414 THE METHOD OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 



writers who had gone before him, had been able to overcome the diffi- 

 cnlty of explaining the process of organic evolntion, since no one had 

 been able to sliow how the wonderful and complex adaptations of living 

 things to their envh-onnient could have been produced by means of 

 known laws and through causes proved to exist and to be of sufficient 

 potency. Alike for naturalists, for men of science in general, and for 

 students in philosoi)hy, the method of organic evolution remained an 

 insolvable prol)lem. 



Considering that this state of opinion prevailed up to the very date 

 of publication of the Origin of Species, the effect produced by that work 

 was certainly marvelous. A considerable body of the more thoughtful 

 naturalists at once accepted it as affording, if not a complete solution, 

 yet a professional theory, founded upon incontrovertible facts of nature, 

 demonstrating a true cause for specitic modification, and affording a 

 satisfactory explanation of those countless phenomena of adaptation 

 Avliicli every i)reccding theory had been powerless to exi)lain. Further 

 consideration and discussion only increased the reputation of the author 

 and the influence of his work, which was still further enhanced by his 

 Animals and Plants under Domestication, published nine years later; 

 and when tliis had been fully considered — about twelve years after the 

 publication of the Origin — a large proportion of naturalists in every 

 part of the world, including many of the most eminent, had accepted 

 Darwin^s views, and acknowledged that his theory of natural selection 

 constituted — to use his own words — "the main but not the exclusive 

 means of modification." The effect of Darwin's work can only be com- 

 pared with that of Newton's Principia. Both writers defined and 

 clearly demonstrated a hitherto unrecognized law of nature, and both 

 were able to apply the law to the explanation of phenomena and the 

 solution of problems which had baflled all previous writers. 



Of late years, however, there has arisen a reaction against Darwin's 

 theory as affording a satisfactory explanation of organic evolution. In 

 America, especially, the theories of Lamarck are being resuscitated as 

 of eijual validity with natural selection; while in this country, besides 

 a considerable number of l>amarckians, some influential writers are 

 introducing the conception of there being definite positions of organic 

 stabdity, quite independent of utility and therefore of natural selection; 

 and that those positions are often reached by discontinuous variation — 

 that is, bysi)urts or sudden leaps of considerable amount, which are 

 thus "competent to mold races without any help whatever from the 

 l)rocess of selection, whether natural or sexual."^ These views have 

 been recently advocated in an important work on variation,^ which 

 seems likely to have much in rtuence among certain classes of natural- 

 ists ; and it is because I believe such views to be w^holly erroneous and 



1 Francis Galtou. " Discontinuity in evolution," Mind, Vol. Ill, page 367. 

 -William Bateson, M. A. Materials ibr tbe Study of Variations, Treated with 

 Especial Kegard to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species, 1894, pages xv and 598, 



