The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1909. THE DARWIN CENTENARY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13937, 24 June 1909, Page 4

The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1909. THE DARWIN CENTENARY.

l'or some' reason or other tlic celebration at Cam bridge}- where he graduated, of the first centenary of Charles Darwin, the great naturalist, lias been postponed Imm his birthday jh February until now. Perhaps the inclemency ol the English winters had something t;> do with it. A cable message states that the centenary is being worthily celchrated by the presence of representatives of 230 universities and learned-bodies in all parts of the world, and many eminent. men in every walk oi lile. Darwin was not the first to create an "ism" in natural history, but the " ism " he founded in 1809 by the publication of liis book on " The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation ofy Favoured lJaccs in the Struggle for Life," displaced all predecessors anil has held its position in the world of science ever since. Darwin's service to natural science was twofold. First, as ;t result of a happy idea which threw light upon a vast collection of tacts of observation made by liim 'n the course of a prolonged tour of the world as naturalist on an expedition of H.M.S. Beagle, lie gave naturalists what may bo likened to a compass to guide them in their researches. " Dar* winism," or the Darwinian Theory, 19 an explanation of the production of the immense variety of different forms of life, .animal and vegetable, xipon the earth, by the application of the principle of the "struggle for existence " acting upon the niinutc variations which occur in the members of successive generations, the " fittest" surviving. Darwin's second service to bis own and succeeding generations was a notable strengthening of tilt; spirit of close observation of plants and animals. in relation to their environment, as' distinguished from their structure i's individuals, the study in which Cuvicr, Owen and others had distinguished themselves. Memorials of Darwin's skill and industry in this Held :"'c his books on the Fertilisation* of Orchids, the Variation of Plants awfi Animals under Domestication, on luscctivo us Plants, 011 Climbing Plants, and on the Formation of Vegetable Moulds by the Action of Worms. The older generation amongst us may bu able to recall something of the sensation that was caused even in New Zealand in the early sixties by the first accounts received of the then new Darwinian Theory, that man had "descended from a nr.nkcy." That was not the form given the idea by Darwin, though it commonly received that shape whether the speaker found it material for a disgustful denial or for an excellent icst. The conclusion that ninu had descended I'royi "an ape-like'. ancestor " was unavoidable, if- Darwin's theory would hold water; at -ajl, . ali 1 this result was seized upon and energetically fought over for years,. ;>liji"sfc as if it were the only result, of' the ibp'iry. Darwin himself entered ivqfy little into the controversy.' He . /was not a combatant. But others championed his cause valiantly, ' Thomas' Henry Huxley being - one of. the i ; iuosto

brilliant, and successful expositors of the new idea. Darwinism still holds its own, but during the last few years it has been subjected to sonic important criticisms. One of the most telling of these is tlie simple fact that Natural Selection as thought of by Darwin .'s merely Natural Rejection; that Natnral Selection merely selects, but does not originate; that whilst it preserves favoured races in tlie struggle for life, it does n»t produce them: that survival of the fittest " requires first the production of the "fittest. Darwin and Itis followers assert that the minute variations which certainly do occur in successive generations of living things, furnish all the material necessary for natural selection to work upon: and that, •riven time enough, nil the innumerable varieties of living forms that exist t'»-day and alt that have become extinct in the past, could have been produced by that process. T'roHuxley, however, held th;>t Nature does sometimes " make jumps " and -that the evolution of new species is in this manner helped forward at a more rapid rate than our" Darwinism provides for. Mr A. R. \Nallace. who Mia res with Darwin the honour of hitting upon 'tbc principle of Natural Selection, still maintains that the conditions of life acting noon the ordinary variations among individuals, is sufficient to account for all the var'ety >f spe»ri» s . On the other hand, the admission of Huxley, that evolution d«es sometimes proceed " per salttim, line grown into a new theory, of " Mutation." which asserts that the origin rf new s rw *cies is wholly or vainly due to sudden and large- varinIntfc no one pretends pr yet to know whv or how these snddon e»d grvnt notations "ecu*". 0"e diffienltv <rhi«'li the early Dar""in' !, ns had to face ivns of gans in t' ,n T-imin of nast life. as this was traced the record of the rocks. This diffictdtv was then easil'" met by nlcwding tlie imnerfeetion f>f the geological record. Tn the half century that has *-lansed since the great controversy the collection of fossils of the life <»f rwst ages has preceded anace, pMr] th"so g^iw l have not been closed. see»*« in fact to V as wide as prn l *_ And a remarkable thing about g->*>s is that th«*v occur just rrhcr- tlie'r r>-<Mirr>-ii''e is >"ost nwkf,.r tlie D-rnmtnn. Tbo phrase -'• The Missing Link " is familiar to rvervon«. as- r«*nr"s«'i»ti'ig a gap beman and that u ane-likc am'esfor" of which < P>>s was not the original application of the phrase, but that docs not signify.) J'rum time to time .we read of discoveries of skeletons or skulls which arc claimed to fill or to nearly till that gap. There are otlier cases, where the gaps are very much wider, and there are no discoveries tending to bridge theui.. The first bird, lor instance. found, fossil, was a true bird, and .its feathers were true feathers. Birds are supposed to have descended front reptiles; iE so there must, on the Darwinian Theory, be many " missing links " between the wrinkliug of the> skin •which forms 'the so-called sr-ales -of reptiles and the inserted feathers ofc'birds. uViwe of these links have been fouudl Again, according to the geological record, the first whale was a true whale, and the first elephant a true elephant, and there is no fossil hint of.-any recognisable ancestor . of either of these huge creatures.' And to go a , long way further back, the same thing is true of the first fossil fish. These are instances favouring, as far as they go, the Mutation as against the Darwinian Theory, spasmodic as against- slow: . evolution. And neither theory is a real explanation. Darwinism requires, casual variations to work upon; but does not explain why casual variations should nm so largely in the direction of utility. Mutation asserts occasional large variations; but docs not exiilain why these occur. The conclusion to be drawn from the controversies of the last half century, on tnis subject is that great generalisations in natural history should be held loosely, and not dogmatically, the material being too vast to be wholly apprehended by any one mind. After all, whatever may be the ultimate fate of his theory, Darwin deserves all the honour that can be done to his memory for the great awakening of interest in our fellow animate and inanimate, which bv his labours he brought about.