But the question now arises, whether both Darwinism and Lamarckism must not be replaced, or at least reduced to the level of accessory theories and factors, by another theory of evolution which was in the field before Darwin, and which since his time has been advanced anew, especially by NÄgeli, and has now many adherents who support it in whole or in part. This view affects the very foundations of the Darwinian doctrine. The theory of “indefinite” variation, bringing about easy transitions and affecting every part of [pg 171] the organism separately, which is the necessary correlate of the “struggle for existence,” is rejected altogether. Evolution takes place only along a few definite lines, predetermined through the internal organisation and the laws of growth. It is wholly indifferent to “utility,” and brings forth only what it must according to its own inner laws, not seldom even the monstrous. According to this view, new species arise, not in easy transition, but with a visible leap, by a considerable and far-reaching displacement of the organic equilibrium. What Darwin calls the correlation of parts, and in no way denies, is here maintained in strong opposition to his doctrine of the isolated variation of individual parts; every member or character of the organism depends upon others, and variation of one affects many, and in some way all of the rest.

This theory is for the most part intended by its champions to be purely naturalistic. But every one of its points yields support to teleological considerations, most obviously so the concrete instances of correlation. If any one were to attempt to make a theory of evolution from a decidedly teleological standpoint, he would probably construct one very similar to the one we are now considering.

It is noteworthy that it has generally been the botanists who have especially supported these views of saltatory evolution in a definite direction and according to internal law, who have therefore tended to react most strongly from Darwinism. We find examples in NÄgeli's [pg 172] large and comprehensive work, “Mechanisch-physikalische Theorie der Abstammungslehre”; and, before him, in Wigand's “Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newton's und Cuvier's”; in von KÖlliker's “Heterogenesis”; in von Baer's “Endeavour after an End”; in the chapter added by the translator, Bronn, to the first German edition of the “Origin of Species,” where he urges weighty objections against the theory of selection, and refers to the “innate impulse to development, persistently varying in a definite direction”; in Askenasy's oft-quoted “BeitrÄge zur Kritik der Darwinschen Lehre,” also referring to “variation in a definite direction,” for instance, in flowers; in Delpino's views, and in the works of many other older writers. But we must leave all these out of account here, since we are concerned only with the present state of the question.