The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-03-14
The Challenge to the World.

The story of the publication to the
world of the theory now known as
Darwinism is one of the finest In the
annals of science. Everyone knows
how in 1858 Darwin received from his
friend Alfred Russell Wallace, who
for four years had been studying
zoology in the Malay islands, an es-
say stOn the tendency of varieties to
depart indefinitely from the original
type Conceive of Darwin s emo
tions; here were discoveries of the first
Importance which he himself had made
more than fourteen years before, and
had held back for the final proof which
ill-health delayed. With beautiful gen.
crosby, he proposed to publish his
friends paper and withhold his own.
This self -abnegation his friends Lyell
and Hooker prevented; instead, by an
equitable compromise Wallaee's essay
was presented at the Linnaean society,
and with it extracts from sketch
written by Darwin in 1914 and a letter
written to Asa Gray in 1847. Has any
scientific body ever had a more fruitful
session. And in the following year
appeared Darwin s long-delayed mag
mum opus. sThe Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favored Races in the
Struggle for Life The great scien-
list was fifty; he was beginning to
gather in the sheaves.
The Triumph of Darwinism.
There are still irreconcilable con-
servatives who stir hopefully now and
then at the news that Darwinism has
been exploded. - But the details of
the great victory are always disap-
pointing. What it comes to is a skir-
mish between forces all of which march
under Darwin IS fiag-the anti Darwin
ians no less than the others. We are
all evolutionists nowadays. Some of
us take our Darwin straight. Others
swerve off toward Lamarck and his
extreme followers and lay more stress
on environment than on natural selec
ton. Let us call this the right wing;
on the left are the ultra Darwinians
whose present leader is Weismann, and
who deny that environment can iniu
ence evolution or that acquired traits
can be transmitted. In Europe, though
Haeckel holds stoutly to the center,
Weismannism is paramount; in this
country the Lamarekian theory is
much more firmly rooted. There is an
attractive simplicity in believing that
the giraffe got its long neck by stretch
ing upward, and the hope of improv-
ing the race by desirable acquired
qualities makes for optimism That
battle still RACES, one side yielding at
this point, the other lat that. But
right, left, or center, all are Darwin
ians, just as orthodox Greeks Protest
ants and Catholics are all Christians
There is no escaping Darwinism in
these days. 1t is not only in science
that il has remodeled thought; il. has
affected literature. art, criticism.
ethics. social thought. 1t has produced
the novel of environment, the criticism,
of Tame and Brunetiere; it is pointed
ont as new excellence of George
Eliot that she reveals the ssevoIu.
ton of character while previous
novelists had shown it statically. The
| gospel of socialism rests on evolution.
In ethics a perverted Interpretation
| based on Spencer S misleading phrase.
sethe survival of the fittest, has been
used to defend war, imperialism and
| the aggressions Of trusts and unscrupu-
i lous finaneiers. The catehwords of
evolution have beeom the iargon Of
| the street; its doctrines touch life at
every point, and their potency will in
crease with the years. However Oar
win may rank among the world s great
men his Influence has heen a1oas4 =,