THE DOCTRINE OF DARWIN.*

BY THEODOre Gill.

The chief for many years of the leaders in science knows no longer the world he erstwhile knew so well. CHARLES DARWIN has closed a life illustrious in the annals of biology, scarce full of years but very full of honors.

How fruitful was that life and how potent its influence on philosophy and on sociology the united voice of the civilized world proclaims how grievous the loss the lamentations of mankind testify. Less than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the publication of the "Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection." How great is the contrast between the beliefs and practice of naturalists before its appearance and those of their present successors! He would, indeed, have been a bold man who would have predicted that, in two decades after its appearance, the views therein promulgated would be universally accepted and be taken as the recognized platform of biologists. But the incredible has actually happened; all the students of nature, and in every land; zoologists and botanists, palæontologists and geologists-in America and Europe, at the confines of Asia, the extreme of Africa, and in distant Australia-all meet on common ground as evolutionists; all recognize to a greater or less extent the operation of natural selection in the survival of the fittest. To appreciate the cause of the profound impression produced by the deceased naturalist's greatest work, some reference to the antecedent and succeeding conditions is fitting.

It had been, from time immemorial, a generally accepted idea that the living beings which people the globe had, in some mys

* Several of the paragraphs in this address were published in advance, with a few modifications, in "The Critic," of New York, for May 6, 1882.

terious manner, been each "created" separately; but how, few ventured to express in words, for the mere attempt to do so conjured up such strange fancies that the intelligent mind drew back in revolt and refused to consider them. Now, it is a recognized scientific creed that the animals and plants which have successively inhabited the earth, were the descendants, with modification, from previous inhabitants since the dawn of life. A glimmer of the truth had now and then occurred to contemplative students. Philosophers had ventured to think that living forms like ancient ones might have descended from them. The investigators in various departments of biology had gradually deduced generalizations which all tended in a similar direction. The taxologists, in their very nomenclature, compared the animal kingdom to a tree of which the principal types were "branches" diverging from a common trunk, while the minor groups were successive offshoots; and the idea of genetic relationship suggested by the various degrees of likeness was expressed in the names conferred on other groups"tribe," "family," etc. The embryologists had recognized a coincidence between the stages of development of the "superior" animals and the adults of animals inferior in the system. The palæontologists had discovered an approximate coincidence between the successive inhabitants of the earth and the successive stages in the development of the living animals of the same types. The series of facts thus obtained had even, to some extent, been coordinated.

All these series of facts were such as would have been the result of the derivation of existing types from previous ones. But the possibility that the seeming was the real did not commend itself to the consideration of naturalists. Instead thereof, it was assumed that the facts were "in accordance with a plan of the Creator; that the Deity had conceived a few patterns, and that by those he constructed the animals which successively appeared on the globe, to be in time swept off and replaced by others. If answer was made that such was a puerile conception of creation and that it lim

ited the power of Deity, excessive anger was displayed, and its opponents called infidels and atheists. But even those who doubted whether the accepted views of creation were tenable, hesitated to take the alternative view. An efficient factor in variation remained to be discovered, and a full presentation of the data had yet to be made.

It was in 1859 that the desiderata indicated were supplied in "The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection." "Variation under Domestication" was compared and contrasted with “Variation under Nature." The "Struggle for Existence" which

is the result of the progressive increase of living beings was considered, and "Natural Selection" was designated as the factor which determined the development and existence as "species" of forms which had descended, with modifications, from countless antecedent generations. With the successive changes in temperature and other conditions ensuing in the ever-changing world, the animals and plants which peopled it were compelled to keep pace by corresponding changes in structure, or to give place to others who could adapt themselves to the new conditions.

So much were the views thus enunciated opposed to the current ideas that a brief period of astonished silence ensued, and men felt about before they could realize their full purport, or that such opinions were broached in sober earnest. Then followed on every hand torrents of detraction and abuse. The naturalists of the old school and the priests of revelation met on common ground, and loud and bitter was the denunciation. Numerous were the arguments against the new theory.

