Pebruabt 24, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



195 



■winian theory of the origin of species is not 

 proved. This was the verdict of one of the fore- 

 most British scientists, Professor William Bate- 

 son, director of the John Innes Horticultural 

 Institute, Surrey, England, in the course of an 

 epoch-making address on "Evolutionary Faith 

 and Modern Doubts" at the general session of 

 the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, held in Convocation Hall last evening. 

 While declaring that his faith in evolution was 

 unshaken, he frankly admitted that he was 

 ' ' agnostic as to the actual mode and process of 

 evolution. ' ' Believing in evolution in ' ' dim out- 

 line," he pronounced the cause of origin of 

 species as utterly mysterious. 



The speaker then reiterated views expressed 

 in previous addresses. Again quoting the 

 Globe: 



Keferring to the variations occurring in the 

 different species. Dr. Bateson stated that there 

 was no evidence of any one species acquiring new 

 faculties, but that there were plenty of examples 

 of species losing faculties. Species lose things, 

 but do not add to their possessions. "Biological 

 science has returned to its rightful place, ' ' said 

 Dr. Bateson, ' ' namely, the investigation of the 

 structure and properties of the concrete of our 

 visible world. We cannot see how the diiJeren- 

 tiation into species came about. Variation, of 

 many kinds, often considerable, we daily wit- 

 ness, but no origin of species. Distinguishing 

 what is known from what may be believed, we 

 have absolute certainty that new forms of life, 

 new orders and new species have arisen in the 

 earth, but even this has been questioned. It has 

 been asked, for instance, 'How do you know that 

 there were [no] mammals in palaeozoic times? Ma^' 

 there not have been mammals somewhere on 

 earth though no vestige of them has come down 

 to us?' We may feel confident there were no 

 mammals then, but are we sure? In very ancient 

 rocks most of the great orders of animals are 

 represented. The absence of the others might by 

 no great stress of the imagination be ascribed to 

 accidental circumstances. ' ' 



It is not surprising that the next day the 

 Globe published a signed letter, under the cap- 

 tion, "The Collapse of Darwinism," of which 

 the following is an abstract : 



To an audience rarely paralleled in Canada for 

 scientific eminence and influence, the famous 

 Professor Bateson, with amazing frankness, re- 

 moved one by one the props that have been con- 



sidered the very pillars of Darwinism. A scientist 

 of international repute, one of the leading, if not 

 the leading evolutionist, of the day, he exposed 

 the weakness of many of the leading planks in 

 the ' ' Origin of Species, ' ' and ruthlessly tore 

 down one by one the once fondly believed links 

 in the great chain of Darwinian evolution. 



These citations cannot be dismissed as mere 

 newspaper talk of no import. They are called 

 forth by the fact that many of the statements 

 in Bateson's address as cited below are inaccu- 

 rate and misleading, especially those relating 

 to the origin of species, natural selection, and 

 infertility between species. 



It is not true that we do not know how 

 species originate. The mode of the origin of 

 species has long been known — in fact, it was 

 very clearly stated by the German paleon- 

 tologist Waagen in the year 1869, a statement 

 which has been absolutely confirmed beyond a 

 possibility of doubt in the fifty years of sub- 

 sequent research. It is also true that we know 

 the modes of origin of the human species; our 

 knowledge of human evolution has reached a 

 point not only where a number of links in the 

 chain are thoroughly known but the characters 

 of the missing links can be very clearly predi- 

 cated. The cause of the origin of species is 

 another matter and has been sought in all 

 branches of biology and biological research 

 without an adequate solution having been 

 found. Charles Darwin's theory of selection 

 forms a partial solution of causation and, so 

 far from being discarded, now rests upon much 

 stronger evidence than it did when Darwin 

 enunciated it. 



The broad impression conveyed to my mind 

 by the brilliant series of papers in the division 

 of Genetics at Toronto is that genetics is 

 essentially a branch of morphology. It is a 

 running comparison between the morphology 

 of the germ cell and the morphology of the 

 adult. It is in this field, to which Professor 

 Bateson has lent such distinction, that he faUs 

 to find either the mode or the cause of the 

 origin of species. 



Referring again to the ethical question of 

 the dissemination of scientific truth, I am 

 reminded of the precaution pressed upon me by 

 Huxley from his own experience. He once 



