ber of specific elements, originally formed as a
result of each new functional adaptation, but now forming part of the
hereditary equipment.

The theory represents an advance upon the more static conceptions of
Semon. It owes much to Roux's influence.

In this country, the mnemic theories have been championed particularly
by M. Hartog[517] and Sir Francis Darwin.[518]

[508] The quotations are taken from the 1910 reprint,
London, Fifield.

[509] _Ueber das Gedaechtnis als eine allgemeine Funktion
der organisierten Materie_, Wien, 1870.

[510] Eng. trans, in E. Hering, _Memory_, p. 9, Chicago
and London, 1913.

[511] _Die Perigenesis der Plastidule_, Jena, 1875.

[512] _A Theory of Development and Heredity_, New York,
1893.

[513] _The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution_, Chicago,
1896.

[514] _Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des
organischen Geschehens_, Leipzig, 1904; 2nd ed., 1908.

[515] _Heredity and Memory_, Cambridge, 1913.

[516] Paris, 1906. Also in Italian and German. Eng. trans.
by B. C. ,H. Harvey, Chicago, 1911.

[517] See _Problems of Life and Reproduction_, London,
1913.

[518] _Presidential Address to the British Association_,
1908.

CHAPTER XX

THE CLASSICAL TRADITION IN MODERN MORPHOLOGY

To write a history of contemporary movements from a purely objective
standpoint is well recognised to be an impossible task. It is difficult
for those in the stream to see where the current is carrying them: the
tendencies of the present will only become clear some twenty years in
the future.

I propose, therefore, in this concluding chapter to deal only with
certain characteristics of modern work on the problems of form which
seem to me to be derived directly from the older classical tradition of
Cuvier and von Baer.

The present time is essentially one of transition. Complete uncertainty
reigns as to the main principles of biology. Many of us think that the
materialistic and simplicist method has proved a complete failure, and
that the time has come to strike out on entirely different lines. Just
in what direction the new biology will grow out is hard to see at
present, so many divergent beginnings have been made--the materialistic
vitalism of Driesch, the profound intuitionalism of Bergson, the
psychological biology of Delpino, France, Pauly, A. Wagner and W.
Mackenzie. But if any of these