Coe — A Century of Zoology in America. 397 



white animals produce offspring like themselves, is now 

 readily , comprehensible and mathematically predictable. 



The most important application of our newly acquired 

 knowledge of inheritance is in the improvement of the 

 human race. The wonderful opportunity in this direc- 

 tion must be apparent to all. The welfare of humanity 

 depends upon the immediate adoption of eugenic princi- 

 ples. The Eugenics Record Office has secured many of 

 the essential data. 



With the destruction of the world's best germ plasm 

 at a rate never equalled before, the outlook for the future 

 race would be appalling were it not for the hope that with 

 the advent of a righteous peace will come a realization of 

 the necessity of applying these new biological discoveries 

 to improving the races of men. That the discoveries 

 liave been made too late in the world's history to be of 

 such use to humanity must not be thought possible. 



Evolution. 



Previous to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Spe- 

 cies in 1859, American zoologists were generally inclined 

 toward special creation, in spite of the evidences for 

 evolution which had been presented by Erasmus Darwin, 

 Lamarck, and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Indeed this attitude 

 of mind continued for some years after the publication of 

 the natural selection theory of Darwin and Wallace. 

 This was in part due to the powerful influence of Louis 

 Agassiz who bitterly opposed the Darwinian theory. As 

 late as 1876, J. D. Dana only half-heartedly accepted it 

 as indicated in his last essay on "Cephalization a funda- 

 mental principle in the development of animal life" (12, 

 245-251,1876). He says : 



"The method by repeated creations through communications 

 of Divine power to nature should be subordinated, as much as 

 any other, to molecular law and all laws of growth ; for molecu- 

 lar law is the profoundest expression of the Divine will, the very 

 essence of nature ; and no department of nature is without its 

 appointed law of development. But the present state of science 

 favors the view of 'progress through the derivation of species 

 from species, with few occasions for Divine intervention. For 

 the development of Man, gifted with high reason and will, and 

 thus made a power above Nature, there was required, as Wallace 

 has urged, the special art of a Being above Nature, whose su- 

 preme will is not only the source of natural law, but the working 

 force of Nature herself/ and this I still hold." He further 

 explains that cephalization "is not at all at variance with 



