:i8 



NA TURE 



[Jan'uakv 5, 1899 



and here we must in fairness to the author point out 

 that he makes some good points out of Mr. Spencer's 

 change of view with respect to the efficiency of natural 

 selection. The whole of the first essay is in fact a kind 

 of merry-making over Mr. Spencer's abandonment of 

 that excellent child of his own creation, the term "sur- 

 vival of the fittest." We can safely leave the Duke in 

 the hands of the veteran author of the " Synthetic Philo- 

 sophy," but in so doing it may be well to indicate that 

 many — perhaps we may say the majority of biologists in 

 this country — have long ago parted company from Mr. 

 Spencer on this question of the enhanced importance 

 of "direct equilibration," and the subordinate position 

 assigned to "indirect equilibration " in his later writings. 

 When, therefore, evolutionists are withered with the re- 

 proach of being "mechanical" by the noble author of 

 these three essays, nous aiitrcs can take comfort from 

 the thought that it is those who in .Omenta are called 

 the " Neo-Lamarckians,' who are expected to realise 

 the grossness of their conceptions. 



The results of attempting to recast the old idea of 

 " creation " in the mould of the modern theory of evolu- 

 tion are just those results to which all attempts at 

 reconciliation appear to lead. What these results are 

 can only be briefly indicated here ; but if, as a study of 

 mental attitude, the philosophical student will take the 

 trouble to compare the destructive with the constructive 

 side of the essays, he may find much material for his 

 instruction. For surely it is instructive to find a writer' 

 using weapons for the demolition of an antagonist without 

 apparently being aware that these same weapons are 

 equally destructive when applied to his own position. 

 The Duke is acutely critical in the first essay about Mr. 

 Spencer's phraseology. He quotes with approbation Mr. 

 Darwin's views about e.xplanations which are good for 

 everything in general, being good for nothing in particular 

 (pp. 58-60). Every man of science will join hands with 

 the Duke on this point. But after having indulged in 

 such exceedingly great rejoicing over the abandonment 

 of the hateful expression, " survival of the fittest," and all 

 that is implied thereby, the author, in a later essay, lets 

 us into the secret of his own view of the developmental 

 process. It is all contained in the internal directive 

 agency ; it is — 



"the kind of causation which is conspicuous in the pre- 

 conceived Plan, in the corresponding initial structure, 

 and in the directed development of vital organs as 

 apparatuses prepared beforehand for definite functions " 

 (pp. 192-193)- 



Now, as far as natural and physical science has any [ 

 voice in this matter, it may be equally well said that [ 

 everything that happens in the universe is in accordance ! 

 with a preconceived plan, liut why offer this as an 

 explanation especially to be invoked in the case of vital 

 phenomena.' It must be equally true of gravitation I 

 which causes an avalanche to overwhelm a village, or | 

 of an earthquake or volcanic eruption which destroys a ! 

 city. It is precisely of that order of " explanation " which 

 is good for everything in general, and therefore for nothing I 

 in particular. In other words, it may be the statement of 

 a general truth or it may not — the point is one that is out- 

 side the scope of scientific inquiry — but it explains nothing, j 

 NO. 1523, vol. 59] 



and it leaves us precisely where we were before. Curiously 

 enough, the author tries to make Huxley responsible for 

 this kind of explanation with respect to the vertebrate 

 skeleton — 



"a Plan, laid down from its beginning, in its originating 

 germs, with a prevision of all its complexities of adapt- 

 ability to immense varieties of use. There must have 

 been a prevision for these uses in certain elements and 

 rudiments of structure, and in certain inherent tendencies 

 of growth which were to commence, from time to time, 

 the new and specially adapted structures" (pp. 161-162 ; 

 also p. 120). 



This is surely doing violence to Huxley's teaching ; 

 we can call to mind no passage in his works which bears 

 this interpretation. We ask the Duke in fairness to 

 Huxley to reperuse the fifth chapter of the second volume 

 of Darwin's " Life and Letters." 



The importation of ultra-scientific notions into the 

 doctrine of evolution leads the author into all those other 

 quagmires in which others have floundered before him. 

 The summap.' of the Darwinian hypothesis, on pp. 60-61, 

 is a travesty ; the conception of variability, on pp. 108-109, 

 is a totally inadequate statement of the actual state of 

 knowledge ; the reiteration of the epithets "mindless," 

 " fortuitous," "haphazard," &c., as applied to variation, is 

 an impeachment of Darwin's views which has been made 

 over and over again, and which has been met over and 

 over again. The attempt to hurry up the course of evo- 

 lution, in order to meet the limits of time imposed by 

 certain arguments from the physical side, leads the author 

 to accept " discontinuous variation " or development per 

 saltum (pp. 122-125). '' "'^y ^^ of comfort to the Duke 

 to know that Mr. Francis (ialton will go some way "ith 

 him here. But the analogy between the rapidity of 

 individual development in some cases, such as in meta- 

 morphosis, and the rapidity of organic evolution, which 

 is put forward as an original idea (pp. 120-124), appears 

 to the writer to be a false analogy. The Duke's idea of 

 discontinuous variation is given (p. 148) in the following 

 words : — 



" It is conceivable that species might be realh as 

 constant and invariable as we actually find them to be, 

 for some long periods of time— embracing perhaps 

 centuries or even milleniums — and then suddenly, all at 

 once, evolve a new form which should be equally constant, 

 for another definite time to follow." 



This may be conceivable, but we should like to have 

 some evidence of its probability. It involves not only a 

 sudden departure or " sport " on the part of the individual 

 ofi'spring, but the Simultaneous and similar aberration of 

 all the oflspring of a particular generation. Even the 

 much-abused " mechanical cvoliuionist " has never made 

 such a draft as this upon the resources of the speculative 

 faculty. The old '• internal developmental force" was in 

 the minds of its supporters a respectable kind of agency 

 that might be exi)ected to come into operation when the 

 exigencies of external conditions required it. But here 

 we have a suggested mechanism of development which 

 makes one shudder to think what might happen if there 

 were the very slightest hitch in the adjustment between 

 the characters of the new form, which appeared when the 

 proper moment had arrived, and the external conditions 

 under which the alarum, as it were, went oft'. 



