. The physiology of the Invertebrata. exist in the animal kingdom. The life-cycles of the lowest as well as the highest animals repeatthemselves according to a well-known law. To one whohas fully comprehended the meaning and the operation ofthe Darwinian law, it will be at once apparent that theremust be error somewhere in the matter of can Bacillus subtilis be transformed into Bacillusanthracis;] or an amoeba into a gregarina by the experi-mentalist? If the law of actual variation, says , with all that is involved in the survival ofthe fittest, could he so readily
. The physiology of the Invertebrata. exist in the animal kingdom. The life-cycles of the lowest as well as the highest animals repeatthemselves according to a well-known law. To one whohas fully comprehended the meaning and the operation ofthe Darwinian law, it will be at once apparent that theremust be error somewhere in the matter of can Bacillus subtilis be transformed into Bacillusanthracis;] or an amoeba into a gregarina by the experi-mentalist? If the law of actual variation, says , with all that is involved in the survival ofthe fittest, could he so readily hrought into complete opera-tion, and yield so pronounced a result, where would be the * In some of the Tkmicata, the development of the embryo takes placewithin the parent, and there is a placenta. See also Giards papers inRevue Scientifique, 1874; Comptes Bendus, 1874-5! Archives de ZoologieExpirimentah, 1872. + See Dr. GriflBths book: Beaearches on Micro-Organisms, p. 41(Baillifere & Co.). 454 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE oo PHYSIOLOGY OF THE INVERTEBRATA. 4S5 stability of the organic world? Nothing would be at onestay. There could be no permanence in anything living. Thephilosophy of modem biology is that the most complex formsof living creatures have derived their splendid complexityand adaptations from the slow and majestically progressivevariation and survival from the simpler and the simplest , then, the simplest forms of the present and the past werenot governed by accurate and unchanging laws of life, howdid the rigid certainties that manifestly and admittedlygovern the more complex and the most complex come intoplay ? If our modern philosophy of biology be, as we knowit is, true, then it must be very strong evidence indeed, thatwould lead us to conclude that the laws seen to be universalbreak down, and cease accurately to operate, where theobjects become microscopic,* and our knowledge of them isby no means full, exhaustive, and clear. Moreover, lookedat
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectinverte, bookyear1892
