[Danilevskii]

                The necessity of an open inquiry into the teachings of Darwin. What the name Darwinism means. It is a particular philosophical worldview. The accidental trait as the highest universal principle. Darwinism is the only possible support of the materialistic worldview, even though Darwin himself was a deist. The dual problem of his teaching. The elimination of teleology is the main reason for the success of Darwin's theory. The misunderstanding of the meaning of "accidental." Haeckel. Darwinism's evidence for the notion of the accidental is insufficient to prove it. Mathematical tricks. The necessity of external, rather than internal, corroboration of a theory.

My own personal indifference toward Darwinian theory. Darwin's true contributions. Relationship to authorities. My intended audience for the present work. The points of view from which Darwinian theory must be analyzed. The necessity of a precise definition and explanation of its fundamental principles. The error of the predominant understanding of it. Is the theory of Darwinism mechanistic? Haeckel again. Darwinism old and new. The plan for the present work.

In the present work I intend to present my readers with a complete and rigorous analysis of Darwin's theory. The intended audience for this book is not necessarily limited to academic specialists, like zoologists and botanists. Instead I have in mind the general educated reader, outside zoology and botany, and to begin, two questions facing me: first of all, is it possible, and second, is the intention for such a work justified by the need for such a work. The first question is not hard to answer. Darwin's own articulation, in the three main works that contain his theory (The Origin of Species, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex), is so clear and popular, containing so little of technical detail nonspecialists would have trouble understanding, that its themes and qualities can be analyzed if I have the skills and abilities to grasp them. Darwin himself had in mind not specialist readers but the whole educated public, as is proven by the excellent glossary of scientific terms compiled by Dallas and appended to the latest edition of Origin of Species. (1)

The other question is much greater. If Darwinian theory consists of some kind of great zoological or botanical discovery in the factual or theoretical realm, then why would this matter to the educated reader in general? It might interest him for a period of time, then quietly be set aside as something not really concerning him. There have been some discoveries of incredible significance and unusual interest in the biological field, discoveries which completely overturned physiological concepts and beliefs, universally accepted as axioms. I would call these the most startling examples: parthenogenesis and the alternation of generations. (2) Organisms endowed with sexual reproduction sometimes reproduce without the element of sex. Or for some organisms, the children emerge completely distinct from their parents, to the point that they possess traits not of some other species, genus, or family, but to different classes of the animal kingdom, but children are similar, even identical (in essential traits) to their grandparents, or great-grandchildren to great-grandparents. The period of identical forms appears not in each generation compared with its immediate predecessors, but encompasses two, three, or more generations. What could be imagined more incredible than that, more contradictory not only to the usual views, founded upon everyday experience and good sense, but even scientific views? Strictly speaking, the so-called transformation of species, the descent of some species, which we came to consider constant and unchanging, from others, seems not much more strange and surprising. From the standpoint of good sense and ordinary, nonscientific observation this seems a lot less strange and surprising. Let us recall the notions of people uneducated in science, not just peasants but many landlords, that "Wheat is reborn as Rye" and so on. In the same way, when Cuvier managed to discover species, long vanished from the face of the earth, of animals of monstrous size and form, it attracted universal attention. But what exactly came of it? Educated people of all specialties (except zoologists and geologists) and non-specialists alike essentially said, that is very, very interesting and I would be quite curious to have a look at these monsters if I had a free moment or nothing better to do—but life goes on and over time it turns out, essentially, that these are really of no concern. In all these cases, this was not at all the voice of ignorance, and one cannot expect, or even hope, for it to be otherwise.

But while all these entirely remarkable and interesting discoveries have been confined to the realms of zoology, botany, and geology, Darwin's theory came to occupy the minds of all specialists, all the educated and half-educated society, and it will have and even does have a powerful influence on people who are completely uneducated.

What is the reason for this completely extraordinary phenomenon? If we look closely, we will find it in the name which with one voice the educated world and the public gave to this teaching, in calling it Darwinism. Mr. Timiriazev (3) says: "In the history of science there have been examples of a famous theory, a famous hypothesis that preserves the name of its author, but for the name of a person to become a household name for a whole tendency, a whole department of knowledge—there has never been such an example; furthermore in many bibliographic indexes, alongside headings like zoology, botany, and geology, you find a new one—Darwinism." Excluding the statement, or more likely the slip of the tongue, that Darwinism has supposedly become the name for a whole department of knowledge, which is obviously not true, this otherwise is completely correct. There really is no comparable tendency in any other branch of the natural sciences or all of them collectively; however important or fruitful it may have been, what Copernicus did for astronomy, Galileo for physics, Lavoisier for chemistry, Jussieu for botany, or Cuvier for zoology, they were not and are not called Copernicanism, Galileism, Cuvierism, and so on. However, if we look further we will find a whole realm of knowledge, precisely the one that, rightly or wrongly, considers itself at the head of all knowledge and science—philosophy, that is—where it is quite common for the name of the author of a philosophical teaching to be used to indicate a whole philosophical system. Everyone says Cartesianism, Spinozism, Schellingism, and Hegelianism to refer to their philosophical systems created by DesCartes, Spinoza, Schelling, and Hegel. Thus if we count Darwin's theory as a philosophical theory, then this anomaly Mr. Timiriazev identified disappears; it turns out that Darwin's theory took the name Darwinism not by reason of some special quality of its perfection or superiority in comparison with other theories in the realm of natural science, but by the general character of this theory, completely apart from its internal merits, the character which removes it from the realm of natural science and places it in the realm of philosophy. Can this proposition be confirmed, that Darwin's theory can be said to have its own particular philosophical worldview? It not only can, but must be said to have this character, because this theory contains a particular worldview, a high explanatory principle, not for some, even the most important, particularity but for a whole world order [mirostroenie] which explains the whole realm of existence.

Any thinking person, of whatever intellectual persuasion, has as if forcefully imposed upon himself the idea that the world is rational, rational as a fact, as a result. If this were not so, if the presumption of this rationality did not provide the lining for all of our thought, then obviously the rise of distinct sciences as well as science in general would be impossible, since the investigation of countless disconnected facts would be an impossible, pointless effort; it would be like counting grains of sand on the seashore. But if, as a fact, as a result, the world is rational, then there must be some kind of cause for why that is so [prichina], that is just as common as that fact itself, and as common and inescapable as the consciousness of that fact. And actually, not just the academic or the philosopher, but every person supplies himself with some kind of answer to that. However many such answers to that question there might seem to be, the majority of them line up under one—namely, that if reason is the result, then reason itself producing it is the cause. In putting together ideas about the nature of this cause and its relationship to the result, to the world, of course, opinions differ. Some liken the relationship of this reason-as-cause to the world produced by it, to the relationship between a person and the result of his artistic or industrial activity—an explanation that gave rise to various forms of deism, according to which the reason of the world is explained by the expediency of the design of its apparatus. Others see it as reason, as expressed in philosophical language, made immanent to the world, which corresponds to various forms of pantheism, according to which the rationality of the world is explained by the inherent regularity of its phenomena. A third group, finally, denying the objective rationality of the world, locates this rationality within the self, contemplating the world; but since this rationally contemplative self obviously must die, or better still, could not even exist in an irrational world, then along with the rationality of the world they must reject its very reality, which corresponds with various forms of subjective idealism, which thus attribute rationality to a world in reality nonexistent, the hallucination of the contemplative self, representing the rational to it. We can designate all three of these worldviews under the general term idealism, since all of them, in one way or another, rest upon an ideal or spiritual principle ruling over matter, or even completely eliminating it.

But there is a worldview that denies the existence of the soul; it of course must deny all rationality for the world, which must be something apparent, but not real. But this is only possible in the following conjecture: if, as in the whole world, the human reason contemplating and investigating it is only the inevitable, subsequent product of some of the simplest givens, existing in and of themselves, for example, matter and movement, purely mechanical actions, then even we ourselves are a product of this mechanical necessity, and it seems to us like rationality. This can be better explained by the following example. The changing seasons of the year result in various phenomena, which seem rational and expedient to us. But the change of seasons depends, as everyone knows, upon the inclination of the earth's axis of rotation to the plane of its path around the sun, and upon the constant parallelism of the axis along that path. But to explain the latter point, there is no need to resort to any kind of special adaptation; all it takes is the absence of anything capable of disturbing this parallelism, and it is obvious that for this negative fact no further proof is required. Thus all the apparently rational results of the change of seasons are inevitable consequences of the mechanical law of the earth's rotation, that is, the necessary characteristics of this rotation. Such an explanation would be entirely adequate, if it could be applied to all forms and phenomena of nature, both inorganic and organic. But the fact of the matter is, such a mechanical explanation is absolutely inapplicable for entire broad categories of phenomena: in particular, it is inapplicable to the organic world, to an explanation of that eternal rationality and expediency that is found in the adaptation of various plant and animal organisms to the conditions of the inorganic world, one to another, and of the separate parts of the organism, the organs, to the whole. It is inapplicable to such a degree that not only can no one explain the form of the organic world and their origins mechanistically, but strictly speaking, no one has ever actually attempted to propose such an explanation. Only a completely simple-minded approach to the question, presupposing a complete misunderstanding of the concept and significance of the mechanistic explanation, would allow Haeckel to speak as if Darwin had presented such a mechanistic explanation. (4)

But if Darwin did not do this, he nevertheless rendered other services to the materialistic worldview, securing another foothold for it. He replaced this principle of mechanical necessity with the principle of absolute random chance [sluchainost'], which appears to be his highest explanatory principle of precisely that part of the world which most bears the imprint of rationality and expediency. Although the principle of random chance played a role in certain ancient philosophical teachings, like those of Empedocles and Epicurus, (5) nevertheless I would hardly be mistaken in saying that Darwin first conducted it systematically and with great finesse through a whole province of the most complex phenomena. What precisely is the essential idea of Darwin's theory I will attempt to demonstrate further on; here, as proof that random chance is the highest explanatory principle of Darwinism, I will offer only the following example. The history of animal development, as established by the efforts and discoveries of von Baer (6) in particular and his followers, appears before us as a rigidly sequential series of forms and transformations undergone by embryos, the aggregate of which is called "development." The reason for the connections between these sequential forms is completely unknown, but at least their regularity is established and recognized. How do Darwinists explain this? They accept that the development of a distinct organic entity is the recapitulation of the sequential forms of their evolutionary ancestors, or as they conventionally express it: "Ontogeny" (the development of an organic entity) "is a recapitulation of phylogeny" (the development of organic forms by descending from one to another). But older forms originated from accumulated random individual distinctions that turned out to be advantageous in the struggle for existence. Thus in the final analysis, the regularity in the history of organisms' development is supplied by the principle of random chance, which thus also constitutes the highest principle for explaining the marvelous diversity and the marvelous expediency of the organic world, and this principle is relatively easy to apply to other, less complex realms of existence.

