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The Naturo-Philosophic Supplements of Darwinism and Theism. We still have to discuss the position of theism in reference to the philosophic problems to which a Darwinistic view of nature sees itself led, and in the first place its position in reference to the naturo-philosophic theories with which the descent idea tries to complete itself.
Benjamin Kidd in his Social Evolution, 1895, has reverted again to extreme Darwinism in morals and sociology. The law is that of unceasing struggle. Reason does not teach us to moderate the struggle. It but sharpens the conflict. All religions are præter-rational, Christianity most of all, in being the most altruistic.
A deep tinge of Darwinism seems to have spread itself over our own discussions, and two schools are rising in our midst, one advocating an active, the other a passive part in the struggle.
That beautiful faith in human nature and in freedom which had made delicate the dry air of John Stuart Mill; that robust, romantic sense of justice which had redeemed even the injustices of Macaulay all that seemed slowly and sadly to be drying up. Under the shock of Darwinism all that was good in the Victorian rationalism shook and dissolved like dust.
As early as 1888 he published a comprehensive work dealing with it, under the title: "The Origin of Species by Means of the Transmission of Acquired Characters According to the Laws of Organic Growth." As the title itself indicates, a very marked divergence was even at that time manifesting itself between Eimer and his former teacher and friend, the great defender of Darwinism in Germany, Aug.
And what the evolutionist stands in need of just now, is not an iteration of the fundamental principle of Darwinism, but some light upon the questions, What are the limits of variation? and, If a variety has arisen, can that variety be perpetuated, or even intensified, when selective conditions are indifferent, or perhaps unfavourable to its existence? I cannot find that Mr.
During the last few years I have published under this title short articles dealing with the present status of Darwinism. In view of the kind reception which has been accorded to these articles by the reading public I have thought it well to bring them together in pamphlet form.
At the outset Goette indicates the distinction between Darwinism and the doctrine of Descent, and then points out that the distinguishing features of the former consist not so much in the three facts of Heredity, Variation, and Over-production, but rather in Selection, Survival of the Fittest, and also in that mystical theory of heredity the doctrine of Pangenesis which is peculiarly Darwinian.
To what outcome reference is made, appears from two sentences in the Introduction: "Thus it happens that a theory which was once accorded enthusiastic approval, is treated with cold disdain or vice versa. Examples of this are to be found in the history of all sciences and circumstances seem to indicate that Darwinism is to add another to the number of these theories."
But the planetary orbits turned out to be not quite circular after all, and, grand as was the service Copernicus rendered to science, Kepler and Newton had to come after him. What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular? What if species should offer residual phaenomena, here and there, not explicable by natural selection?
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