CHAPTER VI

TRANSFORMISM 208

Argument.--A reasoned classification of organisms suggests that a process of evolution has taken place. It suggests logical relation- ships between organisms, while the results of embryology and palæontology suggest chronological relationships. Yet this kinship of organisms might only be a logical, and not a material one. Evolution may have occurred somewhere, but it might be argued that the ideas of species have generated each other in a Creative Thought. But transformism may be produced experimentally, and so science has adopted a mechanistic hypothesis of the nature of the process. Transformism of species depends on the occurrence of variations, but these arise spontaneously and independently of each other, and they must be co-ordinated. This co-ordination of variations cannot be the work of the environ ment. Variations are cumulative, and they exhibit direction, and this direction is either an accidental one, or it is the expression of an impetus or directing agency in the varying organism itself. The problem of the cause of variation is only a pseudo-problem.