CHAPTER III. 



As further witnesses to the passing of Darwinism, 

 two botanists may be cited; the first is Professor Kors- 

 chinsky who in No. 24, 1899, of the Naturwissenschaftliche 

 Wochenschrift published an article on "'Heterogenesis 

 and Evolution," which was to be followed later 

 by a large work on this subject. With precision 

 and emphasis he points to the numerous instances 

 in which there occurs on or in a plant, suddenly and with- 

 out intervention, a variation which may become hereditary 

 under certain circumstances; thus during the last century 

 3 number of varieties of garden plants have been evolved. 

 On the basis of such experiments Korschinsky developed 

 the theory which had been proposed by Koelliker in 

 Wuerzburg thirty years earlier, namely, the theory of 

 "heterogeneous production" or heterogenesis," as Kor- 

 schinsky calls it. When one understands that a plant gives 

 rise suddenly and without any intervention to a grain of 

 seed, which produces a dififerent plant, it becomes evident 

 that all Darwinistic speculations about selection and 

 struggle for existence are forthwith absolutely excluded. 

 The efifect can proceed only from the internal vital powers 

 inherent in the specified organism acting in connection, 

 perhaps, with the internal conditions of life, which suddenly 

 exert an influence in a new direction. 



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