KANT AND EVOLUTION 43 



kinds of future conditions by means of hidden inner predispositions, by the 

 help of which they may maintain themselves and be adapted to diversities of 

 climate or soil, is truly marvelous. It gives rise, in the course of the migration 

 and change of environment of animals and plants, to what seem to be new 

 species; but these are nothing more than races of the same species, the germs 

 and natural predispositions for which (deren Keime und natiirliche Anlagen) 

 have developed themselves in different ways as occasion arose in the course of 

 long ages." 



Kanfs conception of the " grounds " for the existence of these 

 Anlagen is manifestly teleological in the most naive way; the species 

 was fitted out beforehand with distinct elements in its germ-plasm in 

 order to furnish its later representatives against specific contingencies 

 that had not yet arisen, and in some cases never would arise. This 

 idea Kant elaborates in detail in the case of the skin-color of the 

 negro; the passage is so delightful a combination of teleological 

 " explanation " and phlogistic chemistry^^ that it deserves to be quoted : 



The presence of purposiveness in an organism is the general ground from 

 which we infer an original preparation in the nature of a living being, having 

 this [purpose] in view, and — if the purpose is only later fulfilled — infer the 

 existence of duly furnished germs. Now, this purposiveness can be in no race 

 so clearly shown as in the negro. ... It is already known that human blood 

 turns black simply through becoming overcharged with phlogiston (as may be 

 seen from the under side of a cake of blood). Now the strong odor of the 

 negro, wnich can not be removed by any degree of cleanliness, already leads us 

 to surmise that his skin eliminates a great deal of phlogiston from the blood, 

 and that Nature must have so organized his skin that it is capable, in much 

 greater degree than is ours, of dephlogisticating the blood — this being, with us, 

 accomplished chiefly by the lungs. But the true negroes live in lands where the 

 air, because of the thickness of the trees and the marshiness of the surround- 

 ings, is so heavily phlogisticated that, according to Lind's account, English 

 sailors run the risk of death from this cause when they ascend the river Gambia 

 even for a single day, for the purpose of procuring meat. It was, therefore, a 

 very wise arrangement of Nature so to organize the skin of the negroes that 

 their blood, even if the lungs do not suflBciently eliminate phlogiston, is yet far 

 more thoroughly dephlogisticated than ours. Their blood must therefore deposit 

 a great deal of phlogiston in the ends of the arteries, so that at this place — that 

 is to say, just under the skin — it shows through as black, though in the interior 

 of the body it is red enough. 



Such, then, are reasons why our African brother is black and has 

 a distinctive odor. 



Kant^s principles of the fixity of the specific type and the essential 

 unmodifiability of the "reproductive faculty" imply that the diverse 

 heritable and adaptive characters of what he calls " varieties," no less 

 than those of races, preexist in the species ready-made from the outset, 

 in the form of special " germs " or Anlagen. In writing the " Physical 

 Geography " and the " Conception of Race " Kant does not seem to have 



"Cited from the "Physical Geography." 



" Kant was, of course, by no means abreast of the best chemistry of his 

 time. The passage cited was published two years after Lavoisier's direct and 

 decisive refutation of the phlogiston theory. 



