Variations, on the other hand, that are ascribed to mere
chance cannot be supposed as likely to be accumulated, for chance is
notoriously inconstant, and would not purvey the variations in
sufficiently unbroken succession, or in a sufficient number of
individuals, modified similarly in all the necessary correlations at
the same time and place to admit of their being accumulated. It is
vital therefore to the theory of evolution, as was early pointed out
by the late Professor Fleeming Jenkin and by Mr. Herbert Spencer,
that variations should be supposed to have a definite and persistent
principle underlying them, which shall tend to engender similar and
simultaneous modification, however small, in the vast majority of
individuals composing any species. The existence of such a
principle and its permanence is the only thing that can be supposed
capable of acting as rudder and compass to the accumulation of
variations, and of making it hold steadily on one course for each
species, till eventually many havens, far remote from one another,
are safely reached.
It is obvious that the having fatally impaired the theory of his
predecessors could not warrant Mr. Darwin in claiming, as he most
fatuously did, the theory of evolution. That he is still generally
believed to have been the originator of this theory is due to the
fact that he claimed it, and that a powerful literary backing at
once came forward to support him.
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