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From The Contemporary Review.
MR. WALLACE ON DARWINISM.

BY GEORGE J. ROMANES, F. R.S.

they should have agreed to publish their theory on the same day; and last, but not least, that, through the many years of strife and turmoil which followed, these two English naturalists consistently maintained towards each other such feelings of magnanimous recognition, that it is hard to say whether we should most admire the intellectual or the moral qualities which, in relation to their common labors, they have displayed.

Now, I have sought to lay emphasis on this the dramatic side of Darwinism, because in the work which under this title I am about to review, it appears to me that Mr. Wallace has added yet another scene, or episode, which, in the respects we are considering, is quite worthy of all that has gone before. I do not allude merely to the fact that in this work we have the matured conclusions of the joint originator of Darwinian doctrine, published most opportunely at a time when biological science is especially anxious to learn his views upon certain questions of the highest importance which have been raised since the death of Darwin; nor do I allude merely to the further fact that in now speaking out, after nearly a decade of virtual silence on scientific topics, the veteran naturalist has displayed an energy of investigation as well as a force of thought which is everywhere equal to, and in many places surpasses, anything that is to be met with in all the solid array of his previous works. That these facts present what I call a dramatic side I fully allow; but the point which in this con. nection I desire to bring into special prominence is the following.

To all who have read the life and letters of the late Mr. Darwin it must appear that, over and above the personal and scientific interest which attaches in so high a degree to that admirable biography, there is what may be termed a dramatic interest. The antecedents of Charles Darwin, the Sir Isaac Newton of biology, in Charles Darwin, the undergraduate at Cambridge hitherto unconscious of his own powers, and waking up to a love of science under the guiding influence of a beautiful friendship; the delight and the diffidence which attended his nomination by Professor Henslow as a suitable naturalist for the Beagle expedition; the uncertainty which afterwards marked the course of negotiations between his family on the one hand, and the Admiralty on the other, wherein issues of incalculable importance were turning and re-turning in the balance of chance, determined this way and that by the merest featherweights of circumstance; the eventual suddenness of a decision which was destined to end not only, as his father anticipated, in unsettling" of his own views, but also, and to a never paralleled degree, in the unsettling of the views of all mankind; the subsequent dawning upon his mind of the truth of evolution in the light of his theory of natural selection, and the working out of that theory during twenty years of patient devotion in the quiet retirement of an English country life; the bursting of the storm in 1859, and all the history of the great transformations which It is notorious that, from the time when have followed, these in their broadest they published their joint theory of evooutlines are some of what I have ventured | lution by natural selection, Darwin and to call the dramatic elements in the rec- Wallace failed to agree upon certain points ords of Mr. Darwin's life. Now, not of doctrine, which, although of comparaleast among these dramatic elements is tively small importance in relation to any the relation in which Mr. Darwin's work question of evolution considered as a stood to that of Mr. Wallace. For as- fact, were, and still continue to be, of the suredly it was in the highest degree dra-highest possible importance in relation to matic, that the great idea of natural the question of evolution considered as a selection should have occurred indepen-method — i.e., in relation to the causes or dently and in precisely the same form to factors which have been concerned in the two working naturalists; that these natu- process. It was the opinion of Mr. Darralists should have been countrymen; that win that natural selection has been the

an

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chief, but not the only, cause of organic | is the power of steady misrepresentation; but evolution; while in the opinion of Mr. the history of science shows that fortunately Wallace natural selection has been the this power does not long endure.

all and in all of such evolution virtually the sole and only principle which has been concerned in the development both of life and of mind from the amoeba to the ape - although he further and curiously differs from Darwin in an opposite direction, by holding that natural selection can have had absolutely no part at all in the development of faculties distinctively human. Disregarding the latter and subordinate point of difference (a re-presentation of which in the concluding chapters of his present work I may however remark appears to me sadly like the feet of clay in a figure of iron, marring by its manifest weakness what would otherwise have been a completed and self-consistent monument of strength), let us first clearly understand to what it is that the major point of difference amounts. This may best be done by quoting from each of the authors in question parallel passages, which occur in the concluding paragraphs of their latest works.

Mr. Darwin writes:

Mr. Wallace writes:

While admitting, as Darwin always adlaws of growth and variation, of correlation mitted, the co-operation of the fundamental and heredity, in determining the direction of lines of variation or in the initiation of peculiar organs, we find that variation and natural selection are ever-present agencies, which take possession, as it were, of every minute change originated by these fundamental causes, check or favor their further development, or modify them in countless varied ways according to the varying needs of the organism. Whatever tion is supreme, to an extent which even Darother causes have been at work, natural selecwin himself hesitated to claim for it. The more we study it the more we are convinced of its overpowering importance, and the more confidently we claim, in Darwin's own words, that it "has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification."

