Volume 3

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: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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.

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    alone, can never induce polytypic evolution, but only monotypic. Now I regret to say that here, for the first and only time throughout the whole course of the present treatise, I find myself in seeming opposition to the views of Darwin. For it was the decidedly expressed opinion of Darwin that natural selection is competent to effect polytypic, or divergent, evo lution. Nevertheless, I believe that the opposition is to a large extent only apparent, or due merely to the fact that Darwin did not explicitly state certain considerations which throughout his discussion on “divergence of character” are seemingly implied. But, be this as it may, I have not even appeared to desert his leadership on a matter of such high im portance without having duly considered the question in all its bearings, and to the utmost limit of my ability. Moreover, about two years after the publica tion of my first paper 1 upon the subject, Mr. Gulick followed, at somewhat greater length, in the same line of dissent. Like all the rest of his work, this is so severely logical in statement, as well as profoundly thought out in substance, that I do not see how it is possible for any one to read impartially what he has written, and then continue to hold that natural selection, if unassisted by any other form of isola tion, can possibly effect divergence of character— or polytypic as distinguished from monotypic evo lution 2 . I may here quote from Mr. Gulick’s paper three propositions, serving to state three large and general 1 Zool. Journal Lin. Soc., vol. xix. pp. 337-411, 2 Ibid., vol. xx. pp. 202-212.