Criticisms on The Origin of Species文档格式.docx

1、published a most instructive and philosophical pamphlet （an excellentnotice of which is to be found in the Reader, for February 27th ofthis year） supporting similar views with all the weight of his specialknowledge and established authority as a linguist. Professor Haeckel,to whom Schleicher address

2、es himself, previously took occasion, in hissplendid monograph on the Radiolaria*, to express his highappreciation of, and general concordance with, Mr. Darwins views. footnote *Die Radiolarien: eine Monographie, p. 231.But the most elaborate criticisms of the Origin of Species which haveappeared ar

3、e two works of very widely different merit, the one byProfessor Kolliker, the well-known anatomist and histologist ofWurzburg; the other by M. Flourens, Perpetual Secretary of the FrenchAcademy of Sciences.Professor Kollikers critical essay Upon the Darwinian Theory is, likeall that proceeds from th

4、e pen of that thoughtful and accomplishedwriter, worthy of the most careful consideration. It comprises a briefbut clear sketch of Darwins views, followed by an enumeration of theleading difficulties in the way of their acceptance; difficulties whichwould appear to be insurmountable to Professor Kol

5、liker, inasmuch as heproposes to replace Mr. Darwins Theory by one which he terms theTheory of Heterogeneous Generation. We shall proceed to considerfirst the destructive, and secondly, the constructive portion of theessay.We regret to find ourselves compelled to dissent very widely from manyof Prof

6、essor Kollikers remarks; and from none more thoroughly thanfrom those in which he seeks to define what we may term thephilosophical position of Darwinism.Darwin, says Professor Kolliker, is, in the fullest sense of theword, a Teleologist. He says quite distinctly （First Edition, pp. 199,200） that ev

7、ery particular in the structure of an animal has beencreated for its benefit, and he regards the whole series of animalforms only from this point of view.And again:7. The teleological general conception adopted by Darwin is a mistakenone.Varieties arise irrespectively of the notion of purpose, or of

8、utility, according to general laws of Nature, and may be either useful,or hurtful, or indifferent.The assumption that an organism exists only on account of some definiteend in view, and represents something more than the incorporation of ageneral idea, or law, implies a one-sided conception of the u

9、niverse.Assuredly, every organ has, and every organism fulfils, its end, butits purpose is not the condition of its existence. Every organism isalso sufficiently perfect for the purpose it serves, and in that, atleast, it is useless to seek for a cause of its improvement.It is singular how different

10、ly one and the same book will impressdifferent minds. That which struck the present writer most forcibly onhis first perusal of the was the conviction thatTeleology, as commonly understood, had received its deathblow at Mr.s hands. For the teleological argument runs thus: an organ ororganism （A） is

11、precisely fitted to perform a function or purpose （B）;therefore it was specially constructed to perform that function. InPaleys famous illustration, the adaptation of all the parts of thewatch to the function, or purpose, of showing the time, is held to beevidence that the watch was specially contri

12、ved to that end; on theground, that the only cause we know of, competent to produce such aneffect as a watch which shall keep time, is a contriving intelligenceadapting the means directly to that end.Suppose, however, that any one had been able to show that the watch hadnot been made directly by any

13、 person, but that it was the result ofthe modification of another watch which kept time but poorly; and thatthis again had proceeded from a structure which could hardly be calleda watch at all-seeing that it had no figures on the dial and the handswere rudimentary; and that going back and back in ti

14、me we came at lastto a revolving barrel as the earliest traceable rudiment of the wholefabric. And imagine that it had been possible to show that all thesechanges had resulted, first, from a tendency of the structure to varyindefinitely; and secondly, from something in the surrounding worldwhich hel

15、ped all variations in the direction of an accuratetime-keeper, and checked all those in other directions; then it isobvious that the force of Paleys argument would be gone. For it wouldbe demonstrated that an apparatus thoroughly well adapted to aparticular purpose might be the result of a method of

16、 trial and errorworked by unintelligent agents, as well as of the direct application ofthe means appropriate to that end, by an intelligent agent.Now it appears to us that what we have here, for illustrations sake,supposed to be done with the watch, is exactly what the establishmentof Darwins Theory

17、 will do for the organic world. For the notion thatevery organism has been created as it is and launched straight at apurpose, Mr. Darwin substitutes the conception of something which mayfairly be termed a method of trial and error. Organisms varyincessantly; of these variations the few meet with su

18、rroundingconditions which suit them and thrive; the many are unsuited and becomeextinguished.According to Teleology, each organism is like a rifle bullet firedstraight at a mark; according to Darwin, organisms are like grapeshotof which one hits something and the rest fall wide.For the teleologist a

19、n organism exists because it was made for theconditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism existsbecause, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has beenable to persist in the conditions in which it is found.Teleology implies that the organs of every organism are perfect

20、andcannot be improved; the Darwinian theory simply affirms that they workwell enough to enable the organism to hold its own against suchcompetitors as it has met with, but admits the possibility ofindefinite improvement. But an example may bring into clearer lightthe profound opposition between the

21、ordinary teleological, and theDarwinian, conception.Cats catch mice, small birds and the like, very well. Teleology tellsus that they do so because they were expressly constructed for sodoing-that they are perfect mousing apparatuses, so perfect and sodelicately adjusted that no one of their organs

22、could be altered,without the change involving the alteration of all the rest. Darwinismaffirms on the contrary, that there was no express constructionconcerned in the matter; but that among the multitudinous variations ofthe Feline stock, many of which died out from want of power to resistopposing i

23、nfluences, some, the cats, were better fitted to catch micethan others, whence they throve and persisted, in proportion to theadvantage over their fellows thus offered to them.Far from imagining that cats exist in order to catch mice well,Darwinism supposes that cats exist because they catch micewel

24、l-mousing being not the end, but the condition, of theirexistence. And if the cat type has long persisted as we know it, theinterpretation of the fact upon Darwinian principles would be, not thatthe cats have remained invariable, but that such varieties as haveincessantly occurred have been, on the

25、whole, less fitted to get on inthe world than the existing stock.If we apprehend the spirit of the rightly, then,nothing can be more entirely and absolutely opposed to Teleology, as itis commonly understood, than the Darwinian Theory. So far from being aTeleologist in the fullest sense of the word,

26、we would deny that heis a Teleologist in the ordinary sense at all; and we should say that,apart from his merits as a naturalist, he has rendered a mostremarkable service to philosophical thought by enabling the student ofNature to recognise, to their fullest extent, those adaptations topurpose whic

27、h are so striking in the organic world, and which Teleologyhas done good service in keeping before our minds, without being falseto the fundamental principles of a scientific conception of theuniverse. The apparently diverging teachings of the Teleologist and ofthe Morphologist are reconciled by the

28、 Darwinian hypothesis.But leaving our own impressions of the Origin of Species, and turningto those passages especially cited by Professor Kolliker, we cannotadmit that they bear the interpretation he puts upon them. Darwin, ifwe read him rightly, does not affirm that every detail in thestructure of

29、 an animal has been created for its benefit. His words are（p. 199）:-The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest latelymade by some naturalists against the utilitarian doctrine that everydetail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor.They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty inthe eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would beabsolutely fatal to my theory-yet I fully admit that many structuresare of no direct use to thei