Volume 2

Darwin, and after Darwin : an exposition of the Darwinian theory and a discussion of post-Darwinian questions / by George John Romanes.

  • Romanes George John, 1848-1894.
Date:
1892-1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Darwin, and after Darwin : an exposition of the Darwinian theory and a discussion of post-Darwinian questions / by George John Romanes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    to put any strained interpretation upon them, I believe that they are but the plain and unequivocal expressions of an opinion which I have always understood that Darwin held. And if any one has been led to think other- wise, I throw back this charge of strained interpretation, by challenging such a person to adduce a single quotation from any part of Darwin's works, which can possibly be held to indicate that he regarded passages like those above quoted as in any way out of conformity with his theory of natural selection—or as put forward merely to admit the possibility of explanations, to which really, however, he did not attach much importance. To the best of my judgement it is only some bias in favour of Mr. Wallace's views that can lead a naturalist to view in this way the clear and consistent expression of Darwin's. That Mr. Wallace himself should be biassed in this matter might, perhaps, be expected. After rendering the following very unequivocal passage from the Origin of Species (p. 72)— There can be little doubt that the tendency to vary in the same manner has often been so strong, that all individuals of the same species have been similarly modified without the aid of any form of selection—Mr. Wallace says, But no proof whatever is offered of this statement, and it is so entirely opposed to all we know of the facts of variation as given by Darwin himself, that the important word ' all' is probably an oversight. But, if Mr. Wallace had read the very next sentence he would have seen that here the important word all could not possibly have been an oversight. For the passage continues,— Or only a third, fifth, or tenth part of the individuals may have been thus affected, of which fact several instances could be given. Thus Graba estimates that about one-fifth of the guillemots in the Faroe Islands consist of a variety so well marked, that it was formerly ranked as a distinct species under the name of Uria acrymans. And even if this passage had not been thus