Search Results - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

of the substances and their conditions of evolution, together with a diversity corresponding with their differences in substance and conditions. It is usually supposed that the admission of separate centres of creation is tantamount to an admission of successive creations as interpreted by the majority of those who invoke creative fiats. But the doctrine of Evolution, which regards Life as making its appearance consequent upon a definite concurrence of conditions, and regards the specific

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

evidence that the organic world has had a vast variety of origins, or as evidence of successive gradations in the evolution of the one primordial protoplast. Seeing how the marked differentiations successively appear in the apparently homogeneous ovum of the highest animal, how muscle and nerve and gland are successively wrought out of a layer of cells which contained no traces of them, there seems no objection priori to the inference that in the development of the animal series from a

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

somewhat similar in composition, and similar in its phases of evolution. To state the former position in the simplest way, we may assume that of two masses of protoplasm having a common parentage, one, by the accident of assimilating a certain element not brought within the range of the other, thereby becomes so differentiated as to form the starting-point of a series of evolutions widely divergent from those possible to its congener; and at each stage of evolution the introduction of a new element

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

assuming a deeper principle, which may be thus formulated: All the complex organisms are evolved from organisms less complex, as these were evolved from simpler forms; the link which unites all organisms is not always the common bond of heritage, but the uniformity of organic laws acting under uniform conditions. It is therefore consistent with the hypothesis of Evolution to admit a variety of origins or starting-points, though not consistent to admit the sudden appearance of complex Types, such

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

something of development, are found maintaining that the perfect organism existed already in the ovum, having all its lineaments in miniature, and only growing into visible dimensions through the successive stages of evolution.1 The preformation of the organism seemed an inevitable deduction from the opinions once universal. It led to many strange, and some absurd conclusions; among them, to the assertion that the original germ of every species contained within it all the countless individuals

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

MR. DARWIN'S HYPOTHESES. CONCLUSION. THERE seems to me only ono alternative logically permissible to the Evolution Hypothesis, namely, that all organic forms have had either a single origin, or numerous origins; in other words, that a primordial cell was the starting-point from which all organisms have been successively developed, or that the development issued from many independent starting-points, more or less varied. This is apparently not the aspect presented by the hypothesis to the

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F877.2 Book: Darwin, C. R. 1868. The variation of animals and plants under domestication. London: John Murray. 1st ed., first issue. vol. 2. Text Image PDF

greater probability and distinctness of view, that the common bond of connection between the several foregoing cases is an actual, though partial, return to the structure of the ancient progenitor of the group. If this view be correct, we must believe that a vast number of characters, capable of evolution, lie hidden in every organic being. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the number is equally great in all beings. We know, for instance, that plants of many orders occasionally become

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F878.2 Book: Darwin, C. R. 1868. The variation of animals and plants under domestication. London: John Murray. 1st ed., second issue. vol. 2. Text Image PDF

greater probability and distinctness of view, that the common bond of connection between the several foregoing cases is an actual, though partial, return to the structure of the ancient progenitor of the group. If this view be correct, we must believe that a vast number of characters, capable of evolution, lie hidden in every organic being. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the number is equally great in all beings. We know, for instance, that plants of many orders occasionally become

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

Maillet and Robinet.1 A certain discredit was thrown on the hypothesis by the very means taken to recommend it. So long as it remained a vague general notion, it was unassailable, or at least unrefutable; but on descending into the region of verification, it presented a meagre aspect. Nevertheless, it survived opposition, ridicule, refutation. In the face of evidence, in the face of ridicule, in the face of orthodoxy very indignant, this idea of the evolution of complex forms from simpler forms

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

Genera and Species were produced by direct exercise of a Creative Will, whereas Varieties and Races were produced by the operation of natural laws. Such a separation of agencies is unphilosophic; and if we avoid it by the acknowledgment of every individual plant and animal being the product of a creative fiat, then indeed we get rid of the Dualistic conception of Nature, but the difference between the hypothesis of Creation and the hypothesis of Evolution becomes only a difference of terms. I have

