CHAPTER XX.

THE DIFFICULTY WITH WHICH THE “ORIGIN” WAS UNDERSTOOD (_continued_)--VIEWS ON SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.

The history of opinion on evolution and natural selection, in the years which followed the publication of the “Origin,” can be traced in the titles of the papers and subjects of discussion at successive meetings of the British Association. In the Presidential Address delivered by Professor Newton to the Biological Section of the Manchester meeting in 1887, there is a most interesting account of the struggles which took place:--

“The ever-memorable meeting ... at Oxford in the summer of 1860 saw the first open conflict between the professors of the new faith and the adherents of the old one. Far be it from me to blame those among the latter who honestly stuck to the creed in which they had educated themselves; but my admiration is for the few dauntless men who, without flinching from the unpopularity of their cause, flung themselves in the way of obloquy, and impetuously assaulted the ancient citadel in which the sanctity of ‘species’ was enshrined and worshipped as a palladium. However strongly I myself sympathised with them, I cannot fairly state that the conflict on this occasion was otherwise than a drawn battle; and thus matters stood when in the following year the Association met in this city [Manchester]. That, as I have already said, was a time of ‘slack water.’ But though the ancient beliefs were not much troubled, it was for the last time that they could be said to prevail; and thus I look upon our meeting in Manchester 1861 as a crisis in the history of biology. All the same, the ancient beliefs were not allowed to pass wholly unchallenged; and one thing is especially to be marked--they were challenged by one who was no naturalist at all, by one who was a severe thinker no less than an active worker; one who was generally right in his logic, and never wrong in his instinct; one who, though a politician, was invariably an honest man--I mean the late Professor Fawcett. On this occasion he brought the clearness of his mental vision to bear upon Mr. Darwin’s theory, with the result that Mr. Darwin’s method of investigation was shewn to be strictly in accordance with the rules of deductive philosophy, and to throw light where all was dark before.”

Professor Newton specially alluded to this interesting case of Professor Fawcett as illustrating his conviction that the theory of natural selection--

“did not, except in one small point, require a naturalist to think it out and establish its truth.... But in order to see the effect of this principle upon organic life the knowledge--the peculiar knowledge--of the naturalist was required. This was the knowledge of those slight variations which are found in all groups of animals and plants.... Herein lay the triumph of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace. That triumph, however, was not celebrated at Manchester. The question was of such magnitude as to need another year’s incubation, and the crucial struggle came a twelvemonth later when the Association met at Cambridge. The victory of the new doctrine was then declared in a way that none could doubt. I have no inclination to join in the pursuit of the fugitives.”

There is reason to believe that Professor Newton’s impressions of the result of the celebrated meeting of the British Association at Oxford in 1860 are more accurate than those of the eyewitness quoted in the “Life and Letters.” The latter has pictured a brilliant triumph for Huxley in the renowned duel with the Bishop of Oxford. But I have been told by more than one of the audience that Huxley was really too angry to speak effectively, nor is this to be wondered at, considering the extreme provocation. Mr. William Sidgwick, who was present and sympathised warmly with Huxley, has told me that this was his opinion. I have heard the same from the Rev. W. Tuckwell, who also quoted a remark of the late Professor Rolleston tending in the same direction. Mr. Tuckwell said that it was clear that the audience as a whole was not carried away by Huxley’s speech, but, on the contrary, was obviously shocked at it; and he contrasted that occasion with another at which he was also present, in the North, several years later, when Huxley replied to an opponent who, like the bishop, appealed to the theological prejudices of his hearers. But by that time the new teachings had been absorbed, and Huxley gained a signal triumph.

[Sidenote: OPPOSITION.]

It must not be supposed that Darwin was by any means indifferent to the attacks on his views. On the contrary, his sensitive nature was greatly depressed by the violent and often most unfair criticisms to which he was subjected, although beneath this evident disturbance lay the firm conviction that he had seen the truth, and that the truth would in the end be seen by others.

After the great fight with the bishop at the British Association at Oxford, he wrote to Hooker (July 2nd, 1860):--

“I have read lately so many hostile views, that I was beginning to think that perhaps I was wholly in the wrong, and that ---- was right when he said the whole subject would be forgotten in ten years; but now that I hear that you and Huxley will fight publicly (which I am sure I never could do), I fully believe that our cause will, in the long-run, prevail.”

Looking at the history of opinion on this subject, the slowness with which the new ideas were absorbed appears remarkable. Even so able a man as the late Professor Rolleston wrote in 1870 (“Forms of Animal Life,” Introduction, p. xxv., First Edition) the following carefully guarded sentences, which, it is to be noted, deal with evolution rather than natural selection. Speaking of “the theory of evolution with which Mr. Darwin’s name is connected,” Rolleston says:--

“Many of the peculiarities which attach to biological classifications would thus receive a reasonable explanation; but where verification is, _ex hypothesi_, impossible, such a theory cannot be held to be advanced out of the region of probability. The acceptance or rejection of the general theory will depend, as does the acceptance or rejection of other views supported merely by probable evidence, upon the particular constitution of each individual mind to which it is presented!”

