ON THE MOKPHULOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 267 



forms only accessible to the microscope. The metamor- 

 phosis of the different organs in the plant had been sug- 

 gested by Wolf, and more fully demonstrated by Goethe. 

 Unity of organisation had Ijcen proclaimed by Saint- 

 Hilaire and De lUaiuville, and the ultimate identity of 

 the elementary structure of animals and plants had been 

 demonstrated by Schleiden and Schwann. How was the 

 evident relationship of the different types of living beings 

 to be explained ? It is interesting to note how the very 

 terms which were then used implied the explanation, 

 though this was only apparent to one or two natural 

 philosophers who were then secretly at work. The 

 word " affinity," which in chemistry has for ages been 49. 



■^ ./ o Affinity. 



used to denote, without explaining, the mystery of com- 

 binations and separations of different substances, had 

 been imported into philosophical anatomy to denote the 

 deeper structural likeness between animals which at the 

 first glance appeared to belong to different classes. This 

 word ordinarily implies blood-relationship, and might have 



patient, and unbiassed inductive i which tlicy belonged, I was at 



researcli— or, if there were a bias, length led to recognise one cause 



it was toward Cuvier — swayed with of extinction as being due to de- 



me in rejecting the principle of feat ' in the contest which, as a 



direct or miraculous creation, and ' living organised whole, the indi- 



in recognising a 'natural law or ' vidual of each species had to 



secondary cause as operative in maintain against the surrounding 



the j)ro(luction of species in orderly agencies which might militate 



succession and progression ' (I'^^-iS) '■ against its existence'" (p. 797). 



(p. 789). ... "Each successive parcel . Tlirough this passage, quoted by 



of geological trutli has tended to Owen from tlie preface (1866) of 



di.ssipate the belief in the un- the same work, a controversy arose, 



usually sudden and violent nature it being taken by a reviewer to 



f the changes recognisable in the \ prove the admission of the Dar- 



earth's surface. In specially direct- 

 ing my attention to tiiis moot 

 point, whilst engaged in investiga- 

 tions of fossil remains, and in the 

 reconstruction of the species to 



winian theory. Tliere followed an 

 e.xplanation by Owen, rejecting 

 natural selection and the admitted 

 contest as explanations of the origin 

 of species. 