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

hypothesis of Evolution, is, correctly interpreted, a necessary deduction from that hypothesis. I do not pause to discuss the validity of the statement itself, though Dr. Hooker and Mr. Darwin have pointed out the extremely imperfect evidence on which it is founded. I accept the argument as if there were no exaggeration in its data, and as if a domesticated animal suffered to run wild inevitably returned to the wild type; although, in the vast majority of cases, the animal would really perish

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

transmit their true character. Our sheep in tropical countries lose their wool in a few generations. The tendency to recur to the ancestral form, a tendency noticeable even under domestication, is a fact of profound significance, but it is a simple consequence of biological laws, and is invoked by the advocates of Evolution not less than by the advocates on the other side. It has, therefore, no peculiar significance in the case now under examination. All we have to deal with here is the influence

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

hypothesis of creative fiats, on Divine Ideas, which absolutely explain none. They reject an attempt to trace some of the intermediate steps by following the actual processes of evolution as far as these are known to us, and prefer relying on a vague phrase, which is only a restatement of the fact to be explained, and which suggests a process altogether inconceivable by the human mind. At any rate, we have reached one result: Animals are variable The extent to which this variability may be carried

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

Selection we have acted solely on the exterior, without in any respect altering the internal and essential parts ( sans en changer en rien la constitution essentielle et profonde ),1 the assertion is in one sense true, in another false; and the sense in which it is true does not oppose the Evolution hypothesis, whereas the sense in which it is false is an argument that upsets the hypothesis of fixed species. Thus it is true that the modification, which can be impressed on an individual, or on a

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

forth, we admit the fact that specific forms are persistent, but deny that this fact has the slightest value as evidence against the evolution of new specific forms through modification; and affirm that embryology furnishes the plainest testimony that such evolutions do take place. Species, except as a subjective classification of resemblance has no existence. Only individuals with variable resemblance exist; and as these individuals propagate, the propagation is necessarily a reproduction of

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

the repugnance to using such language of evasion may cause men to revise their conceptions altogether; they dare not attribute ignorance and incompetence to the Creator. Obviously the architectural hypothesis is incompetent to explain the phenomena of organic development. Evolution is the universal process; not creation of a direct kind. Von Baer, who very properly corrected the exaggerations which had been put forth respecting the identity of the embryonic forms with adult forms lower in the

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

developed from the simpler forms, we ought to trace the identities through all their stages. If the fish developed into the reptile, the reptile into the bird, and the bird into the mammal (which I, for one, think very questionable), we ought to find, it is urged, evidence of this passage. And at one time it was asserted that the evidence existed; but this has been disproved, and on the disproof the opponents of Evolution take their stand. Although I cannot feel much confidence in the idea of

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

to understand this Idea? If it mean an independent Entity, an agency external to the organism, we refuse to acknowledge its existence. If it mean only an posteriori abstraction, expressing the totality of the momenta, then indeed we acknowledge that it determines the animal form; but this is only an abbreviated way of expressing the law of Evolution, by which each stage determines its successor. The Type does not dominate the momenta, it emerges from them; the animal organism (1) MILNE EDWARDS

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

for a principle, which has played so conspicuous a part in the history of philosophy. Like many others of its class it exhibits an interesting evolution from the crude metaphysical to the subtle metaphysical point of view, which at last insensibly blends into the positive point of view. At first the Type or Idea was regarded as an objective reality, external to the organism it was supposed to rule. Then this notion was replaced by an approach to the more rational interpretation, the Idea was made

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A604 Review: Lewes, George Henry. 1868. Mr. Darwin's hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3 (April, June); 353-73, 611-28, 4 (July), (November): 61-80, 492-509. Text Image

from the immanent properties of the organic molecules, in the fact that it is not reformed at once, but by gradual evolution; the mass of cells at the stump are cells of embryonic character, cells such as those which originally crystalised into muscles, nerves, vessels, and integument, and each cell passes through all its ordinary stages of development. It is to be remembered that so intimately dependent is the resultant on the determining momenta that any external influence which disturbs the