On Germinal Selection as a Source of Definite Variation. Weismann August
theory, on the basis of which we can propound new questions, which will give rise in turn to new facts, and thus will exercise a retroactive influence on the theory, improving and transforming it.
This is precisely what I have sought to accomplish by my theory of Germ-plasm, as I stated in the Preface to the book bearing that name. It was never intended as a theory of life, nor, indeed, primarily, as a theory of evolution, but first and above all as a theory of heredity. I cannot understand, therefore, the animadversion, that my theory in no way furthers our insight into the mechanics of development. That is not its purpose; in fact, it takes the ultimate physical and chemical processes which make up the vital processes for granted; and inevitably it is constrained to do so. Its aim is to put into our hands a serviceable formula by means of which we can go on working in the field of heredity at any rate, and, if I am not mistaken, also in that of evolution. To me, at least, the newest results of developmental mechanics do not seem so widely at variance with the theory of determinants as might appear at first sight; so far as I can see, they can be quite readily made to harmonise with the theory, provided only the initial stage of the disintegration of the germ-plasm in the determinant groups be not invariably placed at the beginning of the process of segmentation, but be transferred according to circumstances to a subsequent period. The exact state of things cannot as yet be determined, so long as the mass of facts is still in constant flux.
In any event I still hold fast to the hope which I expressed in the Preface to my Germ-plasm, that despite the unavoidable uncertainties in its foundation my theory would yet prove more than a mere work of imagination, and that the future would find in it some durable points which would outlive the mutations of opinion. It is possible that one of these durable gains is my much impugned idea of determinants, and in fact not only will the present essay be made to rest on this idea, but it will also defend it on new grounds, although primarily only as a representation of something which we do not as yet exactly know, but which still exists and on which we can reckon, leaving it to the future to decide the greater or less resemblance of our hypothetical construct to nature.
The real aim of the present essay is to rehabilitate the principle of selection. If I should succeed in reinstating this principle in its emperilled rights, it would be a source of extreme satisfaction to me; for I am so thoroughly convinced of its indispensability as to believe that its demolition would be synonymous with the renunciation of all inquiry concerning the causal relation of vital phenomena. If we could understand the adaptations of nature, whose number is infinite, only upon the assumption of a teleological principle, then, I think, there would be little inducement to trouble ourselves about the causal connexion of the stages of ontogenesis, for no good reason would exist for excluding teleological principles from this field. Their introduction, however, means the ruin of science.
August Weismann.
Freiburg, Nov. 18, 1895.
GERMINAL SELECTION
Numerous and varied are the objections that have been advanced against the theory of selection since it was first enunciated by Darwin and Wallace—from the unreasoning strictures of Richard Owen and the acute and thoughtful criticisms of Albert Wigand and Nägeli to the opposition of our own day, which contends that selection cannot create but only reject, and which fails to see that precisely through this rejection its creative efficacy is asserted. The champions of this view are for discovering the motive forces of evolution in the laws that govern organisms—as if the norm according to which an event happens were the event itself, as if the rails which determine the direction of a train could supplant the locomotive. Of course, from every form of life there proceeds only a definite, though extremely large, number of tracks, the possible variations, whilst between them lie stretches without tracks, the impossible variations, on which locomotion is impossible. But the actual travelling of a track is not performed by the track, but by the locomotive, and on the other hand, the choice of a track, the decision whether the destination of the train shall be Berlin or Paris, is not made by the locomotive, the cause of the variation, but by the driver of the locomotive, who directs the engine on the right track. In the theory of selection the engine-driver is represented by utility, for with utility rests the decision as to what particular variational track shall be travelled. The cogency, the irresistible cogency, as I take it, of the principle of selection is precisely its capacity of explaining why fit structures always arise, and that certainly is the great problem of life. Not the fact of change, but the manner of the change, whereby all things are maintained capable of life and existence, is the pressing question.
It is, therefore, a very remarkable fact, and one deserving of consideration, that to-day (1895), after science has been in possession of this principle for something over thirty years and during this time has steadily and zealously busied itself with its critical elaboration and with the exact determination of its scope, that now the estimation in which it is held should apparently be on the decrease. It would be easy to enumerate a long list of living writers who assign to it a subordinate part only in evolution, or none at all. One of our youngest biologists speaks without ado of the "pretensions of the refuted Darwinian theory, so called,"5 and one of the oldest and most talented inquirers of our time, a pioneer in the theory of evolution, who, unfortunately, is now gone to his rest, Thomas Huxley, implicitly yet distinctly intimated a doubt regarding the principle of selection when he said: "Even if the Darwinian hypothesis were swept away, evolution would still stand where it is." Therefore, he, too, regarded it as not impossible that this hypothesis should disappear from among the great explanatory principles by which we seek to approach nearer to the secrets of nature.
I am not of that opinion. I see in the growth of doubts regarding the principle of selection and in the pronounced and frequently bitter opposition which it encounters, a transient depression only of the wave of opinion, in which every scientific theory must descend after having been exalted, here perhaps with undue swiftness, to the highest pitch of recognition. It is the natural reaction from its overestimation, which is now followed by an equally exaggerated underestimation. The principle of selection was not overrated in the sense of ascribing to it too much explanatory efficacy, or of extending too far its sphere of operation, but in the sense that naturalists imagined that they perfectly understood its ways of working and had a distinct comprehension of its factors, which was not so. On the contrary, the deeper they penetrated into its workings the clearer it appeared that something was lacking, that the action of the principle, though upon the whole clear and representable, yet when carefully looked into encountered numerous difficulties, which were formidable, for the reason that we were unsuccessful in tracing out the actual details of the individual process, and, therefore, in fixing the phenomenon as it actually occurred. We can state in no single case how great a variation must be to have selective value, nor how frequently it must occur to acquire stability. We do not know when and whether a desired useful variation really occurs, nor on what its appearance depends; and we have no means of ascertaining the space of time required for the fulfilment of the selective processes of nature, and hence cannot calculate the exact number of such processes that do and can take place at the same time in the same species. Yet all this is necessary if we wish to follow out the precise details of a given case.
But perhaps the most discouraging circumstance of all is, that in scarcely a single actual instance in nature can we assert whether an observed variation is useful or not—a drawback that I distinctly pointed out some time ago.6 Nor is there much hope of betterment in this respect, for think how impossible it would be for us to observe all the individuals of a species in all their acts of life, be their habitat ever so limited—and to observe all this with a precision enabling us to say that this or that variation possessed selective value, that is, was a decisive factor in determining the existence of the species.
In many cases we can reach at least a probable inference, and say, for example, that the great fecundity of the frog is a property having selective value, basing our inference on the observation that in spite of this fertility the frogs of a given district do not increase.
But even such inferences offer only a modicum of certainty. For who can say precisely how large this number is? Or whether it is on the increase or on the decrease? And besides, the exact degree of the fecundity of these animals is far from being known. Rigorously viewed,
Hans Driesch,