At the Deathbed of Darwinism: A Series of Papers

by Eberhard Dennert

CHAPTER X.

In order to judge of the present status of Darwinism it is of primary importance to note the position assumed by the few really eminent investigators, who as pupils of Haeckel still seem to have remained true to him. Among these I reckon Oskar Hertwig, the well known Berlin anatomist.

As early as 1899 in an address at the University on, Die Lehre vom Organismus und ihre Beziehung zur Sozialwissenschaft, Hertwig gave expression to views which are very little in harmony with the doctrines proceeding from Jena, and which are also put forth in his manual, The Cell and the Tissue. In that address we read (p. 8): "With the same right, with which, for the good of scientific progress, an energetic protest has been raised against a certain mysticism which attaches to the word Vitality, I beg to give warning against an opposite extreme which is but too apt to lead to onesided and unreal, and hence also, ultimately to false notions of the vital process, against an extreme which would see in the vital process nothing but a chemico-physical and mechanical problem and thinks to arrive at true scientific knowledge only in so far as it succeeds in tracing back phenomena to the movements of repelling and attracting atoms and in subjecting them to mathematical calculation."

With right does the physicist Mach, with reference to such views and tendencies, speak of a 'mechanical mythology in opposition to the animistic mythology of the old religions' and considers both as "improper and fantastic exaggerations based on a one-sided judgment." "My position on the question just stated becomes apparent from the consideration that the living organism is not only a complex of chemical materials and a bearer of physical forces, but also possesses a special organization, a structure, by means of which it is very essentially differentiated from the inorganic world, and in virtue of which it alone is designated as living."

Here, then, the distinction between living and non-living nature is clearly and definitely expressed, and Hertwig expresses himself just as definitely when he says (p. 21): "Whereas, but a few decades ago a scientific materialistic conception of the world issuing from a onesided, unhistorical point of view, misjudged the significance of the historic religious and ethical forces in the development of mankind, a change has become apparent in this regard."

To this gratifying testimony against materialism the distinguished naturalist added an equally valuable testimony regarding Darwinism on the occasion of the naturalists' convention in 1900. He there sketched an excellent summary of the "Development of Biology in the Nineteenth Century," in which he decidedly opposes the materialistic-mechanical conception of life. In so doing he also touches upon Haeckel's carbon-hypothesis, to which the latter still clings, and says: "That from the properties of carbon, combined with the properties of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc., in certain proportions albumen should result, is a process which in its essence is as incomprehensible as that a living cell should arise from a certain organization of different albumina." Then the speaker is inevitably led to speak of the doctrine of Descent and Darwinism.

In the first place he declares definitely that ontogeny alone, i.e., the development of the individual being, is "capable of a direct scientific investigation." On the other hand we move in the domain of hypotheses in dealing with the further question: "How have the species of organisms living to-day originated in the course of the world's history?" This is a very valuable admission in view of Haeckel's dogmatic assertion that the descent of man from the ape is a "certain historical fact." Very moderate and pertinent are also the further words of the speaker: "Of course, a philosophically trained investigator will regard it as axiomatic that the organisms which inhabit our earth to-day did not exist in their present form in earlier periods of the earth and that they had to pass through a process of development, beginning with the simplest forms."

"But in the attempt to outline in detail the particular form in which a species of animals of our day existed in remote antiquity, we lose the safe ground of experience. For out of the countless millions of organisms, that lived in earlier periods of the earth, the duration of which is measured by millions of years, only scanty skeleton remains have by way of exception been preserved in a fossil state. From these naturally but a very imperfect and hypothetical representation can be formed of the soft bodies with which they were once clothed. And even then it remains forever doubtful whether the progeny of the prehistoric creature, the scant remains of which we study, has not become entirely extinct, so that it can in no way be regarded as the progenitor of any creature living at present." I should like to know wherein this differs radically from Fleischmann's contention in his "Descendenztheorie" (p. 10.) For we find stated here what Fleischmann emphasizes so much, viz., that with the problem of Descent we leave the domain of experience. It is worthy of special note in this connection that Hertwig likewise evidently regards as the sole really empirically and inductively serviceable proof of Descent, that which is drawn from palaeontology, from prehistoric animal and plant remains. He makes not the least mention of the indirect proofs taken from ontogenetic development or comparative anatomy, to which the Darwinians and advocates of Descent love so much to appeal, because they feel that the real inductive proof is lacking and totally fails to sustain their position. Hertwig next points out that the problem of Descent stirred scientific as well as lay circles twice during the past century. He then pays Lamarck and Darwin the necessary tribute, at which we cannot take offense since he was reared in the Darwinian atmosphere of Jena. I also willingly admit that Darwinism served science as a "powerful ferment," even if I must emphasize just as decidedly how harmful it was that this "ferment" was introduced into lay circles at an unseasonable time by the apostles of materialism. For while it was very well adapted to bring about in educated circles a fermentation which produced beneficial results, in uncritical lay-circles this ferment produced nothing but a corruption of world-views.

Hertwig then designates "Struggle for Existence," Survival of the Fittest, and Selection, as "very indefinite expressions." "With too general terms, one does not explain the individual case or produces only the appearance of an explanation whereas in every case the true causative relations remain in the dark. But it is the duty of scientific investigation to establish for each observed effect the prevenient cause, or more correctly, since nothing results from a single cause, to discover the various causes."

"The origin of the world of organisms from natural causes, however, is certainly an unusually complicated and difficult problem. It is just as little capable of being solved by a single magic formula as every disease is of yielding to a panacea. By the very act of proclaiming the omnipotence of natural selection, Weismann found he was forced to the admission that: "as a rule we cannot furnish the proof that a definite adaptation has originated through natural selection," in other words: We know nothing in reality of the complexity of causes which has produced the given phenomenon. So we may on the contrary, with Spencer, speak of the "Impotence of Natural Selection.""