HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
930 
THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY. 
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, M.D. 
ifications of the leaf, such modification 
implies a marvellous differentiation and 
development. To assert that a stamen is 
a metamorphosed leaf means, if it means 
anything, that in the long sweep of time 
the leaf has by slow or sudden gradations 
changed its character through successive 
generation ~r until the offspring, so to 
speak, of a true leaf has become a stamen. 
But if such a metamorphosis as this is 
possible—if the seemingly wide gap be- 
tween leaf and stamen may be spanned 
by the modification of a line of organ- 
isms—where does the possibility of modi- 
fication of organic type find its bounds? 
Why may not the modification of parts 
go on along devious lines until the re- 
mote descendants of an organism are ut- 
terly unlike that organism? Why may 
we not thus account for the development 
of various species of beings all sprung 
from one parent stock? That too is a 
poet’s dream; but is it only a dream? 
Goethe thought not. Out of his studies 
of metamorphosis of parts there grew in 
his mind the belief that the multitudi- 
nous species of plants and animals about 
us have been evolved from fewer and 
IT was in 1790 that Goethe published 
the work that laid the foundations of 
his scientific reputation—the work on the 
Metamorphoses of Plants, in which he 
advanced the novel doctrine that all parts 
of the flower are modified or metamor- 
phosed leaves. This w7as followed pres- 
ently by an extension of the doctrine of 
metamorphosis to the animal kingdom, 
in the doctrine which Goethe and Oken 
advanced independently, that the verte- 
brate skull is essentially a modified and 
developed vertebra. These were concep- 
tions worthy of a poet; impossible, in- 
deed, for any mind that had not the po- 
etic faculty of correlation. But in this 
case the poet’s vision was prophetic of a 
future view of the most prosaic science. 
The doctrine of metamorphosis of parts 
soon came to be regarded as a fundament- 
al feature in the science of living things. 
But the doctrine had implications that 
few of its early advocates realized. If 
all the parts of a flower sepal, petal, 
stamen, pistil, with their countless devia- 
tions of contour and color—are but mod- THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY-. 
931 
fewer earlier parent types, like twigs of a 
giant tree drawing their nurture from the 
same primal root. It was a bold and 
revolutionary thought; and the world re- 
garded it as but the vagary of a poet. 
time was not yet ripe for tlie idea of 
transmutation of species to burst its bonds. 
And yet this idea, in a modified or un- 
developed form, had taken strange hold 
upon the generation that was upon the 
scene at the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Vast numbers of hitherto unknown 
species of animals had been recently dis- 
covered in previously unexplored regions 
of the globe, and the wise men were sore- 
ly puzzled to account for the disposal of 
all of these at the time of the Deluge. It 
simplified matters greatly to suppose that 
many existing species had been developed 
since the episode of the Ark by modifica- 
tion of the original pairs. The remoter 
bearings of such a theory were overlook- 
ed for the time, and the idea that Ameri- 
can animals and birds, for example, were 
modified descendants of Old World forms 
—the jaguar of the leopard, the puma of 
the lion, and so on—became a current 
belief with that class of humanity who 
accept almost any statement as true, that 
harmonizes with their prejudices, without 
realizing its implications. 
Just at the time when this thought was 
taking form in Goethe’s brain, the same 
idea was germinating in the mind of an- 
other philosopher, an Englishman of in- 
ternational fame, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 
who, while he lived, enjoyed the widest 
popularity as a poet, the rhymed couplets 
of his “Botanic Garden” being quoted 
everywhere with admiration. And pos- 
terity, repudiating the verse which makes 
the body of the book, yet grants perma- 
nent value to the book itself, because, 
forsooth, its copious explanatory foot- 
notes furnish an outline of the status of 
almost every department of science of 
the time. 
But even though he lacked the highest 
art of the versifier, Darwin had, beyond 
peradventure, the imagination of a poet 
coupled with profound scientific know- 
ledge; and it was his poetic insight, cor- 
relating organisms seemingly diverse in 
structure, and imbuing the lowliest flower 
with a vital personality, which led him to 
suspect that there are no lines of demarca- 
tion in natui’e. “Can it be,” he queries, 
“ that one form of organism has developed 
from another; that different species are 
really but modified descendants of one par- 
ent stock?” The alluring thought nestled 
in his mind and was nurtured there, and 
grew into a fixed belief, which was given 
fuller expression in his Zodnomia, and in 
the posthumous Temple of Nature. But 
there was little proof of its validity forth- 
coming that could satisfy any one but a 
poet, and when Erasmus Darwin died, in 
1802, the idea of transmutation of species 
was still but an unsubstantiated dream. 
