MODERN BIOLOGY 479 



underlying the new theory, it was he. Tlie fact, however, that his influence 

 was not so great as his scientific reputation might have warranted was mostly 

 due to the way in which he conducted himself; instead of openly defending 

 his views he wrote anonymously, repeatedly referring to "Professor Owen" 

 as his authority in opposition to Darwin. This gave his contribution a tinge 

 of lampoonery that detracted from the effect it might otherwise have had. 

 The article (it appeared in the Edinburgh Kevieiv of i860), which much em- 

 bittered Darwin, is chiefly interesting as being an expression for the sharp 

 contrast between the romantic natural philosophy and the realistic evolu- 

 tional theory. Owen points out with strong emphasis how few are the facts 

 and how weak the proofs that form the basis for the new theory, how the 

 problem of species-formation must still be considered unsolved in spite of 

 the theory of selection, how it was possible to assume other factors govern- 

 ing species-formation besides variation and natural selection. As such fac- 

 tors he suggests parthenogenesis and alternation of generations; he believes 

 it possible to suppose that the various stages in such a cycle — polypus and 

 medusa, or sporocyst, redia, cercaria — might, so to speak, liberate them- 

 selves from the series and begin to give rise to forms similar to them- 

 selves, with the result that the whole cycle would disintegrate into a number 

 of widely differing life-forms. He even adopts Pouchet's spontaneous-gener- 

 ation experiments in his support against Darwin: if the Infusoria spontan- 

 eously generate daily, how can it be assumed that all higher beings could 

 have been evolved in one single series originating in primitive forms? Owen's 

 suggestions in regard to species-formation are certainly not very happily con- 

 ceived from a modern point of view, and indeed they are only presented as 

 experiments with ideas in order to prove how complicated and difficult of 

 solution the problem of species-formation really is, but the worst of it is 

 that Owen brings into the field the whole of the thought-systems of the old 

 idealistic natural philosophy; as a factor that actively operates in the crea- 

 tion of the symmetrical forms of the higher animals he adduces a "polar- 

 izing force," the true essence of which need not be analysed here, as the 

 name itself explains it. Even the old doctrine of " the ideal type" is brought 

 forward for the same purpose. But one who has recourse to such empty 

 phrases to explain the origin of life-forms has no right to accuse Darwinism 

 of weak argumentation and of making false hypotheses. A controversy such 

 as this best shows what an immense advance Darwinism nevertheless in- 

 volved at the time, and at the same time explains why it is that even the 

 authorized objections of the old school must die away unheard. 



One gets the same impression from the criticism of Darwinism offered 

 by Agassiz, another important representative of the old biological school. 

 Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was born in 1807 at Motier in Switzerland, of 

 French parents, and even during his school-time devoted himself to natural 