So obviously the main thing is that Darwinian theory is not only and not so much a zoological and botanical theory, as, to the same or much greater degree, a philosophical theory. Darwinism changes and overturns not only our conventional wisdom and our biological axioms, but also all of our worldviews, down to the very root and foundation, the idealistic worldview and the materialist worldview alike. Before the appearance of Darwinian theory, materialists had to found their views upon nature, not strictly in terms of scientific data (since they could not explain everything mechanistically), but to a great extent, disregarding or even contradicting the data, as if consciously or unconsciously diverting their eyes from a whole category of phenomena, and with it, what is generally accepted as the most important, from the phenomena of the organic world. They were obliged to mention that science had not yet managed to untangle the obscurity and complexity of these phenomena, but by analogy with the ever-expanding sphere of mechanistic explanations, that it must eventually incorporate them into one general materialistic and mechanistic view.

Instead of such vague hopes in the progress of science in a certain sense and direction, Darwinism seemed to allow them to incorporate both the organic world in all its marvelous adaptation of one organ to another, and entire organisms in the external environment, into a general materialist view of nature. The secret of the origins of diverse organic forms is explained as a given by simple phenomena, ubiquitously observed and self-explanatory, or at least seeming to be so. No place remains for a supreme intellect [verkhovnyi razum] in nature, or at least it has become something unnecessary, which it is very well possible, and therefore obligatory, to do without. It is true that Darwin himself did not intend to rule out either God or his creative handiwork, not to mention taking away from him the creation of the primordial organic cell. Here are his own words on the topic of the gradual perfection of the eye on the different rungs of the organic ladder: "Let this process go on over the course of millions of years, and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?" (7) But after all this path is the path of absolute random chance, and absolute random chance not only does not assume the rational guidance of God, but on the contrary, completely rejects it, and in any case does not have the slightest need of it. Consequently thinkers, natural scientists, and in general people less pious than Darwin could grasp the obvious logical possibility to stick with random chance (although they do not call it that) as an entirely adequate explanatory principle. When in fact everything goes on without rational guidance, why propose it as a cause? By sentiment, perhaps, but not by reason is there any need of that.

Thus materialism, from an inconsistent theory and a prejudicial notion, seemingly at once became entirely consistent and removed from any prejudicial or preconceived notions. On the contrary, idealism lost any factual basis, deprived of its main, factual, positive-scientific grounds. It turned from being consistent to inconsistent, only tenable under preconceived notions and prejudicial thinking. It now has to turn its eyes away from the whole realm of nature, away from the whole objective world. The only remaining support for it is the spiritual subjective world. But where does the spiritual world turn when its main and even the only available representative of it, the human, with all of his gifts and traits, descends from apelike animals without introducing through this slow gradual metamorphosis anything at all new or special, when the human is distinguished from his ancestors only by the quantity, but not the quality [of differences], and when these ancestors themselves, descending or ascending (whichever you like, considering which meaning we give these words) from level to level, ultimately originated in the simplest organic cells?

True, thanks to the rigorous experiments of Pasteur, then Tyndale (8) and others, these cells represent a significant leap [zapinka]. As Darwin stated on the very last page of his famous book The Origin of Species: "There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one." (9) Whether this view is grand or not, in any case, under this view, the Creator has only two things left to do: give the first push to matter, and breathe life into bubbles or clumps of it; for all else, it is possible to do without Him. But He is already dismissed from the first duty by the hypothesis of eternity and the inherent motion of matter. From the second He is likewise threatened with dismissal by the fact that traces of organic matter have been found on meteorites. (10) True, it is impossible to imagine that organic life has been eternal on Earth, seeing as Earth itself is not eternal. Astronomy and geology agree that Earth's temperature must have once been such that it was impossible not only for organic life, but even organic matter, to exist upon it. But it could have been brought to it by falling meteorites once it had cooled enough to accept these seeds from the depths of the universe. How could life develop on meteorites, under conditions less conducive, less complex, than on Earth? Meteorites, at least partly, could be fragments of planets. But what was so unusual about those heavenly planets that on them existed what was impossible on Earth? The answer is simple: They also received it from meteorites, which in turn were fragments of other planets from other solar systems, and so on ad infinitum. (11) Or life, as others say, is a property of a certain chemical formulation that can result when favorable conditions arise. True, we have not yet succeeded in deriving these carriers of life—protoplasms—in our laboratories. Never mind that what has not succeeded in miniature somehow succeeded on a grand scale. In any case, the main obstacle to the application of the materialist or mechanistic perspective to all of nature—the marvelous arrangement of the organic world—has been abolished by Darwinism.

There is a well-known anecdote, that after the great geometrician LaPlace (12) brought out his famous work, Exposition du systeme du monde, the great emperor Napoleon, meeting with him, said, "I have read your book, but to my surprise, in a book on such a topic, found not one reference to God," and LaPlace answered him, "Your Majesty, I never had the need of that hypothesis." With the emergence of Darwinian theory, for those accepting it, the need for this hypothesis ceased to exist, even to account for the system of the organic world, presumably its last refuge.

Of course I am speaking here of scientific, or more precisely, philosophical deism, or idealism in general; for religious deism, of course, the situation is completely otherwise. It has no need of this or any other such foundation. Its foundation is the internal, direct [personal experience], not logical conviction.

Using the words of LaPlace, materialism can now respond: I find no need of this hypothesis for any sphere of objective phenomena; but deism or idealism in general must say: I maintain my worldview despite the fact that I also find no need of the aforementioned hypothesis. Roles thus have reversed to the disadvantage of the latter, but have changed for both.

However, some may object, Darwin himself was neither an atheist nor materialist, as many places in his works attest, some of which were cited above. Besides them, in the concluding chapter of that book, for instance, he said: "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.' A celebrated author and divine has written to me that 'he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of this laws.'" (13) This excerpt of a letter from a famous author and spiritual personage contains, I note following von Baer, the idea of a plan and prediction of the future that is no longer Darwinism.

Some may see, perhaps, a new example of human inconsistency in the fact that such a lofty mind as Darwin's could not entirely renounce the prejudices of one's upbringing and surrounding environment. Others might go still further and attribute all this to a conscious concession to those same prejudices, that is, to a certain degree of pretense and hypocrisy. But whoever has read and studies Darwin's works will find it impossible to doubt his profound sincerity and the lofty nobility of his soul. (14)

In any case, this Darwinian deism cannot be required of his followers, since it does not follow from his theory; there is no inherent necessity for it, but it is his purely subjective peculiarity, and all we have said about the influence of Darwinism on the contemporary worldview remains entirely correct.

In any case, the question of whether the author of the theory under investigation had a materialist or deist view of nature is no more than a biographical question, completely secondary in determining the influence his theory has had on the philosophical worldview of our time. It is enough that it can be and actually is understood in the way we have indicated by the huge majority of his followers—and without hesitation we say the followers of his logic.

What is the essential aspect of Darwinian theory by which an apparently purely zoological and botanical theory has, like no other, such primary influence moving the general worldview in a certain direction; that is, what gives this specialized-scientific theory such huge philosophical significance upon its followers or even on all contemporary society? This is clearly expressed in the following lines from the beginning of the introduction to Origin of Species: "In considering the origin of species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until it could be shown how the innumerable species, inhabiting this world have been modified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which justly excites our admiration." (15)

This excerpt clearly reveals the twofold problem Darwin set out to resolve. First, the question of the origins of diverse organic forms, is the specialized scientific, zoological and botanical part of the problem; second, the question of expediency in nature is the general philosophical part of the problem. However important the first one is, its universal appeal has only one point of contact, the origins of humanity itself, which, no matter how we look at it, is unquestionably a zoological species. Minus that detail, an immensely important one but a detail all the same, the first part of the problem could and doubtless would remain a specialized undertaking of zoologists and botanists. By this I do not mean to imply that if Darwin did not directly address the question of human origins in his works, but had limited himself to the general question as he outlined in his foundational and capital work Origin of Species, that his theory at least concerning the origins of organic forms would never have outgrown the sphere of specialist-scientific interest. Without a doubt, even if Darwin had never written his Descent of Man, the question nevertheless would have eventually been resolved in the same sense and direction by the categorical declaration that humans are descended from apelike animals. That conclusion was already reached in the general resolution of the question given in the book on the origin of species. Therefore I recognize that I cannot agree with those opponents of Darwinian theory and those of his adherents who applaud him for avoiding this delicate question in his first book and reproach him for addressing it in a special treatise. After all, this silence would only have been an empty rhetorical device and nothing more, the meaning of which no one could, or indeed did, doubt.

The other part of the problem, resolving the question of the origin not of species or organic forms, but of expediency in nature in general, has incomparably greater importance, and more profound philosophical significance. In resolving this question as Darwin did, even the question of human descent, from whomever or whatever, becomes completely immaterial. If this world is nothing but a meaningless conglomeration of random chance, taking only the false appearance of rationality, then the truth is it is all the same whether humans descended from apes, or swine, or frogs. Whatever the case, humans would be descended from meaninglessness and would be meaninglessness incarnate.

One reason, or even the main reason, why Darwinism took on such broad appeal and such dominance over contemporary minds, is that it eliminated expediency in nature, or better to say it explained it without recourse to ideal principles. Expediency sat like a cataract in the eye of natural scientists for the last fifty to sixty years, until Darwin with his skillful operation apparently removed this cataract.

