542 NATURAL SCIENCE. 



Sept., 



The book, however, does not correspond to this description much 

 more exactly than to the other. Section I., which is more than half 

 the volume, is devoted to what the author calls " the main evidences 

 of organic evolution considered as a fact." The theory of organic 

 evolution is not the distinctively Darwinian theory. 



The view expressed at the commencement of the " Origin " is 

 that, however cogent the evidence that organic forms have been 

 evolved by descent, the demonstration of that truth would be unsatis- 

 factor}' without an explanation of the manner in which adaptations 

 and perfection of structure had been acquired. Accordingly, nowhere 

 throughout the " Origin of Species " is the evidence for the occurrence 

 of evolution considered apart from the evidence for Natural Selection; 

 and the same tiling is true in Darwin's other books. There were 

 evolutionists before Darwin who knew nothing of Natural Selection, 

 and many of his adherents and disciples have shown more interest in 

 the course and the details of evolution than in its causes. The most 

 prominent of these was Haeckel, and the first section of Mr. Romanes' 

 book may with greater truth be described as Haeckelism than as 

 Darwinism. The distinction between the occurrence of evolution 

 and its explanation, is, of course, a most important one, but no one 

 has pointed out more clearly and emphatically than Haeckel that 

 Darwin's title to glory rests on his contributions to the latter, and 

 not on his discovery or establishment of the former. It is astonishing 

 that Mr. Romanes should have drawn so largely from Haeckel's 

 writings, and in particular from his " Schopfungsgeschichte," and 

 yet have ignored the truth of the following paragraph which occurs 

 in that work : — " Darwin's merit is over-estimated when he is regarded 

 as the founder of the Theory of Descent, or of the whole of the Theory 

 of Development. We have seen from the historical sketch in this 

 and the preceding chapters, that the Theory of Development, as such, 

 is not new ; all philosophers who have refused to be led captive by 

 the blind dogma of a supernatural creation have been compelled ta 

 assume a natural development. But the Theory of Descent, consti- 

 tuting the specially biological part of the universal Theory of Develop- 

 ment, had already been so clearly expressed by Lamarck, and carried 

 out so fully by him to its most important consequences, that we must 

 honour him as the real founder of it. Hence it is only the Theory 

 of Selection, and not that of Descent, which may be called 

 Darwinism." 



In expounding the evidence on which the Theory of Descent is 

 based, Mr. Romanes, like Haeckel, also endeavours to disprove the 

 theory of Special Creation. This was natural enough in Haeckel's 

 work, which included a survey of the history of the subject ; but Mr. 

 Romanes makes no attempt at historical treatment. He contrasts 

 the logical consequences of the two theories with one another, and 

 with the facts of organic nature ; but it is doubtful whether the proof 

 of the evolution theory is in any degree made logically stronger in 

 this way. My own opinion is that it is not. As the creation theory 

 has no strictly logical basis, so it has no strictly logical consequences. 

 Let us take, for instance, one example of Mr, Romanes' method — 

 his discussion of the controversy between Mivart and Darwin con- 

 cerning the eye of the octopus. He says, when it is proved that the 

 eye of the cephalopod is of quite a different plan of structure from 

 that of the vertebrate, the special creationist can only reply that it 

 may have pleased the Deity to form a certain number of ideal types 

 and never to allow the structures occurring in one type to appear in 

 any of the others. He argues, then, that in that case we should 