Now, in the latter quotation it is mani fest that the "co-operation" which is spoken of takes cognizance only of factors which are themselves either necessary conditions to, or integral parts of, I have now recapitulated the facts and conthe process of natural selection; and, siderations which have thoroughly convinced therefore, the approval which Mr. Walme that species have been modified during a lace bestows upon Mr. Darwin's emphatic long course of descent. This has been effected reservation ("but not exclusive means of chiefly through the natural selection of numer- modification ") can only be understood to ous successive, slight, favorable variations, have reference to the development of aided in an important manner by the inherited those distinctively human faculties which effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in he immediately proceeds to consider, and an unimportant manner, that is in relation to touching which, as already indicated, Mr. adaptive structures, whether past or present, Darwin's reservation was certainly not by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our igno- intended to apply. Thus, in brief, at the rance to arise spontaneously. It appears that time of Mr. Darwin's death the state of I formerly underrated the frequency and value matters was this: while Mr. Wallace held of these latter forms of variation, as leading persistently to his original belief in natuto permanent modifications of structure inde- ral selection as virtually the sole and only pendently of natural selection. But as my cause of organic evolution, the whole body conclusions have lately been much misrepre- of scientific opinion, both in this country sented, and it has been stated that I attribute and abroad, had followed Mr. Darwin in the modification of species exclusively to nat- holding that, while natural selection was ural selection, I may be permitted to remark "the main" factor of such evolution, nevthat in the first edition of this work, and sub-ertheless it was largely supplemented in sequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position-namely, at the close of the Introduction- the following words: "I am convinced that natural selection has been the main, but not the exclusive, means of modification." This has been of no avail. Great

its work by certain other subordinate fac-
tors, of which the most important were
taken to be the inherited effects of use
and disuse, together with the influence
of the environment in directly producing

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which natural selection is always, so to speak, waiting and watching. The human hand, for example, considered as a mechanism, owes nothing to its continued use through numberless generations as an in

alterations both of structure and of in- the greater principle. But, as we have stinct. just seen, according to the school of WeisShortly after Mr. Darwin's death, how-mann it is only variations of a congenital ever, this state of matters underwent a kind that can be inherited; no matter very serious change. For it was shortly what adaptive changes may be induced after Mr. Darwin's death that Professor in the individual by suitable use and disWeismann began to publish a remarkable use of its several parts, and no matter series of papers, the effect of which has what adaptive changes may be directly been to create a new literature of such caused by environing agencies, these all large and rapidly increasing proportions count for nothing in the process of evolu. that, with the single exception of Mr. tion; the only adaptive changes that can Darwin's own works, it does not appear count for anything in this process are that any publications in modern times those which can be transmitted to proghave given so great a stimulus to specula- enyi.e., according to this school, those tive science, or succeeded in gaining so which arise fortuitously as congenital vainfluential a following. The primary ob-riations, for the accidental occurrence of ject of these papers is to establish a new theory of heredity, which has for one of its consequences a denial of the inherited effects of use and disuse, or, indeed, of any other characters which are acquired during the lifetime of individuals; accord-strument for the performance of functions ing to this theory, the only kind of varia- which it is now so admirably adapted to tions that can be transmitted to progeny discharge; on the contrary, its evolution are those which are called congenital. For has throughout been exclusively depeninstance, there is no doubt that in his in- dent on the occurrence of fortuitous varidividual lifetime the arms of a blacksmith ations, which, whenever they happen to have their muscular power increased by occur in a profitable direction, were preconstant exercise (or use) of the muscles served by natural selection, and passed in hammering; and therefore, if there on to the next generation. Now, it is eviwere a thousand generations of black-dent that, according to this theory, natural smiths, it seems reasonable to suppose selection is constituted the one and only that the children of the last of them cause of organic evolution; and for this would inherit somewhat stronger arms reason the followers of Weismann are in than those of average children or a for- the habit of calling his doctrine "pure tiori, than those of children born of a sim- Darwinism," inasmuch as, without invokilarly long line, say, of watchmakers. ing any aid from the Lamarckian princi. This was the supposition that constituted ples above described, it constitutes the the basis of Lamarck's theory of evolu- Darwinian principle of natural selection tion, and, as we have seen, it was sanc- the sole, and not merely as he said the tioned by Darwin - although, of course, 'main, means of modification." he differed from Lamarck in not regarding Obviously, without going further than this supposed transmission of the effects this quotation (which I have already made of use and disuse as the sole factor of from the last edition of the "Origin of evolution, but merely as a factor greatly Species "), it is a misnomer to designate subordinate to that which he had himself the doctrine in question "pure Darwindiscovered in survival of the fittest. Nev- ism." That quotation presents the only ertheless, he unquestionably did regard note of bitterness which is to be met with this subordinate factor as one of high im in the whole range of Mr. Darwin's writportance in co-operation with survival of ings, and it is a note which has express the fittest, and, as Mr. Herbert Spencer reference to this very point; notwithstandhas shown in detail, he apparently attribing the multifarious directions in which uted more and more importance to it the his doctrines were abused, the only prolonger that he considered its relation to test against "steady misrepresentation "

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