LECTURE VI — Part I 



ZOOLOGY, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION 



The facts given in the last two lectures seem to show that 

 we cannot expect much from the " Lamarckian factors," even if 

 they should prove to be factors ; and while this impression may 

 be wrong, it seems to be the rational frame of mind until it has 

 proved wrong. 



He who follows the current literature of zoology finds that 

 many writers assure him, in effect, that the years which Darwin 

 and Wallace gave to hard labor on the problem of species were 

 thrown away, since all they tried to find out by hard work might 

 have been deduced from the Philosophy of Evolution. 



We were warned, long ago, that "whoever, unable to doubt 

 and eager to affirm, shall establish principles, and, according to 

 the unmoved truth of these, shall reject or receive others, ... he 

 shall exchange things for words, reason for insanity, the world for 

 a fable, and shall be incapable of interpreting." 



In "philosophy" current history is sometimes ancient history, 

 and the ardent disciples of " philosophers " who, in modest earnest- 

 ness, undertake to formulate the scientific knowledge of their day, 

 often become bolder than their teachers, and, growing arrogant 

 and reckless with success, find at last that they have sold their 

 birthright in nature for what proves, when examined, to be na 

 better than a mess of pottage. 



The evidence that living matter is continuous, from beginning 

 to end, is so conclusive that it convinces all who know its value. 

 All living things are one by birth, and the system of living nature 

 is, historically, a unit, a consistent whole ; not a collection of isolated 

 and independent species. How does it happen, then, that at every 

 .point in its history, we find it divided into detached groups, sep- 



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