276 THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 
system is based on no principle at all. M. Trémaux criticizes Mr. 
Darwin, and objects to a fundamental position of his theory; and 
Continental writers of this school, though they praise Mr. Darwin as 
a learned confrère, yet they soon make it clear that they cannot agree 
with him. 
Dr. Louis Büchner, a writer who has produced a great sensation in 
Germany by his work, * Force and Matter,’ and who scruples not to 
profess in defying terms broad and vaunting atheism, quotes Mr. 
arwin as a most valuable and powerful ally. He seems to have 
published the first edition of his book before Mr. Darwin’s work ap- 
peared, for thus does he express himself in the later editions :—“ I 
could not know that the dogmata concerning the non-existence of 
primeval spontaneous generation, and the immutability of species, 
which were then considered almost too sacred for attack, would soon 
experience such severe shocks, and that the celebrated theory of Dar- 
win would reduce the whole organic world, past and present, to one 
fundamental conception.” 
Nevertheless, Dr. Biichner contradicts Mr. Darwin in almost all his 
leading principles, and that so unreservedly, that we must conclude either 
that he has not read his book, or having read it, holds it in no esteem. 
For instance, thus does he explain his own system :—‘ Our present 
knowledge is sufficient to render it highly probable, perhaps morally 
certain, that a spontaneous generation exists, and that higher forms 
have gradually and slowly become developed from previously existing 
lower forms, always determined by the state of the earth, but without 
the immediate influence of a higher power” (p. 
Ve know what Mr. Darwin says of the Vids: of geology; how 
he complains of its * extreme ” imperfectness, so as to be of no value 
in proving his theory; but Dr. Büchner says, ** The gradual develop- 
ment of the lowest organie forms into higher and more perfect orga- 
nizations may, in spite of individual exceptions, be considered a fact 
established by paleontological investigations” (p. 12). 
Again, Mr. Darwin derives all life from one point; but Dr. 
Büchner says, * We must not be understood to maintain that the 
whole organic world originated from a single centre; all facts and in- 
vestigations prove, on the contrary, that it must have arisen from innu- 
merable independent central points, both as regards the vegetable and 
animal world” (p. 83). This is, therefore, a flat contradiction of 
