ssible 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[17] 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:[18]

"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, les moins armees, etc., ont deja disparu ou
disparaitront.".

Erasmus Darwin[19] had a firm grip of the "idea of the gradual
formation and improvement of the Animal world," and he had his theory
of the process. No sentence is more characteristic than this: "All
animals undergo transformations which are in part produced by their
own exertions, in response to pleasures and pains, and many of these
acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity."
This is Lamarckism before Lamarck, as his grandson pointed out. His
central idea is that wants stimulate efforts and that these result in
improvements which subsequent generations make better still. He
realised something of the struggle for e