Thus it is recorded with eclat that the 
discovery of the close proximity of Amer- 
ica at the northwest with Asia removes 
all difficulties as to the origin of the Oc- 
cidental faunas and floras, since Oriental 
species might easily have found their way 
to America on the ice, and have been 
modified as we find them by “the well- 
known influence of climate.” And the 
persons wrho gave expression to this idea 
never dreamed of its real significance. In 
truth, here was the doctrine of evolution 
in a nutshell, and, because its ultimate 
beaidngs were not clear, it seemed the most 
natural of doctrines. But most of the 
persons who advanced it would have turn- 
ed from it aghast could they have realized 
its import. 
It was a dream, however, which was 
not confined to Goethe and Darwin. Even 
earlier the idea had come more or less 
vaguely to another great dreamer—and 
worker—of Germany,lmmanuel Kant,and 
to several great Frenchmen, including de 
Maillet, Maupertuis, Robinet, and the fa- 
mous naturalist Buffon—a man who had 
the imagination of a poet, though his 
message was couched in most artistic 
prose. Not long after the middle of the 
eighteenth century Buffon had put for- 
ward the idea of transmutation of species, 
and he reiterated it from time to time from 
then on till his death in 1788. But the 
There was one man, however, who 
was moved to give the doctrine full ex- 
plication. This was the friend and dis- 
ciple of Buffon, Jean Baptiste de La- 
marck. Possessed of the spirit of poet 
and philosopher, this great Frenchman 
had also the widest range of technical 
knowledge, covering the entire field of 
animate nature. The first half of his 
long life wms devoted chiefly to botany, 
in which he attained high distinction. 
Then, just at the beginning of our cen- 
tury, he turned to zoology, in particular 
to the lower forms of animal life. Study- 932 
HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
ing these lowly organisms, existing and 
fossil, he was more and more impressed 
with, the gradations of form everywhere 
to be seen; the linking of diverse families 
through intermediate ones; and in par- 
ticular with the predominance of low 
types of life in the earlier geological 
strata. Called upon constantly to clas- 
sify the various forms of life in the course 
of his systematic writings, he found it 
more and more difficult to draw sharp 
lines of demarcation, and at last the sus- 
picion long harbored grew into a settled 
conviction that there is really no such 
thing as a species of organism in nature; 
that species” is a figment of the human 
imagination, whereas in nature there are 
only individuals. 
those organs. Thus a bird running by 
the sea-shore is constantly tempted to 
wade deeper and deeper in pursuit of 
food ; its incessant efforts tend to de- 
velop its legs, in accordance with the 
observed principle that the use of any 
organ tends to strengthen and develop 
it. But such slightly increased develop- 
ment of the legs is transmitted to the 
offspring of the bird, which in turn de- 
velops its already improved legs by its 
individual efforts, and transmits the im- 
proved tendency. Generation after gen- 
eration this is repeated, until the sum 
of the infinitesimal variations, all in the 
same direction, results in the production 
of the long-legged wading-bird. In a 
similar way, through individual effort 
and transmitted tendency, all the diver- 
sified organs of all creatures have been 
developed—the fin of the fish, the wing 
of the bird, the hand of man; nay, more, 
the fish itself, the bird, the man, even. 
Collectively the organs make up the en- 
tire organism; and what is true of the 
individual organs must be true also of 
their ensemble, the living being. 
That certain sets of individuals are 
more like one another than like other 
sets is of course patent, but this only 
means, said Lamarck, that these similar 
groups have had comparatively recent 
common ancestors, while dissimilar sets 
of beings are more remotely related in 
consanguinity. But trace back the lines 
of descent far enough, and all will cul- 
minate in one original stock. All forms 
of life whatsoever are modified descend- 
ants of an original organism. From 
lowest to highest, then, there is but one 
race, one species, just as all the multitu- 
dinous branches and twigs from one root 
are but one tree. For purposes of con- 
venience of description, we may divide 
organisms into orders, families, genera, 
species, just as we divide a tree into root, 
trunk, branches, twigs, leaves; but in the 
one case, as in the other, the division is 
arbitrary and artificial. 
Whatever might be thought of La- 
marck’s explanation of the cause of trans- 
mutation—which really was that already 
suggested by Erasmus Darwin—the idea 
of the evolution for which he contended 
was but the logical extension of the con- 
ception that American animals are the 
modified and degenerated descendants 
of European animals. But people as a 
rule are little prone to follow ideas to 
their logical conclusions, and in this case 
the conclusions were so utterly opposed 
to the proximal bearings of the idea that 
the whole thinking world repudiated 
them with acclaim. The very persons 
who had most eagerly accepted the idea 
of transmutation of European species 
into American species, and similar limit- 
ed variations through changed environ- 
ment, because of the relief thus given the 
otherwise overcrowded Ark, were now 
foremost in denouncing such an exten- 
sion of the doctrine of transmutation as 
Lamarck proposed. 
