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The term Heterogenesis, however, has unfortunately been used in a different sense, and M. Milne-Edwards has therefore substituted for it Xenogenesis, which means the generation of something foreign. After discussing Redi's hypothesis of universal Biogenesis, then, I shall go on to ask how far the growth of science justifies his other hypothesis of Xenogenesis.
As further witnesses to the passing of Darwinism, two botanists may be cited; the first is Professor Korschinsky who in No. 24, 1899, of the Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift published an article on "Heterogenesis and Evolution," which was to be followed later by a large work on this subject.
Similarly, von Baer emphasised the idea of an endeavour to realise an aim; von Kölliker, that of “heterogenesis”; Nägeli, that of an impulse towards perfection—all three thus recognising the theory of evolution, but dissenting from the view that the struggle for existence is the impelling factor and actual guide in the process.
The new views that have thus arisen have been definitely summarised and clearly contrasted with Darwinism by the botanist Korschinsky. He died before completing his general work, “Heterogenesis und Evolution,” but he has elsewhere given an excellent summary of his results, which we append in abstract. DARWIN. Everything organic is capable of variation.
On the other hand, it is obvious that a secret bond of sympathy will always unite it with the right wing of the theory of descent, with the champions of “halmatogenesis,” heterogenesis, kaleidoscopic readjustment, &c., because in all these the depth and wealth and the mystery of phenomena are more obviously recognisable.
B.'s book had been turned upside down, and he had begun with the various cases of heterogenesis, and then gone on to organic and afterwards to saline solutions, and had then given his general arguments, I should have been, I believe, much more influenced. I suspect, however, that my chief difficulty is the effect of old convictions being stereotyped on my brain.
The famous Italians, Redi and Spallanzani, had led the way in their experiments, and the latter had reached the conclusion that there is no vegetable and no animal that has not its own germ. But heterogenesis became the burning question, and Pouchet in France, and Bastian in England, led the opposition to Pasteur.
They are usually associated with a denial of the theory of natural selection, and with theories of “Orthogenesis,” “Heterogenesis,” and “Epigenesis.” We shall discuss them later when we are considering the factors in evolution. But we must first take notice of a work in which the theories opposed to Darwinian orthodoxy have been most decisively and aggressively set forth.
By the other mode, the living parent was supposed to give rise to offspring which passed through a totally different series of states from those exhibited by the parent, and did not return into the cycle of the parent; this is what ought to be called Heterogenesis, the offspring being altogether, and permanently, unlike the parent.
On the basis of such experiments Korschinsky developed the theory which had been proposed by Koelliker in Wuerzburg thirty years earlier, namely, the theory of "heterogeneous production" or "heterogenesis," as Korschinsky calls it.
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