“We must distinguish clearly (though this is not usually done) between, firstly, the theory of descent as advanced by Lamarck, which deals only with the fact of all animals and plants being descended from a common source, and secondly, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which shows us why this progressive modification of organic forms took place” (p. 93).
This passage is as inaccurate as most of those by Professor Haeckel that I have had occasion to examine have proved to be. Letting alone that Buffon, not Lamarck, is the foremost name in connection with descent, I have already shown in “Evolution Old and New” that Lamarck goes exhaustively into the how and why of modification. He alleges the conservation, or preservation, in the ordinary course of nature, of the most favourable among variations that have been induced mainly by function; this, I have sufficiently explained, is natural selection, though the words “natural selection” are not employed; but it is the true natural selection which (if so metaphorical an expression is allowed to pass) actually does take place with the results ascribed to it by Lamarck, and not the false Charles-Darwinian natural selection that does not correspond with facts, and cannot result in specific differences such as we now observe. But, waiving this, the “my’s,” within which a little rift had begun to show itself in 1866, might well become as mute in 1869 as they could become without attracting attention, when Mr. Darwin saw the passages just quoted, and the hundred pages or so that lie between them.
I suppose Mr. Darwin cut out the five more my’s that disappeared in 1872 because he had not yet fully recovered from his scare, and allowed nine to remain in order to cover his retreat, and tacitly say that he had not done anything and knew nothing whatever about it. Practically, indeed, he had not retreated, and must have been well aware that he was only retreating technically; for he must have known that the absence of acknowledgment to any earlier writers in the body of his work, and the presence of the many passages in which every word conveyed the impression that the writer claimed descent with modification, amounted to a claim as much when the actual word “my” had been taken out as while it was allowed to stand. We took Mr. Darwin at his own estimate because we could not for a moment suppose that a man of means, position, and education,—one, moreover, who was nothing if he was not unself-seeking—could play such a trick upon us while pretending to take us into his confidence; hence the almost universal belief on the part of the public, of which Professors Haeckel and Ray Lankester and Mr. Grant Allen alike complain—namely, that Mr. Darwin is the originator of the theory of descent, and that his variations are mainly functional. Men of science must not be surprised if the readiness with which we responded to Mr. Darwin’s appeal to our confidence is succeeded by a proportionate resentment when the peculiar shabbiness of his action becomes more generally understood. For myself, I know not which most to wonder at—the meanness of the writer himself, or the greatness of the service that, in spite of that meanness, he unquestionably rendered.
If Mr. Darwin had been dealing fairly by us, when he saw that we had failed to catch the difference between the Erasmus-Darwinian theory of descent through natural selection from among variations that are mainly functional, and his own alternative theory of descent through natural selection from among variations that are mainly accidental, and, above all, when he saw we were crediting him with other men’s work, he would have hastened to set us right. “It is with great regret,” he might have written, “and with no small surprise, that I find how generally I have been misunderstood as claiming to be the originator of the theory of descent with modification; nothing can be further from my intention; the theory of descent has been familiar to all biologists from the year 1749, when Buffon advanced it in its most comprehensive form, to the present day.” If Mr. Darwin had said something to the above effect, no one would have questioned his good faith, but it is hardly necessary to say that nothing of the kind is to be found in any one of Mr. Darwin’s many books or many editions; nor is the reason why the requisite correction was never made far to seek. For if Mr. Darwin had said as much as I have put into his mouth above, he should have said more, and would ere long have been compelled to have explained to us wherein the difference between himself and his predecessors precisely lay, and this would not have been easy. Indeed, if Mr. Darwin had been quite open with us he would have had to say much as follows:—
“I should point out that, according to the evolutionists of the last century, improvement in the eye, as in any other organ, is mainly due to persistent, rational, employment of the organ in question, in such slightly modified manner as experience and changed surroundings may suggest. You will have observed that, according to my system, this goes for very little, and that the accumulation of fortunate accidents, irrespectively of the use that may be made of them, is by far the most important means of modification. Put more briefly still, the distinction between me and my predecessors lies in this;—my predecessors thought they knew the main normal cause or principle that underlies variation, whereas I think that there is no general principle underlying it at all, or that even if there is, we know hardly anything about it. This is my distinctive feature; there is no deception; I shall not consider the arguments of my predecessors, nor show in what respect they are insufficient; in fact, I shall say nothing whatever about them. Please to understand that I alone am in possession of the master key that can unlock the bars of the future progress of evolutionary science; so great an improvement, in fact, is my discovery that it justifies me in claiming the theory of descent generally, and I accordingly claim it. If you ask me in what my discovery consists, I reply in this;—that the variations which we are all agreed accumulate are caused—by variation. [209a] I admit that this is not telling you much about them, but it is as much as I think proper to say at present; above all things, let me caution you against thinking that there is any principle of general application underlying variation.”
This would have been right. This is what Mr. Darwin would have had to have said if he had been frank with us; it is not surprising, therefore, that he should have been less frank than might have been wished. I have no doubt that many a time between 1859 and 1882, the year of his death, Mr. Darwin bitterly regretted his initial error, and would have been only too thankful to repair it, but he could only put the difference between himself and the early evolutionists clearly before his readers at the cost of seeing his own system come tumbling down like a pack of cards; this was more than he could stand, so he buried his face, ostrich-like, in the sand. I know no more pitiable figure in either literature or science.
As I write these lines (July 1886) I see a paragraph in Nature which I take it is intended to convey the impression that Mr. Francis Darwin’s life and letters of his father will appear shortly. I can form no idea whether Mr. F. Darwin’s forthcoming work is likely to appear before this present volume; still less can I conjecture what it may or may not contain; but I can give the reader a criterion by which to test the good faith with which it is written. If Mr. F. Darwin puts the distinctive feature that differentiates Mr. C. Darwin from his predecessors clearly before his readers, enabling them to seize and carry it away with them once for all—if he shows no desire to shirk this question, but, on the contrary, faces it and throws light upon it, then we shall know that his work is sincere, whatever its shortcomings may be in other respects; and when people are doing their best to help us and make us understand all that they understand themselves, a great deal may be forgiven them. If, on the other hand, we find much talk about the wonderful light which Mr. Charles Darwin threw on evolution by his theory of natural selection, without any adequate attempt to make us understand the difference between the natural selection, say, of Mr. Patrick Matthew, and that of his more famous successor, then we may know that we are being trifled with; and that an attempt is being again made to throw dust in our eyes.
Chapter XVI
Mr. Grant Allen’s “Charles Darwin”
It is here that Mr. Grant Allen’s book fails. It is impossible to believe it written in good faith, with no end in view, save to make something easy which might otherwise be found difficult; on the contrary, it leaves the impression of having been written with a desire to hinder us, as far as possible, from understanding things that Mr. Allen himself understood perfectly well.
After saying that “in the public mind Mr. Darwin is perhaps most commonly regarded as the discoverer and founder of the evolution hypothesis,” he continues that “the grand idea which he did really originate was not the idea of ‘descent with modification,’ but the idea of ‘natural selection,’” and adds that it was Mr. Darwin’s “peculiar glory” to have shown the “nature of the machinery” by which all the variety of animal and vegetable life might have been produced by slow modifications in one or more original types. “The theory of evolution,” says Mr. Allen, “already existed in a more or less shadowy and undeveloped shape;” it was Mr. Darwin’s “task in life to raise this theory from the rank of a mere plausible and happy guess to the rank of a highly elaborate and almost universally accepted biological system” (pp. 3–5).