The Making of Species (Illustrated)

Post-Darwinian books on evolution fall naturally into four classes. I. Those which preach Wallaceism, as, for example, Wallace’s Darwinism, Poulton’s Essays on Evolution, and the voluminous works of Weismann. II. Those advocating Lamarckism. Cope’s Factors of Evolution and the writings of Haeckel belong to this class. III. The writings of De Vries, forming a group by themselves. They advocate the theory that species spring suddenly into being; that new species arise by mutations from pre-existing species. IV. The large number of books of a more judicial nature, books written by men who decline to subscribe to any of the above three creeds. Excellent examples of such works are Kellog’s Darwinism To-Day, Lock’s Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity, and Evolution, and T. H. Morgan’s Evolution and Adaptation.

All four classes are characterised by defects.

Books of the two first classes exhibit the faults of ardent partisanship. They formulate creeds, and, as Huxley truly remarked, “Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.” The [vi] books which come under the third category have the defects of extreme youth. De Vries has discovered a new principle, and it is but natural that he should exaggerate its importance, and see in it more than it contains. But, as time wears on, these faults will disappear, and the theory of mutations will assume its true form and fall into its proper place, which is somewhere between the dustbin, to which Wallaceians would relegate it, and the exalted pinnacle on to which De Vries would elevate it.

In the present state of our knowledge, books of Class IV. are the most useful to the student, since they are unbiassed, and contain a judicial summing-up of the evidence for and against the various evolutionary theories which now occupy the field. Their chief defect is that they are almost entirely destructive. They shatter the faith of the reader, but offer nothing in place of that which they have destroyed. T. H. Morgan’s Evolution and Adaptation, however, contains much constructive matter, and so is the most valuable work of this class in existence.

Zoological science stands in urgent need of constructive books on evolution—books with leanings towards neither Wallaceism, nor Lamarckism, nor De Vriesism; books which shall set forth facts of all kinds, concealing none, not even those which do not admit of explanation in the present state of our knowledge.—It [vii] has been our aim to produce a book of this description.

We have endeavoured to demonstrate that neither pure Lamarckism nor pure Wallaceism affords a satisfactory explanation of the various phenomena of the organic world. We have further, while recognising the very great value of the work of De Vries, tried to show that that eminent botanist has allowed his enthusiasm to carry him a little too far into the realm of speculation. We have followed up the exposure of the weak points of the theories, which at present occupy the field, with certain suggestions, which, we believe, throw new light on many biological problems.

Our aim in writing this book has been twofold. In the first place we have attempted to place before the general public in simple language a true statement of the present position of biological science. In the second place, we have endeavoured to furnish the scientific men of the day with food for reflection.

Even as the British nation seems to be slowly but surely losing, through its conservatism, the commercial supremacy it had the good fortune to gain last century, so is it losing, through the unwillingness of many of our scientific men to keep abreast of the times, that scientific supremacy which we gained in the middle of last century by the labours of Charles Darwin and Alfred [viii] Russell Wallace. To-day it is not among Englishmen, but among Americans and Continentals, that we have to look for advanced scientific ideas.

Even as the Ultra-Cobdenites believe that Free Trade is a panacea for all economic ills, so do most English men of science believe that natural selection offers the key to every zoological problem. Both are living in a fool’s paradise. Another reason why Great Britain is losing her scientific supremacy is that too little attention is paid to bionomics, or the study of live animals. Morphology, or the science of dead organisms, receives more than its due share of attention. It is in the open, not in the museum or the dissecting-room, that nature can best be studied. Far be it from us to deprecate the study of morphology. We wish merely to insist upon the fact, that the leaders of biological science must of necessity be those naturalists who go to the tropics and other parts of the earth where nature can be studied under the most favourable conditions, and those who conduct scientific breeding experiments.