Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton

“ A grand yet simple conception like that of natural selection, explaining and connecting together innumerable facts which people had previously explained differently, or had become accustomed to regard as inexplicable, must always remain as a stumbling-block to the majority of those who have reached or passed middle life before its first appearance.
Hardly anything is more characteristic of Darwin than the tone with which he wrote to acknowledged opponents. ”

“ Darwin’s views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in Nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or natural. Groups having the morphological character of species, distinct and permanent races in fact, have been so produced over and over again; but there is no positive evidence, at present, that any group of animals has, by variation and selective breeding, given rise to another group which was even in the least degree infertile with the first. ”

“ It is very difficult or impossible to define what is meant by a larger variation. Such graduate into monstrosities or generally injurious variations. I do not myself believe that these are often or ever taken advantage of under nature. It is a common occurrence that abrupt and considerable variations are transmitted in an unaltered state, or not at all transmitted, to the offspring or to some of them. So it is with tailless or hornless animals, and with sudden and great changes of colour in flowers.—I wish I could have given you any answer.
“Dear Sir, yours very faithfully,
“Ch. Darwin.” ”

“ On page 464 we read—
“Here are the phenomena of Hybridism staring you in the face, and you cannot say, ‘I can, by selective modification, produce these same results.’ Now, it is admitted on all hands, at present, so far as experiments have gone, it has not been found possible to produce this complete physiological divergence by selective breeding.... If we were shewn that this must be the necessary and inevitable results of all experiments, I hold that Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis would be utterly shattered.” ”

“ Darwin, I mean that which he propounded—not that which has been reported to be his by too many ill-instructed, both friends and foes—has never yet been shewn to be inconsistent with any positive observations, and if I may use a phrase which I know has been objected to and which I use in a totally different sense from that in which it was first proposed by its first propounder, I do believe that on all grounds of pure science it ‘holds the field,’ as the only hypothesis at present before us which has a sound scientific foundation.... ”

“ Having thus shown that man was probably descended from some lower form, he considers the mode by which the process was effected, showing that man possesses variability in body and mind, and is, like other animals, subject to all the laws of inheritance and variation, and to the direct action of surrounding conditions, and to the effect of the use and disuse of parts, and that his rate of increase is such as to render a large amount of extermination inevitable. In other words, he presents the same facilities for the operation of natural selection as those presented by other animals. ”

“ Whenever a naturalist approaches a problem in the light of the theory of natural selection, and is able, by its aid, to predict a conclusion which subsequent investigation proves to be correct, he is helping in the production of evidence in favour of the theory. ”

“ When you or Huxley say that a single cell of a plant, or stump of an amputated limb, has the ‘potentiality’ of reproducing the whole—or ‘diffuses an influence,’ these words give me no positive idea;—but, when it is said that the cells of a plant, or stump, include atoms derived from every other cell of the whole organism and capable of development, I gain a distinct idea. ”

“ We know so very little of the causes which in the majority of cases make species rare or common, that there may be hundreds of others at work, some even more powerful than these, which go to perpetuate and eliminate certain forms ‘according to natural means of selection.’ But even these superficial causes appear sufficient to explain the marked features of the Desert races, which frequently approach so very closely the typical form, and yet possess such invariably distinctive characteristics, that naturalists seem agreed to elevate them to the rank of species. ”

“ In the infinite complexity of the struggle for life “I cannot doubt that during millions of generations individuals of a species will be born with some slight variation profitable to some part of its economy; such will have a better chance of surviving and propagating this variation, which again will be slowly increased by the accumulative action of natural selection; and the variety thus formed will either coexist with, or more commonly will exterminate its parent form.” Thus complex adaptations like those of woodpecker or mistletoe may be produced. ”

“ As he noted in the presidential address to which they had just listened with such well-deserved interest, he found it stated on that which was then and at this time the highest authority for them, that as a matter of fact the doctrine of the immutability of species was disposed of and gone. He found that few were now found to doubt that animals separated by differences far exceeding those which they knew as species were yet descended from a common ancestry. Those were their propositions; those were the fundamental principles of the doctrine of evolution. ”

