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Another is the possibility of a descent by leaps, through a metamorphosis of germs or a heterogenetic generation. The real causes of such a heterogenetic generation, if it took place at all, have not yet been found; therefore we have to treat only of the abstract possibilities of its conceivableness. There are two such possibilities.
Thus for the origination of groups lying nearer together, we have the evolution theory; for the other groups, and especially for the origination of types where no transitions to other types can be traced, the theory of the heterogenetic or primitive generation recommends itself; and both theories thus far are of a purely hypothetical nature.
But if we adopt the theory of a heterogenetic generation, we explain by it the variety but not the similarity of species; for a heterogenetic generation would in the new species make everything different from the old one a conclusion, the necessity of which it would be difficult to show.
And yet, strange to say, he speaks of the elemental origin of "living matter" as "having probably taken place on the surface of our globe since the far-remote period when such matter was first engendered." But how his "sum-total of external conditions," acting upon dead matter, can "engender" living matter, is one of those "related heterogenetic phenomena" which he does not condescend to explain.
Many of these men are but little aware of the difference between the two questions: whether, on the one hand, the adoption of the origin of species through descent does not of itself involve the idea of a gradual development of one species from another, almost unobservable in its single steps; or, on the other hand, whether a descent of species through heterogenetic generation in leaps and through a metamorphosis of the germs, could be imagined.
Heer has introduced into scientific language the term "new-modeling of the species," Kölliker that of a "heterogenetic generation," and Baumgärtner that of a "transmutation of the types through a metamorphosis of germs." Baer also is not averse to adopting the latter. The botanist, Albert Wigand, of Marburg, takes a peculiar position.
Besides, it is not only possible, but even probable, that both theories that of heterogenetic generation and that of gradual development may have to share with one another in the explanation of the origin of species; and even that, especially for the lowest species and for the beginnings of the main types, primitive generation also has its share in the establishment of the paternity.
So the reasons for and against the evolution theory almost balance one another; and it is not improbable that the hypothesis of an origin of species through development will have to share its authority with the hypothesis of a descent of species through heterogenetic generation, as well as with the hypothesis of a primitive generation of lower organisms, still repeating itself at a later time.
Among them we may mention K. E. von Baer, Ed. von Hartmann and Wigand; of the latter we will have occasion to speak more in detail hereafter. Among them we find also scientists who answer the question in the sense of a new-modeling of the species, of a heterogenetic generation, and of a metamorphosis of germs.
Can we reproach theologians for not immediately becoming scientists themselves, in order to form an independent judgment in the question, when even the most eminent scientists declared that amalgamation of the most heterogenetic as an inevitable consequence of Darwinism, and as much as possible diminished or concealed their want of harmony with a few other investigators who, although small in number, yet by their weight counterbalanced dozens of names of the second and third rank?
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