442 



NATURE 



[September io, 1891 



" Darwinism " appears to have been published in the 

 interval between the first and second essays. And here 

 — perhaps not altogether disconnected with the appear- 

 ance of Mr, Wallace's book— we find that the author has 

 executed a series of mental evolutions with such skill 

 that we have to rub our eyes in order to make sure that 

 we have not deceived ourselves as to the position which 

 he has actually taken. For natural selection, which, in 

 the first essay, was considered to be so feeble as to be 

 incapable of carrying on development through ten gene- 

 rations, even with the most favourable assumptions to 

 start with, is now considered to be " as yet but hyf)othesis, 

 and hypothesis which needs confirmation from fuller in- 

 quiry into the facts of the case, just as much as the other 

 hypothesis of the continuity of forms between one species 

 and another." At any rate, we seem to be justified in 

 concluding from this that, as a scientific hypothesis, 

 natural selection ranks with evolution, which, we were 

 told in the first essay, had a right to be so called. The 

 change of front has been very skilfully made, but that 

 there_has been a change is evident from the foregoing 

 extracts. 



The way in which evidence, which has been hitherto 

 considered as fairly good from the evolutionist's point of 

 view, can be manipulated so as to bear the quite opposite 

 interpretation, is a study in intellectual jugglery which 

 might be worthy of serious attention by certain classes of 

 politicians. The second essay furnishes several examples 

 of such feats. More especially may attention be called 

 to the remarkable way in which the palaeontological evi- 

 dence is thus disposed of, and still more remarkable is 

 the author's Podsnappian dismissal of the embryological 

 evidence. Wallace's later treatment of natural variation 

 is accepted : — 



" The variations of form and structure which occur 

 among wild animals — and the same is to be said for 

 plants — are not occasional and minute, but incessant and 

 important. There is clearly an end of the objection 

 . . . based on the supposed infinitesimal character of 

 variations." 



But if the reader fondly imagines that this admission 

 brings the author any nearer to Darwinism he will be 

 grievously mistaken. For in this larger and more widely 

 divergent variability Father Gerard sees a " centrifugal 

 tendency" by which "every varying climate and soil and 

 circumstance on the face of the globe should make its 

 own species ; or rather there should be no species at all, 

 but a fleeting and evanescent succession of individual 

 forms, like the shapes of clouds in a windy sky," Of 

 course, evidence has to be adduced in disproof of this 

 astonishing result, to which the later study of variability 

 has led us, or rather should have led us. But there is no 

 difficulty at all about this : the house sparrow and the 

 water-crowfoot, we are told, are widely distributed over 

 the face of the globe, and yet retain their specific forms 

 and characters. True ; but the instances of cosmopolitan 

 species retaining their distinctness are few and exceptional ; 

 we are not told anything about local forms and races, or 

 about " representative species " ; we hear nothing about 

 widely distributed species which merge imperceptibly 

 into each other to the utter confusion of those who make 

 species their particular study. Can it be that these facts 

 are inconvenient and " not to be endured " ? or has the 

 NO. II4IJ VOL. 44] 



author discovered some absolute criterion of species ? If 

 the latter is the case, he can hardly be congratulated on 

 his definition : — 



" It would seem to be simpler and plainer to say that a 

 species is a permanent group [italics mine] of plants or 

 animals framed in all particulars after a single type." 



Enough has been said about this work to indicate it5 

 general tendency : its tone, on the whole, is antagonistic 

 to evolution, but with respect to the special Darwinian 

 form of this theory antagonism but feebly expresses the 

 author's attitude. In each essay, the attack generally 

 centres upon one or two representative writers ; e.g. the 

 third essay (" The Game of Speculation") dealing with 

 Mr. Wallace, the fourth (" The Empire of Man ") with 

 Prof. Huxley, the fifth ("The New Genesis") with 

 Messrs. Grant Allen and Edward Clodd, and the sixth 

 (" The Voices of Babel ") with a number of miscellaneous 

 authorities, such as Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Frederic 

 Harrison, the late Prof. W. K. Clifford, and Sir James 

 Stephen, of whom the author makes horrid examples by 

 the very simple expedient of pitting their opinions against 

 each other. From this general view, it will be seen that, 

 so far as science is concerned, the effect of Father 

 Gerard's last production will be practically nil. Among 

 certain classes of general readers it may be mischievous, 

 but we do not imagine that the mischief will spread very 

 far. As the criticisms are for the most part destructive, 

 it is impossible to attempt to deal with them in detail 

 in these columns. Where it is possible to glean a vestige 

 of a constructive idea, it will be seen that the main 

 point towards which the author appears to be driving is 

 that .the doctrine of evolution — especially in its Darwinian 

 form — is destructive of the notion of preconceived and 

 determinate " plan," e.g. : — 



" Intrinsic forces working definitely towards one play 

 not indeterminate forces swept hither and thither by 

 external agencies like a cloud of dust, are suggested by 

 the phenomena of nature." 



We have become so accustomed to this style of criti- 

 cism from all kinds of anti-evolutionary writers that it is 

 almost superfluous to attempt to deal with it again. But 

 it may really be asked whether those who are so con- 

 stantly dinning this idea of a " plan " in nature will now 

 condescend to give us some idea what that plan is. If 

 " intrinsic forces are working definitely towards one 

 plan," surely the author to whom has been permitted this 

 glimpse into the inner sanctuary might enlighten the 

 outer darkness a little by telling us something about the 

 general scheme, or, at any rate, by giving us a notion as to 

 the method by which he has arrived at such an important 

 conclusion. On the other hand, if the author is satisfied 

 that there is such a pre-arranged plan— whether he re- 

 veals that plan to the uninitiated or not— I, for one, fail 

 to see how evolution. Darwinian or otherwise, has any- 

 thing to do with the matter. If Father Gerard has 

 managed to extract from the writings of popular authors, 

 this notion of antagonism between ideas which are not 

 necessarily antagonistic, with these authors must rest the 

 responsibility. It cannot be said that the castigation 

 which he has inflicted is altogether unmerited ; there has 

 been a great deal of crude and hasty speculation perpe- 

 trated in the name of evolution, and the blows aimed do 



