Cambridge University Press The British Society For The History of Science

The British Society for the History of Science
The Metaphysics of Evolution

Author(s): David L. Hull
Source: The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Dec., 1967), pp. 309-337
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British Society for the History of
Science
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THE
METAPHYSICS
OF EVOLUTION*
By DAVID L. HULL
EXTREME variation in the meaning of the term "species" throughout the
history of biology has often frustrated attempts of historians, philosophers
and biologists to communicate with one another about the transition in
biological thinking from the static species concept to the modern notion of
evolving species. The most important change which has underlain all the
other fluctuations in the meaning of the word "species" is the change from
it denoting such metaphysical entities' as essences, Forms or Natures to
denoting classes of individual organisms. Several authors have taken notice
of the role of metaphysics in the work of particular biologists.2 An attempt
will be made in this paper to present a systematic investigation of the role
which metaphysics has played in the work of representative biologists
throughout the history of biology, especially as it relates to their species
concepts.
That biologists through the years have held radically different species
concepts is evident from the different natural phenomena which each has
thought consistent with his concept. For example, Aristotle's belief in the
immutability of species was completely consonant with his belief in
extensive interspecific hybridization, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the failure of plants to breed true from seed, and spontaneous
generation; whereas the occurrence of such phenomena was incompatible
* I wish to thank Ernst Mayr for criticizing an early draught of this paper and Yukio Kachi
for his assistance in checking the translations of certain Greek passages. Early versions of this
paper were read before the Philosophy Department of the University of Texas and the
palaeozoologists at the University of Chicago. Their comments and criticisms were also much
appreciated.
I Throughout this paper I will be talking about "metaphysics" and "metaphysical entities".
By "metaphysics" I mean the study of the basic kinds of entities which one has to postulate to
explain everything that exists, what their nature is, why the postulation of their existence is
necessary, and so on. This is "metaphysics" in the good sense. But because so many of the
entities which philosophers have postulated have gradually lost whatever empirical content they
might have had at one time, the term "metaphysics", especially "metaphysical entity", has
taken on a bad connotation. By "metaphysical entity" I mean any entity postulated as one of
the basic constituents of the world but which turns out to have no empirical content. The identifying of a genuine metaphysical entity is not always easy, especially when the system of which it is
part is first being formulated. Hertz's hidden bodies and Wittgenstein's objects are obvious cases
of metaphysical entities. As it turns out, so are Aristotle's essences. But who could have predicted
that aether and caloric would go the way of metaphysical entities, whereas electrons and genes
would retain their status as theoretical entities. The difference is not between those that turn
out to exist and those that do not but between those that retain characteristics by which their
existence or non-existence could be determined by observation, no matter how indirect, and those
that do not.
2 Several biologists have been treated separately, for example, Ernst Mayr's excellent
paper,
I65-194. See also several
"Agassiz, Darwin and Evolution", HarvardLibraryBulletin, xiii (I959),
of Darwin:
papers in Bentley Glass, Owsei Temkin and William L. Straus, Jr. (eds.), Forerunners
1745-I859 (Baltimore, 1959). Arthur 0. Lovejoy treats the effect on biology of the Great Chain
of Being and the Principle of Plenitude exhaustively in his The GreatChainof Being (Cambridge,
Mass., I936).
THE BRITISH JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE VOL. 3 NO.
I2
(I967)

3IO
DAVID
L.
HULL
with the species concepts of most biologists after the seventeenth century,
whether these biologists believed in static or evolving species.
The general purpose of this paper will be to explain the close
connection which has always existed between metaphysics and the theory
of evolution. To explain, for example, why evolution in the modern sense
seemed inconceivable to essentialists and neoplatonists but perfectly
plausible to nominalists.3 More specifically, the purpose of this paper will
be to trace the transition from the static species concept of Plato and
Aristotle to the static species concept of such seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury biologists as Ray, Linnaeus and Cuvier and from these notions to
the disparate evolutionary concepts of species espoused by Buffon, Lamarck
and Darwin. Many of the ideas which modern readers find most incomprehensible in the works of early biologists appear not in the least bizarre
when viewed against the background of the tacitly-held metaphysics of
these men. To discuss these issues a few preliminary remarks must be made
about the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle.
Essencesand Forms
The Greek correlate to the English word "species" was a term of very
broad significance in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.4 Not only
were there species of plant and animal but also there were species of rock,
goodness and triangularity. Everything was divided into species or natural
kinds. "Species" was also a relative term when used in conjunction with
"genus". For example, the ruminants were a species of the genus hairy
quadrupeds, and the hairy quadrupeds were a species of the genus blooded
animals. But the most important aspect of the ancient species concept was
that not all classes were species. For example, neither the class of things
bigger than a breadbox nor the class of red-haired fifth-formers would
have been considered species. In order for a species to be a species, it had
to have an essence or a Form. In fact, for Plato and Aristotle and for
centuries of philosophers to follow, species names referred primarily to
these metaphysical entities and not simply to classes of things. It was these
metaphysical entities which were really real. One of the most important
3 The disparity between the essentialist view of species and that of a Darwinian evolutionist
can be seen clearly in the following quotation from H. W. B. Joseph, An Introductionto Logic
(London, I 9 I 6), 28.
"Biologists do not seem always to have asked themselves which they mean when they write
about evolution. Do individual men evolve, or is it the human nature which is displayed in them
all? and if the latter, and men are descended from animals whose nature was not human nature,
what is the relation of the two, or are human nature and pithecanthropous nature the same
common nature? and if so, are there many species or only one?"
The difficulty is with Aristotelian metaphysics. Neither individuals nor natures evolve. Whole
classes of organisms change during successive generations to such an extent that members of
early generations are no longer classed in the same species with their later progeny.
4 These characterizations of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle are, of course, extremely
simplified but I hope not to the point of falsification. Similarly, there are several interpretations
of the philosophies of these two men. I have chosen the traditional interpretation to describe in
each case because these were the doctrines that affected biologists.

The AlIetaphysicsof Evolution
3 II
transitions in Western philosophy was the shift from such things as essences
and Forms being the basic constituents of the world to the objects of
experience being the basic constituents. This shift was reflected in the
word "species" in biology, but with a considerable time-lag.5
According to the traditional interpretation of Plato's philosophy,
universals such as man, goodness and triangularity existed in a realm
separate from and independent of the realm of appearances. The name
"Flicka" referred to an individual horse. The word "horse" referred to the
Idea or Form horse in the separate, eternal and unchanging realm of
Ideas. Individual horses might come and go but the Idea of horse was
immutable. Hence, science rightfully dealt with the Idea horse, not with
individual horses or even classes of horses in the world of appearances. It
was these immutable Forms, his eide, which Plato termed "species".
The situation in the case of Aristotle is complicated by his more
complex (and perhaps even inconsistent) terminology. Although he used
the term eidos, his more fundamental term was ousia, translated into Latin
as substantiaand into English as substance. Aristotle distinguished between
two senses of ousia or substance. Primary substance was the individual
thing, the logical subject about which assertions could be made. Secondary
substance was the essence of the thing. The situation is even further
complicated by the fact that Aristotle also used half a dozen terms and
phrases which can also be translated as "essence". According to one of the
oldest traditions, Aristotle's metaphysics is much like that of Plato, except
that essences, the Aristotelian correlate of Forms, are not separate and
independent of the realm of appearances but are somehow "in" individual
things. Aristotelian essences like Platonic Forms are immutable.
Hence, whenever Plato or Aristotle claimed that species were
immutable, it was primarily to the immutability of these Forms and
essences that he was referring and not to individual organisms or even
classes of organisms. In turn the immutability of essences and Forms was
the metaphysical justification for claiming that species as classes of
5 It is the failure to appreciate the metaphysical referent of "species" which robs a muchcited paper by Conway Zirkle of much of its explanatory value, "Species before Darwin",
Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., ciii (I959), 638. Although Zirkle is aware of the danger of inferring the
meaning of a term from its etymology, he says:
"The first scholars who used the word 'species' wrote in Latin and, when they switched to
their vemaculars, they carried the Latin word with them. Thus, the word 'species' in our
modern languages is only a bit of naturalized Latin. 'Species' comes from 'specere' meaning to
look at, to behold. The species of an object then are merely its appearances, not its inward
essence. Thus the word used to label the concept introduced an uncertainty principle into the
concept itself because, from the very earliest times, appearances proverbially have been deceitful.
"The word 'species' also was used within the framework of the dualistic philosophy that
dominated both classical and Christian thinking. In this setting, the appearances of an objectits species-seemed superficial, and the appearances were contrasted routinely with some inner
reality-with some inner Platonic ideal. Thus, if species tumed out to be ephemeral, if they
changed erratically into other species, it really meant very little. It was only to be expected.
Naturally, in such a setting all species took on some of the qualities of the specious."
On the contrary, just because appearances were thought to be deceitful, philosophers had as the
primary object of the word "species" the inner essence or Form and not the fleeting appearances.

