Let us consider now the more general questions involved in these symmetrical and asymmetrical relations between the organism and its environment. In what sense, it may be asked, is the symmetry of a form an adaptation to its environment? That the kind of symmetry gives to the animal in many cases a certain advantage in relation to its environment is so evident that I think it will not be questioned. The main question is how this relation is supposed to have been attained. Three points of view suggest themselves: First, that the form has resulted directly from the action of the environment upon the organism. This is the Lamarckian point of view, which we rejected as improbable. Second, that the form has been slowly acquired by selecting those individual variations that best suited it to a given set of surrounding conditions. This is the Darwinian view, which we also reject. The third, that the origin of the form has had nothing to do with the environment, but appeared independently of it. Having, however, appeared, it has been able to perpetuate itself under certain conditions. It should be pointed out that the Darwinian view does not suppose that the environment actually produces any of the new variations which it selects after they have appeared, but in so far as the environment selects individual differences it is supposed to determine the direction in which evolution takes place. On the theory that evolution has taken place independently of selection, this latter is not supposed to be the case; the finished products, so to speak, are offered to the environment; and if they pass muster, even ever so badly, they may continue to propagate themselves. The asymmetrical form of certain animals living in a symmetrical environment might be used as an argument to show that the relation of symmetry between an animal and its environment can easily be overstepped without danger. The enormous claw of the fiddler-crab must throw the animal out of all symmetrical relation with its environment, and yet the species flourishes. The snail carries around a spiral hump that is entirely out of symmetrical relation with the surroundings of a snail. These facts, few though they are, yet suffice to show, I believe, that the relation of symmetry between the organism and its environment may be, and is no doubt in many cases, more perfect than the requirements of the situation demand. The fact that animals made unsymmetrical through injuries (as when a crab loses several legs on one side, or a worm its head) can still remain in existence in their natural environment, is in favor of the view that I have just stated. By this I do not mean to maintain that a symmetrical form does not have, on the whole, an advantage over the same form rendered asymmetrical, but that this relation need not have in all forms a selective value, and if not, then it cannot be the outcome of a process of natural selection.