The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection (6th ed) by Charles Darwin (ebook reader below 3000 .TXT) 📕

forms of life, advancing them, in definite times, by generation, through grades of organisation terminating in the highest dicotyledons and vertebrata, these grades being few in number, and generally marked by intervals of organic character, which we find to be a practical difficulty in ascertaining affinities; SECOND, of another impulse connected with the vital forces, tending, in the course of generations, to modify organic structures in accordance with external circumstances, as food, the nature of the habitat, and the meteoric agencies, these being the ‘adaptations’ of the natural theologian.” The author apparently believes that organisation progresses by sudden leaps, but that the effects produced by the conditions of life are gradual. He argues with much force on general grounds that species are not immutable productions. But I cannot see how the two supposed “impulses” account in a scientific sense for the numerous and beautiful coadaptations which we see throughout nature; I cannot see that we thus gain any insight how, for instance, a woodpecker has become adapted to its peculiar habits of life.

The work, from its powerful and brilliant style, though displaying in the early editions little accurate knowledge and a great want of scientific caution, immediately had a very wide circulation. In my opinion it has done excellent service in this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.

In 1846 the veteran geologist M.J. d’Omalius d’Halloy published in an excellent though short paper (“Bulletins de l’Acad. Roy. Bruxelles”, tom.

xiii, page 581) his opinion that it is more probable that new species have been produced by descent with modification than that they have been separately created: the author first promulgated this opinion in 1831.

Professor Owen, in 1849 (“Nature of Limbs”, page 86), wrote as follows: “The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh under diverse such modifications, upon this planet, long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been committed, we, as yet, are ignorant.” In his address to the British Association, in 1858, he speaks (page li) of “the axiom of the continuous operation of creative power, or of the ordained becoming of living things.” Further on (page xc), after referring to geographical distribution, he adds, “These phenomena shake our confidence in the conclusion that the Apteryx of New Zealand and the Red Grouse of England were distinct creations in and for those islands respectively.

Always, also, it may be well to bear in mind that by the word ‘creation’

the zoologist means ‘a process he knows not what.’” He amplifies this idea by adding that when such cases as that of the Red Grouse are “enumerated by the zoologist as evidence of distinct creation of the bird in and for such islands, he chiefly expresses that he knows not how the Red Grouse came to be there, and there exclusively; signifying also, by this mode of expressing such ignorance, his belief that both the bird and the islands owed their origin to a great first Creative Cause.” If we interpret these sentences given in the same address, one by the other, it appears that this eminent philosopher felt in 1858 his confidence shaken that the Apteryx and the Red Grouse first appeared in their respective homes “he knew not how,”

or by some process “he knew not what.”

This address was delivered after the papers by Mr. Wallace and myself on the Origin of Species, presently to be referred to, had been read before the Linnean Society. When the first edition of this work was published, I was so completely deceived, as were many others, by such expressions as “the continuous operation of creative power,” that I included Professor Owen with other palaeontologists as being firmly convinced of the immutability of species; but it appears (“Anat. of Vertebrates”, vol. iii, page 796) that this was on my part a preposterous error. In the last edition of this work I inferred, and the inference still seems to me perfectly just, from a passage beginning with the words “no doubt the type-form,” etc.(Ibid., vol. i, page xxxv), that Professor Owen admitted that natural selection may have done something in the formation of a new species; but this it appears (Ibid., vol. iii. page 798) is inaccurate and without evidence. I also gave some extracts from a correspondence between Professor Owen and the editor of the “London Review”, from which it appeared manifest to the editor as well as to myself, that Professor Owen claimed to have promulgated the theory of natural selection before I had done so; and I expressed my surprise and satisfaction at this announcement; but as far as it is possible to understand certain recently published passages (Ibid., vol. iii. page 798) I have either partially or wholly again fallen into error. It is consolatory to me that others find Professor Owen’s controversial writings as difficult to understand and to reconcile with each other, as I do. As far as the mere enunciation of the principle of natural selection is concerned, it is quite immaterial whether or not Professor Owen preceded me, for both of us, as shown in this historical sketch, were long ago preceded by Dr. Wells and Mr. Matthews.

M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, in his lectures delivered in 1850 (of which a Resume appeared in the “Revue et Mag. de Zoolog.”, Jan., 1851), briefly gives his reason for believing that specific characters “sont fixes, pour chaque espece, tant qu’elle se perpetue au milieu des memes circonstances: ils se modifient, si les circonstances ambiantes viennent a changer. En resume, L’OBSERVATION des animaux sauvages demontre deja la variabilite LIMITEE des especes. Les EXPERIENCES sur les animaux sauvages devenus domestiques, et sur les animaux domestiques redevenus sauvages, la demontrent plus clairment encore. Ces memes experiences prouvent, de plus, que les differences produites peuvent etre de VALEUR GENERIQUE.” In his “Hist. Nat. Generale” (tom. ii, page 430, 1859) he amplifies analogous conclusions.