3I2
DAVID L. HULL
organisms were on a whole static. But the word "species" was also supposed
to have some empirical import. There was also some empirical justification
for the claim that species were static.6 It is to the empirical connotations of
"species" in the biological works ofAristotle and his successor Theophrastus
(370-285 B.C.) that we now turn. For the purpose of this paper Plato's
philosophy can be ignored until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
when it emerges as neoplatonism in the works of such biologists as Buffon
and Cuvier.
Breeding True
In the case of living organisms, not only did they have certain
essences, their offspring in general also had the same essence; that is,
organisms tended to breed true to type. That living species tended to
breed true to type both suggested the idea of static species and was its
strongest justification. For example, Aristotle says :7
cc... any living thing that has reached its normal development and which is
unmutilated, and whose mode of generation is not spontaneous, the most
natural act is the production of another like itself, an animal producing an
animal, a plant a plant, in order that, as far as its nature allows, it may partake
in the eternal and divine. That is the goal towards which all things strive, that
for the sake of which they do whatsoever their nature renders possible."
This paragraph is notable for what it does not say: it does not say that
offspring are always of the same species as their parents. In the case of
those species whose members generate spontaneously, this neverhappens,
and even in the case of those species whose members reproduce by pairing,
the production of another like itself is only the most naturalact. Individuals
of such species might on occasion do some very unnatural things. Thus,
when Everett W. Hall says that "the doctrine of the fixity of species went
back to Aristotle, who held that offspring were always of the same species
as their parents",8 he is confusing the seventeenth- and the eighteenthcentury doctrine of the fixity of species with that of Aristotle.
As Conway Zirkle has pointed out, Aristotle believed in interspecific
hybridization, the inheritance of acquired characters, and plants not
breeding true from seed.9 For example, Aristotle says that in extreme
circumstances if members of two diverse species are of the same size and
6 Because of a prejudice against change that has permeated Western thought, many scientists
assumed, unlike Galileo, that remaining at rest needed no explanation but beginning to move or
continuing to move did. This prejudice was reflected in biology by the assumption that no
mechanism had to be provided for species being static but a very powerful mechanism had to be
provided for any claim that species evolved. Biologists now realize that a species not evolving for
long periods of time stands just as much in need of explanation as a species evolving in that
period of time.
7 Aristotle, De Anima,415a26. All Aristotle citations are from the W. D. Ross edition.
8 Everett W. Hall, "The Scientific Revolution in Biology", reprinted in Edward H.
Madden (ed.), The Structureof Scientific7hought (Boston, Ig6o), 123.
9 Zirkle, op. cit. (5), 640, 637, 639.

The Metaphysics
of Evolution
3I3
have gestation periods of the same length, they may pair and produce
fertile offspring. These offspring in turn will be of still a third species.Io
The Laconian hound was the product of a fox and a dog and the Indian
dog the issue of a male tiger and a female dog." Aristotle also gives two
examples of characters acquired during one's lifetime being passed on to
future generations. In one place he says that "a certain man had a mark
on his arm which his son did not possess, but his grandson had it in the
same spot though not very distinct", and in a second place he says that
there was "a case at Chalcedon where the father had a brand on his arm
and the letter was marked on the child, only confused and not clearly
articulated"."z Although Aristotle does give these two examples, the
inheritance of acquired characters is of no importance to his biology.
Finally, both Aristotle and Theophrastusbelieved that plants did not
always breed true from seed. In some cases, especially among cultivated
plants, the seeds of one species when planted never gave rise to individuals
of that species but always degenerated, that is, gave rise to individuals of
another species, generally of a wild kind. If a farmer wished to propagate
the members of such species so that they remained true to type, he had to
do so vegetatively. It was also thought possible that seeds of plants which
usually bred true could be made to produce individuals of another species
by such mechanical means as bruising or by planting them in unusual
habitats. For example, Theophrastus says that the seeds of one-seeded
wheat and rice-wheat could be made to sprout the more useful kind in the
third generation if bruised before sewing, and he reports an improvement
in taste and the loss of seeds in the fruit of pomegranates when planted
about Soli in Cilicia.I3 Theophrastus did not assent to all such changes,
however. In one place he warns, "Some say that wheat has been known to
be produced from barley, and barley from wheat, or again both growing
in the same stool; but these accounts should be taken as fabulous."I4
All of the preceding phenomena have been grouped together for two
reasons. First, the individuals concerned belong to species whose members
usually breed true to type. They are capable of the most natural act, the
production of another like themselves, if in some cases only vegetatively.
In the case of most higher animals and a few of the lowest, this was by
pairing, sometimes with the interposition of an egg, sometimes not. In the
case of plants, the natural mode of reproductionwas thought to be by the
10
Aristotle, De Generatione
Animalium,747a25.
Aristotle, Historia Animalium,607aI.
12 Ibid., 585b33 and Aristotle, op. cit. (IO), 721b33.
Zirkle condenses these two examples
into one, op. cit. (5), 637.
I3 Theophrastus, Enquiryinto Plants, II, iv, I and Causesof Plants, I, ix, 2. All citations from
Theophrastus will be from Sir Arthur Hort's translation of the Enquiryinto Plants (Cambridge,
I 9 I 6) and R. E. Dengler's translation of the first book of the Causesof Plants (Philadelphia, 1927) .
There is no English translation of the remainder of the Causes,although several Latin versions
are easily available; e.g. Fredericus Wimmer, TheophrastiErestii Opera(Paris, i866).
'4 Ibid., Enquiry,II, ii, 9; see also Enquiry,VIII, viii, 2.
II

DAVID
3I4
L.
HULL
production of seed but without pairing.I5 Second, although in the cases

cited, the parent individualsfailed to reproducetheir kind, the mechanisms
involved were the usual ones. The tiger and the dog paired, but they were
of two different species. The pomegranate, one-seeded wheat and ricewheat all produced their seed in the normal way, but when planted these
seeds gave rise to individuals of a different species, and so on.
But there is a second group of phenomena which is even more
important than thosejust mentioned-cases in which an individual of one
species gives rise directlyto an individual of another species, without
pairing and without the interposition of an egg or a seed. It is these
phenomena which will reveal the metaphysical nature of Aristotle's
notion of species most clearly.
SpontaneousGeneration
Although Aristotle and Theophrastus believed that almost all higher

animals, a few lower animals, and all plants were capable of reproducing
their kind, they also believed that throughout the animal and plant
kingdomsan individual of one speciescould be transformeddirectly into an
individual of another species. In fact, for the lower animals such as the
testaceans, acalephae, sponges and many so-called insects, this was their
only means of propagation. Aristotle believed that the highest forms of
animal life reproduced viviparously, but by this he meant without the
production of an egg of any kind. Only intermediate animals such as
reptiles and fish produced eggs from which individuals like their parents
developed. This is true even though Aristotle often refers to certain
structuresproduced by lower forms of animal life as "eggs". He makes it
perfectly clear that he does not take these structuresto be true eggs and
continues to use the word "egg" in reference to them for the same reason
he continues to referto whales and porpoisesas "fish"afterhe has carefully
explained why they are not fish but more like hairy quadrupeds.i6
Similarly, Theophrastus believed that all plants could reproduce their
kind, although not always by seed.17
Sexuality extended much further into the animal kingdom than did
the production of eggs. Aristotle believed that with rare exception all
higher and intermediate forms of animal life as well as some insects paired
to reproduce themselves.i8With the exception of the date palm, sexuality
among plants was unknown, although numerous pairs of plants were
called "male" and "female".I9The important consideration in all these
various modes of generation is whether like produces like. Instead of like
'5 As these statements indicate, the Greeks were none too clear concerning the mechanisms
of reproduction. For further explanation see the next section of this paper.
I6 Aristotle, op. cit. (II),
op. cit. (IO), 732a26.
550b26;
'7 Theophrastus, Enquiry(I3), III, i, I& 5; Causes(13), I, v.
I8 Aristotle, op.cit. (IO), 72Ia3.
'9
Theophrastus,Enquiry(13), II, i,
I.

