48x THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



which is founded on a truly exact, and not on a natural-philosophical, 

 basis. 



Huxley versus Kolliker 

 This criticism of Kolliker's was opposed by Huxley, who vehemently de- 

 nies that there is any teleological explanation at all in Darwin, whose en- 

 tire theory is based rather on the absence of any creative purpose in nature. 

 And in proof of his view Huxley cites exactly the same quotation out of 

 the Origin of Species as Kolliker does for his own argument. From this it is 

 obvious that the two antagonists must be standing in some essential respect 

 on different ground, and the question is of such great general interest that 

 it deserves closer examination. Strictly speaking, Huxley is right, in so far 

 as no creative design in the romantic natural-philosophical sense is ever re- 

 ferred to by Darwin; but this does not prevent his constant assertion as to 

 the adaptability of life-forms and organs to certain given conditions from 

 implying a teleological explanation of phenomena; not only the entire the- 

 ory of sexual selection, but also most of the doctrine of natural selection 

 actually rests on this assumption. The contrast between the romantic and 

 the Darwinian teleology is best explained by an example. It is asked: Why 

 has a cat claws? For the sake of the creative design, say the romanticists, 

 and in order to serve the purposes of the cosmic order. For its own sake, 

 says Darwin, and in order to enable it to survive in the struggle for exist- 

 ence. But it is really the question itself that is absurd — as absurd as the 

 question: Why does a stone fall? or Why does the earth revolve round the 

 sun? Biology can only endeavour to find out the conditions under which 

 cat's claws are developed and used, but never anything more; those who 

 question beyond that fail to fulfil Bacon's requirement that we should "ask 

 nature fair questions." But Darwin and his contemporaries are constantly 

 putting such wrong questions to nature. This is, of course, due to the fact 

 that they were unable to free themselves entirely from the influence of ro- 

 mantic philosophy, which, indeed, they desired to abandon and the weak- 

 nesses of which they fully realized, but its grasp of the problem of life was 

 really too firm for them to loosen. Natural philosophy had, indeed, found 

 in its plan of creation an explanation for everything, and to resign in face 

 of the causes of the phenomena of life would have meant, to the new direc- 

 tion in which biology was moving, almost the same thing as a declaration 

 of bankruptcy in face of its opponents. And in contrast to the idealistic plan 

 of creation Darwin's teleology involves possibilities of development, in so 

 far as a number of the so-called purposeful adaptations have since, mainly 

 through modern researches into the problem of heredity, found its law-bound 

 explanation, while other phenomena have had to accept that resignation in 

 face of the inexplicable, which is the hall-mark of exact and critical science. 

 Darwin's theory of adaptation, which is now so often condemned for its 