It was too much to expect that many of the older scientific men would retain sufficient intellectual flexibility to be able to recognise, as Lyell had, that the facts of nature were explained and predicted better by the new views than by those in which they had grown up. Darwin thoroughly understood this, and, writing to his friends, maintained that the fate of his views was in the hands of the younger men.

A grand yet simple conception like that of natural selection, explaining and connecting together innumerable facts which people had previously explained differently, or had become accustomed to regard as inexplicable, must always remain as a stumbling-block to the majority of those who have reached or passed middle life before its first appearance.

Hardly anything is more characteristic of Darwin than the tone with which he wrote to acknowledged opponents. Thus his letters to L. Agassiz (1868), Quatrefages (1869 or 1870), and Fabre (1880), are models of the way in which a correspondence which would present peculiar difficulties to most people may be conducted. In these letters there is not the least attempt to slur over or minimise the points of wide difference; on the contrary, they are most candidly stated, but with so much respect and sympathy, and with such marked appreciation of the knowledge he had gained from his correspondent, that the reader must have regretted the divergence of opinion as greatly as the writer.

Tyndall has given a very interesting and pathetic account of the evident distress with which Professor L. Agassiz, chief of the opponents of Darwin in America, recognised the success of the teachings he could not accept.

“Sprung from a race of theologians, this celebrated man combated to the last the theory of natural selection. One of the many times I had the pleasure of meeting him in the United States was at Mr. Winthrop’s beautiful residence at Brookline, near Boston. Rising from luncheon, we all halted, as if by a common impulse in front of a window, and continued there a discussion which had been started at table. The maple was in its autumn glory; and the exquisite beauty of the scene outside seemed, in my case, to interpenetrate without disturbance the intellectual action. Earnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz turned and said to the gentlemen standing round, ‘I confess that I was not prepared to see this theory received as it has been by the best intellects of our time. Its success is greater than I could have thought possible.’”[J]

The history of science can hardly supply anything more sad than the blight which may fall on a man’s career because he is unable, from conscientious motives, to use some great means of advance. Such a weapon for the progress of science was provided by the Darwinian theory, and men were to be henceforth divided according to their use or neglect of the new opportunities. Men who up to that time had been equals were to be for ever separated, some to press forward in the front rank of scientific discovery, others to remain as interesting relics of a byegone age.

It is hardly necessary to say that this does not apply to men, like Agassiz, who had already left their mark deep upon the science of their day, but it has a very real application to those men whose position was to be estimated by work done after the year 1858.

In the midst of those years of struggle and anxiety which followed the appearance of the “Origin,” we meet with another instance of the same extraordinary foresight which appeared in his contention in favour of the persistence of the great oceans and continental areas. I refer to his views on spontaneous generation--a very ancient belief, and one which from time to time has been the will-o’-the-wisp of biological speculation, leading it into all kinds of fruitless and dangerous regions.[K]

Dr. Carpenter’s “Introduction to the Study of Foraminifera” had been reviewed in the _Athenæum_ (March 28th, 1863), the writer attacking evolution and favouring spontaneous generation, or, as it was then called, heterogeny. Darwin wrote to Hooker, who had lent him a copy of the paper, “Who would have ever thought of the old stupid _Athenæum_ taking to Oken-like transcendental philosophy written in Owenian style!... It will be some time before we see ‘slime, protoplasm, etc.,’ generating a new animal.... It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.” In 1871 he wrote:--

“It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.”

About 1870 Dr. H. C. Bastian began working on the subject, and brought forward in his “Origin of Lowest Organisms” (1871), and “The Beginnings of Life” (1872), what he believed to be conclusive evidence of the truth of spontaneous generation, for which he proposed the term Archebiosis. His enthusiasm and strong convictions were contagious, and for a time the belief spread rather widely, although it soon collapsed before the researches and arguments of Pasteur, Tyndall, and Huxley. Darwin read “The Beginnings of Life,” and wrote about it to Wallace (August 28th, 1872) as follows:--

“His [Bastian’s] general argument in favour of Archebiosis is wonderfully strong, though I cannot think much of some few of his arguments. The result is that I am bewildered and astonished by his statements, but am not convinced, though, on the whole, it seems to me probable that Archebiosis is true. I am not convinced, partly I think owing to the deductive cast of much of his reasoning; and I know not why, but I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer’s writings.... I must have more evidence that germs, or the minutest fragments of the lowest forms, are always killed by 212° of Fahr.... As for Rotifers and Tardigrades being spontaneously generated, my mind can no more digest such statements, whether true or false, than my stomach can digest a lump of lead.”