In Philosophic Zoologique (1809), La- 
marck first explicitly formulated his ideas 
as to the transmutation of species, though 
he had outlined them as early as 1801. In 
this memorable publication not only did 
he state his belief more explicitly and in 
fuller detail than the idea had been ex- 
pressed by any predecessor, but he took 
another long forward step, carrying him 
far beyond all his forerunners except 
Darwin, in that he made an attempt to 
explain the way in which the transmuta- 
tion of species had been brought about. 
The changes have been wrought, he said, 
through the unceasing efforts of each or- 
ganism to meet the needs imposed upon 
it by its environment. Constant striving 
means the constant use of certain organs, 
and such use leads to the development of 
And for that matter, the leaders of the 
scientific world were equally antagonistic 
to the Lamarckian hypothesis. Cuvier 
in particular, once the pupil of Lamarck, 
but now his colleague, and in authority 
more than his peer, stood out against the 
transmutation doctrine with all his force. 
He argued for the absolute fixity of spe- THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY, 
933 
cies, bringing to bear the re- 
sources of a mind which, as a 
mere repository of facts, per- 
haps never was excelled. As 
a final and tangible proof of 
his position, he brought for- 
ward the bodies of ibises that 
had been embalmed by the an- 
cient Egyptians, and showed 
by comparison that these do 
not differ in the slightest par- 
ticular from the ibises that 
visit the Nile to-day. Lamarck 
replied that this proved no- 
thing, except that the ibis had 
become perfectly adapted to 
its Egyptian surroundings in 
an early day, historically 
speaking, and that the climat- 
ic and other conditions of the 
Nile Valley had not since then 
changed. His theory, he al- 
leged, provided for the stabili- 
ty of species under fixed con- 
ditions quite as well as for 
transmutation under varying 
conditions. 
But, needless to say, the 
popular verdict lay with Cu- 
vier; talent won for the time 
ERASMUS DARWIN. 
against genius, and Lamarck was looked 
upon as an impious visionary. His 
faith never wavered, however. He be- 
lieved that he had gained a true insight 
into the processes of animate nature, and 
he reiterated His hypotheses over and 
over, particularly in the introduction to 
his Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans 
Vertebres, in 1815, and in his Systems des 
Connaissances positives de VHomme, in 
1820. He lived on till 1829, respected as 
a naturalist, but almost unrecognized as 
views on the transmutation of species 
were expounded, in 1802, the same twelve- 
month in which Lamarck’s llrst exposi- 
tion of the same doctrine appeared in his 
Recherches sur V Organisation des Corps 
Vivants. It is singular, too, that La- 
marck, in his Hydrogeologie of the same 
date, should independently have suggest- 
ed ‘‘biology” as an appropriate word to 
express the general science of living 
things. It is significant of the tendency 
of thought of the time that the need of 
such a unifying word should have pre- 
sented itself simultaneously to indepen- 
dent thinkers in different countries. 
a prophet. 
While the names of Darwin and Goethe, 
and in particular that of Lamarck, must 
always stand out in high relief in this 
generation as the exponents of the idea 
of transmutation of species, there are a 
few others which must not be altogether 
overlooked in this connection. Of these 
the most conspicuous is that of Gottfried 
Reinhold Treviranus, a German natural- 
ist physician, professor of mathematics 
in the lyceum at Bremen. 
That same memorable year, Lorenz 
Oken, another philosophical naturalist, 
professor in the University of Zurich, 
published the preliminary outlines of his 
Philosophie der Natur, which, as devel- 
oped through later publications, outlined 
a theory of spontaneous generation and 
of evolution of species. Thus it appears 
that this idea was germinating in the 
minds of several of the ablest men of the 
time during the first decade of our centu- 
ry. But the singular result of their va- 
rious explications was to give sudden 
check to that undercurrent of thought 
It was an interesting coincidence that 
Treviranus should have published the 
first volume of his Biologie, oder Philoso- 
phie der lebenden Natur, in which his 934 
HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 
that, in short, one species of 
animal might have developed 
from another. 
idea of transmutation was by 
no means so complete as that 
of Lamarck, and lie seems 
never to have fully deter- 
mined in his own mind just 
what might be the limits of 
such development of species. 
