MODERN BIOLOGY 483 



credulity, has thus in reality formed a necessary transitional stage, which 

 has freed biology from the illusions of the past and made a more exact re- 

 search possible in the future. 



Among Darwin's other opponents in Germany may be mentioned Al- 

 bert WiGAND (i8ii-86), professor of botany at Marburg, a pupil of Schlei- 

 den, and well known as a capable plant-anatomist and plant-physiologist, 

 as well as a leading expert on cryptogams. He was, moreover, deeply re- 

 ligious and on that account was unable to accept the theory of spontaneous 

 generation. It was therefore inevitable that Darwinism should have been 

 odious to him from the start, and he wrote many treatises against it. Even- 

 tually, after ten years of preliminary work, he summarized his views in a 

 work comprising nearly thirteen hundred pages, entitled Beitrdge :^ur Metho- 

 dik der Naturforschung. He here shows himself to be a keen-sighted student 

 of nature and a keen critic of the old exact school. Cuvier is his ideal as a 

 scientist and he definitely associates himself with him in his opposition to 

 Geoffrey's efforts to attain natural-philosophical unity. He has a keen eye 

 for the weaknesses of Darwinism and analyses them objectively and in de- 

 tail; he especially brings out the weaknesses underlying the theory of se- 

 lection, and in contrast to the lack of design in the phenomena of variation 

 and selection, as presented by Darwin, he maintains the existence of a defi- 

 nite course and plan in evolution — a plan that excludes both chance and 

 explanations of finality. This criticism is, indeed, on the whole justified, 

 and even Wigand's assertion that Darwinism is natural philosophy rather 

 than exact research is quite a fair judgment; but when it comes to trying 

 to justify the idea of conformity to law urged in opposition to the doctrine 

 of chance, the former is ascribed to a personal deity, for natural science can- 

 not get away from an ultimate cause of existence. This, of course, should 

 not be used as grounds for a natural-scientific explanation, but the doctrine 

 of the creation and the theory of the immutability of the species, which 

 Wigand would urge in opposition to Darwinism, are nevertheless based 

 upon it. In doing so, however, he has vitiated the effects of his criticism; 

 his ideas were capable of satisfying neither the natural philosophers of the 

 old school nor the exact scientists, and he himself lived just long 

 enough to see Darwinism reach the height of its influence upon human 

 culture. 



Even the aged von Baer entered the lists against Darwinism, complain- 

 ing of its lack of conformity to natural law; he sees in evolution a striving 

 after a definite goal — " Zielstrebigkeit,'' as he calls it — and this, indeed, 

 explains the finality in existence, but presupposes in its turn a common 

 scheme for all natural phenomena, which is only conceivable with a per- 

 sonal creator as the primary cause. The high respect in which this octoge- 

 narian student of evolution was held, exempted him from harsh criticism 



