ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 267 



forms only accessible to the microscope. The metamor- 

 phosis of the different organs in the plant had been sug- 

 gested by Wolf, and more fully demonstrated by Goethe. 

 Unity of organisation had been proclaimed by Saint- 

 Hilaire and De Blainville, and the ultimate identity of 

 the elementary structure of animals and plants had been 

 demonstrated by Schleiden and Schwann. How was the 

 evident relationship of the different types of living beings 

 to be explained ? It is interesting to note how the very 

 terms which were then used implied the explanation, 

 though this was only apparent to one or two natural 

 philosophers who were then secretly at work. The 

 word " affinity," which in chemistry has for ages been 

 used to denote, without explaining, the mystery of com- 

 binations and separations of different substances, had 

 been imported into philosophical anatomy to denote the 

 deeper structural likeness between animals which at the 

 first glance appeared to belong to different classes. This 

 word ordinarily implies blood-relationship, and might have 



49. 

 Affinity. 



patient, and unbiassed inductive 

 research or, if there were a bias, 

 it was towards Cuvier swayed with 

 me in rejecting the principle of 

 direct or miraculous creation, and 

 in recognising a ' natural law or 

 secondary cause as operative in 

 the production of species in orderly 

 succession and progression ' (1849)" 

 (p. 789). ..." Each successive parcel 

 of geological truth has tended to 

 dissipate the belief in the un- 

 usually sudden and violent nature 

 of the changes recognisable in the 

 earth's surface. In specially direct- 

 ing my attention to this moot 

 point, whilst engaged in investiga- 

 tions of fossil remains, and in the 

 reconstruction of the species to 



which they belonged, I was at 

 length led to recognise one cause 

 of extinction as being due to de- 

 feat ' in the contest which, as a 

 living organised whole, the indi- 

 vidual of each species had to 

 maintain against the surrounding 

 agencies which might militate 

 against its existence'" (p. 797). 

 Through this passage, quoted by 

 Owen from the preface (1866) of 

 the same work, a controversy arose, 

 it being taken by a reviewer to 

 prove the admission of the Dar- 

 winian theory. There followed an 

 explanation by Owen, rejecting 

 natural selection and the admitted 

 contest as explanations of the origin 

 of species. 