“ As I have argued above, Darwin was all the time affording the strongest support to the theory of specific centres: support which was entirely wanting in the theory of separate creation, in which the origin of each species is wrapped in mystery, so that we can form no opinion as to whether it took place at one centre or at many. ”

“ It is clear that two very distinct points are urged in this criticism of natural selection— (1) the difficulty that selective methods applied by man have not as yet produced all the characteristics of true species; (2) supposing the latter difficulty to be surmounted or sufficiently explained, the uncertainty as to how much or how little of the process of evolution has been due to natural selection.
Later in the same year Darwin seems to have been a little disappointed that Huxley’s confidence did not increase. ”

“ Such a weapon for the progress of science was provided by the Darwinian theory, and men were to be henceforth divided according to their use or neglect of the new opportunities. Men who up to that time had been equals were to be for ever separated, some to press forward in the front rank of scientific discovery, others to remain as interesting relics of a byegone age. ”

“ Darwin concludes that the reason why the germ-cell perishes if it does not unite with another from the opposite sex is simply because it includes “too little formative matter for independent existence and development.” He was led to this conclusion by the fact that the male and female germ-cells “do not in ordinary cases differ in their power of giving character to the embryo,” and also from experiments which seemed to show that a certain number of pollen grains or of spermatozoa may be required to fertilise a single seed or ovum. ”

“ I do not think species-describing is of any special use to the philosophical generaliser, but I do think the collecting, naming, and classifying some extensive group of organisms is of great use, is, in fact, almost essential to any thorough grasp of the whole subject of the evolution of species through variation and natural selection. ”

“ Wallace, more convinced than ever as to the efficiency and scope of natural selection, after first doubting, has finally come to reject sexual selection altogether. Probably the majority of naturalists are convinced by Darwin’s arguments and his great array of facts that the principle of sexual selection is real, and accounts for certain relatively unimportant features in the higher animals, and they further accept Darwin’s opinion that its action has always been entirely subordinate to natural selection. ”

“ Now, can it be doubted, from the struggle each individual has to obtain subsistence, that any minute variation in structure, habits, or instincts adapting that individual better to the new conditions would tell upon its vigour and health? “Yearly more are bred than can survive; the smallest grain in the balance, in the long run, must tell on which death shall fall, and which shall survive.” ”

“ The immediate result of my paper was that Darwin was induced at once to prepare for publication his book on the Origin of Species in the condensed form in which it appeared, instead of waiting an indefinite number of years to complete a work on a much larger scale which he had partly written, but which in all probability would not have carried conviction to so many persons in so short a time. ”

“ If one species does so, others must diminish. In the immense amount of destruction the weakest must die, “while those that prolong their existence can only be the most perfect in health and vigour—those who are best able to obtain food regularly and to avoid their numerous enemies. It is, as we commenced by remarking, ‘a struggle for existence,’ in which the weakest and least perfectly organised must always succumb.”
This tendency must apply to species as well as individuals, the best adapted becoming abundant, the others scarce or even extinct. ”

“ And yet here it was evident, as it became afterwards at Cambridge, that Darwin—although seeming to be by no means above the average when judged by ordinary standards—possessed in reality a very remarkable and attractive personality. There can be no other explanation of the impression he made upon distinguished men who were much older than himself, and the friendships he formed with those of his own age who were afterwards to become eminent. ”

“ At this time he had the conception—as we see in the succeeding extracts from his Diary—of species being so constituted that they must give rise to other species; or, if not, that they must die out, just as an individual dies unrepresented if it has no offspring; that change—and evidently change in some fixed direction—or extinction, is inevitable in the history of a species after a certain period of time. ”

“ It follows, therefore, that the origin of a species can only take place once; for it is infinitely improbable that the same variation would be independently submitted under the same conditions of competition, and added to the mass of inherited characters independently gained in two distinct lines by natural selection acting in the same manner upon the same variations in the same order through all ages. ”

“ Have you ever met with any tangible and clear view of what takes place in generation, whether by seeds or buds, or how a long-lost character can possibly reappear; or how the male element can possibly affect the mother plant, or the mother animal, so that her future progeny are affected? ”

“ Darwin dwells upon variations in single characters, as taken hold of by Selection; Wallace mentions variations, but dwells upon full-formed varieties, as favourably or unfavourably adapted. It is perfectly clear that with Darwin the struggle is so intense that the chance of survival of each individual turns upon a single and even slight variation. ”

