In the year 1880 the “coming of age” of the Origin of Species was celebrated. On the 9th of April at the Royal Institu­tion an address was given by the powerful friend, champion and candid critic of Darwin, and before the scientific and educated world Huxley was able to say with his own force and directness: “Evolution is no longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact.” It may be noted in passing that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is not referred to in the address. Challenges and opposi­tion from various quarters met this confident claim of the formidable speaker, as doubtless he desired, but the work of the succeeding half-century has done little or nothing that does not establish that claim. It is hardly to be doubted that if in the jubilee-year, 1909, Huxley had been alive on this earth, instead of elsewhere, his eloquent voice would have been heard to declare with emphasis equal to that of 1880: “Selection is no longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact.” Some such statement, with the imprimatur of a great name would have removed from the jubilee-volume that slight aspect as of a Dutch chorus[3] which is apparent in it. A remark of Kelvin’s when he was conferring a medal of the Royal Society on Huxley may illustrate what has been said above. He said that they must all be thankful to have still among them that champion of Evolution who once bore down its enemies, but was now possibly needed to save it from its friends. It may be regretted that it was not so in 1909.

Considering the mole-like and persistent work of the biometricians, some who are at present keeping well-ordered lawns may find some day a few disturbing heaps of facts. I am reminded here of an historic duel, Oxford v. Cambridge, which took place soon after the introduc­tion of Mendel’s discoveries into England at the London Zoological Society, when Prof. Bateson expounded them with enthusiasm and when Weldon repelled them with cogent and incisive arguments. The duel lasted nearly two hours and that was not too long for the audience, but one has the impression that some of what Professor Thomson calls muddleheadedness must have been somewhere existing. However, the duel was fought when Mendelism was young.

Three Blows to Darwin.

But other historic events are more relevant to my immediate purpose than these.

Three blows were delivered against Darwinism in the years 1894, 1895 and 1899 by Prof. Bateson, Weismann, and again Prof. Bateson, under which it seemed to reel, but from which it is more than likely it has derived but greater strength.

Bateson.

