We have already seen that before the subject was taken up by Weismann the difference between acquired and congenital characters in respect to transmissibility was generally taken to be one of degree; not one of kind. It was usually supposed that acquired characters, although not so fully and not so certainly inherited as congenital characters, nevertheless were inherited in some lesser degree; so that if the same acquired character continued to be successively acquired in a number of sequent generations, what was at first only a slight tendency to be inherited would become by summation a more and more pronounced tendency, till eventually the acquired character might become as strongly inherited as a congenital one. Or, more precisely, it was supposed that an acquired character, in virtue of such a summation of hereditary influence, would in time become congenital. Now, if this supposition be true, it is evident that more or less assistance must be lent to natural selection in its work of evolving adaptive modifications[28]. And inasmuch as we know to what a wonderful extent adaptive modifications are secured during individual life-times--by the direct action of the environment on the one hand, and by increased or diminished use of special organs and mental faculties on the other--it becomes obvious of what importance even a small measure of transmissibility on their part would be in furnishing to natural selection ready-made variations in required directions, as distinguished from promiscuous variations in all directions. Contrariwise, if functionally-produced adaptations and adaptations produced by the direct action of the environment are never transmitted in any degree, not only would there be an incalculable waste, so to speak, of adaptive modifications--these being all laboriously and often most delicately built up during life-times of individuals only to be thrown down again as regards the interest of species--but so large an additional burden would be thrown upon the shoulders of natural selection that it becomes difficult to conceive how even this gigantic principle could sustain it, as I shall endeavour to show more fully in future chapters. On the other hand, however, Weismann and his followers not only feel no difficulty in throwing overboard all this ready-made machinery for turning out adaptive modifications when and as required; but they even represent that by so doing they are following the logical maxim, _Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_--which means, in its relation to causality, that we must not needlessly multiply hypothetical principles to explain given results. But when appeal is here made to this logical principle--the so-called Law of Parsimony--two things are forgotten.