Here it might be relevant to say a few words about the reasons for such persecution against teleology, or the theory of goals, which gained citizenship rights within science in the time of Leibniz, who restored this theory held by many ancient philosophers, Aristotle in particular, that DesCartes eliminated. As is usual, this was the fault of teleology itself, that is, the fault of its inept followers. A few examples make this very clear (I have borrowed from Baer's articles "On expediency and purposefulness in general" and "On purposefulness in organic bodies"): "Enlightened amateurs of natural history," he says, "who are not exactly investigators of nature, hardly believe what disgust many groups of naturalists nurture for the finding of goals and expediency in the processes and apparatuses of nature." Explaining the origin of this disgust, he indicates that a person first of all wants to get an answer to the most important and meaningful questions, which is why the Greeks, instead of observation and experiments, sought to think up all-explanatory hypotheses, and that when the discovery of America, a sea route to India, the conflicts of the Reformation, and most of all, Copernicus's discovery of the rotation of the earth on its axis and around the sun, all aroused a high degree of scientific interest and gave independence to criticism—the scientific aspirations of the time remained medieval. The educated adopted a host of beliefs, which they accepted and disseminated as positive facts, but no one could actually say what they were founded upon, and while looking predominantly at organic structures, they mainly wanted to discover the intentions of the Creator. This was particularly the case regarding anatomy. Investigating human anatomical structures, which became a particular passion in the beginning of the sixteenth century, was being done everywhere without any deliberate method of searching, as if penetrating the expediency of the structure by force. Therefore, wherever it was not directly apparent, they started searching for the goals of the Creator, particularly since the discovery of the microscope led to the contemplation of the praiseworthy fullness of His power and highest artistry. The goals they attributed to various structures did not always turn out so sublime, and sometimes were even undeniably ridiculous. So, for instance, the human has stronger sciatic muscles than any other animal. Without a doubt, the relationship is necessary for reasons of mechanics or expediency, and therefore implemented. An individual human is organized for walking upright: the whole weight of the body, which, being left to itself, would be forced to lean forward, must be held above both hip joints, which are inserted into two corresponding pelvic recesses. The action of the sciatic muscle, attached above the recess and below the pelvic bones, must firmly hold the pelvis above the hips and to the side of the spine. Therefore these muscles are especially strongly developed in humans, the same as other muscles for upright posture or walking, like calf muscles. The seventeenth-century anatomist Spiegel (16) discovered an incomparably loftier goal. He proposed that the human possesses the strongest sciatic to give him a soft cushion for sitting upon while contemplating the greatness of God. Often the questions posed were completely preposterous, and thus the answers could not be reasonable. So one anatomist asked, why does the human not have two spines, and answered, because that would look funny. In that spirit, though not always so astounding for the preposterous conclusions, were written various works of entomo-teleology, ichthyo-teleology, litho-teleology, and testaceo-teleology, or expositions of the wisdom of God, proven by insects, fish, stones, and shells—works that are all distinguished by their ineptitude, and most importantly by purely human notions that each separate slightest particle, for instance, the spines on a shell, are finishing touches, as if made by human hand. This limited view of teleology was expressed, among other ways, as utter amazement at the great number of uniform parts or members in some animals, and this was exhibited as a trait that especially revealed the wisdom of God. The entomologist Schäffer (17) particularly indulged in the pleasure of this kind of contemplation in the previous century. Obviously this view was founded on the idea that each individual part had to have been applied in a human manner. But since nature does not manufacture any peculiarity or detail consistently one after another, but allows formative processes to mold a plastic substance, the number of parts does not have any precise meaning, as we can see partly in the work of human hands, when replaced by the work of machines. And comparative anatomy shows that a large number of uniform and similar parts is a sign of a lower level of organization, compared with a lesser number of appendages, with detectable differences between them. "It is obvious," Baer says in conclusion, "that the basis for the attacks upon teleology lies in the rejection of certain forms of it, which present a humanlike Creator acting for the benefit of humanity in each process of nature. In that case, of course, it presents a problem that roasted pigeons do not fly right into humans' mouths. Then comes the strange view that necessity cannot serve as the means for attaining goals. Who is to blame that these men proceed from such a pitiful and trivial view, but do not look upon the laws of nature as a continual expression of the will of the Creative principle [Tvorcheskogo nachala]?" (18)

Rejecting the idea of goals, nothing remains but to attribute everything to chance. But Darwin's adherents usually indignantly reject this charge; they reject random chance in general and say that only strict, ruthless, and inevitable necessity exists. "There is no real chance in nature, any more than there are goals or so-called free will. On the contrary, any action is conditioned by preexisting causes, and any cause has its subsequent, necessary action. In our view, the place of accident, just as the place of goals and free will, is taken by absolute necessity, [in Greek] ananchi," exclaims Haeckel, the enfant terrible of Darwinism. Having said such a banality (I say banality because after all this tirade is nothing more than an aphorism, known nearly since childhood, that there is no cause without effect, and no effect without a cause), it leaves one wondering how he could think that this proves or disproves anything. After all the relationship between causes and effects, as anyone knows, has not prevented people who are indisputably smart, or even geniuses, and a circle of their acquaintances, also indisputably at least the equal of Haeckel's, to continue to recognize, along with necessity, both random chance and goals. This is not the place to go into a detailed analysis of the relationship between necessity, random chance, and expediency, which was done so excellently, "to an insulting degree of clarity" as he himself put it, by the remarkable Baer in his articles on expediency in general and on expediency in organic bodies in particular, in the second volume of his Investigations in the Realm of Natural Science, and also the small brochure, On the Quarrel over Darwinism. (19) In this introductory chapter explaining the reasons why I am undertaking the present work, I can only touch upon the subject and allow myself to add only the following. Let us suppose someone, an excellent shot, takes aim and fires his rifle, hits the center of the circle of a distant target and knocks out the flag; and let us suppose that a hundred shooters with superior rifles, not aiming, but from the hip, like the Turks at Plevna, or even better, with their eyes closed, shoot thousands and tens of thousands of rounds, and one of them finally also strikes the center of the target and knocks out the flag. Is it possible to say that in both cases the flag was knocked out by the same laws of necessity, even though without a doubt in both cases any bullet flies according to the same strict involuntary necessity? Of course anyone might note that in the first case the bullet hit by the strictest necessity, since true aim (of course considering proper qualities of the gun and registering the conditions of the bullet's flight) entails hitting the target by necessity, but by expedient necessity; but in the second case, by purely random chance, despite necessity, which the bullets followed in their path. Thus we must distinguish the difference, and not call two completely different processes by the same name, which as a result turns into an empty, meaningless general formula.

An exposition of Darwinian theory will show that random chance is its highest principle, explaining phenomena of expediency in the organic world, which turn out as only seeming like expediency, a false appearance, an illusion—which is why this theory must be called pseudoteleology. If anyone does not like the term "random chance" [sluchainost'] applied to the Darwinian method of explaining harmony and coadaptation (just as individual organs each have their own organic essence, so in their mutual relations with each other in external nature), I will not insist upon it, but will only say that the difference in explanatory principles of the familiar old theory, which accepts expediency in nature and elevates its explanation to an ideal cause, and the new Darwinian theory, is the same as what exists between the cause of knocking out the flag in both cases I introduced.

What has been said makes clear the primary importance of the question whether Darwin is correct or not, not only for zoologists and botanists, but for any, even slightly thinking, person. Its importance is such that I am convinced there is no other question that equals it in importance, not in any realm of knowledge or practical life. This is, in fact, a "to be, or not to be" question in the fullest and broadest sense. In a question of such importance, is it possible to rely upon what others say, even if they are the highest authorities, even if it is contemporary science itself, as they like to tell us. After all, if contemporary science has decided, then there is nothing left for us to do but forfeit our property, the goods and people dearest to us, and finally our lives, being left to an arbitrary will: whether carrying out its decision or not, would we really follow it, without having probed it in the most attentive fashion we can, and without answering the question: Did [science] completely and correctly decide this matter affecting us so closely, and was it not mistaken in it? But the question decided by Darwinism is immeasurably more important, even than all possessions and goods, and lives, not only each of us individually, but all of us and our collective posterity. Darwinism eliminated the last traces of what it is now acceptable to call mysticism, even the mysticism of the laws of nature, and the rationality of creation. And if rationality, then of course reason itself, divine as well as human, is eliminated or seems like a particular case of absurdity or senselessness, while random chance remains the true, only master of the world and nature. This is the question Darwinism presents to us! Is that important enough? Is there anything more important?

But if the issue is whether organisms were produced by chance, including us and the whole world, because the organic world is understood as the sphere where random chance has less scope, then many might say that random chance is something so incongruous with the world in general and the organic world in particular, that to disprove the whole theory it would be enough to catch it confessing that random chance is its foundational principle, and that would be the end of it. To catch it in this is not at all hard; all it takes is to lay it out and anyone who can see anything will see that it really is so. But there is no need for this. The theory is so clearly and comprehensibly laid out by Darwin himself, that all it takes is to read through his book. It is not Hegelianism or some other kind of foggy philosophy, at which as they say, "the devil himself knows what it means;" (20) it is not a series of abstract conclusions or intricate mathematical calculations inaccessible to the average mind and everyday understanding, which to enter the public domain must first be popularized, the kernel shelled, pounded, and ground down before it can be rendered edible for ordinary human teeth and digestible for ordinary human stomachs.

The exposition is amply clear, not to mention the various excerpts and summaries published in journals, set before readers in hundreds of thousands of copies in various languages. And we Russians are not deprived in this regard compared to others. We have three editions of the famous Origin of Species. North Americans also have only three editions. Italians, Dutch, and Swedes, only a single translation; only the studious and voracious readers of Germany recently acquired a fifth edition, while the French have only four. The English themselves in six editions are reading or have now read twenty thousand copies. But as the number of editions and translations shows, the new theory's circle of readership continues to grow and grow, and random chance, as its fundamental explanatory principle, apparently is not only not troubling, it is not even noteworthy. But even if it did trouble the reader, is that really enough? In the best case, that is, accepting that random chance by itself were reason enough to reject the theory, this reader would find himself in the position of a person watching a mathematical gimmick being demonstrated, a theorem diametrically opposed to what he is convinced is true by the strict path of a geometrical proof. I recall once being shown that in a triangle there can be two right angles, without any recourse to the fourth dimension. The whole thing was in ordinary, Euclidian space. At first I did not see where was the joke or the trick. What could I do? Prove the theorem in the usual textbook manner? In this my opponent would have the right to say, "Great, I am not arguing with you, perhaps your proof is correct, but mine is still true, so long as you cannot refute it; but if both are true, then I have proven much more than was proposed at the outset. I had set out to convince you of the unfoundedness of one of these accepted theorems, one of your axioms, but now it turns out that I have refuted them all at one go, however many there are, because I have refuted the correctness and trustworthiness of your logical process in general." What logic remains then, if we must grant that two mutually exclusive truths may exist simultaneously? So it is with Darwinism, for someone convinced that out of an innumerable multitude of random chances, there is nothing reasonable, no kind of order or harmony can be produced—nothing but chaos and nonsense—and one must agree with all of this, that all this rationality, however, all this harmony and all this order, was nevertheless produced from nothing other than precisely this random chance, if one cannot reveal what is Darwin's trick (or more truthfully, Darwin's mistake or mistakes). This is what needs to be revealed and presented to readers in all possible completeness and clarity. It can be done, for Darwinism as much as for any other theory, not from without, that is, not by arraying against it various theories considered irrefutable (by this we would only make matters worse), but from within, that is, by finding internal contradictions, inconsistencies, and impossibilities, the gaps which have only been plastered over, painted, and varnished. Only in these internal gaps, left where the stones from which the edifice was built do not line up with each other, can we insert the pry bar and turn the wall into a pile of incoherent rubble.

