288 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



about what the means of future fulfilment are, in order to 

 keep them whenever they offer. But these are characteristics 

 of life itself, irrespective of all its specific forms, which alone 

 are concerned in transformism. Now indeed, I think, we 

 see as clearly as possible that Darwinism and Lamarckism, 

 in spite of the great contrast of materialism and psycholo- 

 gism, shake hands on the common ground of the contingency 

 of organic forms. 



The whole anti-Darwinistic criticism therefore of Gustav 

 Wolff for instance, may also be applied to Lamarckism 

 with only a few changes of words. How could the origin 

 of so complete an organ as the eye of vertebrates be due to 

 contingent variations ? How could that account for the 

 harmony of the different kinds of cells in this very com- 

 plicated organ with each other and with parts of the 

 brain ? And how is it to be understood, on the assumption 

 of contingency, that there are two eyes of almost equal 

 perfection, and that there are two feet, two ears ? Islands 

 and mountains do not show such symmetry in their 

 structures. 



We shall not repeat our deduction of the origin of 

 restitutions, of regeneration for instance, on the dogmatic 

 Lamarckian theory. As we have said already, it would lead 

 to absurdities as great as in the case of dogmatic Darwinism, 

 and indeed we already have mentioned that Lamarckians 

 would hardly even attempt to explain these phenomena. 

 It follows that dogmatic Lamarckism fails as a general 

 theory about form.j 



There is finally one group of facts often brought forward 



1 Compare also the excellent criticism of Lamarckism lately given by 

 G. Wolff, Die Begruiidung der Abstammungslehre, Miinchen, 1907. 



