Thomas Henry Huxley

“ It is obvious that my hypothesis is apparently very similar to Darwin's, inasmuch as I also consider that the various forms of animals have proceeded directly from one another. My hypothesis of the creation of organisms by heterogeneous generation, however, is distinguished very essentially from Darwin's by the entire absence of the principle of useful variations and their natural selection: and my fundamental conception is this, that a great plan of development lies at the foundation of the origin of the whole organic world, impelling the simpler forms to more and more complex developments. ”

“ Darwin believes that those resemblances and differences upon which our natural systems or classifications of animals and plants are based, are resemblances and differences which have been produced genetically, but we can discover no reason for supposing that he denies the existence of natural classifications of other kinds.
And, after all, is it quite so certain that a genetic relation may not underlie the classification of minerals? The inorganic world has not always been what we see it. ”

“ Physical Geology is full of such selections—of the picking out of the soft from the hard, of the soluble from the insoluble, of the fusible from the infusible, by natural agencies to which we are certainly not in the habit of ascribing consciousness.
But that which wind and sea are to a sandy beach, the sum of influences, which we term the "conditions of existence," is to living organisms. The weak are sifted out from the strong. ”

“ Darwin's many great services to Biological science that he has demonstrated the significance of these facts. He has shown that—given variation and given change of conditions—the inevitable result is the exercise of such an influence upon organisms that one is helped and another is impeded; one tends to predominate, another to disappear; and thus the living world bears within itself, and is surrounded by, impulses towards incessant change. ”

“ Organized beings then have absolutely no relation to inorganic nature: a plant does not, depend on soil or sunshine, climate, depth in the ocean, height above it; the quantity of saline matters in water have no influence upon animal life; the substitution of carbonic acid for oxygen in our atmosphere would hurt nobody! That these are absurdities no one should know better than M. Flourens; but they are logical deductions from the assertion just quoted, and from the further statement that natural selection means only that "organization chooses and selects organization." ”

“ So far from a gradual progress towards perfection forming any necessary part of the Darwinian creed, it appears to us that it is perfectly consistent with indefinite persistence in one estate, or with a gradual retrogression. Suppose, for example, a return of the glacial epoch and a spread of polar climatal conditions over the whole globe. The operation of natural selection under these circumstances would tend, on the whole, to the weeding out of the higher organisms and the cherishing of the lower forms of life. ”

“ The teleological general conception adopted by Darwin is a mistaken one.
"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.
"The assumption that an organism exists only on account of some definite end in view, and represents something more than the incorporation of a general idea, or law, implies a one-sided conception of the universe. Assuredly, every organ has, and every organism fulfils, its end, but its purpose is not the condition of its existence. ”

“ According to M. Flourens, Mr. Darwin's great error is that he has personified Nature (p. 10) , and further that he has
"imagined a natural selection: he imagines afterwards that this power of selection (pouvoir d'lire) which he gives to Nature is similar to the power of man. These two suppositions admitted, nothing stops him: he plays with Nature as he likes, and makes her do all he pleases." ”

“ The production of new species, or genera, is the extreme permanent divergence from the primitive stock. All known Agamogenetic processes, on the other hand, end in a complete return to the primitive stock. How then is the production of new species to be rendered intelligible by the analogy of Agamogenesis? ”

“ Darwin concludes his Chapter on Variation with these pregnant words:—
"Whatever the cause may be of each slight difference in the offspring from their parents—and a cause for each must exist—it is the steady accumulation, through natural selection of such differences, when beneficial to the individual, that gives rise to all the more important modifications of structure which the innumerable beings on the face of the earth are enabled to struggle with each other, and the best adapted to survive." ”

“ The apparently diverging teachings of the Teleologist and of the Morphologist are reconciled by the Darwinian hypothesis.
But leaving our own impressions of the 'Origin of Species,' and turning to those passages especially cited by Professor Kolliker, we cannot admit that they bear the interpretation he puts upon them. Darwin, if we read him rightly, does 'not' affirm that every detail in the structure of an animal has been created for its benefit. ”

“ He whose mind remains uninfluenced by an acquaintance with the phenomena of development, must indeed lack one of the chief motives towards the endeavour to trace a genetic relation between the different existing forms of life. Those who are ignorant of Geology, find no difficulty in believing that the world was made as it is ”