Whoever happens to have read refutations of various theories, teachings, or opinions, especially in popular formats, will have noticed that the majority begin like so: right away it sets forth the theory itself, even heatedly and passionately, so that you find yourself perplexed as to whether the critique's author is an adherent or opponent of the theory. This is revealed much later, in the second half of the work, where the attack intensifies to the same level as the initial defense. This is done of course to lend the appearance of complete impartiality to the exposition. I am going about it completely differently: From the very beginning the reader sees clearly which side I am on, how I regard the theory I am about to evaluate and dismantle. So I proceed, contending that impartiality must be not in the form of exposition, but in the preliminary examination. I openly admit that I have chosen this method which in my opinion can act all the more powerfully on the reader, more powerfully convince the doubter, more powerfully dissuade the believer. But I consider myself warranted to do this because of the complete impartiality of my examination, since it I did it strictly for myself, and what interest would I have in deceiving myself, or charming myself with various mirages!

The question of the origin of species seems to me always the most fundamental question, decisive for the worldview of those who draw this question not from metaphysical speculations but from the data of the objective world. In saying this, I would not at all think of throwing a shadow on the lawfulness and credibility of metaphysical thinking, but propose only that it must not consist of only a formal dialectical progression of thought, but must be based upon the most positive data: simply put, it must serve not as the foundation, but the completion, of each mental edifice.

When I began to acquaint myself with the data of natural history, I was carried away by the rationalistic side of the study of the impermanence of organic forms, on the transition of one into another in the manner that Larmarck advanced this theory. This was still in the time when the genius Cuvier indisputably reigned over the whole sphere of biological knowledge. Having become better acquainted with that sphere, of course I could not fail to become convinced of the complete arbitrariness and unfeasibility of Lamarck's speculations, and more and more affirmed their utter groundlessness. The constancy and immutability of species, accepted as primary, original organic forms, was presented to me as a factual necessity, before which one must fall silent and come to terms with any rationalistic misgivings, as had however happened more than once in the growth of natural history, and I am thinking about other sciences as well. Was it not the case with the declaration of the theory of universal gravitation, for which Leibniz upbraided Newton as the introduction into philosophy of mysterious elements and wonders, or even more clearly with the discovery of the law of equivalence in chemical compounds, against which in the name of rationality Berthollet (21) rose up, but also with the empirical law explaining it by the atomistic hypothesis of Dalton, which even now to the majority of non-chemists seems a terrifying contradiction of the demands of reason?

When Darwin's theory appeared, so victoriously and triumphantly sweeping over the intellectual world and no less victoriously and triumphantly taking root within it, I found myself in very distant regions, although they lack that designation under the conventions of our legal nomenclature: in the wilderness islands and shores of the White Sea, on the Pechora [river] and the Murmansk coast. (22) Although far less important in terms of consequences, Darwin's theory was louder and faster spreading through the world than the news of Shamil's rebellion or the beginning and ending of the Franco-Italian war, which barely reached these places. I first became acquainted with it in Norway from articles in Revue des deux mondes. This was a little over twenty years ago, and since that time I can say that I have never stopped thinking about it. Once the opportunity presented itself, I acquainted myself with the original works of Darwin himself, and the most important objections raised against him. What caught my attention about this theory was the dilemma I just mentioned, seeming to me insoluble from the start. On the one hand, it is impossible that a mass of random, uncoordinated accidents, could produce order, harmony, and marvelous expediency; on the other hand, a talented scholar, equipped with all the scientific data and vast personal experience, clearly and apparently shows you how simply it could be done after all. In the course of a few years, I found myself in that very situation, when in a matter of moments I was shown the trick about two right angles in the same triangle. Only after lengthy examination and even longer contemplation did I see the first way out of the dilemma, and that was a great joy to me. Then such a multitude of results riddled the structure of the theory with holes, which finally collapsed before my eyes into a pile of rubble. I have written about my inward, personal relations to Darwinism perhaps in too much detail, in order to show that from my own relations to the matter it follows that I can promise complete impartiality in the sense that I did not withhold from the reader any more than I could withhold from myself, anything that, in my authorial or my own personal opinion, speaks more powerfully on its behalf.

From what has been said to this point it is not hard to see that I stand among the most opposed to Darwinian theory, considering it entirely false. But is it possible, some ask, that the theory captivated the whole intellectual world with such unprecedented rapidity unless it had great advantages on its side, which would at least partly justify the general enthusiasm? Although I could point to many examples of theories and systems ultimately disproven, but which long prevailed in science, and in their time were considered triumphs of human reason; for all that, I am quite far from the notion that Darwin's theory has no meaning or merit. Not to mention that any theory that consistently runs through the various phenomena of the organic world, apparently encompassing them within its explanatory scope, coming out as a single principle, is already a great production of the human mind, regardless of its objective truth: many aspects of this theory must be considered a significant step forward, a significant contribution to science. But the essence of this theory, that is, the proposed explanation for the origins of the forms of the plant and animal kingdoms, the internal and external expediency of the structure and adaptation of organisms (the latter, to an even greater degree, if that were possible), I consider unconditionally false.

The main merit and significance of Darwinism that I see are in the secondary effect, that it turned the attention of naturalists to the so-called struggle for existence, or more generally, to the relationship between organisms and the external world, to one another in particular. True, there was talk about this before, but with a few exceptions it never made it out of a small circle. He delved and made others delve into the endlessly complex conditions to which a single organic entity is conditioned in its activities of life and in its encounters with other entities, and how in turn it is conditioned by them. This opened a whole new realm of investigation, of great interest and practical importance.

There was a time when, under the influence of the shock caused by Linnaeus and Jussieu, that all naturalists took to the collection, precise description, and classification of organic forms. This trend was very beneficial, since it led to at least familiarity with the external world, and various plant and animal forms; gave the ability to recognize and orient oneself among them; allowed generalization within the guidelines of anatomical and physiological observation; and finally gave naturalists the means of understanding each other precisely, for each and all to know what they are talking and writing about. This systematic trend, in many ways essentially beneficial and necessary, even now should not be neglected; but it often turns into the fruitless and barren collecting of plants and animals, serving only as material for identifying new species—to Speciesmacherei, as the Germans say. Thus the field and arena of botanists and zoologists became herbariums and boxes of impaled insects, shelves of shells and banks of bottles with large or spineless animals preserved in alcohol.

Cuvier's fruitful investigation of animal structures turned zoologists' attention to comparative anatomy, and anatomical theaters, anatomical tables or simply boards, became the main field of observation. Botanists could not follow that trend, since plants have no internal organs, but only internal tissues, no anatomical structures, but only histological texture. Baer's discoveries drew attention to embryology, and the history of the development of organisms in general, but the efforts of others, predominantly German scholars (Schwann, Schleiden, Mohl (23)) drew attention to the importance of research into plant and animal tissues. The essential instrument for embryological and histological investigation is the microscope, not used by Linnaeus or Cuvier, and the objective stage of the microscope became the predominant field of inquiry for naturalists' activity. The herbariums, as well as the boxes and shelves of museums, and the anatomical theaters, tables, and trays, and the objective stage of the microscope, all were the essential fields of observation, complementing one another, and should never lose their importance and relevance. But nevertheless there is still the need for observers to turn to living nature itself, select their field of study from the actual fields, forests, and waterways in order to study the lives of the organisms in the places where they live, act, and influence each other. This new direction was given to natural history by Darwin himself, and due to the character of this direction the science of organisms itself began to bear the name biology, that is, the science of life (even though the word is not new and has been used occasionally before).

If this had enough impact to set a new direction for science, complementing the earlier ones, then perhaps it was beneficial and even necessary that Darwin's importance, drawing followers to him, was exaggerated to such vast dimensions. The interaction of organisms, their conditioning to one another and external influences, known generally as the struggle for existence, had to explain not only the distribution of organisms across the face of the earth and their mutual connection, but also their origins and the harmony, or more precisely expediency, of their anatomy [stroenie]. It may turn out less, and not establish a new direction in science, but essentially supplement earlier directions, not replacing a one of them, as many who succumbed to such an exaggeration are inclined to believe.

Besides this beneficial influence on natural history itself, it seems to me it has vital significance for other sciences and even the practical aspects of life, if it is understood within proper boundaries and correctly applied. In saying this, I do not at all have in mind the struggle for existence. There is enough of this struggle in all walks of life, individual and social, even without Darwinian theory; but granting the blessing of theory to egotistical instincts will sooner have a harmful than beneficial influence. For an example of the beneficial influence of Darwinian theory within proper boundaries, I would point out that it gives a scientific foundation for nationalism as opposed to cosmopolitanism. In fact, what is nationality but the accumulated heritage of all physical, mental, and moral peculiarities that make up the characteristic traits of people groups [narodnye gruppy]—the peculiarities that leave their imprint upon their political, industrial, artistic, and scientific activity, and thus introduces the element of diversity into the general life of humanity, and essentially enables continued progress? Meanwhile, from the widely accepted philosophical point of view, nationality sooner becomes an obstacle to the proper development of humanity, amounting to a limitation which must be overcome and broken in the course of development. Also there is the significance of Darwinism to pedagogues, indicating that an individual's training pales in significance compared to the training of a long line of forebears, and what is handed down to posterity makes up the bulk of what we call a person's inborn character, inborn capabilities and traits. And this causes us to turn attention to these inborn and ineradicable peculiarities that will not allow us to bend them all over the knee into the same shape. But however important or useful these, so to speak, side effects of Darwinism are, they cannot and must not conceal from us its fundamental falsehood, deceiving with its seemingly imaginary explanation of phenomena and distorting the general view of the world.

