326 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



opposite poles. Kolliker (p. 44) thus sums up his fundamental 

 view — " that in and with the first origin of organic matter and of 

 organisms, the whole plan of development, the collective series of 

 possibilities, were also potentially given, but that various external 

 impulses operated determinatively on individual developments, and 

 impressed a definite stamp upon them," Notwithstanding the 

 scientific dress, dualism is here complete ; whereas, Physics and 

 Chemistry make their laws, applying to inorganic as well as to 

 organic nature, comprehensible in their form, purport, and effects, 

 Kolliker knows nothing of the constitution of his laws. The 

 doctrine of natural selection allows us to recognize the causes and 

 effects of heredity and adaptation, and establishes the phenomenal 

 series under the form of laws. But laws which are founded only 

 on a plan which is to be carried out prospectively and in subser- 

 vience to this dower of imperfect organisms, are ignored by natural 

 science. 



^^ Ueber die Herkunft unserer Thierwelt. Einezoo-geographische 

 Skizze von L. Riitimeyer (Basel, 1867). We have made copious 

 use in our text of this extremely instructive writing. 

 ?» A. R. Wallace, Malay Archipelago. P. 10, &c. 

 7^ G. Koch, Die indo-australische Lepidopteren-Fauna in ihren 

 Zusamnenhang mit den drei Hauptfaunen der Erde. (i Ed. Ber- 

 lin, 1873.) 



72 Peschl, Neue Probleme der vergleichende Erdkunde, 1870. 

 7^ All the more distinct is the affinity of the Mastodon and the 

 Elephant. Between the pliocene Mastodon Borsoni and the Elephas 

 primigenius, twenty species are interposed, among which are our 

 still living species, the Indian and African elephants. The limits of 

 the two genera are hereby entirely obliterated. According to 

 other statements, the Elephas primigenius (the mammoth) falls 

 into at least four geographical varieties, which join on to the 

 American species. A dwarf species. of elephant is found in the 

 caves of Malta, which in dentition attaches itself to the African 

 species. 



7^ Joh. Schmidt, The Relationships of the Indo-Germanic Lan- 

 guages. 1872. 



75 Various antagonists of the doctrine of descent have vented 

 their moral dismay in the most poignant expressions, precluding 



