Darwinism to-day : a discussion of present-day scientific criticism of the Darwinian selection theories, together with a brief account of the principal other proposed auxiliary and alternative theories of species-forming / by Vernon L. Kellogg.
- Vernon Lyman Kellogg
- Date:
- 1907
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Darwinism to-day : a discussion of present-day scientific criticism of the Darwinian selection theories, together with a brief account of the principal other proposed auxiliary and alternative theories of species-forming / by Vernon L. Kellogg. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![ate way with Darwinism as the polemic vigour of the Ger- man and French anti-Darwinians leads them to suggest. Says one of them :5 “Darwinism now belongs to history, intemperate t^iat ot^er curiosity of our century, the anti-Darwin- Hegelian philosophy; both are variations on the theme: how one manages to lead a whole gen- eration by the nose.” The same writer also speaks of “the softening of the brain of the Darwinians.” Another one,* in similarly relegating Darwinism to the past, takes much pleas- ure in explaining that “we [anti-Darwinians] are now stand- ing by the death-bed of Darwinism, and making ready to send the friends of the patient a little money to insure a decent burial of the remains.” No less intemperate and in- decent is Wolff’s T reference to the “episode of Darwinism” and his suggestion that our attitude toward Darwin should be “as if he had never existed.” Such absurdity of ex- pression might pass unnoticed in the mouth of a violent non-scientific debater—let us say an indignant theologian of Darwin’s own days—but in the mouth of a biologist of recognised achievement, of thorough scientific training and unusually keen mind—for this expression came from just such a man—it can only be referred to as a deplorable example of those things that make the judicious to grieve. Such violence blunts or breaks one’s own weapons. While I have said that the coming across the water of the more vigorous anti-Darwinian utterances might cause some dismay and panic in the ranks of the educated reader— really unnecessary panic, as I hope to point out—it will doubtless occur to some of my readers to say that this fear of panic is unwarranted. If the first phrases to come are as injudicious and intemperate, hence as unconvincing, as those just cited, the whole anti-Darwinian movement will be discredited and given no attention. Which, I hasten to reply, will be as much of a mistake as panic would be. There is something very seriously to be heeded in the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28059190_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