>From a circular lately issued it appears that Dr. Freke, in 1851 (“Dublin Medical Press”, page 322), propounded the doctrine that all organic beings have descended from one primordial form. His grounds of belief and treatment of the subject are wholly different from mine; but as Dr. Freke has now (1861) published his Essay on the “Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity”, the difficult attempt to give any idea of his views would be superfluous on my part.

Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an Essay (originally published in the “Leader”, March, 1852, and republished in his “Essays”, in 1858), has contrasted the theories of the Creation and the Development of organic beings with remarkable skill and force. He argues from the analogy of domestic productions, from the changes which the embryos of many species undergo, from the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, and from the principle of general gradation, that species have been modified; and he attributes the modification to the change of circumstances. The author (1855) has also treated Psychology on the principle of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.

In 1852 M. Naudin, a distinguished botanist, expressly stated, in an admirable paper on the Origin of Species (“Revue Horticole”, page 102; since partly republished in the “Nouvelles Archives du Museum”, tom. i, page 171), his belief that species are formed in an analogous manner as varieties are under cultivation; and the latter process he attributes to man’s power of selection. But he does not show how selection acts under nature. He believes, like Dean Herbert, that species, when nascent, were more plastic than at present. He lays weight on what he calls the principle of finality, “puissance mysterieuse, indeterminee; fatalite pour les uns; pour les autres volonte providentielle, dont l’action incessante sur les etres vivantes determine, a toutes les epoques de l’existence du monde, la forme, le volume, et la duree de chacun d’eux, en raison de sa destinee dans l’ordre de choses dont il fait partie. C’est cette puissance qui harmonise chaque membre a l’ensemble, en l’appropriant a la fonction qu’il doit remplir dans l’organisme general de la nature, fonction qui est pour lui sa raison d’etre.” (From references in Bronn’s “Untersuchungen uber die Entwickelungs-Gesetze”, it appears that the celebrated botanist and palaeontologist Unger published, in 1852, his belief that species undergo development and modification. Dalton, likewise, in Pander and Dalton’s work on Fossil Sloths, expressed, in 1821, a similar belief.

Similar views have, as is well known, been maintained by Oken in his mystical “Natur-Philosophie”. From other references in Godron’s work “Sur l’Espece”, it seems that Bory St. Vincent, Burdach, Poiret and Fries, have all admitted that new species are continually being produced. I may add, that of the thirty-four authors named in this Historical Sketch, who believe in the modification of species, or at least disbelieve in separate acts of creation, twenty-seven have written on special branches of natural history or geology.)

In 1853 a celebrated geologist, Count Keyserling (“Bulletin de la Soc.

Geolog.”, 2nd Ser., tom. x, page 357), suggested that as new diseases, supposed to have been caused by some miasma have arisen and spread over the world, so at certain periods the germs of existing species may have been chemically affected by circumambient molecules of a particular nature, and thus have given rise to new forms.

In this same year, 1853, Dr. Schaaffhausen published an excellent pamphlet (“Verhand. des Naturhist. Vereins der Preuss. Rheinlands”, etc.), in which he maintains the development of organic forms on the earth. He infers that many species have kept true for long periods, whereas a few have become modified. The distinction of species he explains by the destruction of intermediate graduated forms. “Thus living plants and animals are not separated from the extinct by new creations, but are to be regarded as their descendants through continued reproduction.”

A well-known French botanist, M. Lecoq, writes in 1854 (“Etudes sur Geograph. Bot. tom. i, page 250), “On voit que nos recherches sur la fixite ou la variation de l’espece, nous conduisent directement aux idees emises par deux hommes justement celebres, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire et Goethe.”

Some other passages scattered through M. Lecoq’s large work make it a little doubtful how far he extends his views on the modification of species.

The “Philosophy of Creation” has been treated in a masterly manner by the Rev. Baden Powell, in his “Essays on the Unity of Worlds”, 1855. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that the introduction of new species is “a regular, not a casual phenomenon,” or, as Sir John Herschel expresses it, “a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process.”

The third volume of the “Journal of the Linnean Society” contains papers, read July 1, 1858, by Mr. Wallace and myself, in which, as stated in the introductory remarks to this volume, the theory of Natural Selection is promulgated by Mr. Wallace with admirable force and clearness.

Von Baer, toward whom all zoologists feel so profound a respect, expressed about the year 1859 (see Prof. Rudolph Wagner, “Zoologisch-Anthropologische Untersuchungen”, 1861, s. 51) his conviction, chiefly grounded on the laws of geographical distribution, that forms now perfectly distinct have descended from a single parent-form.

In June, 1859, Professor Huxley gave a lecture before the Royal Institution on the “Persistent Types of Animal Life”. Referring to such cases, he remarks, “It is difficult to comprehend the meaning of such facts as these, if we suppose that each species of animal and plant, or each great type of organisation, was formed and placed upon the surface of the globe at long intervals by a distinct act of creative power; and it is well to recollect that such an assumption is as unsupported by tradition or revelation as it is opposed to the general analogy of nature. If, on the other hand, we view “Persistent Types” in