oblems and their weight in the religious realm which so fully harmonize
with the views of this first authority in the realm of the history of
development. I shall still have occasion here and there to avail myself of
a study of this latest and most important publication upon the question of
Darwinism, and shall confine myself here to the remark that von Baer,
although he rejects the selection theory and the superficial treatment of
the principle of evolution on the part of materialists, is by no means
disinclined to the idea of the origin of species through descent, whether
in gradual development or in leaps; and that in this respect he could no
longer be counted among the advocates of the group above referred to, but
among those which we mention farther on, had he not repeatedly and forcibly
confessed, with a modesty worthy of acknowledgment, his total ignorance
concerning the manner in which certain forms of life, especially the higher
ones, originated. The origin of higher species without the supposition of a
descent is to him unexplainable, because the individuals of these species
are, in their first development of life, so dependent on the mother.
Furthermore, he points out the fact that in early periods of the earth the
organic forming power which ruled, must have been a higher one than it is
at the present time; in like manner as the first period in the embryonic
development of individuals is to-day the most productive. This higher power
of organization, he says, could consist in a higher power of changing
organisms into new species, as well as in a higher power of producing new
species through primitive generation; or it could consist in both. In
general, there is no reason to suppose that primitive generations which
took place at the first origination of life on earth, could not have been
repeated later and oftener. The nearer a generation was to these
individuals originated through primitive generation, the greater was
undoubtedly its flexibility and changeableness; the farther, the greater
the fixity of type.

[4] After the completion this manuscript, the author found that K. E. von
Baer, in his treatise upon Darwin's doctrine, pays especial attention to
the change of generation and also to the metamorphosis of plants and
animals in exactly the same sense and reaches the same conclusion.

[5] Compare Max Mueller, "Lectures on the Science of Language," 6th ed.,
London, 1871, vol. I, p. 403.

[6] Compare v. Ba