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We have dwelt at length upon, this subject, because of its great general importance, and because we believe that Professor Koelliker's criticisms on this head are based upon a misapprehension of Mr. Darwin's views substantially they appear to us to coincide with his own.
So far as we are aware, there is not a phrase in the "Origin of Species" inconsistent with Professor Koelliker's position, that "varieties arise irrespectively of the notion of purpose, or of utility, according to general laws of Nature, and may be either useful, or hurtful, or indifferent." On the contrary, Mr. "Our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound.
We do not feel quite sure that we seize Professor Koelliker's meaning here, but he appears to suggest that the observation of the general order and harmony which pervade inorganic nature, would lead us to anticipate a similar order and harmony in the organic world.
Here again we must venture to dissent completely from Professor Koelliker's conception of Mr. Darwin's hypothesis. It appears to us to be one of the many peculiar merits of that hypothesis that it involves no belief in a necessary and continual progress of organisms. Again, Mr.
It is obvious, from, these extracts, that Professor Koelliker's hypothesis is based upon the supposed existence of a close analogy between the phaenomena of Agamogenesis and the production of new species from pre-existing ones. But is the analogy a real one? We think that it is not, and, by the hypothesis cannot be. For what are the phaenomena of Agamogenesis, stated generally?
Professor Koelliker's critical essay "Upon the Darwinian Theory" is, like all that proceeds from the pen of that thoughtful and accomplished writer, worthy of the most careful consideration.
We shall proceed to consider first the destructive, and secondly, the constructive portion of the essay. We regret to find ourselves compelled to dissent very widely from many of Professor Koelliker's remarks; and from none more thoroughly than from those in which he seeks to define what we may term the philosophical position of Darwinism.
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