The Metaphysicsof Evolution
3I5
producing like directly (as Aristotle thought occurred among the higher
animals), or like producing like indirectly via a true egg (as Aristotle
thought occurred among intermediate animals) or a seed (as Theophrastus
thought occurred among most plants), in most lower animals therewas a
successionof species. Like consistentlydid not producelike.
Among those organisms which were capable of breeding true to type,
occasionally an individual would change spontaneously into an individual
of another species. For example, Theophrastus mentions that when the
marshes dry up the water snake changes into a viper.20 Such changes as
these were termed "spontaneous" not because they were uncaused (in the
sense of material or efficient cause); some material such as the body of
another individual or a bit of mud was necessary as was some instigating
cause like heat. Nor was the production of such individuals erratic.
Whenever the conditions were right, the change would take place. Such
changes were termed spontaneous because this was not the natural method
of reproduction for the individuals concerned-there was no pairing, no
egg or seed produced, but most importantly, no succession of generations,
like producing like.
The interesting type of spontaneous generation, however, occurred
among the lowest forms of animal life. In the typical case, a grub or scolex
was generated initially from a bit of inorganic matter such as scum, slime,
soil or mud. Then in turn a chrysalis or pupa was generated from the
scolex. Finally, from one of these structures came the perfect animal. In
this last case, one is tempted to read our modern notion of metamorphosis
back into Aristotle, but this would be historically inaccurate. Not until the
seventeenth century would biologists appreciate the true nature of such
changes. For Aristotle metamorphosis was literally just that, a change in
form. He did not look upon it as the maturation of a single individual, a
series of stages in a life cycle, but as a succession of species. Regardless of
how we might view these phenomena today, for Aristotle the generation
of a piece of earth into an earthworm, an earthworm into an eel, or the
generation of a bit of slime at the bottom of a well into an ascarid and the
ascarid into a gnat was exactly the same process as the generation of a
piece of cabbage leaf into a grub, the grub into a caterpillar, the caterpillar
into a chrysalis, and the chrysalis into a butterfly.2I
Aristotle's belief in spontaneous generation was, of course, in error.
Most modern commentators, including those who emphasize the bioIbid., II, iv, 4.
op. cit. (II), 55Ib26 & 55,aI3; Theophrastus,
Aristotle, op. cit. (IO), 721a3 & 762b25;
Enquiry(I3), II, iv, 4. Given the extremely close connection between plants and the soil and
Aristotle's authority as to the spontaneous generation of lower animals from inorganic matter,
one would have expected Theophrastus to have assumed extreme spontaneous generation
among plants. Such is not the case. Although Theophrastus admitted that on rare occasions a
plant might arise directly from certain metaphysical principles latent in the soil, the most
probable explanation of putative causes of spontaneous generation was that seeds were already
present in the soil but unnoticed. Enquiry(I3), III, i, 2 & 5; Causes(I3), I, v.
20
21

3I6
DAVID
L. HULL
logical motivation of Aristotle's metaphysics, pass over it with little or no

comment.22But his belief in spontaneous generation, erroneous as it may
be, poses serious problems for his metaphysics, almost as serious as those
posed by organic evolution. When a metaphysics is confronted with a
recalcitrant datum, there are two common ways to reconcile the two.
One can deny the existence of the datum or one can redefine some of the
basic terms in the metaphysical system. Aristotle chose the second alternative in the case of spontaneousgeneration; he chose the first in the case
of organic evolution. Both conflict with his metaphysics. The history of
Western thought would have been considerablydifferenthad he made just
the opposite choice: if he had denied the existence of spontaneousgeneration and reworked his metaphysics to permit the acceptance of organic
evolution. Such a decision, however, would have run counter to the superficial appearance of things. Gall insects and intestinal parasitesgave every
appearance of arising spontaneously, whereas most members of most
species stayed well within the limits of their species. (On the basis of
examples like these, some authors have perversely chastised Aristotle for
being "too empirical".) Exactly what problemswere posed by spontaneous
generation and organic evolution will be discussed in the next section.23
TheFourCauses
Central to Aristotle'smetaphysicswas his doctrine of the four causes,
the doctrine that in order to explain anything completely, the material,
efficient, formal and final causes had to be given. Aristotle claimed that
his predecessorsfell short in attempting to explain the regularitiespresent
in naturejust in termsof material and efficientcausation. Aristotle objected
to the views of Empedocles, not because he had postulated material and
efficient causes for the genesis of species, but because he had maintained
22 H. D. Hantz, 77heBiological Motivationin Aristotle (New York, 1930); John Herman
Randall, Jr., Aristotle (New York, I960); and Marjorie Grene, A Portraitof Aristotle (Chicago,
I963).
23 One apparent difficulty for Aristotelian metaphysics (which several authors have noted)
can be handled merely by distinguishing between species as essences changing and individuals
changing their species. At one extreme is the philosopher Peter Caws, The Philosophyof Science
(Princeton, I965), 41, who ignores all of the phenomena previously discussed when he says:
"It used to be thought, nevertheless, that there were [sharp] borderlines [between species],
and that they could not under any circumstances be crossed; every living thing belonged to its
fixed species, every inanimate object to its fixed class, and a man to his station in life. This
doctrine was undermined by the theory of evolution, which envisaged species as developing out
of earlier species and themselves subject to further changes."
On the contrary, although species as essences were believed to be fixed with sharp borderlines,
these borderlines were quite commonly crossed by individual organisms.
Conway Zirkle, op. cit. (5), 636 & 638 goes to the other extreme and confuses individuals
changing their species with species changing. See footnote (5) as well as Agnes Arber, Herbals,
Their Origin and Evolution(Cambridge, 1938), 5. In none of the examples given by Zirkle are
essences changing. Either individuals of one species are giving rise to individuals of another
species or else the individuals are themselves becoming members of another species directly.
Species in the Aristotelian sense remain in the face of all this change constant, static and
immutable. That is the whole purpose of essences.

The Metaphysics
of Evolution
317
that these were the onlyfactors involved.24 Empedocles claimed that species
first arose by the spontaneous generation of various organs which combined
by chance. Those combinations which were organized in a fitting way
survived; those that were not perished. Aristotle argued that nature
exhibited too much regularity for this to be the true view. "For teeth and
all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a
given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this
true."25 Such regularity can be explained only in terms of formal and final
causes. There are always horses because horses tend to beget horses. This
happens so regularly because in these cases the efficient, formal and final
causes are one. The efficient cause of a horse is the essence of its male
parent; its formal cause is this same essence embodied in itself; and its
final cause is again its essence, since the individuals of a species naturally
strive to realize as perfectly as they can the essence of their species.26
It was this combination of factors which led Aristotle to argue against
organic evolution. It should have led him to argue against spontaneous
generation as well. If essences are static and if in general the goal toward
which living organisms strive unconsciously is the realization of their
essence, then the wholesale progressive change implied in any evolutionary
theory is impossible. But then it would seem that the series of spontaneously generated species of which Aristotle speaks are equally impossible.
Eels, gnats, and oysters are consistently generated, depending on the
material :27
"As a general rule, then, all testaceans grow by spontaneous generation in
mud, differing from one another according to the differences of the material;
oysters growing in slime, and cockles and the other testaceans above mentioned
on sandy bottoms; and in the hollows of the rocks the ascidians and the
barnacles, and common sorts, such as the limpet and nerites."
In the above cases, the formal, final and efficient causes could not
possibly coincide. It is implausible to argue that ascarids are striving to
realize their essence since they never do, they never become anything but
gnats, and gnats are of a different species. Regularity is present, but the
coincidence of the formal, final and efficient causes is missing. Aristotle's
explanation is as follows:28
"The natural things which .
. can be produced spontaneously are those
whose matter can be moved even by itself in the way in which the seed usually
moves it; those things which have not much matter cannot be produced except
from the parent animals themselves."
24
25
26
i,
313,
27
28
Aristotle, De PartibusAnimalium,640a17 & 642a15; De Mundo, 403b26; Physica, 198a22.

Ibid., 198b23; see also I 96b29 & 197b14I
Ibid., 198a25; see also Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy(Westminster, I960),
and W. D. Ross, Aristotle(London, I937), 74.
Aristotle, op. cit. (II), 547bI8; see also op. cit. (IO), 76,aI5-763bs5.
Aristotle, Metaphysics,1o34b4.

