10 INITIATIVE IN EVOLUTION 



Bateson. 



In 1894 Prof. Bateson published his large and important work, 

 Materials for the Study of Variation. As a distinguished student 

 and teacher of biology he found the received doctrine of evolution 

 in straits as regards the factor of natural selection in producing 

 specific differences, as indeed happened to another equally eminent 

 man during the next year. He was profoundly discontented as 

 to the origin of specific differences on the theory of direct utility 

 of variations, and he said " on our present knowledge the matter is 

 talked out." 1 He threw over the study of adaptation " as a means 

 of directly solving the problem of species." He came to the con- 

 clusion " Variation is Evolution," and affirmed that the readiest 

 way of solving the problem of evolution is to study the facts of 

 variation. Hence arose this notable book, and hence one of his 

 trenchant statements to the effect " that the existence of new 

 forms having from their beginning more or less of the kind of perfec- 

 tion that we associate with normality, is a fact that once and for 

 all disposes of the attempt to interpret all perfection and definiteness 

 of form as the work of selection," 2 and " Inquiry into the causes 

 of variation is as yet, in my judgment, premature." 3 It will 

 hardly be denied that a work which contained such statements as 

 these from such a source seemed momentous in its influence on the 

 fate of Darwin's theory. Prof. Bateson yielded to none in his loyalty 

 to Darwin, as far as he knew himself, and here he is as candid as 

 Huxley, and he declares that in his treatment of the phenomena 

 of variation is found nothing which is in any way opposed to Darwin's 

 theory. The shade of Darwin might nevertheless have looked 

 with some misgiving at this man over against him with a drawn 

 sword in his hand, and have asked gently, "Art thou for us or for 

 our adversaries ?" Prof. Bateson's work chiefly requires to be 

 considered here because to any reader of it there must come the 

 conviction on the one hand of Prof. Bateson's merits and power, and 

 on the other of his limitation as a student of organic evolution. 

 In 1894 is evident already an exclusive attention to structure 

 rather than function, to anatomy than physiology ; the anatomical 

 leaven in doctrine has leavened the whole lump. For him physio- 

 logy of animals and plants does not exist, or at the best is the 

 outcome of structures which arise through variation and selection. 

 This, if I may say so, is as much his strength as his weakness. 

 There have been other great biologists, such as Geoffrey Saint- 

 ly Materials for the Study of Variation, p. 5. 



2 Op, tit., p. 568. 



3 Op. tit., p. 78. 



