Goethe and other Pioneers of Evolution 1 



o 



the finest expression that science has yet known — if it has known 

 it — of the keniel-idea of what is called "bathmism," the idea of an 

 "inherent g^o^vth- force" — and at the same time he held that "the 

 way of life powerfully reacts upon all form" and that the orderly 

 growth of form "yields to change from externally acting causes." 

 Besides Buflfon, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, Treviranus, and 

 Goethe, there were other "pioneers of evolution," whose views have 

 been often discussed and appraised. Etienne Geoffi-oy Saint-Hilaire 

 (1772 — 1844), whose work Goethe so much admired, was on the whole 

 Buftbnian, emphasising the direct action of the changeful milieu. 

 "Species vary with their environment, and existing species have 

 descended by modification from earlier and somewhat simpler species." 

 He had a glimpse of the selection idea, and believed in mutations or 

 sudden leaps — induced in the embryonic condition by external in- 

 fluences. The complete history of evolution-theories will include 

 many instances of guesses at truth which were afterwards sub- 

 stantiated, thus the geographer von Buch (1773 — 1853) detected the 

 importance of the Isolation factor on which Wagner, Romanes, Gulick 

 and others have laid great stress, but we must content ourselves with 

 recalling one other pioneer, the author of the Vestiges of Creation 

 (1844), a work which passed through ten editions in nine years and 

 certainly helped to harrow the soil for Darwin's sowing. As Darwin 

 said, "it did excellent service in this country in calling attention 

 to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the 

 ground for the reception of analogous views \" Its author, Robert 

 Chambers (1802 — 1871) was in part a Buftbnian — maintaining that 

 environment moulded organisms adaptively, and in part a Goethian — 

 believing in an inherent progressive impulse which lifted organisms 

 from one grade of organisation to another. 



As regards Natural Selection. 



The only thinker to whom Darwin was directly indebted, so far 

 as the theory of Natural Selection is concerned, was Malthus, and we 

 may once more quote the well-known passage in the Autobiography : 

 "In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my 

 systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus 

 on RopuUition,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle 

 for existence which everywhere goes on from long-contiimcd observa- 

 tion of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that 

 under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be 

 preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this 

 would be the forniutiun of new species'^." 



Although Malthus gives no adumbration of the idea of Natural 



' Orijin of Specie* (0th uUit.), p. xvii. 



* The Life and Lellere of Charleg Darwin, Vol. i. p. 83. London, 1887. 