318
DAVID
L. HULL
Aristotle has capitulated to the materialists. Matter all by itself can

perform all the functions which formal, final and efficient causes are
supposed to perform. There are always horses because horses generally
give rise to other horses. But there are also always eels even though eels
never give rise to other eels. The goal towards which all things strive is to
participate in the eternal and divine. If lower animals can participate in
the eternal and divine without the formal, final and efficient causes
coinciding, why not all species? And if there is no need for the formal,
final and efficient causes to coincide for any species, nothing stands in the
way of Aristotle's accepting the possibility of organic evolution. Neither
Aristotle's notion of formal cause nor his notion of final cause by itself is
which rule
incompatible with evolution. It is only the two in combination
out the possibility of evolution, only his doctrine of formal causes as final
causes. Permit essences to change (an almost contradictory notion) or
claim that individuals strive unconsciously to progress from one static
essence to another (as Lamarck will do) and evolution is possible.
Aristotle, of course, did not attempt to reconcile the conflict between
spontaneous generation and his metaphysics in this manner. Instead it
seems that he merely made the coincidence of formal and final causes part
of the definition of "species".If in a particularclass of organisms,like does
not consistentlyproduce like, then that classis no more a natural kind than
the class of things bigger than a breadbox. Butterflies, eels, ascarids,
oysters, ascidians, etc., in fact, roughly one-fifth of the animal species
which he mentions, are really not species at all! Aristotle is inconsistent in
his usage, but at times he does seem to avoid calling such kinds of animals
"species".If Aristotle did intend to take this alternative, then he has saved
his metaphysics-but at a price. His apparently synthetic claim that
species tend to breed true to type becomes a tautology. His argument
against such materialistsas Empedocles loses any force it might have had.
The Great Chain of Being has a decided gap in the middle between plants
and true animal species. Further, not only must such clear-cut groups as
oysters, eels and sea-urchins be denied species status, but also their
members are not even individuals! For Aristotle primary and secondary
substance cannot exist in isolation. If Socrates exists, then it follows
necessarily that humanity exists, and if humanity exists, then at least one
human being must exist.
Speciesin the SeventeenthCentury
If anything is characteristicof biology after the sixteenth century, it

is the prevalence of what is still known as the species problem. Why after
centuries of uncritical acceptance did the existence of species present such
a problem for biologists? The answer can be found, I think, in the convergence of two trends. First, Andrea Cesalpino (I5I9-I603)
had reintro-
duced Aristotelianmetaphysicsinto biology but in a much lesssophisticated

319
form than Aristotle had proposed. To this was added a literal interpretation
of Christian scripture. Aristotle had maintained both that essences were
eternal and that they could exist only "in" individuals. Thus, it followed
necessarily that species as classes of organisms were equally eternal. When
Aristotle was Christianized, species retained all of their Aristotelian
characteristics with one exception. As classes of organisms, they had a
beginning in time. The first members of each species were created specially
by God in the Garden of Eden.
But of even more importance, by the seventeenth century biologists
were beginning to turn their attention away from essences and the like and
to the organisms themselves as they discovered that species as classes of
organisms possessed more of the properties of essences than Aristotle and
had voiced his
medieval thinkers had supposed. Harvey (15I8-I657)
famous dictum ex ova omnia, which was at least verbally in opposition to
Aristotle's views,29 and in a little more than a century DeGraaf (I64II673) claimed to have actually discovered the mammalian ovum. The
nature of reproduction in plants was beginning to be understood with the
and Rudolph Camerarius (i665work of Nehemia Grew (i64I-I712)
I72I).
Francesco Redi (I627-I693),
and
Jan Swammerdam (I637-I683)
others were proving that insects and other metazoans, which supposedly
generated spontaneously, produced their young in a manner similar to
higher animals.
It was no accident thatJohn Ray (I627-I705),
one of the strongest
advocates of the newly emerged Special Creationist static species concept,
also argued most effectively against the existence of spontaneous generation and was one of the first systematists to consider caterpillars and perfect
insects in the same species rather than in distinct species as Aristotle had
done.30 Under the joint influence of the biological discoveries of the
period and the prevalent interpretation of Christian scripture, species as
classes of organisms were taking on the properties of their metaphysical
correlates. Not only were essences immutable, eternal and static but also
the individual organisms themselves, whether severally or in groups, were
thought never to change their species.3' Although Ray had a few reservations, he believed that plants as well as animals "preserve their distinct
29 The force of this statement is dissipated, however, when it is discovered that Harvey
considered anything capable of beginning life an "egg". William Harvey, Exercitationesde
Generatione
Animalium(London, I65 I).
30 C. E. Raven, John Ray, Naturalist (Cambridge, 1942),
375, 462, 469, 471.
31 This aspect of the static species concept has been well documented. See Edward Poulton,
"What is a Species ?", Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond.,xciv; Ernst Mayr, op. cit. (2); Conway Zirkle, op. cit.
(5). Although Zirkle's mode of expression is confusing, his conclusion about the relation between
a belief in the phenomena which he refers to as "species changing" and the formulation of
evolutionary theory is still apt:
"One fact in the history of the species concept should be emphasized. The early belief that
species were ephemeral and mutable did not promote a belief in evolution. A scientific theory
of evolution became possible only after the stability of species was established. Evolution demands
that species change but it demands that they change in an orderly fashion." Zirkle, op. cit. (5),
643. I owe the Poulton reference to Ernst Mayr.

DAVID L. HULL
320
species permanently; one species never springs from the seed of another
nor vice versa".32 How difficult it is to maintain this position consistently
withoutrecourse to essences will be seen shortly.
Early in his career Linnaeus (I 707-I 778) agreed wholeheartedly with
Ray and had no reservations on the subject. "No new species are produced
nowadays."33 The nowadays
will prove important. Aristotle needed essences
to supply the stability and timelessness which he thought that the perceivable world lacked and the objects of science must have. Linnaeus no longer
needed essences to fulfil this purpose. Species as classes of organisms were
themselves stable and timeless. Coincidentally, the metaphysics had faded
into the background. In its place Linnaeus substituted an extreme concern
with the idiosyncrasies and technicalities of Aristotelian logic with little
understanding of the metaphysics upon which it is based. It should
occasion no surprise to discover that Aristotle's HistoriaAnimalium,which
Linnaeus prized so much, contains lengthy discussions of the logic of
definition and classification but little in the way of metaphysics.
As is usually the case when a complex logical system is adopted with
little understanding of its foundations, attempted modifications of the
system result in confusion and inconsistency. Linnaeus's attempts to
reconcile Peloria and other so-called "hybrid species" with his Special
Creationist static species concept is a case in point. Several different interpretations have been placed on what Linnaeus said on the subject.
Bentley Glass gives the following noncommital summary :33a
"One can put it this way. In the end he believed in the evolution of the
smaller systematic categories, of the species as he knew species, and maybe of the
genus. But the original Creation was still that of a multitude of forms, distinct
then and forever.')
What is not mentioned is that the new creations are just as distinct as
the original creations, but not as old. Only the Christian aspects of the
Special Creationist static species concept have been salvaged and only for
the original species. The metaphysical foundations have been completely
sacrificed. On none of the plausible interpretations of Linnaeus's modified
Garden of Eden story can the hybrid origin of these late-comers be made
consistent with his logic.
One possible interpretation is that Linnaeus supposed each genus was
specially created. Genera are static and immutable. Only species are
created in time. But this is logically impossible. If a genus was created
originally in the Garden of Eden, it follows necessarily that a species was
also created. It is logically impossible to create the ruminants without
creating a cow, an antelope, a giraffe, or some species of ruminant. Thus,
John Ray, HistoriaPlantarum(London, i686), i, 40.
Carolus Linnaeus, SystemaNatura,facsimile of the first edition, trans. by M. S. J. EngelLederboer and Engel Nieuwkoop (Leyden, 1964).
33a Glass, op. cit. (2), 151.
32
33

The Metaphysics
of Evolution
32 I
several species were created specially in the Garden of Eden and proliferated by hybridization to produce additional forms. In each case,
however, all the forms belong to one and only one genus. An identical
story can be told if Linnaeus is interpreted as saying that only families were
specially created.
There are two possibilities as far as the status of these new productions
is concerned. Either they are varieties or they too are species. On the first
interpretation, two species hybridize to produce a variety, which is distinct
from its parent species presumably because of its hybrid nature. Again, this
cannot be the case for strictly logical reasons. According to Aristotelian
logic, a variety must be a variety of some species, and at any one level it
can be a variety of only one species. Peloria can embody the essence of only
one of its parent species and will embody it completely. It cannot embody
the essences of both of its parent species. Hence, the reference to hybrid
origin is superfluous. On the second interpretation, two species hybridize
to produce a third species, as Aristotle himself claimed happened in the
cases of the Laconian hound and the Indian dog. But for Aristotle all the
species concerned were separate species, all equally eternal and immutable.
The reader need not be reminded that Aristotle is talking about essences;
individuals can change their species and give rise on occasion to members
of other species. But this is the exception. Linnaeus has made it the rule.
If Peloria and its parent species are all species, then each must have its
separate essence. All are equally mutable or immutable. The only edge
that the parent species have over their hybrid species is that they were
specially created and are older. Originally when Linnaeus said that no
new species are produced nowadays, he meant that all species were
created in the beginning and since then, including the present, no additional species had been produced. All species were immutable and equally
old. On this interpretation of his claim for the hybrid origin of some
species, no species as a class of organisms is truly immutable, although
some were specially created and are older. The production of a new
species is as damaging to the immutability claim for classes of organisms
as is having been produced from an older species. Once again, only
essences are immutable.
Eighteenth-Century
1Nominalism
Aristotle had maintained that species as essences were distinct and,
thus, sharply distinguishable from each other by morphological characters.
Perhaps an individual variant might exist, but essences did not overlap.
With the emphasis now shifted from essences to individual organisms, the
static species concept implied that individual organisms themselves should
be sharply delineable into species by means of their morphological
properties alone. Presented on the one hand with this implication of the

