Biology | Page 8

is a fact accurately observed in our laboratories; and the theory of evolution is only questioned in the same very general way in which all the great generalizations of science are held open to modification as knowledge advances. But it is a very large question what has caused and determined evolution. Here, too, the fundamental problem is, how far the process may be mechanically explicable or comprehensible, how far it is susceptible of formulation in physico-chemical or mechanistic terms. The most essential part of this problem relates to the origin of organic adaptations, the production of the fit. With Kant, Cuvier and Linnaeus believed this problem scientifically insoluble. Lamarck attempted to find a solution in his theory of the inheritance of the effects of use, disuse and other "acquired characters"; but his theory was insecurely based and also begged the question, since the power of adaptation through which use, disuse and the like produce their effects is precisely that which must be explained. Darwin believed he had found a partial solution in his theory of natural selection, and he was hailed by Haeckel as the biological Newton who had set at naught the obiter dictum of Kant. But Darwin himself did not consider natural selection as an adequate explanation, since he called to its aid the subsidiary hypotheses of sexual selection and the inheritance of acquired characters. If I correctly judge, the first of these hypotheses must be considered as of limited application if it is not seriously discredited, while the second can at best receive the Scotch verdict, not proven. In any case, natural selection must fight its own battles.
Latter day biologists have come to see clearly that the inadequacy of natural selection lies in its failure to explain the origin of the fit; and Darwin himself recognized clearly enough that it is not an originative or creative principle. It is only a condition of survival, and hence a condition of progress. But whether we conceive with Darwin that selection has acted mainly upon slight individual variations, or with DeVries that it has operated with larger and more stable mutations, any adequate general theory of evolution must explain the origin of the fit. Now, under the theory of natural selection, pure and simple, adaptation or fitness has a merely casual or accidental character. In itself the fit has no more significance than the unfit. It is only one out of many possibilities of change, and evolution by natural selection resolves itself into a series of lucky accidents. For Agassiz or Cuvier the fit is that which was designed to fit. For natural selection, pure and simple, the fit is that which happens to fit. I, for one, am unable to find a logical flaw in this conception of the fit; and perhaps we may be forced to accept it as sufficient. But I believe that naturalists do not yet rest content with it. Darwin himself was repeatedly brought to a standstill, not merely by specific difficulties in the application of his theory, but also by a certain instinctive or temperamental dissatisfaction with such a general conclusion as the one I have indicated; and many able naturalists feel the same difficulty to-day. Whether this be justified or not, it is undoubtedly the fact that few working naturalists feel convinced that the problem of organic evolution has been fully solved. One of the questions with which research is seriously engaged is whether variations or mutations are indeterminate, as Darwin on the whole believed, or whether they may be in greater or less degree determinate, proceeding along definite lines as if impelled by a vis a tergo. The theory of "orthogenesis," proposed by Naegeli and Eimer, makes the latter assumption; and it has found a considerable number of adherents among recent biological investigators, including some of our own colleagues, who have made important contributions to the investigation of this fundamental question. It is too soon to venture a prediction as to the ultimate result. That evolution has been orthogenetic in the case of certain groups, seems to be well established, but many difficulties stand in the way of its acceptance as a general principle of explanation. The uncertainty that still hangs over this question and that of the heredity of acquired characters bears witness to the unsettled state of opinion regarding the whole problem, and to the inadequacy of the attempts thus far made to find its consistent and adequate solution.
Here, too, accordingly, we find ourselves confronted with wide gaps in our knowledge which open the way to vitalistic or transcendental theories of development. I think we should resist the temptation to seek such refuge. It is more than probable that there are factors of evolution still unknown. We can but seek for them. Nothing is more certain than that life and