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These exceedingly romantic ideas have been often and deservedly repudiated, e.g., even by Wallace only a short time after their first appearance. Eimer really does them too much honor when he again undertakes, even with a certain amount of respect, a thorough refutation of them, "as in every regard unfounded."
This very analogy between the development of the family and that of the individual should, in fact, convince any one of this. If Eimer chooses to refer the analogy to "growth" and to designate the evolution of the whole animated kingdom as also a process of growth, there is, strictly speaking, no room for objection. However, there is here a danger, which he does not seem to have guarded against.
Along with Eimer and Kassowitz, we may name W. Haacke, especially in relation to his views on the acquisition and transmission of functional modifications and his thoroughgoing denial of Darwinism proper. But his work must be dealt with later in a different connection.
It is clear that with reference to the factors of evolution Eimer is, and perhaps not unreasonably, an eclectic, whose aim is to do justice to the predecessors of Darwin as well as to Darwin himself.
One of the most peculiar incidents in this scientific tragi-comedy is the fact that Weismann, the mainstay of contemporary decadent Darwinism, attacks with might and main its fundamental assumption, the transmission of acquired characters, whereas Eimer, who is thoroughly convinced that he has proved that doctrine, in his turn attacks Darwinism and proves with telling effect the impotence of its principles.
Eimer finds the reason of this small number of directions, in which development may proceed, in the fact "that the elementary external influences of climate and nourishment on the constitution of the organism are everywhere the cause of the transformations." Another important point is the difference of sex.
Eimer speaks of the impotence of natural selection, Weismann of its omnipotence. All this has shaken men's confidence in the trustworthiness of the Darwinian principles. This fact we are in no way inclined to doubt, but we must again differ from Wagner with regard to its significance.
He conceives that this transmission takes place when the causative influences exert themselves permanently on many succeeding generations. Eimer thinks that in this way the constitution of the respective species is gradually transformed.
They completely passed out of existence, leaving behind them only very much smaller reptiles. Eimer, of Germany, has based on facts like these his theory of Orthogenesis. He says that variations in animals are not indefinite and in every direction, but that they follow along clear and definite lines.
That Eimer does not take this step, is, to my mind, a mistake, which must be attributed to his one-sidedness, which, in turn, results from the fact that he generalizes too arbitrarily his observations on butterflies and the conclusions which he draws from them. Animals and plants certainly possess many characteristics which cannot be explained by means of his theory alone.
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