Certainly he nowhere in- 
cludes all organic creatures 
in one line of descent, as La- 
marck had done; neverthe- 
less he held tenaciously to 
the truth as he saw it, in 
open opposition to Cuvier, 
with whom he held a mem- 
orable debate at the Academy 
of Sciences in 1830—the de- 
bate which so aroused the 
interest and enthusiasm of 
Goethe, but which, in the 
opinion of nearly every one 
else, resulted in crushing de- 
feat for Geoffrey, and brill- 
iant, seemingly final, victory 
for the advocate of special 
creation and the fixity of 
Geotfroy’s grasp of this 
species. 
JEAN BAPTISTE DE LAMARCK. 
troversy over the subject 
seemed to end, and for just a 
With that all ardent con- 
which for some time had been setting 
toward this conception. Then for a gen- 
eration Cuvier was almost absolutely 
dominant, and his verdict was generally 
considered final. 
quarter of a century to come there was 
published but a single argument for trans- 
mutation of species which attracted any 
general attention whatever. This oasis 
in a desert generation was a little book 
called Vestiges of the Natural History of 
Creation, which appeared anonymously 
in England in 1844, and which passed 
through numerous editions, and was the 
subject of no end of abusive and derisive 
comment. The authorship of this book 
remained for forty years a secret, but it is 
now conceded to have been the work of 
Robert Chambers, the well-known Eng- 
lish author and publisher. The book it- 
self is remarkable as being an avowed and 
unequivocal exposition of a general doc- 
trine of evolution, its view being as radi- 
cal and comprehensive as that of Lamarck 
himself. But it was a resume of earlier 
efforts rather than a new departure, to say 
nothing of its technical shortcomings, and 
while it aroused bitter animadversions, 
and cannot have been without effect in 
creating an undercurrent of thought in 
There was, indeed, one naturalist of 
authority in Prance who had the hardi- 
hood to stand out against Cuvier and his 
school, and who was in a position to gain 
a hearing, though by no means to divide 
the following. This was Etienne Geoffrey 
Saint-Hilaire, the famous author of the 
Philosophic Anatomique, and for many 
years the colleague of Lamarck at the 
Jardin des Plantes. Like Goethe. Geof- 
frey was pre-eminently an anatomist, and, 
like the great German, he had early been 
impressed with the resemblances between 
the analogous organs of different classes 
of beings. He conceived the idea that an 
absolute unity of type prevails through- 
out organic nature as regards each set of 
organs. Out of this idea grew his grad- 
ually formed belief that similarity of 
structure might imply identity of origin THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY 
935 
opposition to the main trend of opinion 
of the time, it can hardly be said to have 
done more than that. Indeed, some critics 
have denied it even this merit. After its 
publication, as before, the conception of 
transmutation of species remained in the 
popular estimation, both lay and scientific, 
an almost forgotten “heresy.” 
gle, Darwin had made the personal ob- 
servations which first tended to shake 
his belief in the fixity of species. In 
South America, in the Pam pea n forma- 
tion, he had discovered “ great fossil ani- 
mals covered with armor like that on the 
existing armadillos,” and had been struck 
with this similarity of type between an- 
cient and existing faunas of the same re- 
gion. He was also greatly impressed by 
It is true that here and there a scientist 
of greater or less repute—as Yon Buch, 
Meckel, and Von Baer in Ger- 
many, Bory Saint Vincent in 
France, Wells, Grant, and 
Matthew in England, and Leidy 
in America had expressed 
more or less tentative dissent 
from the doctrine of special 
creation and immutability of 
species, but their unaggressive 
suggestions, usually put for- 
ward in obscure publications, 
and incidentally, were utterly 
overlooked and ignored. Spe- 
cial creation held the day, ap- 
parently unchallenged and un- 
opposed. 
But even at this time the 
fancied security of the special- 
creation hypothesis was by no 
means real. Though it seemed 
so invincible, its real position 
was that of an apparently 
impregnable fortress beneath 
which, all unbeknown to the 
garrison, a powder-mine has 
been dug and lies ready for 
explosion. For already there 
existed, in the secluded work- 
room of an English naturalist, 
a manuscript volume and a 
portfolio of notes which might 
have sufficed, if given publici- 
ty, to shatter the entire struc- 
ETIENNE GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRB. 
ture of the special-creation hypothesis. 
The naturalist who by dint of long and 
patient effort had constructed this pow- 
der-raine of facts was Charles Robert Dar- 
win, grandson of the author of Zoonomia. 
As long ago as July 1, 1837, young 
Darwin, then twenty-eight years of age, 
had opened a private journal, in which 
he purposed to record all facts that came 
to him which seemed to have any bear- 
ing on the moot point of the doctrine of 
transmutation of species. Four or five 
years earlier, during the course of that 
famous trip around the world with Ad- 
miral Fitzroy, as naturalist to the Bea- 
the manner in which closely related spe- 
cies of animals were observed to replace 
one another as he proceeded southward 
over the continent; and “by the South 
American character of most of the pro- 
ductions of the Galapagos Archipelago, 
and more especially by the manner in 
which they differ slightly on each island 
of the group, none of the islands appear- 
ing to be very ancient in a geological 
sense.” 