I have set forth the reasons prompting me to undertake this work. But perhaps I hear one unfounded objection: Isn't it audacious for a relative unknown to raise his hand against a giant of contemporary thought? Such a question should not be expected in a society in which all faith in authority has been shaken. But in fact it is shaken in only a certain type of authority, but in others, on the contrary, it has been strengthened, strengthened to the level of, say, Aristotle in the middle ages. To respond defiantly and disrespectfully to Baer or Leibig (24) is permitted and shows the freedom of thought in regard to authority, but to question the logic of Professor Haeckel, Moleschott, or even Büchner (25) is evidence of stupidity, underdevelopment (this is a favorite expression, as if development will help anything and is even possible, when there is nothing to develop). By juxtaposing the second list of names with the first, I do not mean to say that the latter have no right to their rightful share of authority, but I insist upon relating to all with respectful independence, respectful to the degree each deserves.

In expressing the idea that relationship to authority must consist of respectful independence, I do not think it especially arrogant or audacious to dispute with a famous scholar, recognized as the primary authority in the realm of biology, and who has also become the main leader of the prevailing intellectual trend, perhaps on the same level as the Encyclopedists were for the previous century. In this apology, I could point out that I am on the same side with such authorities as Baer, Agassiz, and Milne-Edwards. (26) Even the most humble person is allowed to choose between these or other authorities of the same rank. But why on earth do I have the audacity, or at least the presumption, to interfere in this quarrel among the luminaries of science, instead of humbly expecting them to settle it amongst themselves? Generally, I already answered this above. But the question is too important, too vital for anyone who clearly understands what it is about, to leave one's fate in other hands, whatever hope one has in those hands. It is necessary, because anyone could be the one to resolve it, under the condition of audiator et altura pars (Latin for "listen to the other side"). In particular, I am prompted by the following motives.

From what I know of the writings against Darwinism by the luminaries of science, such as, for example, Baer, Agassiz, Quatrefages, (27) and many others, they were written apropos of Darwinism, so to speak, which is better expressed by the German word gelegentlich ("incidentally," "on occasion," "from time to time"). None of them intended to present a complete criticism of Darwinism from all sides, and considering their own specialized work, it scarcely would have been possible for them. There is truth in foreign literatures, and of the works of that type, the best and most complete are, in my opinion, those of Wigand, professor of botany at the University of Marburg. (28) It seems complete and thorough to me. Although it could never truly be called popular, since the author predominantly had in mind scholars and the scientific field, but not the generally educated public, for yet other reasons I find it not quite compelling; Wigand refutes the theory not standing on his own point of view, but from outside so to speak, and with insufficient force and clarity, and does not pursue to the end the consequences coming from the logical development of Darwinism's principles. So great is the deficiency, not for the scholar, but for the educated public, that the attack, so to speak, is in disarray: one part does not support the other, and all the evidence has not been consolidated into one all-encompassing whole. Of course the educated specialist can be content with weighing each item of evidence individually, but the person with no specialized acquaintance with the subject will need to be shown that these items of evidence are not arguments against individual parts, but converge into one coherent testimony against the very essence of the theory. Some arguments, in my opinion, are undervalued, and refute parts of the theory, whereas with enough of them they encompass it all. The comprehensiveness of some parts, which to the ordinary reader might seem tedious, straining the attention, and therefore excessive, other parts, such as geological arguments, for instance, are left in the shadows. I allow myself this brief criticism of Wigand's works, the value of which I fully recognize, in order to answer a question I have posed myself: instead of writing a separate critical investigation, wouldn't it be better to translate material already available? This doubt however is resolved in short order: I am convinced that if translated into Russian, Wigand's works would have very little effect.

Will the book I am offering to Russian readers have a greater effect? Although vanity usually whispers an affirmative answer for such questions to authors, I must recognize that I have very little hope of that. Experience, mine and others', and the incomparably more important experience of history, shows that in a given time, what is most compelling is not truth itself, but some accidental circumstance, whether true or false, corresponding to the frame of mind prevailing at a certain time, or what is called public opinion, to what is known as the contemporary worldview, as modern science. And in a strange way, this epithet "contemporary" or "modern" [sovremennyi] which is the same as present or current, takes on a laudatory connotation when applied to this moment; it becomes identified with the eternal, unchanging, which by definition constitutes a direct contradiction. Just as it is impossible to convince dandies, divas, and fashionable people in general that the cut of their clothes is inappropriate for the demands of elegance, so it is impossible to convince people who consider themselves part of the intelligentsia of the inconsistency with the truth of many ideas aligned with the prevailing worldview, which is also subject to fashions of its own, just like clothing, hats, and shoes. There was a time when the teaching of the natural philosophers prevailed, although even then there was no lack of sober minds rejecting it, but for the time being there was nothing they could do, going against the tide. Little by little the intellectual trends changed, and the same objections and arguments that were completely powerless fifty or sixty years ago suddenly gained all-conquering, crushing force. Other errors took the place of Naturphilosophie and proved just as ineradicable to the present day. Any temporary intellectual trend (as anything contemporary is and will be, after all) is a mixture of various proportions of truth and falsehood. But in the eyes of the majority of one's contemporaries, both the share of truth and the share of falsehood are equally sacred and inviolable, which incidentally cannot be otherwise, since the shares of truth and falsehood are not distinguished from each other and are indiscriminately accepted as the truth. Of course, with time a falsehood disappears, but it is replaced by another, while truth remains and accumulates. This, if you will, is its own type of selection.

If that is the case, why tilt at windmills, (29) if for the present it is pointless, and for the future it is apparently unnecessary, since falsehood inevitably must disappear? Of course, a conscientious search and proclamation of truth serves as the very means by which falsehood is eliminated; but even this goal, which all may aspire to without being reproached with presumption, seems to me too remote, or even arrogant, if you will, and it is not what prompted me to the present effort.

If false theories and the false worldviews that arise from them and are supported by them are, fortunately, not eternal or even long-lasting, then, also fortunately, they will not overtake all thinking people in the time of their temporary ascendancy. Some, relatively few, consciously and fully understanding why, reject the false theory. These, of course, do not need my help or anyone else's. But there are many people who consider themselves incompetent in a certain field of knowledge, and depending on the strength of their belief in the truths coming from other sources, either unconditionally reject theories outside their purview or sphere of knowledge, or accept them from somewhere else out of the perceived need to agree with the prevailing mindset concerning subjects they do not consider themselves justified or capable of adopting an independent frame of mind.

Finally there are those who conscientiously deceive themselves, imagining that they understand the matter and being carried away by a false theory only because they formed an incorrect idea of its essence and foundations; because what they consider a rigorously proven truth which is pointless to resist, is nothing more than an assumption or an incorrect conclusion; because on the other hand they do not pay attention to the many facts and conclusions that might undermine their belief and the theory, not from doctrinaire stubbornness, but simply unknowingly. These are the three kinds of readers I would like to reach: to provide support to the first, upon which they could consciously, en connaissance de cause (French, with complete understanding of the matter) base their rejection of Darwinian theory, and not merely be content with only a certain disagreement with what they consider true for other reasons; to the second give the means of escape from the shackles, so to speak, placed on them from without; to the third, finally, provide the ability to remove themselves from the error they fell into in good faith and full sincerity, from a lack of familiarity with the matter and an incorrect idea of their own competency and knowledge.

Further convincing me to compile an original work on Darwinian theory was the belief that none of the existing rebuttals known to me in foreign languages seems completely satisfactory in this regard, that all of them take into consideration only Darwin's major work, The Origin of Species, and apply it to The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. But the book that has the factual basis of his theory, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, has not received the scrutiny it deserves. In fact, only here are many of the bases for the provisions of the theory sufficiently developed, so that if all the assumptions and conclusions derived from them were recognized as completely correct, then Darwin's theory would receive powerful support and confirmation, a broad foundation and a deep footing. And we may suppose the contrary, that if Darwin had correctly, impartially, freely, not from any biased perspective, considered the facts collected in this fundamental work, and added a few others to them, part of which he knew and part were easy to find, then he hardly would have settled upon such a grand structure for his theory. Therefore I consider it of essential importance to turn full attention to this work of Darwin's. My fifth and sixth chapters are almost exclusively devoted to an analysis of this work. Much is borrowed from it in chapter one, an outline of Darwinian theory, which to me seems to have triumphed by circumstantiality, which at least sets this account apart from other summaries of the theory. Lastly, as the reader can tell from the numerous citations, I often consult this work in other parts of my book, which I believe improves the explanation of the matter.

Finally the circumstance that primarily gives me the idea that I have the right to take up the pen in this matter consists of the very character of the theory which I intend to analyze. If Darwinism was a theory based on facts, then I would not dare to think of quarreling with its author, who would be such a great master of observing them, and would have so many years of experience and so many opportunities for observation. I would not quarrel with his great erudition. Facts must be answered with other facts, observation must be answered with other observations, or the same done more precisely, just as in theological disputes, texts refute other texts.

Strictly speaking, I can cite very few facts against the theory that Darwin would not have had in view. In this regard I draw primarily from the same treasury from which, with continual effort and broad erudition, Darwin himself drew and placed in his works for general consultation. Except they appeared to me in a completely different light, forming into conclusions often diametrically opposed to those of their compiler. A person is predisposed to never forego the chance to think independently, assuming he is capable of thought in general. In this he fears no authorities; anyone assumes that he can think as correctly as anyone else, and only agrees with someone else's idea after comparing it with his own and discovering that they either coincide or that the other's idea refutes his own. I claim this right in the full sense and measure.

