Initiative in Evolution

1899 and 1909. These begin with the Origin of Species and end with the publica-tion of a volume in commemo

fifty years between the issue of the work of Darwin and Wallace and 1909 saw a greater revolu

in passing that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is not referred to in the address. Challenges and opposi-tion from various quarters met this confident claim of the formidable speaker, as doubtless he desired, but the work of the succeeding half-century has done little or nothing that does not establish that claim. It is hardly to be doubted that if in the jubilee-year, 1909, Huxle

aid that they must all be thankful to have still among them that champion of Evolution who once bore down its e

ook place soon after the introduc-tion of Mendel’s discoveries into England at the London Zoological Society, when Prof. Bateson expounded them with enthusiasm and when Weldon repelled them with cogent and incisive arguments. The duel las

lows to

are more relevant to my im

by Prof. Bateson, Weismann, and again Prof. Bateson, under which it seemed to

te

trenchant statements to the effect “that the existence of new forms having from their beginning more or less of the kind of perfec-tion that we associate with normality, is a fact that once and for all disposes of the attempt to interpret all perfec-tion and definiteness of form as the work of selection,”5 and “Inquiry into the causes of variation is as yet, in my judgment, premature.”6 It will hardly be denied that a work which contained such statements as these from such a source seemed momentous in its influence on the fate of Darwin’s theory. Prof. Bateson yielded to none in his loyalty to Darwin, as far as he knew himself, and here he is as candid as Huxley, and he declares that in his treatment of the phenomena of variation is found nothing which is in any way opposed to Darwin’s theory. The shade of Darwin might nevertheless hav

ion of the qualities of an organism. The organism as an historical functioning, striving being, had receded once for all from his vision. He hazarded the sugges-tion in Heredity and Variation in Modern Lights that “variation consists largely in the unpacking and repacking of an original complexity,” and that “it is not so certain as we might like to think that the order of these events is not predetermined.” Incidentally one may remark that, malgré lui, Prof. Bateson stands forth as a modern Paley as does Weismann in his great rival and opposing scheme. It is true that he says “I see no ground whatever for holding such a view, but in fairness the possibility should not be forgotten and in the light of modern research it scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before.” Having drawn the sword he threw away the scabbard in 1914 when he occupied the presidential chair of the British Associa-tion of

imate and stirring message of the gifted G. B. Howes? “We live by ideas, we advance by a knowledge of the facts.” The self-denying ordinance affirmed and reaffirmed by Prof. Bateson is not observed even in the Melbourne and Sydney addresses. In the former, he says “at first it may seem rank absurdity to suppose that the primordial form or forms of protoplasm could have contained complexity enough to produce the divers types of life,” and asks us to open our minds to this possibility. Again “I have confidence that the artistic gifts of mankind will prove to be due

complished speaker’s dislike of the theories—of others. If they are not ideal constructions of a high order I do not know the meaning of that te

hyletic parallelism in the biological make-up of Prof. Bateson. Again is seen consistency of view and

that an organism cannot pass on to offspring a factor

g in the term “factor” with which some play might be made, but, taking it to mean what the context indicates, an acquirement made by the individual during its personal life, we have pretty clear evidence that Prof. Bateson will have nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characters as that doctrine is understood by the unsophisticated biologist. T

or showing how the work of Weismann and himself diverge gravely and yet meet at one point,

g, my sons, dig in the vineyard.” If they follow still the course of the sons they may find more gold than they have

Para

ittle oasis of the desert-stage of our journey, and brush off some of the dust, while I briefly narrate two in

t. As he trudged forward he noticed at a certain point in the path (shall we call it 1894–1899?) that a jaguar was wa

as his two enemies sprang at him, and these two near rel

or layman, can point

lled. A poor Scotchman badly wounded and hardly conscious was taken up by two seamen, an Englishman and an Irishman, and as they were about to throw him overboard his fe

sma

in that year to the International Congress of Zoologists at Leyden. This formed an epoch in biological thought and there lived none so well qualified as Weismann to stand forth as its interpreter. The well-translated, forcible language, and lucid thought leave the reader in no manner of doubt as to his meaning. It took a wider form in his final book on the Evolution Theory, but the germinal and essential thoughts of the latter were contained in the former. From 1895 onwards the praise of Weismann was in all the churches. Probably no modern worker in the fields of h

ly specialised group there are exactly fifty-three lines, or one and a half pages, which deal with other animal groups, and there are four casual allusions to plants occupying twelve lines in all! In the essay of 1909 on the Selection Theory this treatment of animated life i