“ I fully admit that there are very many difficulties not satisfactorily explained by my theory of descent with modification, but I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts as I think it certainly does explain. ”

“ In the introductory parts Darwin explained that “the facts which kept me longest scientifically orthodox are those of adaptation—the pollen-masses in asclepias—the mistletoe, with its pollen carried by insects, and seed by birds—the woodpecker, with its feet and tail, beak and tongue, to climb the tree and secure insects. To talk of climate or Lamarckian habit producing such adaptations to other organic beings is futile. ”

“ Thus in one extract the “wish of parents” was thought of as a very doubtful explanation of adaptation, while in another we meet a tolerably clear indication of natural selection, a variety which is not well adapted being doomed to extinction, while a favourable one is perpetuated, the death of a species being regarded as “a consequence ... of non-adaptation of circumstances.” ”

“ The immense, and in many respects disastrous, development of the competitive examination system since that time has almost banished from our universities the type of student represented by Darwin—the man who takes the easiest road to a degree and obtains it with the minimum of effort, but who all the time is being benefited by residence, studying, without any thought of examinations, the subjects which are of special interest to him, and seeking personal contact with19 older men who have reached the highest eminence in those subjects. ”

“ Again if this primordial cell had a Creator, as Darwin seems to admit, I do not see what we gain by denying the Creator, as Darwin does, all management of it after its creation. Lamarck was more logical in supposing it to have existed of itself from all eternity—indeed this is the principal difference that I see between this theory of Darwin’s and that of Lamarck, who propounded everything essential in the former theory, in a work now rather rare—his ‘Philosophie Zoologique.’ But you may see an abridgment of it in so common a book as his ‘Histoire Nat. ”

“ I have thought it well to bring strong evidence of Darwin’s entire confidence in his conclusions, because his writings were so extraordinarily balanced and judicial, and the weight he gives to opposing considerations so great, that a superficial student might imagine that he wrote and argued without any very strong convictions. ”

“ Natural selection (sometimes called ‘struggles’ by Darwin) is identical with the ‘Besoins des Choses’ of Lamarck, who, by means of his hypothesis, for instance, assigns the constant stretching of the neck to reach the acacia leaves as the cause of the extreme length of it in the giraffe; much in the same way the black bear, according to Darwin, became a whale, which I believe as little as his other assertion that our progenitors anciently had gills—only they had dropped off by want of use in the course of myriads of generations. ”

“ When we remember the immense amount of correspondence with which Darwin had to cope, the constant attention required by his investigations and publications, and the state of his health, it is deeply interesting to read these letters, written with such unfailing courtesy, to a younger worker in the lines that he had suggested, and who was thereby stimulated and encouraged to undertake the researches which are now so well known. ”

“ It is, I think, of especial interest to find Darwin at this early period arguing in a most convincing manner for the creative power of natural selection. The selective power becomes, by accumulation, of such paramount importance in the process, as compared with the variations, that, although these latter are absolutely essential, man may be said to make his domestic breeds and Nature her species. ”

“ Hence we see that this, incomparably the greatest work which the biological sciences have seen, begins with an explanation and defence and definition of the sphere of natural selection—then passes to consider difficulties which are partly those of natural selection, and partly of organic evolution—while it finally treats of the evidences of the latter process and the difficulties which a belief in it encounters. ”

“ Huxley wrote the Obituary Notice of Darwin for the Proceedings of the Royal Society: it is reprinted in “Darwiniana” (pp. 253 et seq.) . In this admirable essay the author recognises that Darwin evidently accepted evolution before he could offer any explanation of the motive cause by which that process took place. The theory of descent with modification had often been thought of before, “but in the eyes of the naturalist of the ‘Beagle’ (and, probably, in those of most sober thinkers) , the advocates of transmutation had done the doctrine they expounded more harm than good.” ”

“ Huxley thus hailed the statements of the President in favour of evolution, while the attacks on natural selection he merely met by saying that the address would have made a good subject for discussion in one of the sections, and by insisting with impressive solemnity that evolution was a very different thing from natural selection, thereby implying that the former would be unaffected by the fate of the latter. ”