the generalisation or specialisation of a type and its future progress ; the parallelism between ontogenesis and phylogenesis, though he did not use these terms ; the results of acceleration and retardation ; etc. The character of the results of this investigation are quoted to show the tendency of thought of the writer. While others were discussing the truth or falsehood of the theory of evolution, or its applicability in special cases, he had turned his attention to the laws of working of the

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... process. In 1871 in a paper on " T h e Method of Creation of Organic Types" he propounded a theory of " growth-force " or " b a t h m i s m " ; and showed how this force, located by effort or use at certain points of the body, produces progressive evolution. Conversely disuse results in degeneration. In this essay we find also the germ, at least, of his later views concerning the importance of consciousness in evolution as the means of directing or locating this use or effort. These are only the beginnings of a long series of papers which Professor Cope has contributed to the American A'aturalist and other periodicals during the last thirty years. They are all characterised by the same effort to discover not merely the mode but also the causes of evolution, or more especially of variation. In 1887 he republished the results of many of these articles in his Origin of the Fittest. In this book he strongly opposes the " omnipotence " of natural selection. " Selection," he says, " requires alternatives, and these are the products of " variation. Great obscurity has arisen from the supposition that natural selection "can originate anything, and the obscurity has not been lessened by the assertion "often made that these variations are due to inheritance. What is inheritance but " repetition of characters possessed by some (no matter what) ancestor ; and if so, by guest on June 9, 2016 http://monist.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from