The Theory of Evolution in the Light of Facts

Karl Frank

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367150358
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429620119
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Published in 1913: The object of the present work is to throw some light on the theory of Descent. Among many of the students of nature of the present day we perceive that greater and greater contradictions arise between the actual results of their technical work and that which they put forward as 'postulates' of the theory of Evolution.

SECTION III.

EVOLUTIONARY HYPOTHESES.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRINCIPAL ATTEMPTS AT EXPLANATION HITHERTO.

MUCH of that which we shall say in the following pages regarding the evolutionary hypotheses already put forward has only an historical value. An opportunity, however, thereby presents itself for learning the nature of the evidence by which it has been attempted to establish the theory of evolution as opposed to that of constancy. The refutation of the theory of the unchangeability of the systematic species, which with Lamarck was hardly much more than a simple denial, constitutes the one permanent result of the best known of all theories of evolution termed Darwinism and Lamarckism.

§ 1. Lamarckism and neo-Lamarckism.

(1) The original doctrine of Lamarck.

(i) Short description.—Jean Baptiste Chevalier de Lamarck (1744 to 1829) published in the year 1809 a work entitled ‘Philosophie Zoologique,’ in which, for the first time, the unchangeability of organisms was entirely denied, and the development of the present organic world from inorganic matter by spontaneous generation was affirmed: the animals from gelatine masses, the plants from masses of mucus. The finest fluids penetrate these masses, make them soft (= cellular) and therefore suitable for life. Then, according to a definite plan determined by the great Creator of all things, there followed the creation of ever more and more complicated forms.

How did Lamarck arrive at such conclusions?

In the first place it appeared to him unnatural that the successive organic worlds (creations), so different from each other, should be destroyed by general catastrophes and then again replaced by a new creation in altered forms. It appeared simpler to him to suggest that the separate ‘creations’ arose genetically from each other. The variability of the organisms—which is certainly the premiss of all evolution—he sought to show, since he demonstrated to us thoroughly by examples how organs can alter, though not that they do so in point of fact. He was strengthened in his opinion by the observation of the similarity of the organic groups, which was most easily explained by a common origin. Furthermore, it struck him how the organs of the animals were so perfectly adapted to quite definite needs, to a narrowly limited mode of existence. The idea appeared to him to be closely associated that it was just these needs which must be the cause that the organs are precisely so constituted, often in a quite wonderful and peculiar way. Lamarck then attempts to make it comprehensible how the animals could arrive at this purposeful constitution of their organs, which are adapted so wonderfully to the most varied needs of existence, even to the smallest detail. That is the chief idea, and, in a certain sense, also the greatest service Lamarck rendered: he puts forward a ‘theory of organic purposefulness,’ not a doctrine of descent, which all problems of the ‘history of life’ involve.¹

With regard to the origin of ‘organic purposefulness’ he writes as follows:

‘That, in the first place, any alteration, even inconsiderable, in the circumstances in which each race of animals finds itself, induces an actual change of its requirements. That, in the second place, each alteration in the requirements of the animals renders necessary other faculties in order to satisfy these new requirements and consequently other habits. That thereby each new requirement, since it renders necessary new faculties to meet it, demands from the animal which experiences it either the extended use of an organ of which it had hitherto made less use, whereby such organ is developed and considerably enlarged, or the use of new organs to which the requirements within it imperceptibly give rise through the efforts of its inner perception’ (Gefühl).²

An example may explain the above:

‘The bird, whose needs attract it to the water in order to seek its food therein, spreads its toes apart when it desires to strike the water and swim upon its surface. The skin which unites the toes at their base acquires, by this unceasingly repeated extension of the toes, the habit of spreading itself out. Therefore in time the broad swimming webs arise which at present connect the toes of Ducks, Geese, etc. These efforts to swim—i.e. to strike the water in order to progress in this liquid and move therein—have also broadened the toes of the Frog, the Sea Tortoise, the Fish Otter, the Beaver, etc.’¹ Lamarck thus attributes the purposefulness of the organisms to their striving towards the purpose concerned! His doctrine is a final (finalistisch) one.

Everything that the animals newly acquire in this manner is, according to Lamarck, inherited by the offspring and thus becomes ever more and more fixed.

(ii) Criticism.—(a) We accept much of what Lamarck says, but not always for his reasons. If the catastrophic theory be denied, as in itself an improbable idea, then we must also reject the unchangeability of species. In our Introduction we have entered into details regarding this.

It is also correct that the organisms must alter themselves if an adaptation to changed environments generally be effected. (In contradiction to Darwin, according to whom it is the individuals which by chance are better fitted which survive.)

(b) On the other hand the acceptance of spontaneous generation, independently of the philosophical impossibility, is a serious methodological error. Everything that we observe—and every hypothesis must be based on that—speaks against spontaneous generation (see above, p. 96).

(c) The idea which Lamarck has formed regarding the process of the new formation of separate organs, cannot a priori be disproved. Lamarck, however, at the most explains how many birds acquire swimming webs, long necks, climbing claws, etc.; he does not, however, explain at all how these animals arrived at the general organic type of ‘Birds’: since before they acquired swimming webs, etc.—i.e. a part of the entire organism adapted to definite services—they were already birds. The same applies to the other ‘types’ which we term families and classes. They are now sharply separated from each other and, according to palaeontological evidence, were always so; they must therefore be regarded as a ‘given’ something—not as something which has ‘happened’ (geworden).

