Darwin and Modern Science [103]
Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex" (1871). ("Descent of Man" (Popular Edition), page 927.) In the "General summary and conclusion" (chapter XXI.) he was able to say, with perfect justice: "He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to admit that the close resemblance of the embryo of man to that, for instance, of a dog--the construction of his skull, limbs, and whole frame on the same plan with that of other mammals, independently of the uses to which the parts may be put--the occasional reappearance of various structures, for instance of several muscles, which man does not normally possess, but which are common to the Quadrumana--and a crowd of analogous facts--all point in the plainest manner to the conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor."
These few lines of Darwin's have a greater scientific value than hundreds of those so-called "anthropological treatises," which give detailed descriptions of single organs, or mathematical tables with series of numbers and what are claimed to be "exact analyses," but are devoid of synoptic conclusions and a philosophical spirit.
Charles Darwin is not generally recognised as a great anthropologist, nor does the school of modern anthropologists regard him as a leading authority. In Germany, especially, the great majority of the members of the anthropological societies took up an attitude of hostility to him from the very beginning of the controversy in 1860. "The Descent of Man" was not merely rejected, but even the discussion of it was forbidden on the ground that it was "unscientific."
The centre of this inveterate hostility for thirty years--especially after 1877--was Rudolph Virchow of Berlin, the leading investigator in pathological anatomy, who did so much for the reform of medicine by his establishment of cellular pathology in 1858. As a prominent representative of "exact" or "descriptive" anthropology, and lacking a broad equipment in comparative anatomy and ontogeny, he was unable to accept the theory of descent. In earlier years, and especially during his splendid period of activity at Wurzburg (1848-1856), he had been a consistent free-thinker, and had in a number of able articles (collected in his "Gesammelte Abhandlungen") ("Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur wissenschaftlichen Medizin", Berlin, 1856.) upheld the unity of human nature, the inseparability of body and spirit. In later years at Berlin, where he was more occupied with political work and sociology (especially after 1866), he abandoned the positive monistic position for one of agnosticism and scepticism, and made concessions to the dualistic dogma of a spiritual world apart from the material frame.
In the course of a Scientific Congress at Munich in 1877 the conflict of these antithetic views of nature came into sharp relief. At this memorable Congress I had undertaken to deliver the first address (September 18th) on the subject of "Modern evolution in relation to the whole of science." I maintained that Darwin's theory not only solved the great problem of the origin of species, but that its implications, especially in regard to the nature of man, threw considerable light on the whole of science, and on anthropology in particular. The discovery of the real origin of man by evolution from a long series of mammal ancestors threw light on his place in nature in every aspect, as Huxley had already shown in his excellent lectures of 1863. Just as all the organs and tissues of the human body had originated from those of the nearest related mammals, certain ape-like forms, so we were bound to conclude that his mental qualities also had been derived from those of his extinct primate ancestor.
This monistic view of the origin and nature of man, which is now admitted by nearly all who have the requisite acquaintance with biology, and approach the subject without prejudice, encountered a sharp opposition
These few lines of Darwin's have a greater scientific value than hundreds of those so-called "anthropological treatises," which give detailed descriptions of single organs, or mathematical tables with series of numbers and what are claimed to be "exact analyses," but are devoid of synoptic conclusions and a philosophical spirit.
Charles Darwin is not generally recognised as a great anthropologist, nor does the school of modern anthropologists regard him as a leading authority. In Germany, especially, the great majority of the members of the anthropological societies took up an attitude of hostility to him from the very beginning of the controversy in 1860. "The Descent of Man" was not merely rejected, but even the discussion of it was forbidden on the ground that it was "unscientific."
The centre of this inveterate hostility for thirty years--especially after 1877--was Rudolph Virchow of Berlin, the leading investigator in pathological anatomy, who did so much for the reform of medicine by his establishment of cellular pathology in 1858. As a prominent representative of "exact" or "descriptive" anthropology, and lacking a broad equipment in comparative anatomy and ontogeny, he was unable to accept the theory of descent. In earlier years, and especially during his splendid period of activity at Wurzburg (1848-1856), he had been a consistent free-thinker, and had in a number of able articles (collected in his "Gesammelte Abhandlungen") ("Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur wissenschaftlichen Medizin", Berlin, 1856.) upheld the unity of human nature, the inseparability of body and spirit. In later years at Berlin, where he was more occupied with political work and sociology (especially after 1866), he abandoned the positive monistic position for one of agnosticism and scepticism, and made concessions to the dualistic dogma of a spiritual world apart from the material frame.
In the course of a Scientific Congress at Munich in 1877 the conflict of these antithetic views of nature came into sharp relief. At this memorable Congress I had undertaken to deliver the first address (September 18th) on the subject of "Modern evolution in relation to the whole of science." I maintained that Darwin's theory not only solved the great problem of the origin of species, but that its implications, especially in regard to the nature of man, threw considerable light on the whole of science, and on anthropology in particular. The discovery of the real origin of man by evolution from a long series of mammal ancestors threw light on his place in nature in every aspect, as Huxley had already shown in his excellent lectures of 1863. Just as all the organs and tissues of the human body had originated from those of the nearest related mammals, certain ape-like forms, so we were bound to conclude that his mental qualities also had been derived from those of his extinct primate ancestor.
This monistic view of the origin and nature of man, which is now admitted by nearly all who have the requisite acquaintance with biology, and approach the subject without prejudice, encountered a sharp opposition