At first the full force of these observa- 
tions did not strike him; for, under sway 
of Lj'ell's geological conceptions, he ten- 
tatively explained the relative absence 936 
HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 
perience had aroused 
him to a new point of 
view he was still un- 
able to see anything- of 
value in these earlier 
attempts at an explana- 
tion of the variation of 
species. In opening his 
journal, therefore, he 
had no preconceived 
notion of upholding 
the views of these or 
any other makers of 
hypotheses, nor at the 
time had he formulated 
any hypothesis of his 
own. His mind was 
open and receptive; he 
was eager only for facts 
which might lead him 
to an understanding* 
of a problem which 
seemed utterly obscure. 
It was something to 
feel sure that species 
have varied; but how 
have such variations 
been brought about? 
It was not Jong be- 
fore Darwin found a 
clew which he thought 
might lead to the an- 
swer he sought. In 
casting about for facts 
he had soon discovered 
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN. 
From a photograph by Elliott and Fry, London. 
of life on one of the Galapagos Islands 
by suggesting that perhaps no species 
had been created since that island arose. 
But gradually it dawned upon him that 
such facts as he had observed “ could 
only be explained on the supposition that 
species gradually becomemodified.” From 
then on, as he afterward asserted, the 
subject haunted him; hence the journal 
of 1837. 
that the most available field for observa- 
tion lay among domesticated animals, 
whose numerous variations within specif- 
ic lines are familiar to every one. Thus 
under domestication creatures so tangibly 
different as a mastiff and a terrier have 
sprung from a common stock. So have 
the Shetland pony, the thoroughbred, and 
the draught-horse. In short, there is no 
domesticated animal that has not devel- 
oped varieties deviating more or less wide- 
ly from the parent stock. Now how has 
this been accomplished? Why, clearly, 
by the preservation, through selective 
breeding, of seemingly accidental varia- 
tions. Thus one horseman, by constantly 
selecting animals that “chance” to have 
the right build and stamina, finally de- 
velops a race of running - horses; while 
another horseman, by selecting a differ- 
ent series of progenitors, has developed a 
race of slow, heavy draught-animals. 
It will thus be seen that the idea of the 
variability of species came to Charles 
Darwin as an inference from personal 
observations in the field, not as a thought 
borrowed from books. He had, of course, 
read the works of his grandfather much 
earlier in life, but the arguments of the 
Zodnomia and Temple of Nature had 
not served in the least to weaken his ac- 
ceptance of the current belief in fixity of 
species. Nor had he been more impressed 
with the doctrine of Lamarck, so closely 
similar to that of his grandfather. In- 
deed, even after his South American ex- 
So far so good; the preservation of 
“ accidental” variations through selective- THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY. 
937 
breeding is plainly a means by which 
races may be developed that are very dif- 
ferent from their original parent form. 
But this is under man’s supervision and 
direction. By what process could such 
selection be brought about among crea- 
tures in a state of nature? Here surely 
was a puzzle, and one that must be solved 
before another step could be taken in 
this direction. 
spring. To these offspring will be trans- 
mitted the favorable peculiarities. Thus 
these peculiarities will become perma- 
nent, and nature will have accomplished 
precisely what the human breeder is 
seen to accomplish. Grant that organ- 
isms in a state of nature vary, however 
slightly, one from another (which is in- 
dubitable), and that such variations will 
be transmitted by a parent to its offspring 
(which no one then doubted); grant, fux7- 
ther, that there is incessant strife among 
the various organisms, so that only a small 
proportion can come to maturity—grant 
these things, said Darwin, and we have 
an explanation of the preservation of va- 
riations which leads on to the transmu- 
tation of species themselves. 
The key to the solution of this puzzle 
came into Darwin’s mind through a chance 
reading of the famous essay on “Popula- 
tion” which Thomas Robert Malthus had 
published almost half a century before. 
This essay, expositing ideas by no means 
exclusively original with Malthus, em- 
phasizes the fact that organisms tend to 
increase at a geometrical ratio through 
successive generations, and hence would 
overpopulate the earth if not somehow 
kept in check. Cogitating this thought, 
Darwin gained a new insight into the 
processes of nature. He saw that in vir- 
tue of this tendency 
This wonderful coign of vantage Dar- 
win had reached by 1889. Here was the 
full outline of his theory; here were the 
ideas which afterward came to be em- 
balmed in familiar speech in the phrases, 
“spontaneous variation,” and the “ sur- 
of each race of beings 
to overpopulate the 
earth, the entire or- 
ganic world, animal 
and vegetable, must 
be in a state of 
perpetual carnage 
and strife, individual 
against individual, 
fighting for suste- 
nance and life. 
