Anekantavada

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Atmanand Jain Sabha

Page 84

47
outside forces and environmental influences ope. rating upon it.
Between the protagonists of inherent force and of the external influences bringing about modifications in a being, the Lamarkian School may be said to hold the mean. The NeoLamarkian biologists admit that the environmental circumstances have undoubtedly a hand in the structural modification of an animal; but they contend that the influence of those external factors is but indirect. The animal in the midst of the outside forces is compelled to adjust itself to them as best as it can. It is the activities for self-adjustment and self-preservation in response to the operations of the environmental forces, that generate the necessary changes in the structures of an animal. This explanation of modifications as due to activities of selfadjustment in an animal answering to outside influences has been applied to the case of mental modifications also by the thinkers of the School of Spencer.
The theories about changes and modifications considered above, relate mostly to organic evolution but the principles underlying them may as well be applied to the cases of all substances. Monads may be,-and as a matter of fact have been