322
DAVID
L.
HULL
static species concept and on the other hand with the continuous gradations
present in nature, Buffon (I707-I788) became a nominalist. Medieval
nominalism stemmed mainly from an over-reaction to essentialism, to the
real existence of substantial essences or Forms. Originally, nominalists
asserted that such transcendent entities did not exist. The only thing that
the members of a species had in common was a name. All that really
existed were individuals. As A. C. Crombie has noted,34 the transition
from the essentialist position to nominalism took place in philosophy and
physics from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries. It had little effect in
biology until the eighteenth century, but by this time alternatives to the
and neoplatonism.
early strict nominalism were prevalent-conceptualism
Buffon was led to espouse nominalism, not because he explicitly
rejected the existence of substantial essences, but because he simply did
not consider them. In contemplating the gradual variation among contemporary organisms in the absence of any essentialist presuppositions,
he came to the conclusion that only individuals really existed. The species,
genera, families and so on of the name-givers like Linnaeus were just
figments of the imagination. Buffon reasoned that in order for species as
classes of organisms to be real, they had to be separated by sharp morphological gaps. There were no such gaps. Hence, species were not real.35 As
he himself put it in Volume I of his Histoire N'/aturelle(I749) :36
"In general, the more one increases the number of one's divisions, in the
case of natural products, the nearer one comes to the truth; since in reality
individuals alone exist in nature, while genera, orders, classes, exist only in our
imagination."
To talk otherwise, as Linnaeus and other systematists did, was to commit
''an error in metaphysics in the very principles underlying their methods.
This error is due to a failure to apprehend nature's processes, which take
place always by gradation, and to the desire to judge a whole by one of its
34 A. C. Crombie, "The Notion of Species in Medieval Philosophy and Science", VIem
Congre'sinternationald'histoiredes sciences,Actes, i (I950), 26I-269. Biologists have a tendency to
adopt philosophical views only long after they have become outmoded in philosophical circles.
For example, Cesalpino (I519-I603)
re-introduced Aristotelian essentialism with all its trappings
just when philosophers as well as physicists were at last freeing themselves of it. Similarly,
nominalism was at its height in the fourteenth century with William of Ockham (1280-1349).
It took over 4oo years for this philosophical view to filter down (or up) to biologists. The trend is
still exhibited today, although the assimilation gap has narrowed considerably. The controversy
over operationalism now cropping up in biological journals was fought thirty years ago by
philosophers and physicists and, some time later, by psychologists.
35 This same line of reasoning is common in contemporary biology, but the word of approbation has changed from "real" to "objective" or "nonarbitrary". The issues are the same. See the
last section of this paper and David L. Hull, "The Effect of Essentialism on Taxonomy", Brit.
Jour. Phil. Sci., xv & xvi (I965).
36 Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, HistoireNaturelle(Paris, 1749), i, 38 & 20. The translation
for this and other quotations from Buffon are those of A. 0. Lovejoy, "Buffon and the Problem of
Species", PopularScienceMonthly,lxxix (I9I I), 464-473, 554-567, also reprinted in Glass, op. cit.
(2), 84-I 13. J. S. Wilkie, "The Idea of Evolution in the Writings of Buffon", Annalsof Science,xii
(1956), 48-62, goes over much the same ground as Lovejoy but fails to mention Lovejoy's article.

The Metaphysics
of Evolution
323
parts".37 The shift in metaphysics from Aristotle to Buffon is complete.

For Aristotle, essences are really real; for Buffon, individual organisms.
Buffon's flirtation with nominalism was short-lived. By the second
volume of his HistoireNKaturelle(also published in I749), Buffon had
discovered a way to distinguish between species. Perhaps the members of
two species cannot always be distinguished from each other by simple
morphological properties, but the members of a species are also characterized by certain relational properties. These relational properties are
what make species "organic wholes" rather than arbitrary collections of
individuals. The relation which Buffon noticed was that of interbreeding
with the production of fertile offspring:38
"We should regard two animals as belonging to the same species if, by
means of copulation, they can perpetuate themselves and preserve the likeness
of the species; and we should regard them as belonging to different species if
they are incapable of producing progeny by the same means. Thus the fox will
be known to be a different species from the dog, if it proves to be the fact that
from the mating of a male and female of these two kinds of animals no offspring
is born; and even if there should result a hybrid offspring, a sort of mule, this
would suffice to prove that fox and dog are not of the same species-inasmuch
as the mule would not produce anything."
Buffon is not saying just that species breed true as Aristotle, Ray and
Linnaeus have said before him. Rather he has formulated a physiological
definition of "species" which comes close to the modern biological definition. Thus, Buffon had discovered a criterion of demarcation for the
members of contemporary species. Never again will species be unreal for
taxa maybe, but not species.39 Other biologists had been
him-higher
aware that species were generally intersterile, but no one until Buffon had
made much of it. No biologist until Buffon needed to. Aristotle had his
essences. Members of a species bred true. Although on occasion hybridization took place, the occurrence of such phenomena was unimportant in
comparison to the immutability of species as essences. Linnaeus had his
conviction that all species could be distinguished by certain invariable
diagnostic properties, regardless of how the species might have originated.
But Buffon had abandoned both essences and diagnostic characters.
Failure to produce fertile offspring was another matter. It is also relevant
that interbreeding is a relational property. One of the main bones of
contention between nominalists and Aristotelians was the status of relations. Aristotelians tended to ignore them or to treat them as peculiar
37 Buffon, op. cit., (36), 38 & 20. In stating this objection, Buffon himself makes a logical
error, an error which Aristotle would never have made. No matter how much one increases one's
divisions in classification, one does not come down to the individual organism withoutchanging
logical relations. Taxa are related to each other by inclusion; individuals to taxa by membership.
Roger Buck and David L. Hull, "The Logical Structure of the Linnaean Hierarchy", Systematic
Zoologv,xv (I966), 97-I I I.
38 Buffon, HistoireNaturelle (Paris, 1749), ii, IO.
39 Later Buffon will have to moderate his position as far as the effectiveness of his criterion,
but species nevertheless remain real.
2

324
DAVID L. HULL
simple properties. Nominalists emphasized the importance of relations

and argued that they were irreducible to simple properties.40
Throughout the history of biology, contemplation of the gradations
present in nature had a tendency to lead biologists such as Buffon and
later Lamarck and even Darwin to become (or at least to talk very much
like) nominalists. In turn the acceptance of a nominalist metaphysics (or
lack of one) made it easier to entertain evolutionary hypotheses. It was
at this stage in his development that Buffon first suggested the idea that
one species might "degenerate"into another: in fact that all species might
have resulted by the degeneration of one single original species. Since the
process was one of degeneration, the original species would have to be the
least degenerate species-probably man. Immediately, Buffon rejects
the idea, both for theological and empirical reasons.4'Regardless of the
explanation for his rejection of his evolutionary hypothesis, Buffon
periodically returns to the question but without the advantage of a
flexible metaphysics.
Buffon had said that genera, orders and classes exist only in the
imagination, which to a nominalist means they do not exist at all. But it
is not a very big step from this position to neoplatonism. It was at this
same time that Louis Daubenton (I7I6-i8oo) introduced him to the
extensive homologies present among the membersof the animal kingdom.
Just as the study of the gradations present in nature tended to lead to
nominalism and from there to ruminationsover the possibilityof evolution,
the study of homologies tended to predispose biologists to certain metaphysical views. Today homologies are used as evidence for evolution and
against any metaphysicswhich precludesit, and Buffon was not insensitive
to this possibleexplanation of such similarities.But the facts of comparative
anatomy also made the idea that there were basic "plans" inherent in
nature also seem quite attractive. By successiveabstractionsof greater and
greater generality, one could envisage the prototype perch, the prototype
fish, the prototype vertebrate, and so on.
No sooner is there a biologist free of the metaphysics which underlay
the static species concept than he is seduced into an even more invidious
metaphysics-neoplatonism. During the rest of his career, Buffon will try
to reconcile the idea of degeneration with his physiological definition of
"species" and his neoplatonic metaphysics.42 No wonder he has gained the
40 Crombie, op. cit. (34), 26i, also cites the importance of the transition from essentialist
explanation in terms of substance and attribute to nominalist explanation in terms of relations.
4' Buffon, HistoireNaturelle (Paris, 1753), iv, 383.
47 Buffon's doctrine of pangenesis undoubtedly played an important role in his overall
conceptual outlook, but not everything can be treated in a survey paper such as this one.
Similarly, an exhaustive treatment of the relation between metaphysics and the species concept
in biology should also treat certain key figures in Germany such as Maupertuis, Oken and
Goethe. See Bentley Glass, "Maupertuis, Pioneer of Genetics and Evolution" and "Heredity
and Variation in the Eighteenth Century Concept of the Species", both in Glass, op. cit. (2),
15-83 & 144-172,
as well as Owsei Temkin, "German Concepts of Ontogeny and History around
i8oo", Bulletin of the Historyof Medicine,xxiv.

