104 ANIMAL LIFE AND HUMAN PROGRESS 



anatomist, became the creed of the so-called " transcendental 

 school " of Anatomy. It is hardly necessary to trace in any 

 detail the most elaborate product of this line of thought. 

 Less subtle minds seized upon the idea of " unity in variety " 

 and sought to define exactly in what that unity consisted. A 

 German school (Goethe, Oken, Spix, Carus) laid the foundation 

 of that concept which grew to be a nightmare, and which we 

 may dismiss as the conception of the " Archaetype." From 

 the early years of the nineteenth century till 1859 the Archae- 

 type grew to gigantic proportions. But in 1859 it fell with a 

 crash. In 1859 Darwin's views became the dominant note in 

 current thought, and the Archaetype was forgotten. 



It is useless to consider Darwin's work apart from the 

 atmosphere of thought into which it was launched. Classifica- 

 tion by likeness was established, the scale of life was familiar, 

 the stability of the basal type was recognised, the minute 

 variations which separated step from step were appreciated. 

 Even the conception that step could change to step had entered 

 the minds of many, and the fixity of species was the subject of 

 academic debate. In a way that is very remarkable, but 

 which is nevertheless true, Darwin suddenly opened the eyes 

 of mankind by showing, as a practical proposition, how step 

 did change to step, and that the scale of life was a moving 

 scale. 



No matter what the reservations of the thinking few may 

 have been, it is just to say that for most men Darwin animated 

 the scale of being ; he showed it as a living, moving procession 

 towards perfection, the lowest at one end, the highest at the 

 other, but all moving onwards, all evolving. Such a con- 

 ception of a uniserial march of progress might be termed 

 " end on " evolution, and as such I shall brand it. 



What has been the fate of " end on " evolution as a theory ? 

 The lower end of the scale of being has in these days of special- 

 isation of learning been left to the biologist. Wherever his 

 patient labours have been pushed home he has played havoc 

 with the uniserial march of progress. Some expressions of 

 Professor Dendy, during his introductory lecture to this course, 

 will linger with those of you who were present, and there is no 