’s Twelv

s from the 1895 essay on

f selection. If I should succeed in reinstating this principle in its im

inst the many doubts which gathered around it on all sides like so many lowering thunder-clouds.”15 And he speaks on p

cales, a scientific Athanasius “contending for our all.” Again is seen a friend of Darwin from another camp t

says, “We know of only one natural principle of

sequence of the applica-tion of the pr

tion) requires that the initial steps of a v

h it is obligatory on us to discover if we possibly can. We must seek t

variations are always present, or that they always exist in a suf

of a variation and its actual appearance, or the direction

observed transformations . . . that a heredity of acquired characters would pe

n and calmness of judgment but complains of him that he “has not be

ent, etc., he says “the Lamarckian pr

sm) has performed its services and must be discarded the mom

emed to me to be instances of use-inheritance, and I received a reply in polite but brief and Prussian terms to the effect tha

ar neo-Darwinians are likely to promote the greater glory of Darwin, and though more than a quarter of a century e

house

aspect of Weismann’s work which is not usually appreciated. A child is aware of the

f Weismannism referred to above, that is the light of a lighthouse. The ancients in their crude way saw the need for this and as far back as the days of Ptolemy II. a tower to give light was erected on the island of Pharus, off the Egyptian coast, and it was called a pharos. Man found it necessary, as naviga-tion and seafaring advanced, to use this principle more and more, and on headland, sandbank and rugged coast has built noble structures to aid the sailor in his dangerous course. The oldest and finest of these in Great Britain is the Eddyst

us operandi of evolution. His greatness as a biologist, his candour and skill in dialectics, have built up a veritable lighthouse whi

theory of germ-plasm and that of evolution, though the latter seems to be the necessary outcome of the former.

s on W

blished in 1893 is of great value. I need only refer here to

sition in it.26 Originally he held that the germ-plasm possessed perpetual continuity since the first origin of life, and absolute stability since the first origin of sexual propaga-tion, but he has shown himself willing to surrender the first postulate, and has himself altered the second. As it stands now it must be admitted that the

solute stability of germ-plasm, Weismann’s theory of evolution falls to the ground. He has indeed surrendered much in his late

ticellular the only cause of these is natural selection. Thus we see standing at the critical date, 1892,

al Sel

if victory for Darwin was to be won, at least so the great leader said. It must be remembered that it was the personal selection of Darwin which was held to be in danger. Accordingly germinal selection was brought fo

he different parts, so that maintenance or victory over weaker determinants takes place. Thus we have a survival of the fittest in petto in the germ analogous to that of the individual organisms as we see them. There is of course a resemblance here to the cellular or histonal selection of Roux, but his doctrines are not weighted with the intolerable dogma of the non-inheritance of acquired characters. But ultimately this concep-tion of germinal sel

to which in the later chapters I propose to add a few fresh ones, and by a grow

afforded by the work of Weismann, represented by the Pharos o

hor

add the great weight of Sir E. Ray Lankester’s opinion lately given in a reply to Professor Adami that “it is very widely admitted (more correctly “claimed”) that no case of the transmission of what a

n more than these “three migh

unconvinced as to Lamarckian factors and ask for more evidence, and they have many to support them in their

falls the suggested cause of variation, there is a growing bo

ck “although it had little influence upon biological thought during and for a long time afte

d his adherence to the mnemonic theory of heredity, foreshadowed by Samuel Butler and inaugurated by Semon, a condit

lated from the work of botanists and zoologists who were prepared to appeal to the tribunal of natural processes; though Weis

reptiles especially alytes held by Professor McBride to be convincing, though the latter are to be repeated at the London Zoological Society’s gardens and are therefore sub judice—others on brine-shrimps, on the effects of change of food on bee-grubs and tadpoles, and of the change of level of environments of certain cereals—others by He

ed as a necessary factor of evolution “the direct response of the organism to environmental stimuli at all stages of development, whereby individual adapta-tion is secured, and this individual a

re it (the doctrine in question) in whole or in part with many botanists, with men who have lived their lives in the atmosphere of observa-tio

lution in which from his extensive knowledge of the subject he deals with evidence of inheritance of

in organic evolution, qua authority, has been in poor case during recent years, and i