458 Evolution and Modern Philosophy 



There is here a special remark to be made. As we have seen 

 above, recent research has shown that natural selection or struggle 

 for life is no explanation of variations. Hugo de Vries distinguishes 

 between partial and embryonal variations, or between variations and 

 mutations, only the last-named being heritable, and therefore of 

 importance for the origin of new species. But the existence of 

 variations is not only of interest for the problem of the origin 

 of species ; it has also a more general interest. An individual does 

 not lose its importance for knowledge, because its qualities are not 

 heritable. On the contrary, in higher beings at least, individual 

 peculiarities will become more and more independent objects of 

 interest. Knowledge takes account of the biographies not only of 

 species, but also of individuals : it seeks to find the law of develop- 

 ment of the single individual 1 . As Leibniz said long ago, individuality 

 consists in the law of the changes of a being: "La loi du change- 

 ment fait rindividualite" de chaque substance." Here is a world 

 which is almost new for science, which till now has mainly occupied 

 itself with general laws and forms. But these are ultimately only 

 means to understand the individual phenomena, in whose nature 

 and history a manifold of laws and forms always cooperate. The 

 importance of this remark will appear in the sequel. 



V. 



To many people the Darwinian theory of natural selection or 

 struggle for existence seemed to change the whole conception of life, 

 and particularly all the conditions on which the validity of ethical 

 ideas depends. If only that has persistence which can be adapted 

 to a given condition, what will then be the fate of our ideals, of our 

 standards of good and evil? Blind force seems to reign, and the 

 only thing that counts seems to be the most heedless use of power. 

 Darwinism, it was said, has proclaimed brutality. No other difference 

 seems permanent save that between the sound, powerful and happy 

 on the one side, the sick, feeble and unhappy on the other ; and 

 every attempt to alleviate this difference seems to lead to general 

 enervation. Some of those who interpreted Darwinism in this manner 

 felt an aesthetic delight in contemplating the heedlessness and energy 

 of the great struggle for existence and anticipated the realisation of 

 a higher human type as the outcome of it : so Nietzsche and his 

 followers. Others recognising the same consequences in Darwinism 



1 The new science of Ecology occupies an intermediate position between the biography 

 of species and the biography of individuals. Compare Congress of Arts and Science, 

 St Louis, Vol. v. 1906 (the Eeports of Drude and Eobinson) and the work of my colleague, 

 E. Warming. 



