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Most biologists have asked for some more efficient cause, and assert that selection does not account for the appearance of variations, but only for their preservation, and that any valid theory of evolution must show how variations originate. It is chiefly in this respect that Darwin's work has failed to satisfy many later biologists.
When Professor Ray Lankester goes on to speak of the "undemonstrable agencies" "arbitrarily asserted" to exist by Professor Semper, he is again presuming on the ignorance of his readers. Professor Semper's agencies are in no way more undemonstrable than Mr. Darwin's are. Mr.
Every man imagines himself the first man, and to think that he is Adam and that he has to go forth, get acquainted with things and name them, reveals the true bent of the scientist. Doctor Haeckel was ripe for Darwin's book. He was looking for it, and it took only a slight jolt to dislodge him from the medical profession and allow the Law of Affinity to do the rest.
Darwin's book, with numerous corrections, important additions, and a preface, all prepared by the author for this edition, in advance of a new English edition. Popular Astronomy. A Concise Elementary Treatise on the Sun, Planets, Satellites, and Comets. By O.M. MITCHELL, Director of the Cincinnati and Dudley Observatories. New York. 1860.
The billiard-balls have not yet struck together, and we will suppose that none of the arguments that may be used to prove, from this organism, thus existing, that it could not have come into form and being without a creator acting to this end with intelligence and design, are opposed by anything that can be found in Darwin's theory; for, so far, Darwin's laws are supposed not to have come into operation.
And at another time he said, "I would feel I had gone too far were it not for Wallace, who came to the same conclusions, quite independently of me." Darwin's mind was simple and childlike. He was a student, always learning, and no one was too mean or too poor for him to learn from.
We do not speak jestingly in saying that it is Mr. Darwin's misfortune to know more about the question he has taken up than any man living.
Buckle was a great talker, and I listened to him saying hardly a word, nor indeed could I have done so for he left no gaps. When Mrs. Darwin's books are much better than his conversation." Of other great literary men, I once met Sydney Smith at Dean Milman's house. There was something inexplicably amusing in every word which he uttered.
Darwin's whirligig in its unaggregated form, admits of neither a maximum nor a minimum of comprehension; but rests entirely on imaginary hypothesis.
Activity was essential to progress from the very structure and laws of development of the animal, while a great abundance of food was not. A life of ease, for the same reason, necessarily results in degeneration. But you will ask, What becomes of Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution, if obedience to the laws of individual being is more important than conformity to external conditions?
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