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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



MR. WALLACE ON "DARWINISM." 



THE recently published work of Mr. 

 Alfred Eussel Wallace on "Dar 

 winism " furnishes a timely and weighty 

 answer to those who, following the rash 

 lead of the Duke of Argyll, have lately 

 been maintaining that the doctrine of 

 natural selection is wholly unable to 

 explain the development of species, and 

 that, as a theory, it has had its day. 

 Far from conceding anything to this 

 noisy school, Mr. Wallace is disposed to 

 make even larger claims for the potency 

 of this principle than Darwin himself 

 did, and certainly larger than Mr. Spen- 

 cer is to-day disposed to allow. He 

 holds that we only have to look closely 

 enough at the facts in order to see the 

 influence of natural selection every- 

 where, and to convince ourselves that 

 it alone has presided over the whole 

 development of vegetable and animal 

 forms. It is needless to say that Mr. 

 Wallace is a naturalist of the very first 

 rank, and that his reasonings do not 

 lack for facts and illustrations to enforce 

 them. The work he has now given to 

 the world is an exceedingly valuable 

 repertory of information bearing on the 

 questions he discusses, and is written in 

 a style at once popular and exact. In 

 giving it the title " Darwinism," he once 

 more evidences the generosity of nature 

 which led him thirty years ago to waive 

 the claims he might have urged as dis- 

 coverer of the principle of the variation 

 of species by means of natural selection. 

 He recognizes that Darwin has made 

 that whole field of investigation pecul- 

 iarly his own; and he is, therefore, 

 very willing that Darwin's name should 

 stand indissolubly and exclusively con- 

 nected with the great revolution in 

 speculative biology which our genera- 

 tion has witnessed. 



The two principal questions which 



Mr. Wallace's work will bring into 

 prominence are (1) whether the ex- 

 tremely wide claims he puts forth on 

 behalf of natural selection are fully 

 made good ; and (2) whether his views 

 in regard to the mode of development 

 of man's higher intellectual and moral 

 nature are well founded. Upon the first 

 point, as we have already hinted, Mr. 

 Wallace comes into direct collision with 

 Mr. Spencer. The latter considers that 

 the doctrine of natural selection can not 

 account for certain cases of variation, 

 and that we must have recourse to the 

 supplementary doctrine of use and dis- 

 use. Mr. Wallace takes up the instances 

 cited by Mr. Spencer, and endeavors to 

 show that they may be explained with- 

 out calling in any other law than that 

 of natural selection. He admits that, as 

 regards those "lower organisms which 

 consist of simple cells and formless 

 masses of protoplasm," the action of 

 the environment is very marked, and 

 that the variations it produces on 

 individual forms may be transmitted 

 by inheritance ; but he does not con- 

 sider that we. can argue from cases in 

 which the environment acts thus pow- 

 erfully on the whole life of the organ- 

 ism, and, of course, necessarily on its 

 reproductive system, so far as it can 

 be said to have a system, to cases 

 where the outward structure alone of 

 well-established types is affected by 

 change of habit. Such modifications he 

 does not think are transmissible by in- 

 heritance ; spontaneous variation and 

 natural selection alone are adequate, in 

 his opinion, to produce permanent va- 

 riation. The question is manifestly an 

 obscure one, calling for patient and ex- 

 haustive investigation. If changes pro- 

 duced by the environment in the very 

 lowest forms may be transmitted by in- 

 heritance, as Wallace admits, then the 



