VI.

THE ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS TOWARD DAR

WINISM.1

(THE NATION, October 16, 1873.)

THAT homely adage, "What is one man's meat is another man's poison," comes to mind when we consider with what different eyes different naturalists look upon the hypothesis of the derivative origin of actual specific forms, since Mr. Darwin gave it vogue and

1" Histoire des Sciences et des Sevants depuis deux Siècles, suivie d'autres études sur des sujets scientifiques, en particulier sur la Sélection dans l'Espèce Humaine, par Alphonse De Candolle." Genève: H. Georg. 1873.

"Addresses of George Bentham, President, read at the anniversary meetings of the Linnean Society, 1862-1873."

"Notes on the Classification, History, and Geographical Distribution of Compositæ. By George Bentham." Separate issue from the Journal of the Linnean Society. Vol. XIII. London. 1873.

“On Palæontological Evidence of Gradual Modification of Animal Forms, read at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, April 25, 1873. by Prof. W. H. Flower." (Journal of the Royal Institution, pp. 11.)

"The Distribution and Migration of Birds. Memoir presented to the National Academy of Sciences, January, 1865, abstracted in the American Journal of Science and the Arts. 1866, etc. By Spencer F. Baird."

"The Story of the Earth and Man. By J. W. Dawson, LL. D., F. R. S., F. G. S., Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, Montreal. London: Hodder & Stoughton; New York: Harper & Brothers. 1873. Pp. 403, 12mo.

vigor and a raison d'être for the present day. This latter he did, not only by bringing forward a vera causa in the survival of the fittest under changing cir cumstances about which the question among naturalists mainly is how much it will explain, some allowing it a restricted, others an unlimited operation-but also by showing that the theory may be made to do work, may shape and direct investigations, the results of which must in time tell us whether the theory is likely to hold good or not. If the hypothesis of natural selection and the things thereto appertaining had not been capable of being put to useful work, although, like the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," it might have made no little noise in the world, it would hardly have engaged the attention of working naturalists as it has done. We have no idea even of opening the question as to what work the Darwinian theory has incited, and in what way the work done has reacted upon the theory; and least of all do we like to meddle with the polemical literature of the subject, already so voluminous that the German bibliographers and booksellers make a separate class of it. But two or three treatises before us, of a minor or incidental sort, suggest a remark or two upon the attitude of mind toward evolutionary theories taken by some of the working naturalists.

Mr. Darwin's own expectation, that his new presentation of the subject would have little or no effect upon those who had already reached middle-age, has --out of Paris-not been fulfilled. There are, indeed, one or two who have thought it their duty to denounce the theory as morally dangerous, as well as scientifi

cally baseless; a recent instance of the sort we may have to consider further on. Others, like the youth at the river's bank, have been waiting in confident expectation of seeing the current run itself dry. On the other hand, a notable proportion of the more activeminded naturalists had already come to doubt the received doctrine of the entire fixity of species, and still more that of their independent and supernatural origination. While their systematic work all proceeded implicitly upon the hypothesis of the independence and entire permanence of species, they were perceiving more or less clearly that the whole question was inevitably to be mooted again, and so were prepared to give the alternative hypothesis a dispassionate consideration. The veteran Lyell set an early example, and, on a reconsideration of the whole question, wrote anew his famous chapter and reversed his former and weighty opinion. Owen, still earlier, signified his adhesion to the doctrine of derivation in some form, but apparently upon general, speculative grounds; for he repudiated natural selection, and offered no other natural solution of the mystery of the orderly incoming of cognate forms. As examples of the effect of Darwin's "Origin of Species" upon the minds of naturalists who are no longer young, and whose prepossessions, even more than Lyell's, were likely to bias them against the new doctrine, two from the botanical side are brought to our notice through recent miscellaneous writings which are now before us.'

1 Since this article was in type, noteworthy examples of appreciative scientific judgment of the derivative hypothesis have come to hand: 1. In the opening address to the Geological Section of the British Associa

Before the publication of Darwin's first volume, M. Alphonse de Candolle had summed up the result of his studies in this regard, in the final chapter of his classical "Géographie Botanique Raisonnée," in the conclusion, that existing vegetation must be regarded as the continuation, through many geological and geographical changes, of the anterior vegetations of the world; and that, consequently, the present distribution of species is explicable only in the light of their geological history. He surmised that, notwithstanding the general stability of forms, certain species or quasi-species might have originated through diversification under geographical isolation. But, on the other hand, he was still disposed to admit that even the same species might have originated independently in two or more different regions of the world; and he declined, as unpractical and unavailing, all attempts to apply hypotheses to the elucidation of the origin of species. Soon after Darwin's book appeared, De Candolle had occasion to study systematically a large and wide-spread genus-that of the oak. Investigating it under the new light of natural selection, he came to the conclusion that the existing oaks are all descendants of earlier forms, and that no clear line can be drawn between the diversification which has

tion, at its recent meeting, by its president, the veteran Phillips, perhaps the oldest surviving geologist after Lyell; and, 2. That of Prof. Allman, President of the Biological Section. The first touches the subject briefly, but in the way of favorable suggestion; the second is a full and discriminating exposition of the reasons which seem to assure at least the provisional acceptance of the hypothesis, as a guide in all biological studies, "a key to the order and hidden forces of the world of life."

resulted in species and that which is exhibited in races and minor varieties.

And now, in the introductory chapter of the volume of essays before us, he informs us that the idea which pervades them all, and in some sort connects very diverse topics, is that of considering this principle of selection. Of the principle itself, he remarks that it is neither a theory nor an hypothesis, but the expression of a necessary fact; that to deny it is very much like denying that round stones will roll downhill faster and farther than flat ones; and that the question of the present day in natural history is not whether there be natural selection, or even whether forms are derived from other forms, but to comprehend how, in what proportions, and by what means hereditary deviations take place, and in what ways an inevitable selection takes effect upon these. In two of these essays natural selection is directly discussed in its application to the human race; the larger one dealing ably with the whole subject, and with results at first view seemingly in a great degree negative, but yet showing that the supposed" failure of natural selection in the case of man was an unwarrantable conclusion from too limited a view of a very complicated question. The article abounds in acute and fertile suggestions, and its closing chapter, "on the probable future of the human species" under the laws of selection, is highly interesting and noteworthy. The other and shorter essay discusses a special point, and brings out a corollary of the law of heredity which may not have been thought of before, but which is perfectly clear as soon as it is stated. It ex

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