156 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



How did the organisms arrive at these constructive 

 plans ? 



That appears to Wagner himself, who otherwise, 

 once at least, ridiculed ' types ' and ' constructive 

 plans/ to be a difficult problem : ' It appears to be 

 a very difficult problem, perhaps the most difficult in 

 the whole evolutional doctrine ' l and, as we can add, 

 a problem decided for the time being by palaeontology 

 against Wagner, since the organic types do not develop 

 the one from the other they are simply there. 



Despite the evident methodological errors it is, 

 as an evolutional hypothesis, 3 a purely theoretical 

 construction a priori and despite the actual errors 

 (re the psyche), we have discussed neo-Lamarckism 

 more in detail because it appears to be destined in the 

 next decades to become the credo of the neonistic and 

 atheistic evolutional theorists. All too long it will 

 not triumph, since its fundamental opinions, to which, 

 according to Wagner and France at least, atheism 3 

 contributes, will never be the common property of 

 mankind. 



1 A. Wagner : Geschichte des Lamarckismus, p. 231. 



2 Wagner's book (and also that of Pauly and France) is really a defence 

 of vitalism against materialism e.g. Darwinism and in this connection 

 he does excellent work in some parts of the book. ' Evolution ' only plays 

 a role, in so far as ' Pan-psychism ' is the principle from which the history 

 of evolution can be deduced. Wagner says this distinctly (Geschichte. 

 d. Lamarck.., p. 127). 



3 In an altogether hostile fashion Wagner polemically attacks (see 

 above work) the belief in God and divine intervention in evolution ; 

 all such things are to him ' belief in miracles, mysticism, and metaphysics.' 