Darwinism is a hypothetical theory, not positive science; it must be evaluated from this point of view, and only such an analysis can produce any kind of definite result. Almost any factual rebuttal can at best take away from it one or another support, or make its adherents back off some relatively small point, and always leaves an opening for new observation or a new interpretation of a particular fact. In particular, objections based on the anatomical point of view always seem to me insufficient, because they can be reduced to the following formula: Look, what a big difference! How can you cross such a huge gap? Yes, to those accustomed to looking at a matter from a strict factual, positive point of view, any gaps must seem impossible to cross; but what do they mean for those who say that a unicellular [odnokletchatyi], or more precisely, unicellular [odnoiacheinyi] (30) organism and a human are only terminal points on an unbroken chain of development?

I recall—it was very long ago, in my childhood, that is, well over forty years ago—in one of the illustrated publications of the time, either Zhivopisnoe obozrenie or Magazin pittoresque, there was a series of sketches illustrating the seamless transition from the profile of a frog into the profile of the Apollo Belvedere. Comparing each profile with the one directly preceding and following it, the difference was almost imperceptible; meanwhile, at one end, an actual frog, and on the other, an actual model of human beauty, the Apollo Belvedere. In the abstract, any change is possible, no matter how different, opposite, or even incomparable the extreme forms of a whole series may seem. Therefore I do not fear in itself a boundless line of such distance, as lies between a unicellular organism and a human. I fear something else entirely: on this path I clearly see huge chasms, that is, bottomless abysses and immeasurable depths, filled in with all manner of improbabilities and outright impossibilities, across which there is no way to step, jump, or cross on a tightrope, such as Blondin (31) used to cross Niagara, (albeit with the help of his mastery of the use of equilibrium), or even fly across: It is impossible because these abysses and chasms spew gas plumes of impossibility, which drive back any daredevil attempting it, even if equipped not with Icarus wings, but actual eagle or even pigeon wings (the latter are actually better suited for completing this feat), and cause him to plunge headlong into the chasm and keep falling and falling without end, whereas he imagines himself having crossed safely and soundly, triumphantly marching along toward his cherished goal. However there is one way to travel this path, since this path, fortunately for those taking it, is not real, not actual, on which fact after fact would stand like milestones in a long, sequential line, but ideal, or better, imaginary, fantastical. In order to overcome any obstacle, no matter what impossibilities it may be full of, just shut your eyes tight and imagine you have passed it, or better yet, close your eyes beforehand and resolve not to notice all the chasms and abysses, and walk along as if they are not even there. Since strictly speaking facts can only refute other facts or conclusions based upon them, we cannot attribute to them any special power not ascribed to them by their author himself, or many of his followers. After all, he himself says, "Anyone whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory." (32) We will only resort to those facts that are hard to explain, not concerning the great gaps that must be crossed, but concerning the peculiarities that amount to extreme improbabilities or complete impossibilities under the principles of Darwinian theory. The bulk of our attention we focus on the fundamental principles of Darwin's theory, the probability of their existence, the correctness of general conclusions drawn from these principles, whether they lead to the results we encounter in reality; in other words, the logical side of the theory, since this theory in its essence is a speculative, philosophical hypothesis, the logical conclusion not of positive reliable facts, even if few in number, but as we shall see, of only a certain arrangement of those facts, of casting them in a certain light. Did not the author himself say, at the start of his final chapter, "This whole volume is one long argument"? (33)

Thus, just as the significance of Darwinian theory has far outgrown the soil on which it emerged and grew, the specialties of zoology and botany, so the means of resolving its huge problems also give it a philosophical character. But this philosophical character of the theory requires its own strict and precise definition of those fundamental principles upon which the wide and tall edifice of its conclusions rests. Without this we would inevitably fall into a chaos of generalities, logical ambiguities, from which, on the one hand, it would be impossible to escape, and which, on the other hand, could produce their own daring but pointless game of conclusions and combinations, presented as correct and true only as a consequence of the imprecise and shaky understanding of the fundamental principles of the theory and their combinations.

And really, although Darwinian theory enjoys huge popularity and it is safe to say its adherents include a majority of the educated people of our time (although among the most highly educated and the most renowned figures there are still serious opponents of Darwinism), the understandings about Darwinism in this very milieu are the most uncertain or confused. Usually they explain things to themselves in this way: Darwin rose up against some kind of mystical theory of creation and replaced it with a strictly mechanical one, founded by necessity upon the theory of the genealogical descent of some organic forms from others, by means of a new factor or actor within nature that he discovered, natural selection, just like Newton discovered the force of gravity and used it to explain the phenomena of the astronomical world; and that natural selection exists in some kind of relation to variability, heredity, and most importantly the struggle for existence. But what these ideas mean, what kind of connection is between them, or what kind of combination their interaction produces—this all remains shrouded in fog, and is hardly even considered important. The main thing, the struggle for existence, the elimination of the anti-rational idea of the mystical theory of creation and the constancy of species (introduced, it is true, by the talented or even, if you will, ingenious Linnaeus and Cuvier, but who were not enlightened by contemporary science, or as I almost said in our Russian jargon, holdouts [ostal'nie]). I know this from personal experience, from conversations with people who are not only educated in general, but even specialists in zoology and botany, so that in speaking with them I had to stop talking, seeing that when it came to Darwinism, which they consider themselves convinced and conscious followers, they understood exactly nothing. What exactly are the unclear or uncertain ideas prevailing within the educated public, are no surprise among the so-called uninitiated, Laien (German for layman, non-specialist, dilettante) as the Germans say. But it is remarkable that such things are not only said, but written and published, and (of course not to the same degree, but sometimes close to it) such chaos and confusion reign in the heads of Darwinism's defenders, declaring in their works that they could be, or at least ought to have been competent judges in this matter. I will cite examples from reliable sources, so that this will not seem unfounded.

Darwin himself complained that often his theory was misunderstood. "Some [writers] have even imagined that natural selection induces variability." (34) True, not Darwin himself, but his most ardent followers assert that the life process or at least the descent of an infinite variety of organic forms was derived from the law of mechanical necessity; whereas he did not do this in a single case, for how can one speak of a mechanical explanation, when Baer correctly observed that, "In this hypothesis there is a deep seated purposefulness [tselestremitel'nost'], if its structure depends on heredity and adaptation. Heredity is none other than purposefulness [tselestremlenie] (35) (Zielstrebigkeit) (36) once more repeating the life process of the parents…; in adaptation, purposefulness is so conspicuous that it is not worth wasting words on evidence." (37) But that is not all. Darwin considers it necessary to resort not only to inheritance and adaptation, but even, at least partly, to such auxiliary means as nisus formativus (Latin, formative effort). "These changes, for whatever reason appearing, are governed to a certain degree by that coordinating force—nisus formativus—which actually is just a remnant of one of the forms of reproduction exhibited by all the lower organic creatures in their ability to multiply by buds or gemmas and through division." (38) But nisus formativus is after all only another name for vital force [zhiznennaia cila], a concept which is not only not mechanical, but even is not philosophical or metaphysical, but completely, perfectly mystical, the sibling of archaeus, anima mundi, Arcana of Nature, aura seminalis (Latin, seminal aura), and similar Paracelsian or Van-Helmontovian principles. (39)

Finally Darwin almost always distinguishes clearly between the actions of various fundamental principles of his theory (which by generally accepted, albeit mistaken, usage may be called generative forces, but much more precisely "actors," or "factors"), but sometimes he forgets his caution and directly attributes certain phenomena, as if for brevity's sake, to natural selection, while they would remain unexplained if this magical selection were broken down into its component activities. We will have occasion to present several examples of this further on.

It is even more remarkable that this unclear distinction of fundamental principles in Darwinism is something that even its most ardent critics are not free from. So even Wigand, author of the most complete and strictly executed criticism of Darwinism, in his outline of the branches into which he divides some of his more or less faithful followers, explaining why the famous botanist A. Braun cannot be included among them, says: "Although he attributes, on this basis," that is, under the explanation of the origin of species, "a certain significance to natural selection, it is only as a regulator, not as the form-creating or form-defining principle, whereas only in this sense does the idea of natural selection have any meaning, and only in this manner is it understood in Darwinian theory." Here it seems to me Wigand is completely mistaken. Darwin himself, at least essentially, by "natural selection" in the strict sense never meant it as anything but a regulator, and if he attributed to it this form-defining significance (that forms, having been produced, but not corresponding to the external environment, die off), then this does not contradict its exclusively regulatory character, to which he never attributed any form-creating or form-generating principle. He repeatedly insisted upon this in the most categorical fashion. It can be assumed, as I only just observed, that he himself did not always strictly follow his own definitions, as if carried away by the triumphant, all-explanatory power of his beloved idea. This probably is what led Wigand himself astray. But in his analysis of various sides of the theory, he sometimes made mistakes, attributing opinions to Darwin that he did not hold. So, for example, in the analysis of the divergence of attributes, he says, "Serving as the motive for this selection are not only certain characteristics, in which some changes have priority over others in their capability for life, but mainly what must have decisive significance here is the divergence of characteristics concerning the grand capability for life (Existanzahigkeit) imparted by extreme changes, independent of special beneficial traits of one of these divergences." This is completely wrong. Divergence only appears when the occupation of a niche in nature by more distant lifeforms, not in terms of space, but in terms of living conditions, must produce more chance of special adaptations, and more possibility of enjoying an inexhaustible advantage; thus divergence does not act independently of special useful characteristics, but only through them.

The idea that Darwin created a theory which mechanistically explains the process of the origins of species is so widely accepted and yet so false, even preposterous, that it is necessary here to say a few additional words. "A rumor is sweeping the countries of Europe: the secret of creation has finally been revealed. Just as Newton discovered the laws of the motion of heavenly bodies, Charles Darwin identified the laws of living forms, and by that made even greater progress in science than Isaac Newton." (40) With these words, Baer begins his article on Darwinian theory. This likening of Darwin to Newton, which delighted not only scientific followers of the new theory, but even the whole educated public, expresses the idea that just as Newton discovered the mechanistic laws governing the movement of heavenly bodies, so Darwin did the same regarding the forms of the organic world.