“ Darwin, if we read him aright, assumes no special tendency of organisms to give rise to useful varieties, and knows nothing of needs of development, or necessity of perfection. What he says is, in substance: All organisms vary. It is in the highest degree improbable that any given variety should have exactly the same relations to surrounding conditions as the parent stock. In that case it is either better fitted (when the variation may be called useful) , or worse fitted, to cope with them. If better, it will tend to supplant the parent stock ”

“ The varieties which are found arise in consequence of manifold external influences, and it is not obvious why they all, or partially, should be particularly useful. Each animal suffices for its own ends, is perfect of its kind, and needs no further development. Should, however, a variety be useful and even maintain itself, there is no obvious reason why it should change any further. ”

“ Teleology implies that the organs of every organism are perfect and cannot be improved; the Darwinian theory simply affirms that they work well enough to enable the organism to hold its own against such competitors as it has met with, but admits the possibility of indefinite improvement. But an example may bring into clearer light the profound opposition between the ordinary teleological, and the Darwinian, conception. ”

“ Darwin as the first Napoleon would have treated an "ideologue;" and while displaying a painful weakness of logic and shallowness of information, assumes a tone of authority, which always touches upon the ludicrous, and sometimes passes the limits of good breeding. ”

“ The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest lately made by some naturalists against the utilitarian doctrine that every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. ”

“ Cats catch mice, small birds and the like, very well. Teleology tells us that they do so because they were expressly constructed for so doing—that they are perfect mousing apparatuses, so perfect and so delicately adjusted that no one of their organs could be altered, without the change involving the alteration of all the rest. ”

“ Darwinism affirms on the contrary, that there was no express construction concerned in the matter; but that among the multitudinous variations of the Feline stock, many of which died out from want of power to resist opposing influences, some, the cats, were better fitted to catch mice than others, whence they throve and persisted, in proportion to the advantage over their fellows thus offered to them. ”

“ The developmental theory of Darwin is not needed to enable us to understand the regular harmonious progress of the complete series of organic forms from the simpler to the more perfect.
"The existence of general laws of Nature explains this harmony, even if we assume that all beings have arisen separately and independent of one another. ”

“ The external conditions of life, as climate and food, etc., seem to have induced some slight modifications. Habit, in producing constitutional differences, and use, in strengthening, and disuse, in weakening and diminishing organs, seem to have been more potent in their effects. ”

“ Pour un etre organise, la nature n'est que l'organisation, ni plus ni moins.
"Il faudra donc aussi personnifier l'organisation, et dire que l'organisation choisit l'organisation. L'election naturelle est cette forme substantielle dont on jouait autrefois avec tant de facilite. Aristote disait que 'Si l'art de batir etait dans le bois, cet art agirait comme la nature.' A la place de l'art de batir M. Darwin met l'election naturelle, et c'est tout un: l'un n'est pas plus chimerique que l'autre." (P.31.)
And this is really all that M. Flourens can make of Natural Selection. ”

“ In Paley's famous illustration, the adaptation of all the parts of the watch to the function, or purpose, of showing the time, is held to be evidence that the watch was specially contrived to that end; on the ground, that the only cause we know of, competent to produce such an effect as a watch which shall keep time, is a contriving intelligence adapting the means directly to that end. ”

“ It is formed at once at the single 'individual' moment at which the conjunction of the male and female elements takes place."
It will be observed that M. Flourens uses language which cannot be mistaken. For him, the labours of von Baer, of Rathke, of Coste, and their contemporaries and successors in Germany, France, and England, are non-existent: and, as Darwin "imagina" natural selection, so Harvey "imagina" that doctrine which gives him an even greater claim to the veneration of posterity than his better known discovery of the circulation of the blood. ”

“ No transitional forms of animals are met with among the organic remains of earlier epochs."
Upon this, Professor Kolliker remarks that the absence of transitional forms in the fossil world, though not necessarily fatal to Darwin's views, weakens his case.
"3. The struggle for existence does not take place."
To this objection, urged by Pelzeln, Kolliker, very justly, attaches no weight.
"4. A tendency of organisms to give rise to useful varieties, and a natural selection, do not exist. ”

“ For it would be demonstrated that an apparatus thoroughly well adapted to a particular purpose might be the result of a method of trial and error worked by unintelligent agents, as well as of the direct application of the means appropriate to that end, by an intelligent agent. ”