9 2 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



organic world could then develop into a mighty tree, whose 

 branches could all remain in blooming condition, so that 

 the now isolated extremest species would be united with all 

 others through gradatory forms. 



"The adaptation resulting from the effects of the struggle 

 for existence is absolutely not identical with advance, for 

 higher-standing, more complex forms are by no means 

 always better adapted to outer conditions than the lower 

 ones. The evolution [used here by the author as synony- 

 mous with advance or progressive complexity] of organisms 

 cannot be explained in a purely mechanical way. In order 

 to explain the origin of higher forms from lower it is neces- 

 sary to postulate in the organisms a special tendency to ad- 

 vance which is nearly related to or identical with the 

 tendency to vary, which tendency compels the organisms 

 to advance so far as the outer conditions permit." 



These declarations sound strange and perhaps almost 

 absurd in the ears of one accustomed for years to 

 hear only the Darwinian interpretation of the effects of the 

 struggle for existence and natural selection. But taken 

 up one by one, as they are by Korschinsky, and developed 

 and explained, they begin to have a kind of plausibility, 

 an appeal to our reason, of much that sort which the Dar- 

 winian interpretation has and makes. After all the Darwin- 

 ian interpretation is proved only in so far as it possesses a 

 high degree of plausibility and makes a convincing appeal 

 to our reason. Of exact proof, in the nature of observed 

 fact or result of experiment, or of mathematical demonstra- 

 tion, there is little in the case either of the Darwinian or 

 the Korschinskian interpretation. 



Those other biologists 27 who, like Korschinsky, take the 

 extreme and positive stand that the struggle and selection 

 are not factors in evolution, or if factors are really hinder- 

 ing and opposing ones, constitute, however, by far the 

 smaller body in the ranks of the anti-Darwinian critics when 