This general, vague idea about the forward step for natural history made by Darwinian theory cannot be slowed down and is stated categorically. This contribution, since any formulation of an indefinite idea, even if it turns out to be absurd or preposterous, can be considered a contribution, was made by the famous Haeckel. Curious readers who want to acquaint themselves with the entirety of this striking document are referred to N. N. Strakhov's article "Darwin" in the second volume of his "Struggle with the West in Our Literature," pages 136-141, which makes it obvious that the fundamental explanatory principle of Darwinism is precisely random chance, and nothing more. Here I will only point out the profound nonsense that comes from crediting Darwin with a mechanistic explanation for the process of the origin of species. Here is what Haeckel says: "And the even greater merit of the great English naturalist consists of the fact that he for the first time created a theory which explains the mechanistic process of the origin of species…. The blindly, unconsciously, and aimlessly acting forces of nature, which, as Darwin shows, constitute the naturally acting causes of all complex and so apparently expediently designed forms in the animal and plant kingdoms, are the living characteristics of heredity and adaptation or variation. Both these living characteristics belong to all organisms without exception and constitute only the special disclosure or particular phenomena of two other more common activities of life: the functions of reproduction and nutrition, and precisely the close association of adaptation with nutrition, and heredity with reproduction. But as all phenomena of nutrition and reproduction are purely mechanical processes of nature, and are produced only for certain physical and chemical reasons, then we must say the same of their individual phenomena, of the functions of adaptation and heredity." What unimaginable confusion! "How can that be? Heredity and variation" (and even adaptation, since to Haeckel it is a synonym for variation) "are forces of nature! There has never been greater nonsense in the use of the word 'forces,'" exclaims Mr. Strakhov in his appropriate amazement. "Nutrition and reproduction are purely mechanical forces; but who has ever proven that, and when?" And that is not all. What, are variation and adaptation one and the same? I ask in my turn. Well then the whole and the part are one and the same, since obviously if adaptation necessarily assumes variation, then variation can only assume adaptation. Why is further adaptation closely associated with nutrition, and heredity with reproduction? In one sense of course, adaptation is connected with nutrition, namely because if any plant or animal ceases to be fed, then it would die, and having died, it could not change, and thus could not adapt; but for exactly the same reason, it could not reproduce, and thus leave descendants after it. Why is adaptation a particular case of nutrition in general? If an organism changed its type of food, and if some type of theory of the origin of species were constructed upon the influence of food, then according to that theory it could only be so, but that theory would not be Darwinism. According to Darwin, on the contrary, organisms reproduce in such great proportion that there sooner would not be enough space in nature, and this kills those that are poorly adapted—and without that, any plant or animal, with all of its changes, regardless of the level of their adaptation, would exist in nature; thus adaptation according to this theory is precisely the result of excessive reproduction, but not at all nutrition. Finally, if even nutrition and reproduction actually were purely mechanistic processes of nature, then from that it would inevitably follow that adaptation and heredity would also be this kind of mechanistic processes. In fact, the incredible expansion of vapors when heated is without a doubt a purely physical process, and the action of steam-powered machines, spinning out cotton fiber yarn obviously is also a display of this expansive power of steam; but could it be said that both the yarn-spinning machine and the very spinning of thread are the results of mechanistic processes—blindly, unconsciously, and aimlessly acting forces of nature?

The necessity of strictly defining the meaning of fundamental principles of Darwinism forces me, before beginning the analysis of this theory, to present the reader with a precise and complete explanation of this theory, to serve as firm basis for all further arguments. Here is the first step of a big project. Do I set forth Darwinian theory as it appears in the first editions of the famous book Origin of Species, or as it was expressed in the latest edition? The original version I had the use of was the second American edition, supplemented by some additions from the third English edition. On the necessity to turn attention to the subsequent editions, I discovered one of Darwin's notes in his other work, "On the Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex," and the distinction which Wigand made between Darwin's earlier and later views. Recognizing this, I tried to obtain the most recent edition, the sixth, from 1878, strictly for clearing my conscience, as they say. But having read it, I was astonished by the vast differences between the original and the new Darwinism. Whatever its merits or faults, the original was a rigidly consistent theory, almost always remaining true to itself; the new one introduces such restrictions and principles which, being utterly foreign to this theory by their logical development, strictly speaking, have undermined it at the very root. By this I do not mean what Darwin himself complained of on page 421 of the sixth edition, "But as my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position- namely, at the close of the Introduction — the following words: 'I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.' This has been of no avail." Although I think that Darwin in the later editions gave much more significance to the use or disuse of organs, to the indirect influence of external conditions and the changes that seem to us "spontaneous" (in our ignorance, as he says), but it is not at all the case. There is something else, incomparably more important, but which now seems neither possible, nor necessary, to identify.

In view of these considerations, for both the exposition of Darwinian theory and for the analysis of its various propositions, I had to hold to strictly consistent, orthodox Darwinism, so to speak. I was prompted by the fact that Darwin's followers continue to adhere to this strict Darwinism, as if not wishing to know what restrictions Darwin himself considered necessary to introduce to his theory. Strictly speaking, they could not do otherwise, since, under the assumption of these restrictions, it would not be hard to see that they undermine the whole theory. I will offer, as an example of a presentation of Darwinism in its strict form, the second edition of Mr. Timiriazev's work, "Charles Darwin and His Theory," a very accurate and thorough presentation.

But in adhering to the older editions, I also always cite those changes which the author considered necessary and possible to permit in his theory, indicating how much they are in agreement with it, in my opinion.

In this regard I will note, generally, that Darwin made many compromises, but apparently did not realize their significance or their power; it is as if those pages on which he set them forth are cut off from the rest by such impenetrable partitions, that everything written up to that part, and everything written after it, have no influence on each other. In everything before and after, everything remains as it was before.

I already said above that the majority of facts I have in mind are the same ones that Darwin collected in such abundance as confirmation of his theory, and set forth in his works, particularly The Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication. Many of these facts, in my opinion, are completely to the contrary. But that is not all; even some of the conclusions which in my opinion completely undermine his theory, Darwin saw and made them himself. But for the rest, everything remains as if they did not even exist. Meanwhile he makes great efforts and devotes many pages to refuting objections that are far from essential, and these he hardly dignifies with general phrases or a few tentative objections. I can only attribute this to the author's confidence in the overwhelming force of his theory of selection (confidence which sometimes completely blinds him).

To conclude my somewhat long introduction, in which I sought frankly and in detail to present both my personal relations to the theory under consideration, as well as the analysis and relationship of my work to the reader, I would like to present the whole course of thought I will follow in pursuit of my task. But to do this as completely and clearly as I would like is hardly possible, and thus I have confined it to the most general overview. After presenting the theory (while refraining from all criticism, with the exception of occasional small comments touching on particular things that seem to me doubtful or untrue)—what makes up the first chapter—I will turn to an elaboration of the fundamental principles of Darwinian theory, to a precise determination of the significance of the factors to the combination of which Darwin attributes the origins of organic forms through changes to their predecessors, and I will scrutinize each of those factors separately. Then I will turn to a consideration of them in combination, or so to speak, their complex interplay which generates new forms in nature, that is, to the analysis of pure Darwinism, or his theory about changes of organic forms under the influence of natural selection, as presented in The Origin of Species, with confirmation from the contents of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. (41) With that I first turn my attention to the general part of the question, to resolve whether it is possible to conceive of a path for the origins of organic forms as proposed by Darwin, and if it turns out to be possible, then to what results does this lead: to what reality shows us, or to something else? All of this makes up the contents of the first volume of my investigation, presented here to the reader. It represents something complete and finished, to which everything subsequent may act as a supplement. After this I will pursue the author in an analysis of the special difficulties, but also the confirmation which, in his opinion, are provided by data on animal instincts, hybridism, paleontology, geographic dispersion, scientific classification, morphology, embryology, and rudimentary organs of organic beings. All this will comprise the contents of the second volume. After that we will turn to an analysis of the facts which, in Darwin's opinion, are not explained by natural selection, but are subject to a special principle, which he called sexual selection. Further on we will analyze the application of the one and the other to human origins. In our eyes the answer to the question of human origins depends entirely upon the answer to the origins of other organic forms. For example, the opinion of Wallace (who independently of Darwin came to the same view as him on the origins of organisms) on the origins of humans under a special influence, so to speak, under the special patronage of the Supreme Being, freeing them from the necessary action of natural selection, has to be called entirely inconsistent and completely indefensible. But despite all that, this essentially important question for us has so many peculiarities that it completely deserves a special inquiry.

Pangenesis deserves special consideration, advanced by the author as a temporary hypothesis to explain both heredity and variability, without which—he very well, and much better than his followers, sensed—neither the one nor the other could be considered to be explained. We will try to show that even with this explanation, they cannot be considered the results of mechanistically acting causes, and that strictly speaking this pangenesis does not present any kind of explanation, and is just as incomprehensible and mysterious as the phenomena it was thought up to explain. For adherents as well as opponents of Darwinian theory, this vitally important aspect of it somehow completely escapes attention. True, it has completely departed the realm of positive scientific knowledge; but if this foundation is kept, then one can only wonder how could everything else belong to this realm. The one is just as hypothetical as the other.

But the general side of Darwinian theory, that is, the explanation of expediency in nature without resorting to idealist principles, had such appeal for the contemporary intellectual trend, and so coincided with the aspirations of our era, that this theory was applied to other realms of knowledge. This application of Darwin's philosophical worldview, which could very aptly be called pseudoteleology, to other realms of knowledge also must draw our attention.

In a review of Darwinism from all sides and in all its applications and manifestations, I consider it necessary to advance other theories of transformism or transmutation that both have preceded the appearance of Darwinian theory and have followed after it. This provides an opportunity to show the relation of the theory under analysis to transformism in general, and the significance of the latter in its generality, which is important because the confusion of these two concepts is very common.

In conclusion I intend to point out the general philosophical, metaphysical side of morphological phenomena, which Darwinism actually tries to explain. If according to our conviction, of which we are trying to persuade our readers, Darwinian theory is false in its very foundations, and its metaphysical motives must also be false, and this falsehood we must reveal, then it follows that we must try to firmly establish those that we consider true. Refutation can only be considered complete in its task, entirely concluded, when it leads to a reversal of conviction.