That idea fully 
imagined, it becomes 
plain that a selective 
influence is all the 
time at work in na- 
ture, since only a few 
individuals, relative- 
ly, of each genex-ation 
can come to matu- 
rity, and these few 
must, naturally, be 
those best fitted to 
battle with the par- 
ticular circumstances 
in the midst of which 
they are placed. In 
other words, the in- 
dividuals best adapt- 
ed to their surround- 
ings will, on the av- 
erage, be those that 
grow7 to maturity 
and produce off- 
ALFRED RUSSELL XVALLACE. THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. 
From a photograph by W. and D. Downey, London. 
vival of the fittest,” through “natural 
selection.” After such a discovery any 
ordinary man would at once have run 
through the streets of science, so to speak, 
screaming “Eureka!” Not so Darwin. 
He placed the manuscript outline of his 
theory in his portfolio, and went on gath- 
ering facts bearing on his discovery. In 
1844 he made an abstract in a manuscript 
book of the mass of facts by that time ac- 
cumulated. He showed it to his friend 
Hooker, made careful provision for its 
publication in the event of his sudden 
death, then stored it away in his desk, 
and went ahead with the gathering of 
more data. This was the unexploded 
powder-mine to which I have just re- 
ferred. 
Twelve years more elapsed; years dur- 
ing which the silent worker gathered a 
prodigious mass of facts, answered a mul- 
titude of objections that arose in his own 
mind, vastly fortified his theory. All 
this time the toiler was an invalid, never 
knowing a day free from illness and dis- 
comfort, obliged to husband his strength, 
never able to work more than an hour 
and a half at a stretch; A?et he accom- 
plished what would have been vast 
achievements for half a dozen men of THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY 
939 
robust health. Two friends among 
the eminent scientists of the day 
knew of his labors—Sir Joseph 
Hooker, the botanist, and Sir 
Charles Lyell, the geologist. 
Gradually Hooker had copie to be 
more than half a convert to Dar- 
win’s views. Lyell was still scep- 
tical, yet he urged Darwin to pub- 
lish his theory without further 
delay, lest he be forestalled. At 
last the patient worker decided to 
comply with this advice, and in 
1856 he set to work to make an- 
other and fuller abstract of the 
mass of data he had gathered. 
And then a strange thing hap- 
pened. After Darwin had been 
at work on his “abstract” about 
two years, but before he had pub- 
lished a line of it, there came to 
him one day a paper in manu- 
script, sent for his approval by a 
naturalist friend, named Alfred 
Russell Wallace, who had been for 
some time at work in the East India 
Archipelago. He read the paper, 
and, to his amazement, found that 
it contained an outline of the 
same theory of “natural selec- B 
tion ” which he himself had origi- 
nated and for twenty years had 
worked upon. Working indepen- 
dently, on opposite sides of the 
globe, Darwin and Wallace had hit upon 
the same explanation of the cause of trans- 
mu tat iop of species. “Were Wallace’s 
paper an abstract of my unpublished 
manuscript of 1844,” said Darwin, “it 
could not better express my ideas.” 
ASA GRAY. 
paper, and on the other an abstract of Dar- 
win’s ideas, in the exact form in which it 
had been outlined by the author in a let- 
ter to Asa Gray in the previous year—an 
abstract which was in Gray’s hands be- 
fore Wallace’s paper was in existence. 
This joint production, together with a 
full statement of the facts of the case, was 
presented to the Linnsean Society of Lon- 
don by Hooker and Lyell on the evening 
of July 1, 1858, this being, by an odd co- 
incidence, the twenty-first anniversary of 
the day on which Darwin had opened his 
journal to collect facts bearing on the 
“ species question.” Not often before in 
the history of science has it happened 
that a great theory has been nurtured in 
its author’s brain through infancy and 
adolescence to its full legal majority be- 
fore being sent out into the world. 
