i$77-j 
and the Evolution Hypothesis . 
5i3 
the Dodtrine of Descent, may be broadly divided into two 
classes—one of which comprises those who claim to be the 
exponents of the Darwinian view of Evolution, and who 
regard all structural changes as due to natural and sexual 
selection and other casual causes ; and, in general, con- 
sider all organic processes, development, growth, and the 
modification of species to be the result merely of a very 
refined and complex aCtion of the molecular forces. 
Oscar Schmidt, who is one of this class, states his posi- 
tion very clearly in the “ Doctrine of Descent and Dar- 
winism.” He remarks that the physical view in its perfec- 
tion reduces every organic process to a problem of pure 
mechanics, and quoting A. Fick — “ 1 am of opinion that 
the mechanical view of organic life is demonstrated only 
when all the motions in an organism are shown to be the 
effects of forces, which at other times also are inherent in its 
atoms. But, similarly, I should regard the vitalistic view 
as proved if in any case a particular motion actually observed 
to take place in an organism were shown to be mechanically 
impossible I provisionally profess myself un- 
equivocally in favour of the mechanical view.” I was 
surprised to find in this work of Oscar Schmidt’s a quota- 
tion from the “ Origin of Species,” in many points resem- 
bling the concluding remarks in a paper of mine contributed 
to the last January number of this Journal. Although I do 
not remember having read the passage in the “ Origin of 
Species ” prior to writing the paper I refer to, I think I must 
have been unconsciously influenced in some way by the 
memory of Darwin’s eloquent words, which are as follow : — ■ 
“ There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several 
powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator 
into a few forms or into one, and that whilst this planet has 
gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from 
so simple a beginning endless forms, most beautiful and 
most wonderful, have been and are being evolved.” “ In 
this concession,” Oscar Schmidt remarks, “ Darwin has 
certainly been untrue to himself [or to his followers' interpre- 
tation of his theory ?] , and it satisfies neither those who be- 
lieve in a personal God nor the partisans of natural evolu- 
tion. It is diredtly incompatible with the dodtrine of 
descent [according to the physical view] , or as Zollner says : — 
‘ The hypothesis of an adt of creation (for the beginning of 
life) would not be a logical, but a merely arbitrary, limitation 
of the causal series.’ ” Again, he remarks : — “ To anyone 
who holds open the possibility that even now animate may 
be evolved from inanimate existence without the mediation 
VOL. vii. (n.s.) 2 n 
