I860.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 435 



Dr. Bronn's second fundamental law, the correlation of the 

 development of organized beings, with that of the external conditions 

 of life, and the multiplication of varieties and species as these condi- 

 tions became more varied, formed one of the fundamental requirements 

 of Mr. Darwin's theory. 



The chief point on which the two authors were at issue, was that 

 of the origin of new forms. On this subject, Dr. Bronn did not 

 enunciate any theory, and in the expression of his formal laws, referred 

 vaguely to an undefined force. He denied, however, the possibility 

 of their origin by descent, with variation, from pre-existing forms, 

 as well as their origin by spontaneous generation from inorganic 

 matter, and regarded that by immediate act of creation repeated for 

 every new species, as inconsistent with the tenor of our knowledge of 

 all natural operations. It was difficult therefore to understand how 

 and upon what, the hypothetical force could be supposed to act, nor 

 was this anywhere suggested in the essay. The objection by anti- 

 cipation to Mr. Darwin's views, rested as it appeared, solely on the 

 assumption of isolated stations before alluded to, and if this be 

 rejected as unsound, there appeared nothing in Dr. Bronn's laws at 

 all irreconcileable with Mr. Darwin's theory. For the rest Mr. 

 Darwin had suggested a vera causa and it remained for the naturalist 

 and geologist to say how far it was sufficient to account for the 

 facts. 



Some discussion arose after the lecture was concluded. 



Dr. Kay remarked, that the way in which the subject had been 

 treated, appeared to him calculated to produce serious confusion of 

 thought. There had been a perpetual vibrating between two entirely 

 distinct inquiries ; the search into forms and the search into causes. 

 A great deal of fallacious reasoning was owing to the neglect of this 

 distinction. Morphology was a deeply interesting study ; but it gave 

 absolutely no information about the causes of the differential charac- 

 teristics observed in analogous species of plants and animals at suc- 

 cessive epochs. In examining such species it was natural to use such 

 words, as advance, progression, &c. ; but these terms simply mean that 

 the species of a later era are found to differ in certain ways from 

 those of an earlier era. The morphological progression proves no- 

 thing as to the existence of an oetislogical connexion between the 



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