A mechanism for organic correlation / G.H. Parker.

  • Parker, G. H.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A mechanism for organic correlation / G.H. Parker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [Reprinted from The American Natcralist, Vol. XLIII., April, 1909.] A MECHANISM FOR ORGANIC CORRELATION^ G. H. PARKER Professor of Zoologt, Harvard University The year 1909 is notable for its many historical asso- ciations. It is not only the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of “The Origin of Species,” but it is also the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the publication of Lamarck’s “Philosophie Zoologique.” To the American its associations with Lincoln are precious memories. But it is not to these historical matters that I wish to refer. Science ever looks forward, not back- ward, and it is on certain modem aspects of the move- ments centering about the problem of evolution and espe- cially on those connected with the name of Darwin that I wish to speak. Although biologists have been familiar with Darwin’s theory of natural selection for almost fifty years, it must be confessed that they are only at the threshold of the problem of evolution. That species have arisen by trans- mutation is now universally admitted, but how transmuta- tion has been accompli<?hod remains at present one of the unsolved riddles. The Lamarckian factors, though pos- sible, must be set down as still unproved. Natural selec- tion, so far as observation and experiment go, seems to play a real part in transmutation, but the extent of its application is still a matter of much uncertainty. Even the recently advanced mutation theory, on which hopes at one time ran high, is coming to assume at best a supple- mentary^ role. In fact it is evident that the most serious efforts of the past have failed of full accomplishment and it seems likely that the process of transformation is not exclusively dependent upon any single principle, but is of great complexity involving in all probability a consid- ‘ Read before the Boston Society of Natural History, February 12, 1909.