Here was a dilemma. To publish this 
paper with no word from Darwin would 
gave Wallace priority, and wrest from 
Darwin the credit of a discovery which he 
had made years before his co-discoverer 
entered the field. Y7et, on the other hand, 
could Darwin honorably do otherwise 
than publish his friend’s paper and him- 
self remain silent? It was a complication 
well calculated to try a man’s soul. Dar- 
win’s was equal to the test. Keenly alive 
to the delicacy of the position, he placed 
the whole matter before his friends Hook- 
er and Lyell. and left the decision as to a 
•course of action absolutely to them. Need- 
less to say, these great men did the one 
thing which ensured full justice to all con- 
cerned. They counselled a joint publica- 
tion, to include on the one hand Wallace’s 
Thus the fuse that led to the great pow- 
der-mine had been lighted. The explo- 
sion itself came more than a year later, 
in November, 1859, when Darwin, after 
thirteen months of further effort, com- 940 
HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 
looked tliat no such sudden 
metamorphosis could have 
been effected bad it not been 
for the aid of a few notable 
lieutenants, who rallied to the 
standards of the leader imme- 
diately after the publication of 
the Origin. Darwin had all 
along felt the utmost confi- 
dence in the ultimate triumph 
of bis ideas. “Our posterity” 
he declared in a letter to 
Hooker, “will marvel as much 
about the current belief [in 
special creation] as we do 
about fossil shells having1 been 
thought to be created as we 
now see them.” But he fully 
realized that for the present 
success of his theory of trans- 
mutation the championship 
of a few leaders of science 
was all-essential. He felt that 
if be could make converts of 
Hooker and Lyell and of 
Thomas Henry Huxley at 
ERNST HEINRICH HAECKEL. 
once, all would be well. 
His success in this regard, 
as in others, exceeded his ex- 
pectations. Hooker was an 
pleted the outline of his theory, which was 
at first begun as an abstract for the Lin- 
naean Society, but which grew to the size 
of an independent volume despite his 
efforts at condensation, and which was 
given that ever-to-be-famous title, The 
Origin of Species by means of Natural 
Selection, or the Preservation of Favored 
Races in the Struggle for Life. And 
what an explosion it was! The joint pa- 
per of 1858 had made a momentary flare, 
causing the hearers, as Hooker said, to 
“speak of it with bated breath,” but be- 
yond that it made no sensation. What 
the result was when the Origin itself ap- 
peared, no one of our generation need be 
told. The rumble and roar that it made 
in the intellectual world has not yet alto- 
gether ceased to echo after nearly forty 
years of reverberation. 
ardent disciple from reading the proof- 
sheets before the book was published; 
Lyell renounced his former beliefs and 
fell into line a few months later; while 
Huxley, so soon as he had mastered the 
central idea of natural selection, mar- 
velled that so simple yet all-potent a 
thought had escaped him so long, and 
then rushed eagerly into the fray, wield- 
ing the keenest dialectic blade that was 
drawn during the entire controversy. 
Then, too, unexpected recruits were 
found in Sir John Lubbock and John 
Tyndall, who carried the war eagerly 
into their respective territories; while 
Herbert Spencer, who had advocated a 
doctrine of transmutation on philosoph- 
ic grounds some years before Darwin 
published the key to the mystery—and 
who himself had barely escaped inde- 
pendent discovery of that key—lent his 
masterful influence to the cause. In 
America, the famous botanist Asa Gray, 
who had long been a correspondent of 
Darwin’s, but whose advocacy of the 
new theory had not been anticipated, be- 
came an ardent propagandist; while in 
Germany Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, the 
youthful but already noted zoologist, 
To the Origin of Species, then, and to its 
author, Charles Darwin, must always be 
ascribed chief credit for that vast revo- 
lution in the fundamental beliefs of our 
race which has come about since 1859, 
and made the second half of the century 
memorable. But it must not be over- THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY. 
941 
took up the fight with equal enthusi- 
asm. 
but in his original exposition of his doc- 
trine he made no assumption as to what 
these causes are. He accepted the ob- 
served fact of variation —as constantly 
witnessed, for example, in the differences 
between parents and offspring—and went 
ahead from this assumption. 
—with here and there another of less 
general renown—was arrayed, at the 
outset, practical]y all Christendom. The 
interest of the question came home to 
every person of intelligence, whatever 
his calling, and the more deeply as it 
became more and more clear how far- 
reaching are the real bearings of the 
doctrine of natural selection. Soon it 
was seen that should the doctrine of the 
survival of favored races through the 
struggle for existence win, there must 
come with it as radical a change in man’s 
estimate of his own position as had come 
in the day when, through the efforts of 
Copernicus and Galileo, the world was 
dethroned from its supposed central posi- 
tion in the universe. The whole conserva- 
tive majority of mankind recoiled from 
this necessity with horror. And this con- 
servative majority included not laymen 
merely, but a vast preponderance of the 
leaders of science also. 
Against these few doughty champions 
But as soon as the validity of the prin- 
ciple of natural selection came to be ac- 
knowledged, speculators began to search 
for the explanation of those variations 
which, for purposes of argument, had 
been provisionally called “spontaneous.” 