The Metaphysics
of Evolution
325
reputation of making contradictory pronouncements. In certain places,

one finds Buffon the "nominalist" and "evolutionist" saying such
things as:43
"An individual, of whatever species it be, is nothing in the universe; a
hundred, a thousand individuals are nothing. Species are the only entities in
nature-enduring entities, as ancient, as permanent, as nature herself. In order
to understand this better, we should no longer consider species as merely
collections or series of similar individuals, but as a whole."
"Each species of both animals and plants having been created, the first
individuals of each served as models for all of their descendants . . ."
"The type of each species is cast in a mould of which the principal features
are ineffaceable and forever permanent, while all the accessory touches vary."
In other places, one finds Buffon the "neoplatonist" and "Special
Creationist" saying such things as:44
"When I speak of the number of lines of parentage, I mean the number of
species so closely resembling one another that they may be regarded as collateral
branches of a single stock, or of stocks so close to one another that they may be
supposed to have a common ancestry and to have issued from the same original
stock with which they are connected by so many points of resemblance common
to them all."
"To account for the origin of these animals we must go back to the time
when the two continents were not yet separated and call to mind the earliest
changes which took place in the surface of the globe; and we must think of the
two hundred existing species of quadrupeds as reduced to thirty-eight families."
Even here in one of his most evolutionary-like passages, Buffon's
neoplatonic leanings can be discerned. What he means when he says that
the two hundred existing species of quadrupeds are reduced to thirty-eight
families is that they are reduced to thirty-eight species, one for each
family. These thirty-eight species are the original stocks from which the
other species are derived. Buffon falls into an erroneous way of speaking
(and thinking) which will infect the writings of all successive neoplatonists
who try to discuss evolution. Just as essentialists try to envisage evolution
as a change in "natures" or "essences", neoplatonists consistently interpret
stem species as correlates to their "prototypes". The species in a family do
not evolve from the prototype of that family but from another species
which may well look very little like the prototype abstracted from the
species in that family. The amphioxus may well be the prototype chordate;
it is not thereby the species from which all other chordates evolved.45
The Rise of Neoplatonism

The conflict between Buffon and Linnaeus in the first half of the
eighteenth century was to be re-enacted in the second, but this time the
Buffon, HistoireNaturelle (Paris, 1765), xiii, I, 7, 9.
Buffon, Histoiredes Oiseaux(Paris, 1770), i, preface; Buffon, HistoireNaturelle(Paris, I766),
xiv, 358.
45 Ernst Mayr has repeatedly pointed out this error. See Ernst Mayr, Animal Speciesand
Evolution(Cambridge, I965), 6oo. He cites R. B. Goldschmidt, "Evolution as Viewed by One
Geneticist", Amer.Sci., xl (I952), 9I, as a contemporary biologist still making this error.
43
44

326
DAVID L. HULL
line between the adversaries, Lamarck (I748-I829) and Cuvier (I769i832), was more clearly drawn. Lamarck was committed unambiguously
to "evolutionism".46 Cuvier was irrevocably a Special Creationist and antievolutionist. The conflict between these two great biologists was largely a
matter of their holding different views of the philosophy of science based
on radically different metaphysics. Lamarck was a thoroughgoing nominalist and viewed science as the advancement of bold hypotheses which
were consistent with the known facts and which could be confirmed to a
greater or a lesser degree by additional observations. Unfortunately,
Lamarck's idea of confirmation was of a pretty low level. But one thing
was certain. The inductive inference which led to the postulation of a
scientific hypothesis need not itself be absolutely certain or even highly
warranted. Cuvier was a thoroughgoing neoplatonist and saw science as
the formulation of descriptive generalizations which never went beyond
the evidence in the manner usually attributed to Francis Bacon (156iI 626).
Cuvier's most important contributions were in comparative anatomy
and palaeontology, the comparative anatomy of fossils. As it had with
Buffon, the resemblances among organisms made evident by a comparative study of their various systems led Cuvier to adopt a neoplatonic
view of the world. With Cuvier the inclination was accentuated by his
work in palaeontology. There is nothing so well calculated to turn a man
into a neoplatonist than to put him in a storeroom full of fossil remains
and set him the task of reconstructing the original organisms. The idea
that there are series of basic plans of organization with numerous variations emerges quite forcibly. Cuvier and his disciples Richard Owen
(i804-i892) and Louis Agassiz (I807-I873) together with the German
reified these plans into Platonic Forms, but the reification
N'aturphilosophen
was not in terms of a separate transcendent world of ideas. Rather these
ideas were ideas in the psychological sense-with a twist.
In attempting to reconstruct a fossil skeleton, the comparative
anatomist tries to envisage the original organization, which process fits
into which fossa, perhaps in analogy with the skeleton of some living form.
There comes a time when he "sees" the pattern. Unfortunately, these
human ideas have an unavoidably temporary character. To compensate
for the impermanence of ideas in the minds of men, neoplatonists maintained that they also existed in the mind of God. Man thinks of the various
ideas in fits and starts. God thinks of them continuously and eternally.
This was the age of Newton. For Newton space was God's Sensorium. The
members of species in a very real sense do exist in space. Hence, they must
exist in God's mind. The dictum hypothesesnonfingo was never extended to
46 For an explanation of the quotation marks around "evolutionism", see later in this section
as well as Charles C. Gillispie, "Lamarck and Darwin in the History of Science", in Glass, op. cit.
(2),
265-291.

327
include hypotheses about God. These supposedly were never hypotheses

but self-evident truths.
It would seem at first glance that Cuvier's neoplatonic metaphysics
was totally and obviously incompatible with his professed philosophy of
science. Cuvier consistently struck down other biologists' metaphysical
entities, like Lamarck'svital fluids, on the grounds of their unobservability
in principle. Further, he dismissedhypotheses concerning the origin of the
universe, the solar system and the first organisms as unobservable in
practice. For a hypothesis to be anything more than speculation, not only
must it be verifiable but also it must be verified-totally and absolutely.
For example, when presented with the hypothesis that all breeds of dogs
had descended from four "primitive" races by hybridization, Cuvier
replied that an experiment had to be performed in which all breeds of
dogs were actually derived by crossing these four breeds! "As long as this
experiment has not been made only an hypothesis will exist."47These will
be the standards by which Cuvier will judge the work of other biologists
such as Lamarck, and needless to say, they will come up wanting.
As is usually the case with Baconian principles, Cuvier will use them
more to criticize the efforts of other scientists than to guide his own work.
Fiftyyears later the chief criticismlevelled againstDarwin by his opponents
would be that he was not doing science according to the Baconian
principles still in fashion.48Richard Owen, for example, in his anonymous
review of The Originof Species,complains of Darwin's speculations,whereas
Cuvier "was not the man to draw conclusions beyond his premises".49
Nor did Cuvier look upon himself as postulating such ephemeral entities
as Platonic Forms. Cuvier can be found saying both that classes, orders
and genera are "human abstractions",and that there are real gaps between
natural embranchements,
classes,orders,families, etc.50Although higher taxa
are abstractions,the gaps between them are real. No one familiar with the
data could fail to recognize the same abstractions. Species, however, were
in no sense abstractions. The members of a species were bound together
by a real bond, the ancestor-descendantrelation. For Cuvier, reproduction
Quoted from William Coleman, GeorgesCuvier-Zoologist (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), I44.
Alvar Ellegard, "The Darwinian Theory and Nineteenth Century Philosophies of
Science", Journal of the Historyof Ideas, XViii (1957), 362-393.
49 Richard Owen, "Darwin on the Origin of Species", EdinburghReview, iii (I86o), 257.
Recently so-called Baconian philosophy of science has been resurrected to criticize the work of
evolutionary taxonomists. The objection is no longer that the evidence for the general fact of
evolution is insufficient but that phylogeny cannot be reconstructed with sufficient certainty and
in sufficient detail to warrant attempts to classify phylogenetically. See for example, A. J. Cain,
"Logic and Memory in Linnaeus's System of Taxonomy", Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond., clxix (1958),
I44-I63; "Deductive and Inductive Methods in Post-Linnaean Taxonomy", Proc. Linn. Soc.,
Lond., clxx (I959),
185-2I7; "The Post-Linnaean Development of Taxonomy", Proc. Lin. Soc.,
Lond., clxx (1959), 234-244; see also R. R. Sokal and P. H. A. Sneath, Principlesof Numerical
Taxonomy(San Francisco, I 963). For criticism of this view see Ernst Mayr, "Numerical Phenetics
and Taxonomic Theory", SystematicZoology,xiv (I965), 73-97, and D. L. Hull, "Certainty and
Circularity in Evolutionary Taxonomy", Evolution,xxi (I967), 174-189.
50 Georges Cuvier, Lefonsd'anatomiecomparee(Paris, I835), i, 64.
47
48

