MODERN BIOLOGY 573 



which differentiates them from inanimate natural objects; on the contrary, 

 this becomes part of the problem of life itself, but instead we get rid of the 

 anthropomorphistically childish speculations upon teleological and non- 

 teleological forms of organizations in nature, which actually imply a con- 

 fession that we cannot grasp the idea of nature's being law-bound. 



In such circumstances it is of no particular interest to follow Plate in 

 his attempts to meet all conceivable objections to the theory of selection. 

 Among other things he honestly admits that it has never been possible 

 actually to observe selection, but he consoles himself with the numerous 

 indirect arguments that could be quoted in its defence. Furthermore, he 

 emphatically maintains that, besides selection, environment co-operates in 

 renewing the organisms and their descendants; he thus rejects Weismann's 

 theory of the omnipotence of selection, as well as Elmer's and other neo- 

 Lamarckists' denial of its metabolistic power. He also tried to adopt an 

 attitude, consistent with his own point of view, towards the results of 

 experimental heredity-research, dealing with them in a monographic Verer- 

 bungslehre. 



With this we can leave the doctrine of descent in the old Darwanistic 

 sense. Modern heredity-research has introduced quite a different and essen- 

 tially experimental treatment of the problems of evolution, and the old 

 morphological speculation upon the origin of species and genera has pro- 

 portionately lost ground — as it has always happened in the history of the 

 exact sciences that speculation must give way to facts. The old doctrine of 

 descent actually possessed the weakness of insisting upon external grounds 

 of explanation for the phenomena of life; selection as well as direct outward 

 influence were to explain phenomena that must really be an expression for 

 manifestations of life itself. Nevertheless there appears here also an increas- 

 ing self-deliberation based on a progressive knowledge of facts; there is a 

 vast difference between Haeckel's belief in the power of Darwinism to ex- 

 plain anything whatsoever and Plate's modest limitation of the function of 

 selection to a mere explanation of the teleological arrangements of living 

 creatures, "in so far as they are not elementary qualities." Indeed, why not 

 let them all be elementary qualities? One can trace here the human age-old 

 tendency to look for outward causes for everything; formerly one sought in 

 the phenomena of life manifestations of a divine creator; when this was no 

 longer perceivable, one had to look for a material creative power — it was 

 difficult to realize that evolution is a part of life itself. We shall revert below 

 to the problems of evolution in the form in which modern heredity-research 

 has presented them. 



