262 
HAROLD’S DISCUSSIONS. 
or touch us. Of these the air is doubtless the most 
important. The fish must have water with air in it. 
It is evident that the first life was aquatic and 
breathed by gills; some of these creatures were 
driven out of the water either by their enemies or by 
the desire for food on the shore. A few had power 
to remain out of their native element a little longer 
than their fellows. This was an advantage to them. 
Practise augmented this power, and in the course of 
generations it accumulated so that something pointing 
toward lungs was evolved. 
Lamarck further taught that the characteristics 
acquired by any individual were inherited by the off¬ 
spring, and the slight gain that any individual might 
have made was further augmented by its descend¬ 
ants. In this manner Lamarck thought that the 
changes produced in the course of time become suffi¬ 
ciently great to make the animal a new species. Al¬ 
though this idea has been ridiculed, there is a grow¬ 
ing inclination among American scholars to adopt it 
in a modified form as a part of the theory of natural 
selection. 
