page_title: Orthogenesis
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Orthogenesis / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Leiter des Auf- und Abstiegs Holzschnitt, aus: Raimundus Lullus, De ascensu et descensu intellectus, Valencia, 1512. Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen, 8 PHIL II, 73 English: Ramon Lull's Ladder of Ascent and Descent of the Mind, first printed in 1305
context_page_description: Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is the biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal due to some internal mechanism or "driving force". According to the theory, the largest-scale trends in evolution have an absolute goal such as increasing biological complexity. Prominent historical figures who have championed some form of evolutionary progress include Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Henri Bergson.
  The term orthogenesis was introduced by Wilhelm Haacke in 1893 and popularized by Theodor Eimer five years later. Proponents of orthogenesis had rejected the theory of natural selection as the organizing mechanism in evolution for a rectilinear model of directed evolution. With the emergence of the modern synthesis, in which genetics was integrated with evolution, orthogenesis and other alternatives to Darwinism were largely abandoned by biologists, but the notion that evolution represents progress is still widely shared.
caption: The mediaeval great chain of being as a staircase, implying the possibility of progress:[17] Ramon Lull's Ladder of Ascent and Descent of the Mind, 1305
exif: {}