In 1894 Prof. Bateson published his large and important work, Materials for the Study of Variation. As a distinguished student and teacher of biology he found the received doctrine of evolution in straits as regards the factor of natural selection in producing specific differences, as indeed happened to another equally eminent man during the next year. He was profoundly discontented as to the origin of specific differences on the theory of direct utility of variations, and he said “on our present knowledge the matter is talked out.”[4] He threw over the study of adapta­tion “as a means of directly solving the problem of species.” He came to the conclusion “Variation is Evolution,” and affirmed that the readiest way of solving the problem of evolution is to study the facts of variation. Hence arose this notable book, and hence one of his trenchant statements to the effect “that the existence of new forms having from their beginning more or less of the kind of perfec­tion that we associate with normality, is a fact that once and for all disposes of the attempt to interpret all perfec­tion and definiteness of form as the work of selection,”[5] and “Inquiry into the causes of variation is as yet, in my judgment, premature.”[6] It will hardly be denied that a work which contained such statements as these from such a source seemed momentous in its influence on the fate of Darwin’s theory. Prof. Bateson yielded to none in his loyalty to Darwin, as far as he knew himself, and here he is as candid as Huxley, and he declares that in his treatment of the phenomena of variation is found nothing which is in any way opposed to Darwin’s theory. The shade of Darwin might nevertheless have looked with some misgiving at this man over against him with a drawn sword in his hand, and have asked gently, “Art thou for us or for our adversaries?” Prof. Bateson’s work chiefly requires to be considered here because to any reader of it there must come the convic­tion on the one hand of Prof. Bateson’s merits and power, and on the other of his limita­tion as a student of organic evolution. In 1894 is evident already an exclusive attention to structure rather than function, to anatomy than physiology; the anatomical leaven in doctrine has leavened the whole lump. For him physiology of animals and plants does not exist, or at the best is the outcome of structures which arise through variation and selection. This, if I may say so, is as much his strength as his weakness. There have been other great biologists, such as Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire and Richard Owen, of whom this is true. If that were all one would not wish the reader to be troubled with any criticism of one’s betters, indeed such remarks as are here made do not amount to criticism at all, but just plain text-book statements. It is also evident that the outlook of Prof. Bateson was being prepared for a revela­tion which had not yet come, in which he took a prominent, if not dominant part, I mean the great rediscovery of Mendel’s work by de Vries, Correns and Tschermak and himself in England. His keen and close attention to anatomical structures was preparing his mind for the germinal conceptions of unit-characters, dominance and segrega­tion. The intensive cultiva­tion of the fertile field of genetics proceeded apace, and Prof. Bateson in his contribu­tion to the jubilee-volume of 1909 betrayed the trend of his devotion to a system of distribu­tion rather than formation of the qualities of an organism. The organism as an historical functioning, striving being, had receded once for all from his vision. He hazarded the sugges­tion in Heredity and Variation in Modern Lights that “variation consists largely in the unpacking and repacking of an original complexity,” and that “it is not so certain as we might like to think that the order of these events is not predetermined.” Incidentally one may remark that, malgré lui, Prof. Bateson stands forth as a modern Paley as does Weismann in his great rival and opposing scheme. It is true that he says “I see no ground whatever for holding such a view, but in fairness the possibility should not be forgotten and in the light of modern research it scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before.” Having drawn the sword he threw away the scabbard in 1914 when he occupied the presidential chair of the British Associa­tion of Science at Melbourne and Sydney. He had said in 1894 in his book on variation as stated before, “Inquiry into the causes of variation is as yet, in my opinion, premature,” and then in 1914 at Melbourne, after twenty more years of study of the subject in the Mendelian direction, “It is likely that the occurrence of these variations is wholly irregular, and as to their causation we are absolutely without surmise or even plausible specula­tion.” (my italics).[7] So, on this fundamental point, he stands where he did when he began the study of variation, but apart from this point he again threw out his sugges­tion of 1909 as to the unpacking and repacking of an original complexity. At Melbourne he said, “Lotsy has lately with great courage suggested to us that all variation may be due to such crossing. I do not disguise my sympathy with this effort.”[8] All variation! He said later, “In spite of seeming perversity, therefore, we have to admit that there is no evolutionary change which in the present state of our knowledge we can positively declare not due to loss.”[9] (Italics mine.) These two statements of 1914 are enough to show that the biologist of 1894, 1899, 1909 and 1914 has evolved in a definite line, and it is to his honour that he has remembered “to thine ownself be true.” But he is not so true to himself in his scorn of those who propound theories. For myself I would give little for the biologist who did not hold or propound some theory. What was the penultimate and stirring message of the gifted G. B. Howes? “We live by ideas, we advance by a knowledge of the facts.” The self-denying ordinance affirmed and reaffirmed by Prof. Bateson is not observed even in the Melbourne and Sydney addresses. In the former, he says “at first it may seem rank absurdity to suppose that the primordial form or forms of protoplasm could have contained complexity enough to produce the divers types of life,” and asks us to open our minds to this possibility. Again “I have confidence that the artistic gifts of mankind will prove to be due not to something added to the makeup of an ordinary man, but to the absence of factors which in the normal person inhibit the development of these gifts.” And at Sydney, “Ages before written history began, in some unknown place, plants, or more likely a plant of wheat lost the dominant factor to which this brittleness is due, and the recessive thrashable wheat resulted. Some man noticed this wonderful novelty, and it has been disseminated over the earth. The original variation may well have occurred once only in a single germ,” and “so must it have been with man.”[10]

These are three stupendous stretches of imagina­tion and theory in one address, which would have been the poorer if they had not overcome the accomplished speaker’s dislike of the theories—of others. If they are not ideal constructions of a high order I do not know the meaning of that term. They are worthy of Weismann the Prince of ideal constructionists. Prof. Bateson might indeed be another Newton with his Hypotheses non fingo.

Turning to another important biological doctrine one can see what it may be legitimate to call a bi-phyletic parallelism in the biological make-up of Prof. Bateson. Again is seen consistency of view and loyalty to his first love. Two references from these addresses will be enough to introduce the point.