The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-08-19

ago. IL does, lndeed, mutllaJe the
great tree, cutting off its roots and
it's highest branch; it rejects spon-
taneous generation or archigony at the
bottom, and the descent of man from
animal ancestors above. But these
exceptions will not last. Impartial
biology will take no notice Of them,
and the religious creed will at length
determine that the more complex spe-
cies have been evolved from a series
of simpler forms according to Darwin
ian principles. The belief in a super
natural creation is restricted to the
production of the earliest and simplest
stem.forms, from which the natural
Species have taken their origin; Was
mann gives that name to all species
that are demonstrably descended from
common stem-form; in other words,
to what other classifiers call stems"
or "phylaH The 1000 species of ants
in his system, which he believes to be
genetically related, are comprised by
him in one natural Species" On the
other hand, man forms one isolated
natural species" for himself, without
any connection with the other man.
mails.
The Jesuitical sophistry that Was
mann betrays in this ingenious dis
tinction between systematic and nat
ural species" is also found in his philo-
sophie Thoughts on Evolution" (chap.
viii), his distinction between philoso-
phic and scientific evolution, or be-
tween evolution in one stem and In
several stems. His remark in (chap.
viii on "the cell and spontaneous gem
GRAFTON" are similarly marred by So
phistry. The question of spontaneous
generation or archigony-that is to
say, of the first appearance Of organic
life on the earth, is one of the most
difficult problems in biology, one of
those in which the most distinguished
students betray striking weakness of
judgment. DR.. Heinrich Schmidt, of
Jena, has lately written an able and
popular little work on that subject.
In his Spontaneous Generation and
Prof. Reinke" (1903) he has shown
to what absurd consequences the &C.
clesiastical ideas lead on this very
question The botanist Reinke, of
Keil, is now regarded amongst re-
ligious people as the chief opponent
of Darwinism; for many conservatives
this is because he is member of the
Prussian Herrenhaus "a very intelli-
getn body, of courseD. Altho he is
a strong evangelical, many of his mys-
tic deduction agree surprisingly with
the catholic speculations of Father
Wasmann. This is especially the case
with regard to spontaneous genera
ton. They both declare that the first
j appearance of life must be traced to a
miracle, to the work of a personal
| deity, whom Reinke calls the "cosmic
| intelligence" l have shown the un
| scientific character of these notions in
my last two works, "The Riddle of the
Universe" and "The Wonders of s4ife'
| have drawn attention especially to
the widely distributed monera of the
! chromacea class-organisms of the
simplest type conceivable, whose
whole body is merely an unnucleated
green, structureless globule of plasm
! (Chroococcus); their whole vital &C
tivity consists of growth (by forming
plasm) and multiplication Thy divid
ing into two). There is little theoret
ical difficulty in conceiving the origin
of these new simple monera from in
organic compounds of aIbumen, or
their later transformation into the
simplest indicated cells. All this, and
a good deal more that will not fit in
his Jesuitical frame is shrewdly ig
nored by Wasmann.
Ito be continued.)