The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

know this theory, at least in its outlines, and so we may enter at once upon its analytic discussion. A few words only I beg you to allow me as to th

also, which may come into account besides the indirect factors of transformism. He was Lamarckian to a very far-reaching extent. And he had no definite opinion about the origin and the most intimate nature of life in general. These may seem to be defects but really are advantages of his theory. He left open the question which he could not answer, and, in fact, he may be said to be a good illustrati

e made out of his doctrines, especially in Germany; how far is

ge of allowing the very sharp formulation of a few causal factors, which a priori might be thought to be concerned in organic transformism,

ism reveals two different parts, which h

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ay be said to belong to Darwin's personal teachings and not only to "Darwinism." The offspring of a certain number of adults show differences compared with each other; there are more individuals in the offspring t

o not actually exist, but it never explains at all the existence of the specifications of animal and vegetable forms that are actually found. In speaking of an "explanation" of the origin of the living specific forms by natural selection one therefore confuses the sufficient reason for the non-existence of what there is not, with the sufficient reason for the existence of what there is. To say that a man has explained some organic character by natural selection is, in the words

rapidly under the conditions existing at the time when they originated may also be said to have been eliminated by "natural selection." It is another question, of course, whether in fact all eliminations among organic diversities are exclusively due to the action of natural selection in the proper Darwinian sense. It has been pointed out already by several critics of Darwinism and most clearly by Gustav Wolff, that there are many cases in which an advantage w

dent to a very large degree, for it simply states that things do not exist if their continuance under the given conditions is impossible. To consider natural s

f the actual diversities; it therefore must remember that more forms may be possible than are actual, the word "possible" having reference in this connection to originating, not to surviving. Moreover, systematics is conce

N THE ALLEGED CAUSE

is, by variation as studied by means of statistics. This sort of variation, indeed, is maintained to be indefinite in direction and amount, at least by the most conservative Darwinians; it has occasionally been c

given property of a given species be n and let the value n + m-m being variable-which is represented in fewer individuals of course than is n, be such as to offer advantages in the struggle for existence; then the individuals marked by n + m will have the greater chance of surviving. Our postulate now states that, in order that a permanent increase of the average value of the variation in question may be reached, n + m in any of its variable forms must b

be a real progress for a few generations, but that this progress is always followed by a reversion. Of course our experience is by no means complete on this subject, and, indeed, it may be shown in the future that posi

e of dogmatic Darwinism. Its second principle, indeed, proves to be absolutely i

ects; that it can never account for the origin of those properties that are indifferent to the life of their bearer, being mere features of organisation as an arrangement of parts; that it fails in the face of all portions of organisation which are composed of many different parts-like the eye-and nevertheless are functional units in any passive or activ

is said to lie in its explaining everything that is useful in and for organisms; the competitive factor it introduces does indeed seem to secure at least a relative sort of adaptedness between

gether impossible to account for the restitutive power of organisms by the simple means of fluctuating variatio

rdity, which is hardly lessened by the assumption that regeneration was acquired not by all four legs together, but by one after the other. But it is absolutely inevitable to assume that all the ancestors of our Triton must have lost one leg, or more correctly, that only those of them survived which had lost one! Otherwise not all newts at the present day could possess the faculty of regeneration! But a second absurdity follows the first one; out of the ancestors of our newt, which survived the others by reason of having lost one of their legs, there were selected only those which showed at least a very small amount of healing

erefore must have acquired it, and they could do that only if they became halved at first by some accident during early embryology. But we shall not insist any further on this instance, for it would not be fair to turn into ridicule a theory which bears the name of a man who is not at all responsible for its dogmatic form. Indeed, we are speaking against Darwinism of the most dogmatic form only, not against Darwin himself. He never

arded all restitution as belonging to the original properties of life, anterior to the originating of diversities. Personally he might possibly be called even a vitalist. Thus dogmatic "Darwinism" in fact is driven into all the absurdities mentioned above, whi

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erties of the organisms might have arisen has proved to fail in the most marked manner, except perhaps for a few merely quantitative instances. Such a result

xplanation which was also adopted occasionally by Darwin himself: let us study that f