So

But why this great turmoil and uproar? Darwin was not the first to believe that species had been derived and not created. had philosophers believed before; the grandfather of Darwin believed and urged the belief; a great naturalist at the commencement of the century-Lamarck-boldly and wisely formulated a theory of evolution; the "Vestiges of Creation" took up the view, and gained marked attention in Britain. Even a clergyman of the English

Church, the Savilian professor in orthodox Oxford, the Rev. Baden Powell, in 1855, had considered the "Philosophy of Creation" in a "masterly manner," and Darwin bore testimony that nothing can be more striking than the manner in which the enlightened priest showed that the introduction of new species is a regular phenomenon in contradistinction to a miraculous process. Darwin was not the first even to conceive of the principle of natural selection. An American resident in England, Dr. W. C. Wells, as early as 1813, had recognized the operation of the principle in the distribution of the human race. In 1831, Patrick Matthews also appreciated the principle of natural selection; so Darwin himself wit

nesses.

It was not, then, the mere enunciation of the theory of evolution, nor of the principle of natural selection, that characterized the "Origin of Species," and drew the attention of mankind to it. It was the recognition of the incessant and universal operation of the factors, the masterly co-ordination of the facts of biology-zoology, botany, anatomy, general morphology, physiology, embryology, paleontology-and geology, the marshalling in orderly array and concentration in one direction of all natural knowledge, the force of the logic, the clearness of the exposition, the judicial candor of the argument that arrested men's attention, and provoked serious consideration of what before had been ignored as being beyond the domain or possibilities of investigation. In the time of Lamarck the world was not ready for a consideration of the question. Lamarck's was the prophesy of intuitive genius-genius the greater in that the facts that had then been garnered were few. The "Vestiges of Creation" was so replete with errors of fact and misconceptions as to attract more attention to the fault of its details that to the logic of its argument. The principle of natural selection had been applied to very special fields by Wells and Matthews; no evidence had been furnished of its wide extension, and it even occupied a subordinate position in the thoughts of those investigators.

The author of the "Origin of Species" was a different man from

his predecessors, and lived in a happier time. The facts had been accumulated and co-ordinated; men were ready to consider the reason why facts were such, and none was better fitted than Darwin -I should rather say none was so well fitted-to arrange and present the facts and to draw the deductions therefrom. Ever a close observer, practiced in many lands, student of all nature--especially skilled as a geologist, a botanist, and a zoologist-endowed with a severely judicial mind, honest above all, none like him had ever grappled with the mystery of creation. For more than twenty years he had pondered on the subject; with impartial severity he had weighed the evidence. He was, perforce, led to the conclusion that all the living had been derived from past forms, with modifica tions incident to individuality; the sums of the divergencies, small in themselves, became large in the aggregate, became enormous in time. The increasing beings, crowding upon each other, invading each other's domains, struggled for the life into which they were born. Happy were those possessing some slight advantage-strength, swiftness, dexterity, or adaptability resulting from modification of structure for they could procure place or food at the expense of their competitors, and the characters that gave them victory secured, likewise, the temporary ascendancy of their kind. How great is this variability our domesticated animals attest; how ancient is our globe geology teaches; that the race is to the strong or the cunning observation of inferior nature assures. With known variability, time, and space, what could not result? Which, then, was the more probable that Nature-or, if you will, the Creator-had always operated under law, or that there had been constant interference? Thus were the issues fairly joined. On the one hand, Creation was the rallying cry; on the other, Evolution and Darwin. what meant the opposed terms? It is surely but reasonable to ask the question. The evolutionists conceded the reasonableness, and gladly accepted the ordeal. Could less be required of the creationists? In reverential mood would I submit the alternatives. If they repel, blame not me. I have long and fruitlessly searched for better.

But