328
DAVID
L.
HULL
was the "infallible character for the recognition of species". Once again
breeding true is the key factor in species discrimination, but this time its
nature as a relational property is recognized and emphasized. Species are
"organic wholes".
Cuvier's conception of species and higher taxa as types together with
his conception of the individual organism combined to rule out the
possibility of evolution. He says that "every organized creature forms a
whole, a unique and closed system, whose parts mutually correspond to
one another and concur toward the same definite action by reciprocal
reaction".51 Every organism had a definite, finely balanced organization
which imposed upon it very strict basic conditions of existence. It was
these basic conditions of existence that were the experiential correlates of
neoplatonic Forms and, as such, were necessarily static. An individual
organism might vary slightly, but if it strayed too far from its original
organization, it ceased to exist. Gaps existed between taxa at all levels
because only certain combinations could exist. Cuvier looked upon this
impossibility as akin to the logical impossibility to be found in geometry.
Just as there could not be a plane closed figure half way between a triangle
and a quadrilateral, there could be no intermediate species of organic
beings. This was not speculation but a necessary consequence of the
conditions of existence. Cuvier looked upon all of his generalizations as
either purely empirical, descriptive generalizations or as "rational laws".52
Once again, such logical and metaphysical considerations as these lay
behind the refusal to countenance evolution.
Cuvier's work with fossils made it impossible for him to dismiss them
as nature's little tricks. They were the remains of individuals that had
ceased to meet their basic conditions of existence. As much as Cuvier did
not like to postulate causes for such remote occurrences, he did provide an
explanation for the apparently sudden extinction of numerous species
periodically throughout the history of the earth-his famous catastrophic
inundations. He was unable to bring himself to do the same for vestigial
organs or the serial appearance of new forms in the fossil record. In the
first case, the existence of non-functional organs would have conflicted
with his conception of the organism as a perfectly functioning closed
system. Cuvier maintained lamely that what we now term vestigial organs
had to be accepted as they were without explanation. He came to a
similar conclusion with respect to the origin of species.
Although the periodic inundations were not total, permitting a few
5I Georges Cuvier, Discourssur les rivolutions
de la surfaceduglobeet surles changements
qu'ellesont
produitsdans le rigne animal (3rd edn., Paris, I830), 95.
52 Georges Cuvier, "Essay on Zoological Analogies", quoted in Appendix B, Coleman,
op.cit. (47), I89. For a general explanation of the errors in this view of scientific laws, see Carl G.
Hempel, "Geometry and Empirical Science", TheAmericanMathematicalMonthly,lii (I945), 7-I7,
reprinted in Edward H. Madden (ed.), The Structureof ScientificThought(Boston, I960), 7I-80.
For a comparable explanation which has the biologist specifically in mind, see Hull, op. cit. (49).

329
members of some but not all of the species existing at the time to repopulate
the earth, many individuals of all species would have necessarily perished.
Their remains should be in the fossil record. They were not. For example,
in the case of the primates, Cuvier knew of no fossil remains of any primate
including man. Given his Baconian principles, he should have concluded
that man and other primates did not antedate the Great Flood. He does
not. He concludes that the fossil remains of these forms must be hidden
somewhere under the oceans or glaciers. It is hard not to detect a certain
religious motivation in Cuvier's selective use of his Baconian principles.
Perhaps Cuvier did not make use of any religious arguments. He certainly
let religious motives sway his judgment in the acceptance of certain unverified hypotheses and his contemptuous rejection of others.53
The Resurgenceof Nominalism
Lamarck could not have been more different from Cuvier than he was.
Like Buffon before him he was led from the observation of the continuous
gradations present in nature to the conclusion that only individuals
existed. He says, for example :54
"Meanwhile we should remember that nothing of all this exists in nature;
that she knows neither classes, orders, genera, nor species, in spite of all the
foundation which the portion of the natural series which our collections contain
has seemed to afford them; and that of organisms or living bodies there are, in
reality, only individuals and among different races which gradually pass into all
degrees of organization."
As it did in the case of Buffon, Lamarck's adopting a nominalist
position enabled him to entertain the idea of organic evolution, but unlike
Buffon, Lamarck will never waiver in his nominalism or "evolutionism".
Species were for him merely collections of organisms sufficiently similar
for the time being to be called species. The criterion of intersterility or the
sterility of hybrids could be used to distinguish between the contemporary
members of species, but it could not be used to divide a continuously
evolving lineage into species. Lamarck's ideas on evolution also differed
from those of Buffon. The process is not one of "degeneration" but one of
progressive development from "lower" to "higher" forms. To use
Gillispie's metaphor, Lamarck envisaged a Great Escalator of Being,
animals generated spontaneously at the bottom and moving through
successive generations up the series.55
The aspect of Lamarck's theory which has received the most attention, however, was his mechanism. According to Lamarck, there was a
vital life force inherent in organisms which was responsible for an organism
becoming more complex and adapting to new needs and that these
53
54
55
Coleman, op. cit. (47), 176.

J. B. Lamarck, Systemedes Animauxsans vertebres(Paris, i8o6),
Gillispie, op. cit. (46), 27I.
14.

330
DAVID
L.
HULL
adaptations could be transmitted to the organism's progeny as long as the

need remained. Conscious striving played no greater a role in Lamarck's
system than it did in Aristotle's very different system. Even Lamarck's
notion of a vital fluid was not as "vitalistic" as it first sounds when viewed
in the context of the caloric theory of heat prevalent in his day. Lamarck's
vital fluid was somehow made up of caloric and electricity.56
The mechanism which Lamarck postulated for evolution was different
from Darwin's main mechanism, natural selection, but there was an even
more fundamental difference between the evolutionary theories of the
two men, a difference resulting from Lamarck's attempting to temporalize
the Great Chain of Being, a difference which has received almost no
attention.57 Just as Cuvier broke the Great Chain of Being into four
Lamarck divides it into two series, one of which was a
embranchements,
branching affair superficially resembling a phylogenetic tree. Exactly how
superficial the resemblance is will be seen shortly.
The major portion of Lamarck's exposition in his PhilosophieZoologique
(i809) concerns a largely linear series which progresses from higher to
lower forms in the manner traditional since the days of Aristotle. Lamarck
explains that although the major groups of animals can be arranged in a
single series, certain species in reaction to their environment might form
short, lateral branches, and that further, the actual sequence should
progress from lower to higher forms.58 The series which he provides is as
follows :59
i. Mammals
2. Birds
3. Reptiles
4. Fishes
5. Molluscs
6. Cirrhipedes
7. Annelids
8. Crustaceans
9. Arachnids
I 0. Insects
i I. Worms
I 2. Radiarians
Q3. Polyps
I4. Infusorians
Although Lamarck took pride in having established several of these

groups himself, he was also committed to their fundamental artificiality.
The series itself was not artificial, but any attempt to divide it into classes
56 J. B. Lamarck, PhilosophieZoologique(Ist edn., Paris, I809), trans. Hugh Elliot (New
York, I963), 213; Gillispie, op. cit. (46), 275.
57 There is considerable truth to Gillispie's statement, "In one sense, therefore, the hiatus
that one feels in Professor Lovejoy's work between the temporalizing of the chain of being and the
foundation of evolution is inevitable. The latter is not the outcome of the former." Gillispie,
op. cit. (46), 290.
58 Lamarck, op. cit. (56), 59, 70.
59 Ibid., 66.

