DARWINISM.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13676, 19 August 1908, Page 3

DARWINISM.

STORY OF A REVOLUTION. By Edward Clodd, author of:".'•' jPioneers of Evolution," etc., etc. ',; On July Ist, fifty years ago, a company of savants assembled "'ait the Linnean So : cisty to hear a paper which bore the : somewhat dry title, "On the Tendencies of Species to" Form Varieties, and on the Perpetuation of Species and Varieties by Natural Selection." A certain spice of romance was imported into "tha. occasion by the rumour that two eminent- naturalists, thousands of miles apart, had hit independently en the solution of a problem which had baffled inquiry from the time, about ii tfentury and u half, that doubts were thrown on traditional beliefs, fortified by Scripture, in the special creation-.•Of the myriad species of plants and animals. , TILE QUEST. The solution had not. beeji reached "per saltum"; no great discovery has thus belied the doctrine of Evolution ; hence,.the history of the stages by .which "natural selection" arrived at the goal l is one of slow pursuit, caution and revision. The; way for its acceptance had been prepared by many pioneer workers, meet notable of all, Herbert Spencer; and although he and others knew it not, two men, one as far back 'ao 1813, in a paper: "On a white woman, part of whose skin was black"; and another, in 1831, in a book on " Naval Timber," had adumbrated a theory the simplicity of which caused Huxlej T to exclaim, when Darwin propounded it, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!" '.

While brooding on the question, Darwin read the Rev. .Thomas Matthus's "Essay on the Principle of Population," wherein is refuted the superficial notion that ''in. sending mouths Providence sends food to till them." Malthus shows that the means of existence do not increass.in the; same ratio as the number of mouths, and therefore, that in hfe. inevitably resulting struggle for life, the" weakast gO to. the wall. Consequently a cheek is imposed on the. increase. ■; ; . /

; Here/ Darwin'found a theory by which to work. He applied it to i,the whole organic kingdom. Everything varies;; even "two peas" are unlike, and any favour-: able variation equips its possessor for victory in ' the" ceaseless struggle for t existence. In these variations (the causes of which remain obscure) there are the factors on which natural selection acts - in the production of new species, the development of the' most primitive -life-forms into the highest, involving vast periods of time. . ■ ■

AND OPPOSITION. ' !: The tlreory took shape in 1838 and there followed twenty years of patient observation and sifting of material as test of its vadility. Heedful only of truth, and lieedless of fame, Darwin would have continued pursuit, of his work in quiet, but a bolt from, the 1 blue/ forced his hand. In June 1858 Dr Alfred Wallace (happily still with us) sent him, from the Malay Archipelago a paper in which -the/theory of natural selection was set forth in. terms to identical that Darwin said to Lyell :

"If Wallace had my MS. sketch written in 1842, he could not 'have made a better abstract." And it is a further curious Coincidence that Dr Wallace was also led

"to think of positive, checks" by reading Parson Malthus, who, if he has no place in the Lives of the Saints, should be accorded.one in- the Hagiology of Science. Questions as to priority of discovery have been too often occasion of unseemly dispute, but in this case no petty rivalries had -play.. Darwin appToVed a suggestion by" Sir Joseph .Hooker (who in June-entered his 92nd year) and Lyell that an" abstract of his MS.,, together with Dr Wallace's paper, should be read before the Linnean Society.'" ■' The subject" aroused excitement, but no discussion, far it needed calm reflection, and while there were two or three converts, there were :nany doubters. Neither these nor the outside world could foresee what momentousresults, affecting every department, of in : qniry and every attitude 1 of man towards his and . himself, would fol- ' low tile publication of the " Origin . of Species" in 1859. For the outcome hot readjustment so much as Old things irae to pass away; all things were to become new. • H ;r / ; "'^. The first man outside the circle Darwin's intimates 'to aeeept the theory was Canon Tristrany-.a distinguished ' crnith-oloo-ist, and, in unenviable contrast, .the famous anatomist, Sir Richardi Owen, was anion"- the earliest of Darwin's opponents. He attacked the book in the. " Edinburgh /Review," and. inspired Bishop , Wilber-, force's ' onslaught in the " Quarterly," wherein " natmal selection" .was declared to be ''incompatible with the Word, of God " Cardinal Manning denounced it as " a brutal philosophy" ; Garlyle echoed this in his special vernacular'; Sir John Her-'chel called it " the law of higgledypiggledy"; Professor Adam . Sedgwick mourned over it as -false and mischievous " but hoped "to meet' Darwin in heaven"; Whewell refused the book a place in Trinitv College Library; and ithe attitude of a section of the Press is shown in the "Daily Telegraph" making Professor Fawcett'a approving view of the " Origin " a reason for advising the Southwark electors not to return him to Parliament An odd example of the lingering prejudice is supplied in the withdrawal of his balance from Martin's Bank by a customer because one ,of the partners attended Darwin's funeral! THE BATTLE TCKDAY. Not to \mduly excite opposition, Darwin had onlv briefly hinted, at the end of bis book, that "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history" by the theory of natural selection. His presence was shown in the storm which rose when in 1863, Huxley published his "Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature." Therein- were marshalled the facts in proof of the descent, of man and ape from a common ancestry; and what of more serious import, of an unbroken chain of psychical continuity between the lowest And highest, life-forms. Mind was declared, no less than other phenomena, to be explicable by' the processes of evolution. Herein lay cause of battle the echoes of whose fray have not yet died avay. Any seeming truce is no warrant oi fcfelief in a treaty of peace; the ultimate /i*sue can be only surrender, by the foW oi obscurantism. For the history of", opposition is- a record of. intermittent concisions. SffW of these- were on mat-

ters which appeared to involve ,no discrediting of fundamental dogmas. Assent wa.s tardily given to the demands i of astronomy and geology -because these could be harmonised, with a flexible interpretation of sacred, documents,; But there could be no parleying. with anthropology in its insistence on the extension of the theory of evolution man's spiritual as well "as bodilv nature, and to his" religious as well as 'his intellectual development And the latest, declaration of episcopal lip-j affirms -that there can; be no terms with a science which contravenes the, dogma of the fall of man and all that is m-ov-lved therein. - ' The same brave words have been applied in Wi,- to other.dogmas declared With equal assurance to be integral parts of the foundations- of religion.;. Yet religion has not"'suffered by their extinction, .because-it'--has its-basis in the permanent rieeds..of mankind/.