In taking on this project, I have the hope, as is obvious from the goals set forth here, to make it entirely clear and understood by all. Therefore it will be necessary for me to go into an explanation of subjects that are very well-known to those having a general scientific education, such as the scientific method, the main facts of embryology (the development of the fetus), geological formations, and so on, without which the evidence for and against cannot have enough credibility. This type of explanation will of course seem completely unnecessary for many readers, therefore I propose to set them apart in special sections. In this first volume, however, there is no need to resort to them because I continually try to hold the general point of view, and I think the information I present to the generally-educated reader is sufficient. In some cases, short explanations made in the text seem sufficient. On the other side is the analysis and verification of facts which despite all possible explanation remain poorly understood, and more importantly, of little interest to most readers due to their particularity, with their impact as evidence limited to a small number of phenomena. This type of particularity, which would needlessly impede the general course of my reasoning and conclusions, I will also set apart in special sections. Both of these kinds of special sections are intended for two different types of readers. For all that, my exposition includes much that many readers will consider too specialized, even trivial. But it would be impossible to completely avoid this due to the nature of my work. The analysis of an individual case often explains things better than extended general reasoning.

Both for the exposition of Darwinian theory and in the later presentation of arguments for and against, I will often and for the most part will rely on his own words, since through that it will be easier to avoid omissions, simple changes of meaning, and the like. For this I must beg pardon if often I repeat the same citations in various parts of my work. I hope to save the reader the trouble of searching for them in what has been read to refresh their memory, especially since often it would not be enough for clear understanding of a certain general idea.

 

 

 

 

[Editor's Notes:]

(1) This would be the sixth edition, published in early 1872, with title shortened by removing the initial word "On." W. S. Dallas compiled the glossary added to this edition.

(2) Danilevskii likewise emphasized these two phenomena in his review of various sciences in Chapter 6 of Russia and Europe. See Nikolai Danilevskii, Russia and Europe (trans. Stephen Woodburn), 133.

(3) Kliment Arkad'evich Timiriazev (1843-1920), Russian botanist and physiologist, polemical champion of Darwinian theory.

(4) Danilevskii's note: See Strakhov, The Struggle with the West in our Literature (Bor'ba c zapadom v nashei literature), book 2. The article "Darwin," where Haeckel's irrationalities and misunderstandings are excellently explained. [Translator's note: German biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) promoted Darwin's theories in various works from the 1860s onward. He championed the now-discredited recapitulation theory, that embryological forms retrace evolutionary stages, summarized as "ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis."]

(5) Empedocles (5th c. BCE), Greek pre-Socratic philosopher who originated the theory of the four classical elements constituting matter. Epicurus (341-270 BCE), ancient Greek philosopher whose namesake hedonic philosophy was based on a materialist view of the world.

(6) Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876), Baltic German naturalist and explorer for the Russian empire, founder of embryology, and personal mentor to Danilevskii, who cites him frequently in this book.

(7) Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th edition (London: 1872), 146.

(8) Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), French microbiologist who confirmed the germ theory of disease, pioneer of vaccination and namesake pasteurization process; presumably John Tyndale (1820-1893), Irish physicist, prolific author, and member of the Royal Society, championing the separation of science and religion.

(9) Darwin, 429.

(10) Literally "aerolites," [aerolity], a nineteenth-century term, emphasizing the stony quality (-lite derived from -lith) of the projectile.

(11) Here Danilevskii glosses on the hypothesis of panspermia, first recorded by the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, and treated seriously by several nineteenth-century scientists, but none of those cited by Danilevskii in this chapter. Danilevskii does not appear to treat this hypothesis seriously enough to cite a source.

(12) Pierre-Simon LaPlace (1749-1827), French innovator in mathematics, physics, and astronomy, placed on par with Isaac Newton. The anecdote recounted here is apocryphal.

(13) Darwin, 421-22.

(14) Danilevskii's note: Regarding the sincerity of Darwin's deism, I cannot bypass Baer's note in the article "Ueber Darwins Lehre," in Studien aus dem Gebiet der Naturwissenschaften (St. Petersburg, 1876), 273, which Darwin himself seems to have occasioned, albeit accidentally, as we shall see. Baer says, "In his later publications Darwin expressed that a few foundational forms were summoned into being by the Creator because he saw (darauf aufmerksam geworden sein wird) that his whole hypothesis eliminated (eliminirt) the Creator and that, when he wrote this passage, he was only carried away with his expression of the difficulty of getting at, by any means, the principle of life." In Bronn's German translation [of Darwin], made from the second English edition, which Baer apparently used, Darwin's final words cited above from the sixth English edition, are completely identical. But in the second American edition, made from the second English edition with a few corrections borrowed from the third English edition, in this passage about the Creator he actually does not mention it, but simply says, that life was breathed into one or several forms. However, in a few notes in this edition derived from the third English edition, this idea was introduced in a different place in the final chapter. Where Darwin said that the analogy might lead to acceptance of, instead of several primordial forms, only one. The third edition says, "Therefore I conclude that, probably, all organic life ever living on earth descended from a single primordial form, into which life was breathed by the Creator." From this it is clear that Darwin never abandoned the deist view, and that he only expressed it in certain places in his works. He very clearly expressed it in Variations Under Domestication. Not having the fifth and sixth editions at hand, I cannot trace whether they reveal any change in the expression of Darwin's deistic worldview. Baer's assertion remains completely correct, that Darwin's whole hypothesis, as much as possible, eliminates the Creator.

(15) Darwin, 2.

(16) Adriaan van den Spiegel (1578-1625), Flemish anatomist who studied and practiced medicine in Padua, famous for De humani corporis fabrica libri X tabulis aere icisis exornati (1627), an update of Vesalius's anatomy of 1543.

(17) Presumably Jacob Christian Schäffer, (1718-1790), German clergyman and entomologist, known for a multivolume illustrated catalog of over 3,000 insects and an introduction to entomology, and a famed personal collection of natural history specimens.

(18) Karl von Baer, Studien aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften, II: 235

(19) Baer, II: 170.

(20) In Russian: Sam chert nogu perelomit;literally, "the devil himself will break his leg."

(21) Claude Louis Berthollet (1748-1822), French chemist, known for his contributions to chemical nomenclature and the study of chemical equilibria through reverse chemical reactions; he long opposed the claims of Joseph Proust (1754-1826), that compounds must contain a fixed ratio of constituent elements, delaying the eventual acceptance of this principle. One class of non-stoichiometric compounds (berthollides), whose ratios do indeed vary, was named after him.

(22) Arctic coastal regions of northwestern imperial Russia.

(23) Theodor Schwann (1810-1882), for whom Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system are named; Matthais Jakob Schleiden (1804-1881), co-founder with Schwann of cell theory (and, incidentally, an early Darwinist); Hugo von Mohl (1805-1872), named and described the role of protoplasm in cell division.

(24) Justus von Leibig (1803-1873), founder of organic chemistry and the requisite laboratory instruments and methods of the discipline.

(25) Haeckel, see above. Jakob Moleschott (1822-1893), Dutch anatomist, professor at Heidelberg and Zurich, famous for saying "the brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile." Ludwig Büchner (1824-1899), physiologist, physician, and scientific materialist philosopher, author of Kraft und Stoff (Force and Matter).

(26) Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), zoology professor at Neuchâtel and Harvard, founder of glaciology. Henri Milne-Edwards (1800-1885), French zoologist specializing in amphibians and reptiles, or herpetology.

(27) Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (1810-1892), French zoologist known for exhaustive collecting and cataloging of specimens recorded in numerous published works.

(28) Danilvskii's note: Albert Wigand, Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newton's und Cuvier's, 3 vols. (1874-1877). Translator's note: Albert Wigand (1821-1886), German botanist and strict Christian creationist, author of several anti-Darwinian books in the 1870s and 1880s.

(29) Russian, prat' protiv rozhna (literally, "charge against pikes"; loosely, "kick against the pricks")

(30) Danilevskii's note: It seems to me that the commonly used expression "kletochka" [cell] to mean a vesicle closed on all sides, constituting the basic particle of organic bodies, is not correct and does not convey the sense of the word "Zelle," or "cellule" which means keleika [cell, as in a monastic cell], a small room, which is a holistic understanding, not planar or superficial. We say kletka for any intersection of two sets of parallel, or even nonparallel, lines on the same plane, as in kletchataia materiia [checkered cloth]; iacheika is a holistic concept, and means a space bounded on all sides by walls, such as, for example, a cell of a bee's honeycomb.

(31) Charles Blondin, stage name of Jean Francoise Gravelet (1824-1897), first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope on 30 June 1859, which became a global sensation.

(32) Darwin, Origin of Species (6th edition), 422-23.

(33) Ibid., 404.

(34) Darwin, Origin of Species, 63.

(35) Danilevskii's usage is idiosyncratic. Efremov equates tseleustremlenie with tseleustremlennost'. See https://www.efremova.info/word/tseleustremlenie.html#.W-x9NThKipo

(36) German, "determination, single-mindedness, singleness of purpose."

(37) Baer, Studien, 280.

(38) Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, vol. 2, 388.

(39) References to alchemic or hermetic science terms for the realm where spirit and matter intersect (archaeus, anima mundi); the spiritualist book, "Arcana of Nature, or The History and Laws of Creation," by Hudson Tuttle, published in 1860; and the life-giving, spiritual essence conveyed within semen, according to Paracelsus (1493-1531), Swiss German philosopher and physician, known for contributions to chemistry and medicine, rejecting medieval Scholasticism, while indulging in occultist speculations. Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580-1644), Flemish chemist and physician, follower of Paracelsus but a practitioner of modern scientific observation.

(40) Baer, Studien, 237.

(41) Danilevskii's note: The latter work I have only in the Russian translation of V. Kovalevskii, Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants. The translation is generally good, which is rare for Russian translations of scholarly works, although we could indicate some (even though done under the editorship of people who have deservedly high reputations in our academic world) in which to get the sense of it, I had to translate word for word from the Russian back into the original language. Only in this way, and then not always, was it possible to understand the idea of the garbled text. But in Mr. Kovalevskii's translation, only the zoological part is good; the botanical part, edited by Gerd, shows a complete lack of acquaintance with those very plants that are the subject of the work, that is, with fruit-bearing, garden stock, and decorative plants. For example, Hautbois remains untranslated, when it simply means klubnika,"musk strawberry" [Fragaria moschata,common in Russia and Scandinavia, a smaller variety than the more familiar garden strawberry], but the more common Strawberry is often translated as "musk strawberry" [klubnika] when it means a strawberry [zemlianika] of any sort. Mignonette also remains untranslated, but this is simply all known resedas…. [Translator's note: The rest of Danilevskii's catalog of errors found in Kovalevskii's translation, which continues for another page and a half, has been omitted.]