Certainly Lamarck, at least according to his words, regards the whole development as due to a plan of the Creator. Therefore we must assume that either from the beginning or from a very early period the said types were established in the primary forms, so that every further development should occur within the limits determined. Thus can Lamarck explain the origin and preservation of the types.

Some modes in which, according to palaeontology, the formation of differently constructed organic forms proceeded—viz. increase of size, specialization, regression—can certainly be partially explained as Lamarck proposes.

(2) Neo-Lamarckism.

(i) Statement.—We have seen how Lamarck explained organic adaptation. He ascribed to the organism itself the faculty, in the first place, of recognizing in some way the newly arising requirements, of perceiving such, and then, by willed and conscious (?) efforts, of meeting the new needs and altering the organs concerned in a purposeful manner. The adaptation to a purpose which we now see completed before us is thus the result of striving towards the purpose by the organism itself: it is a self-adaptation.

This self-adaptation Darwin has denied, and in its place put the survival of such as, by chance, are the fittest. That was a mighty retrograde step as contrasted with Lamarck, as is gradually more and more recognized. The natural historians and philosophers who in the last few years have again, in large numbers, reverted to Lamarck’s ideas, term themselves neo-Lamarckians and partly as of the ‘psychobiological school.’¹

What was good in Lamarck’s doctrine was taken over by the neo-Lamarckians and defended as victorious over materialism in general and Darwinism in particular—viz. the doctrine of ‘Autoteleology’ of the organisms, as it is now called.

If, however, neo-Lamarckism be regarded as a theory of evolution, it is a terrible mixture of assumptions and postulates without any comprehensible basis at all. Nowhere, whether in the works of Francé, Pauly, or Wagner, do we find any thorough presentation of the results of palæontological research. In its place they put forward as their chief argument the phrase, that evolution must embrace indiscriminately everything—man, animals, and plants—all of which have been evolved from common ancestors.

This they demonstrate thus:

The similarity of the organisms, especially with regard to the ‘psyche,’ which alone renders possible and guides the evolution, must be explained by a common origin.

Now, however, all living beings, and perhaps also the so-called inorganic bodies, possess a ‘psyche,’ and one provided with faculties of recognition, effort, and decision. These faculties are naturally not of the same perfection in plants, animals, and man, but are in no way essentially different from each other. The ‘psyche’ of plants, animals, and man, presents therefore a single series in which the fundamental peculiarities of all organisms—(viz. decision and will)—are gradationally perfected. They are therefore similar, especially in the ‘psyche,’ the basal factor of all evolution.

Since, now, each similarity which consists in the possession of one and the same perfection, although in different degrees, must be explained by a common descent, therefore man, animals, and plants have arisen from each other or from common ancestors.¹

(ii) Criticism.—(a) The main argument of the neo-Lamarckians is the assumption a priori that similarity, quite generally and without any limitation, depends on descent. That, however, is false, and, in the sense which is imputed to this assumption by the psychobiological school, utterly impossible.

Proof.—We have already shown thoroughly that only specific similarity is determined by common descent, as actual practical observation shows. Palæontology certainly renders it probable that also fairly different animals may descend from common ancestors. This difference was acquired through differentiation and specialization, but always within narrow limits. Never, however, do the fossils found demand the assumption that a higher class arose from a lower one, to say nothing of one family arising from another, or, in the extreme, animals from plants.

(b) That the ‘psyches’ of man, the animals and plants, are only a perfection of the same fundamental faculties of all organisms is altogether false. In the first place the soul of man and also those of animals and plants cannot be regarded as ‘perfections’ of matter: they are substantial components of the organisms. There is an essential difference between a ‘psyche’ which thinks and shows a free self-determination (the human soul) and one whose faculties do not extend beyond the provision of sensitive recognition and sensitive endeavour (the animal soul). With us the senses do not suffice for thought and free-will, nor do they with animals, and never, really never, is there to be observed anything of the sort with them. Has not the entire modern animal psychology been written also for the psychobiologists? (Wundt, Thorndike, Hobhouse, Morgan, Stumpf, Wasmann).

The same applies to the difference between animal and plant souls. That plants respond to the same external stimuli otherwise than do inorganic bodies, that they can adapt themselves thereto, etc., shows that they are something essentially higher than mere matter and even than a machine. That they have power of recognition and conscious power of effort,¹ is, however, contrary to experience, which by all criteria shows that the plants do not sensibly recognize, feel, and will (see above, p. 108).

In the animals, however, together with the self-regulations, adaptations, etc., which we ascribe to the ‘psyche’ of plants as their last cause, we note still other faculties which remain entirely inexplicable unless there be ascribed a power of recognition and of spontaneous effort. This recognition and striving power, as observation teaches us, is equal or similar to our own if we act as thinking beings, but incomparable with our intellectual power and that of free-will.

There does not, therefore, ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• SECTION I. GENERAL (PALÆONTOLOGICAL) BASES OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.
• SECTION II. THE EXPLANATORY DOMAIN OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF EVOLUTION.
• SECTION III. EVOLUTIONARY HYPOTHESES.
• INDEX