Herbert Spencer had all along dwelt on 
this phase of the subject, expounding the 
Lamarckian conceptions of the direct in- 
fluence of the invironment (an idea which 
had especially appealed to Buffon and to 
Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire), and of effort in 
response to environment and stimulus as 
modifying the individual organism, and 
thus supplying the basis for the operation 
of natural selection. Haeckel also became 
an advocate of this idea, and presently 
there arose a so-called school of neo-La- 
marckians, which developed particular 
strength and prominence in America, 
under the leadership of Professors A. 
Hyatt and E. D. Cope. 
With the open-minded minority, on 
the other hand, the theory of natural 
selection made its way by leaps and 
bounds. Its delightful simplicity—which 
at first sight made it seem neither new 
nor important—coupled with the mar- 
vellous comprehensiveness of its impli- 
cations, gave it a hold on the imagina- 
tion, and secured it a hearing where 
other theories of transmutation of species 
had been utterly scorned. Men who had 
found Lamarck’s conception of change 
through voluntary effort ridiculous, and 
the vaporings of the Vestiges altogether 
despicable, men whose scientific cautions 
held them back from Spencer’s deductive 
argument, took eager hold of that tangi- 
ble, ever-present principle of natural se- 
lection, and were led on and on to its 
goal. Hour by hour the attitude of the 
thinking world toward this new prin- 
ciple changed ; never before was so great 
a revolution wrought so suddenly. 
But just as the tide of opinion was 
turning strongly in this direction, an 
utterly unexpected obstacle appeared in 
the form of the theory of Professor 
August Weismann, put forward in 1883, 
which antagonized the Lamarckian con- 
ception (though not touching the Dar- 
winian, of which Weismann is a firm up- 
holder) by denying that individual vari- 
ations, however acquired by the mature 
organism, are transmissible. The flurry 
which this denial created has not yet 
altogether subsided, but subsequent obsei’- 
vations seem to show that it was quite 
disproportionate to the real merits of the 
case. Notwithstanding Professor Weis- 
mann’s objections, the balance of evidence 
appears to favor the view that the La- 
marckian factor of acquired variations 
stands as the complement of the Darwin- 
ian factor of natural, selection in effect- 
ing the transmutation of species. 
Wide as are the implications of this 
great truth which Darwin and his co- 
workers established, however, it leaves 
quite untouched the problem of the ori- 
gin of those “favored variations” upon 
which it operates. That such variations 
are due to fixed and determinate causes, 
no one understood better than Darwin; 
Even though this partial explanation 
of what Professor Cope calls the “ origin 
of the fittest” be accepted, there still re- 
mains one great life problem which the 
doctrine of evolution does not touch. 
The origin of species, genera, orders, and 
classes of beings through endless trans- 
mutations is in a sense explained; but 942 
HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
what of the first term of this long series? 
Whence came that primordial organism 
whose transmuted descendants make up 
the existing faunas and floras of the globe? 
There was a time, soon after the doc- 
trine of evolution gained a hearing, 
when the answer to that question seemed 
to some scientists of authority to have 
been given hy experiment. Recurring 
to a former belief, and repeating some 
earlier experiments, the director of the 
Museum of Natural History at Rouen, 
M. E. A. Pouchet, reached the conclusion 
that organic beings are spontaneously 
generated about us constantly, in the 
familiar processes of putrefaction, which 
wmre known to be due to the agency of 
microscopic bacteria. But in 1862 Louis 
Pasteur proved that this seeming spon- 
taneous generation is in reality due to 
the existence of germs in the air. Not- 
withstanding the conclusiveness of these 
experiments, the claims of Pouchet were 
revived in England ten yeai’S later by 
Professor Bastian ; but then the experi- 
ments of John Tyndall, fully corrobora- 
ting- the results of Pasteur, g-ave a final 
quietus to the claim of “spontaneous 
generation ” as hitherto formulated. 
There for the moment the matter rests. 
But the end is not yet. Fauna and 
flora are here, and, thanks to Lamarck 
and Wallace and Darwin, their develop- 
ment, through the operation of those 
“secondary causes” which we call lawrs 
of nature, has been proximally explained. 
The lowest forms of life have been linked 
with the highest in unbroken chains of 
descent. Meantime, through the efforts 
of chemists and biologists, the gap be- 
tween the inorganic and the organic 
woidds, which once seemed almost infi- 
nite, has been constantly narrowed. 
Already philosophy can throw a bridge 
across that gap. But inductive science, 
which builds its own bridges, has not yet 
spanned the chasm, small though it 
appear. Until it shall have done so, the 
bridge of organic evolution is not quite 
complete; yet even as it stands to-day it 
is the most stupendous scientific structure 
of our century.