The History of Creation, Vol. 1 (of 2): Or the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural CausesHaeckel, Ernst
Philosophy
The History of Creation, Vol. 1 (of 2): Or the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes
Haeckel, Ernst
Evolution; Heredity; Human beings -- Origin
We have seen how the two series of phenomena of progressive and
conservative transmission, in spite of their difference in principle, in
many ways interfere with and modify each other, and in many ways
co-operate with and cross each other. The same is the case, in a still
higher degree, in the two series of phenomena of indirect and direct
adaptation, which are opposed to each other and yet closely connected.
Some naturalists, especially Darwin and Carl Vogt, ascribe to the
indirect or potential adaptation by far the more important and almost
exclusive influence. But the majority of naturalists have hitherto been
inclined to take the opposite view, and to attribute the principal
influence to direct or actual adaptation. I consider this controversy,
in the mean while, as almost useless. It is but seldom that we are in a
condition, in any individual case of variation, to judge how much of it
belongs to direct and how much to indirect adaptation. We are, on the
whole, still too little acquainted with these exceedingly important and
intricate relations, and can only assert, in a general way, that the
transformation of organic forms is to be ascribed _either_ to direct
adaptation alone, _or_ to indirect adaptation alone, or lastly, to the
co-operation of both direct _and_ indirect adaptation.
CHAPTER X.
LAWS OF ADAPTATION.
Laws of Indirect or Potential Adaptation.—Individual
Adaptation.—Monstrous or Sudden Adaptation.—Sexual
Adaptation.—Laws of Direct or Actual
Adaptation.—Universal Adaptation.—Cumulative
Adaptation.—Cumulative Influence of External Conditions
of Existence and Cumulative Counter-Influence of the
Organism.—Free Will.—Use and Non-use of
Organs.—Practice and Habit.—Correlative
Adaptation.—Correlation of Development.—Correlation of
Organs.—Explanation of Indirect or Potential Adaptation
by the Correlation of the Sexual Organs and of the other
parts of the Body.—Divergent Adaptation.—Unlimited or
Infinite Adaptation.
In the last chapter we reduced into two groups the phenomena of
Adaptation or Variation, which, in connection and interaction with the
phenomena of Heredity, produce all the endless variety of forms in
animals and plants—first, the group of indirect or potential, and
secondly, the group of direct or actual Adaptation. We shall occupy
ourselves with a closer examination of the different laws which we can
discover in these two groups of the phenomena of variation. Let us first
take into consideration the remarkable and very important, although
hitherto much neglected, phenomena of indirect variation.
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