VII. THE ASSUMPTION OF INTERNAL EVOLUTIONARY FORCES
Definite variation was not only postulated in the last decade by Nägeli and Askenasy, but has also been repeatedly set up in recent years by various other authors. The Rev. George Henslow, in his book The Origin of Species Without the Aid of Natural Selection, 1894, regards the variations occurring in the state of nature as always definite and not with Darwin as indefinite, and meets the objection that modification but not adaptation to outward conditions of life can be inferred from this fact, by the bold assumption that it is precisely the outward conditions of life or the environment which "induces the best fitted to arise." He further concludes that natural selection has nothing to do with the origin of species. At the basis of his conviction lies the naturally correct view that the summation of accidental variations is insufficient for transforming the species, but that definitely directed variation is necessary to this end. But concerning the way in which external conditions are always able to produce the fit variations, he can give us no information—if I am not mistaken, for the simple reason that such is not the fact, that the outward conditions only apparently determine the direction of variations whilst in truth it is the adaptive requirement itself that produces the useful direction of variation by means of selectional processes within the germ.
C. Lloyd Morgan also has recently expressed himself in favor of the necessity of definite variation, though likewise without assigning a basis for its action, and without being able to show how its efficacy is compatible with the plain fact of adaptation to the conditions of life. He seeks to find the origin of variation in "mechanical stresses and chemical or physical influences," but this conception is too general to be of much help. He has, in fact, not been able to abandon completely the heredity of acquired characters.
Emery36 likewise sees only the alternative of a "definitely directed variation" from internal causes and of a summation of "accidental" variations. He says: "A summation of entirely accidental variations in a given direction is extremely difficult," because "natural selection thus always awaits its fortune at the hands of accident whereby it is possible that the little good thereby produced will be swept away by other accidents (disadvantages of position) or obliterated in the following generations by unfortunate crossings." We can, therefore, continues Emery, well conceive "how many scientists look upon the whole theory of selection as a fable, or else throw themselves into the arms of Lamarckism." Unquestionably Emery has here singled out the insufficient points in the assumption of a selection of "accidental" variations; he has recognised the necessity of operating, not with single variations, but with "directions of variation." He has not, however, attempted the derivation of directed tendencies of variation from known factors; he apparently thinks of them as of something which has sprung from unknown constitutional factors and consequently ascribes to them the capacity of shooting beyond their mark, so to speak, that is, of acting beyond and ahead of utility, and so of producing modifications which may lead to the destruction of the species.