Edzvard Drinker Cope. — King. y 
in vertebrate paleontology brings forward valuable data to 
prove that all animals of the present era are descendants from 
those of the past. 
Cope was not, however, a follower of Darwin. He denied 
that there is in organism any inherent tendency to vary, and 
that natural selection, the basis of Darwinism, can account for 
the origin of species and of higher groups. Natural selection, 
he said, might act after variations have appeared, to preserve 
and perpetuate those most advantageous to the organism, 
but it can never produce the variations. According to pro- 
fessor Cope's view, variations are due to three causes: (a) the 
physical and chemical efifects of environment; (b) the use and 
disuse of parts; (c) consciousness implying effort and thus 
producing motion. Cope, therefore, returned to the La- 
marckian principle of the efifect of use and disuse to explain 
variations; but he went further than Lamarck in that he denied 
that animals are passive subjects. He contended that the 
volition and endeavors of an animal greatly influence its own 
life and that of its descendants, and thus that animals in some 
way work out their own salvation. 
The inheritance of accjuired characters was one of Cope's 
most cherished dogmas, and he became the founder and fore- 
most advocate of an American School of Neo-Lamarckians 
The evidence brought forward to support his belief in the 
effects of use and disuse, and in the inheritance of acquired 
characters was not theoretical nor experimental, but that pre- 
sented by the fossil forms he himself had collected and studied. 
T^is Neo-Lamarckian views were first expressed in, "On the 
Origin of Genera," (53), and later supported by numerous 
minor theories, among which the law of "Acceleration and 
Retardation," is perhaps the most prominent. In explana- 
tion of this law Cope says: "The succession of construction 
of parts of a complex was originally a succession of identical 
repetitions; and grade influence merely determined the number 
and location of such repetitions. Acceleration signifies ad- 
dition to the numl^er and location of such repetitions during 
the period preceding maturity, as compared with the preced- 
ing generation. Retardation signifies a reduction of the 
number of such repetitions during the same time." 
With this theory of "Acceleration and Retardation." Cope 
