ZOOLOGY SINCE DARWIN. 1 



By Ltjdwtg v. Graff. 



We of the younger generation, whose scientific training began within 

 the domain of Darwinism, can only with difficulty realize what an agita- 

 tion was produced almost forty years ago in the "descriptive" natural 

 sciences by Darwin's Origin of Species. 2 It fell like a thunderbolt 

 in a quiet period of descriptive work, when it was commonly thought 

 that the philosophical ideas of the early part of the century were 

 airy plays of fantasy, undemonstrated and uudemonstrable, and that 

 all speculation should therefore be distrusted, while the solid ground 

 of fact should be clung to with anxious care. 



How the theory of natural selection suddenly vivified that dry descrip- 

 tion, what wings it lent to the scalpel of the anatomist, and what wide 

 vistas did it open to the eyes of the systematists, already becoming so 

 shortsighted ! 



The mummies of species which filled our collections, each fenced off 

 from each by well-arranged Latin diagnoses, were suddenly linked 

 together by blood relationship. The fossil remains of extinct forms — 

 hitherto shut out from the common realm of living things — were en- 

 dowed with flesh and blood and arranged with the fauna and flora of 

 to-day in a single great family tree representing the entire history of 

 life upon the globe. 



It is indeed well known that the idea of a natural, genealogical 

 descent of existing animals and plants from the simplest primitive 

 forms was expressed long before Darwin, and was specially and 



J A discourse delivered by Prof. Ludwig von Graff on the occasion of his formal 

 inauguration as rector magnificus of the Imperial Royal Charles Francis Univer- 

 sity at Graz, November 4, 1895. Translated from original, '"Die Zoologie seit 

 Darwin/' Graz, 1896. 



2 The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of 

 Favored Eaces in the Struggle for Life, by Charles Darwin. London, 1859. Trans- 

 lated into German by J. V. Carus under the title : "Charles Darwin ueber die Entste- 

 hung der Arten durch naturliche Zuchtwahl, oder die Erhaltung der begiinstigen 

 Rassen im Kainpfe urn's Dasein," Stuttgart, 1859. 



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