approval; and it finds many supporters to-day. One of the ablest
of these--Mr Francis Darwin--has recently given strong reasons for
combining a modernised Lamarckism with what we usually regard as sound
Darwinism. (Presidential Address to the British Association meeting at
Dublin in 1908.)

To others it has always seemed that the emphasis should be laid on the
Environment, which wakes the organism to action, prompts it to change,
makes dints upon it, moulds it, prunes it, and finally, perhaps, kills
it. It is again impossible to doubt that there is truth in this
view, for even if environmentally induced "modifications" be not
transmissible, environmentally induced "variations" are; and even if
the direct influence of the environment be less important than
many enthusiastic supporters of this view--may we call them
Buffonians--think, there remains the indirect influence which Darwinians
in part rely on,--the eliminative process. Even if the extreme view
be held that the only form of discriminate elimination that counts is
inter-organismal competition, this might be included under the rubric of
the animate environment.

In many passages Buffon (See in particular Samuel Butler, "Evolution
Old and New", London, 1879; J.L. de Lanessan, "Buffon et Darwin",
"Revue Scientifique", XLIII. pages 385-391, 425-432, 1889.) definitely
suggested that environmental influences--especially of climate and
food--were directly productive of changes in organisms, but he did not
discuss the question of the transmissibility of the modifications so
induced, and it is difficult to gather from his inconsistent writings
what extent of transformation he really believed in. Prof. Osborn
says of Buffon: "The struggle for existence, the elimination of the
least-perfected species, the contest between the fecundity of certain
species and their constant destruction, are all clearly expressed in
various passages." He quotes two of these (op. cit. page 136.):

"Le cours ordinaire de la nature vivante, est en general toujours
constant, toujours le meme; son mouvement, toujours regulier, roule
sur deux points inebranlables: l'un, la fecondite sans bornes donnee
a toutes les especes; l'autre, les obstacles sans nombre qui reduisent
cette fecondite a une mesure determinee et ne laissent en tout temps
qu'a peu pres la meme quantite d'individus de chaque espece"... "Les
especes les moins parfaites, les plus delicates, les plus pesantes,
les moins agissantes,