12 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



wonderful accumulation of illuminating and explaining- 

 facts, and with those always ingenious but ever candid and 

 supremely honest tryings-on of the theory to the various 

 fact-bodies, that the Theory of Descent began 

 Theory of to be spelled with capital letters in the biological 



faiidTty g by en CreecL Nor was it: merel y good-fortune that 

 Darwin. led to the quick and wide acceptance of the 



theory of descent when proposed by Darwin, 

 while the same theory when proposed twenty years earlier by 

 Lamarck found practically only rejection. It was because 

 to the old descent theory the new Darwinian theories were 

 added. It was because of that explaining Darwinism, which 

 to-day is being so rigorously re-examined as to its validity, 

 that the theory of descent took its definite place as the 

 dominant declaration in the biological credo. 



This Darwinism of 1858 and 1859 consisted of the selec- 

 tion theories ; the Darwinian pangenesis of gemmules theory 

 was a product of ten years later. It was the first of the 

 Darwinian concessions to scientific anti-Darwinism. That 

 is, it was a supporting hypothesis erected to strengthen a 

 foundation which was being \veakened by the enemy's 

 attacks. Curiously enough this first Darwinian concession 

 was made not on behalf of a true Darwinian principle, but 

 for the sake of a Lamarckian principle which Darwin had 

 thought necessary to include in his general conception of the 

 transmission of variations. Even in the formulation of the 

 true Darwinism, the selection theories, there must also be 

 recognised the participation of other minds than that of 

 Darwin. Malthus, who wrote, in 1826, of the over-supply 

 and the consequent struggle in the human population and 

 undoubtedly added much to Darwin's confidence in his own 

 conception of the prodigality of production and the necessary 

 struggle for life throughout the world of organisms, and 

 Wallace, who came to conclusions practically identical with 

 Darwin's at practically the same time, are men whose names 



