; though, as 

 far as inductive evidence goes, it is precisely the same, e.g. it is infinitely 

 more probable that all animals with paddle- like limbs, in adaptation to 

 water, acquired them by response with modification in adapting themselves 

 to it, than that the same mechanical structures should have arisen acci- 

 dentally, according to Darwinism, and never out of water. For such 

 structures are found in the invertebrata in insects, also in fishes, amphibia, 

 reptiles, birds, and mammals. 



Kxperimental evidence may not be so easy to procure with animals as 

 with plants, but Nature is not likely to adopt two different methods of 

 Evolution. Semper,§ Pascoe,j| and Eimer,^) however, have attacked 

 the problem from the zoological side, and the reader is referred to their 

 works.** 



* Royal Phys. Soc. Edin. (1888). 

 t hagoa Santa, p. 405 (1892). 



X Lea YtujHuiw et les Milieux cosmiques, p. 85 (1898). 



j; Th6 Natural Conditions <>f Existence, as they Affect Animal Life (Nat. Sc. Ser., 

 vol. xxxi.). 



|| TIic Darwinian Theory of the Origin of Species. 

 % Onjanic Evolution. (Translated by Cunningham.*) 



** Bum the above was written, Mr. 13. B. Woodward has shown that the lungs of 

 molltuea are the direct result of adaptation [Presidential Address to the Malacolorjical 

 Society, 1907). 



