Crossword-Solution: MODIFIABILITY 13 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 24

Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or turned pigeon-fancier, or “pomologist,” must have been struck by the extreme modifiability or plasticity of those kinds of animals and plants which have been subjected to such artificial conditions as are imposed by domestication.

The first, that De Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of living forms (though without any precise information on the subject), and how such modifiability might account for the origin of species; the second, that he very clearly apprehended the great modern geological doctrine, so strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehensively expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes for the explanation of past geological events.

Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or turned pigeon-fancier, or "pomologist," must have been struck by the extreme modifiability or plasticity of those kinds of animals and plants which have been subjected to such artificial conditions as are imposed by domestication.

CHAPTER XII EDUCABILITY: METHODS OF LEARNING The modifiability of behavior--Educational value of experimental studies of modifiability--Methods: the problem method; the labyrinth method; the discrimination method--Relation of method to characteristics of animal-- Simple test of the docility of the dancer--Lack of imitative tendency-- Persistence of useless acts--Manner of profiting by experience--Individual differences in initiative.

CHAPTER XIV HABIT FORMATION: THE DISCRIMINATION METHOD Quantitative _versus_ qualitative results--Motives--Precautions-- Preference--Results of systematic habit-forming experiments--Curves of habit formation--Meaning of irregularity in curve--Individual differences--Comparison of curves for discrimination habits with those for labyrinth habits--Averages--The index of modifiability as a measure of docility--Reliability of the index.