The Meta.physics
of Evolution
33I
was. For example, the classes Reptilia and Pisces were artificial, but in the
series reptiles could not possibly be put below fish.6o The arrangement
given above was final. No future discoveries could change it.6I
In his initial discussion, Lamarck mentions the existence of gaps in
his series between the worms and insects, between the molluscs and fish,
and between the birds and mammals.62 The discovery of Ornitharyncus
and Echidna in Australia to fill the gap between the birds and mammals
encouraged him in his belief that the other two gaps might also be filled
by the discovery of animals in unexplored regions of the earth.63 Also in
this original discussion, Lamarck attributes the ability to generate spontaneously only to the infusorians. He makes no mention of spontaneous
generation among members of the other major groups.64
But in June I 809, the Museum of Natural History received a specimen
of the sea-calf (Phoca vitulina) which, if we are to believe Lamarck's own
words, set him to re-evaluating the arrangement of his major groups.65
Although he had stated earlier that his linear arrangement of major
groups was final, he now decided that lateral ramifications could not be
restricted just to an occasional species. The major groups themselves had
to form side branches. From the first, Lamarck had believed that plants
and animals formed two separate series. There were no "zoophytes".66
Now he came to believe that animals themselves had to be divided into two
separate series, one beginning with the infusorians, the other beginning
with the worms. (See Fig. i.) Accordingly he had to recognize spontaneous
generation in worms, which he promptly did.67
Although he made this alteration in light of his last-minute change in
the arrangement of his major groups, he failed to see exactly how extensive
such revisions would have to be to make his treatment consistent. For
example, in his earlier discussion the gap between birds and mammals was
to be filled by the monotremes. This gap no longer needed filling.
Mammals were not derived from birds. Both were derived from reptiles,
the birds via turtles and mammals via crocodiles. There should be a gap
between birds and mammals. This rearrangement of taxa explains
Lamarck's placing the monotremes in their peculiar position. What had
been a convenient case of an intermediate ancestor now became an inconvenient case of convergence. Just as the gap between birds and
mammals on Lamarck's new view should be expected, there should also
be gaps between crustaceans and the annelids and between the radiarians
Ibid., 22.
Ibid., 67, 133.
Ibid., 92, 82, 74.
63 Ibid., 23, 92.
64 Ibid., 103.
65 Ibid., I7366 Ibid., 51.
67 Ibid., 176, 178; Lamarck also mentions rather casually, "This direct creation is confined
to those living bodies which are at the beginning of the animal and vegetable scales, and perhaps
of some of their branches." Ibid., 237; see also 247.
6o
6I
62

DAVID
332
L. HULL
TABLEAU
Servant 'a montrer l'origine des diff6rens animaux.
Infusoires
Polypes
Radiaires
Vers
Insectes
Arachnides
Crustaces
Annelides
Cirrhipedes
Mollusques
Poissons
Reptiles
Oiseaux
M. Amphibies
Monotr6mes
M. Cetaces
M. Ongules
M. Onguicules
FIG. I.
and worms. In his earlier discussions Lamarck mentions none, and in his
Additions mentions no change in his views. But the gaps between worms
and insects and between molluscs and fish remain. There is smooth gradation where there should be sharp breaks and breaks where there should be
smooth gradation.
Thus far, Lamarck's attempt to reformulate the traditional chain of
being into a "phylogenetic tree" does not seem too successful, but there is
an even more fundamental difference between Lamarck's and Darwin's
views of evolution which has yet to be mentioned. In a modern dendrogram, only those branches which terminate in the present without having
evolved into new species represent contemporary species. All other lines
represent extinct species. All the groups which Lamarck includes in his

of Evolution
The Metaphysics
333
No real time dimension is present in

diagram are equallycontemporary.68
Lamarck'sdiagram. In his three spontaneouslygenerated series,organisms
begin at the bottom and gradually evolve upward, but all groups are
equally contemporary. There are always individuals evolving through the
various lineages. Lamarck had not developed an appreciation for the
contingency which was to be at the heart of Darwin's theory. For Lamarck
no major group had ever become extinct. In fact only very rarely had any
species become extinct, and these species were terminal species which had
been destroyed by the direct agency of man and which would re-evolve in
his absence.69
This facet of Lamarck's theory is usually presented as a personal
idiosyncrasy or as an over-reaction to Cuvier's catastrophism. On the
contrary, as is so often the case with such seemingly bizarre notions, it is a
direct consequence of certain other beliefs which he held. Lamarck agreed
with Cuvier that organismswere functionally integrated wholes which had
to fulfil certain basic conditions of existence, but for Lamarck these
conditions were not part of the make-up of the organism but a relation
between its labile constitution and the variable environment. Lamarck
believed that the integration present in organisms was sufficiently plastic
to permit an organism to progressfrom one way of life to another. As long
as these environmental niches were present, there would be organisms to
fill them. For Lamarck evolution did not occur by random mutation in all
possible directions but up several predetermined paths. Certain worms
were always becoming annelids and others insects. Once an individual
had started up the insect-arachnid-crustaceanprogression, it could not
become a mollusc. It had progressed too far up its predetermined path.
Whether a particular worm became an insect or an annelid was not
predetermined but the paths were.
Lamarck's theory of evolution was little more than an expansion of
Aristotle's vermiparous reproduction to include all species, just one
possible variation on essentialism. Instead of individuals striving unconsciously to fulfil their own essences, Lamarck had individuals striving
unconsciously to progress from one species to the next. There must be
intermediariesbetween molluscs and fish, forms through which individuals
could progress,just as there must be caterpillars and chrysalisesbetween
grubs and the perfect moth or butterfly.70
andEvolution
Metaphysics
From the earliest reviews of the Origlinof Species,Darwin has been
68 Occasionally even at this late date an arrangement of largely contemporary forms is
presented as if it were a phylogenetic tree; e.g. C. Ladd Prosser and Frank A. Brown, Comparative
AnimalPhysiology(Philadelphia, I962), 2. I owe this reference to Miss Judy Todd.
69 Lamarck, op.cit. (56), 4, i83.
70 I do not mean to deny that the principle of plenitude is also operative here. There is,
however, an important intermediary between it and Lamarck's decision about the existence of
extinct species.

334
DAVID
L. HULL
called unphilosophical. Given one rather unflattering view of philosophy,

Darwin was the first to agree. "My power to follow a long and purely
abstract train of thought is very limited. I should, moreover, never have
succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics."7' On this same view of
philosophy as long, involved arguments about purely abstract matters,
Darwin was not the least surprised that Herbert Spencer, the Philosopher
of Evolution, "the greatest living philosopher in England, perhaps equal
to any that have lived",72 should say nothing relevant to evolutionary
theory as a biological theory.73 If this is what philosophy is, then Darwin
was no philosopher. One can go even further. It is doubtful whether
knowledge of this sort of thing would have helped Darwin much in the
formulation of his theory. In fact, it might well have been detrimental.
As Ernst Mayr has said, "Instead of getting caught up in philosophical
premisses, as did Agassiz and the highly competent German and French
zoologists and botanists, Darwin was able to pursue his biological
speculations unfettered."74
It is certainly true that when Darwin set out on his voyage, he had
little to unlearn either in the history of his own field or in philosophy.
While on the Beagleand afterwards he was forced to compare his naive
Christian beliefs with what he saw of species variation and distribution,
viewed in the light of Lyell's geological theories. There were already in
existence philosophical systems which purported to explain all such
phenomena, but Darwin was unfamiliar with them. As it was, the only
alternative to his own theory which Darwin saw was that of Special
Creation and it was patently false. If Darwin had started out with a
complete understanding of one of the philosophical world views, for
instance neoplatonism, he might have been seduced by its spurious
explanatory power. Only after he had his own theory firmly in mind and
supported by large bodies of facts was he forced to confront some of the
more sophisticated alternatives to his theory of evolution.
But neither Darwin's ineptness as a philosopher nor the advantages of
philosophical naivete should be exaggerated. As Darwin himself observed,
"Some of my critics have said, 'Oh, he is a good observer, but he has no
power of reasoning!' I do not think that this can be true, for the Originof
Speciesis one long argument from the beginning to the end, and it has
convinced not a few able men. No one could have written it without some
power of reasoning."75 Darwin's critics were and still are confusing
originality with ineptness. Darwin was breaking new ground both bioCharles Darwin, The Autobiography
of CharlesDarwin (New York, 1958), I40.
Charles Darwin, The Life and Lettersof CharlesDarwin (London, I888), iii, I20.
73 John Passmore, "Darwin's Impact on British Metaphysics", VictorianStudies,iii (1959),
41-54,
comments on the irony of these passages, noting that Spencer's philosophy is largely
non-Darwinian.
74 Ernst Mayr, "Review of Himmelfarb's 'Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution'," Sci.
Amer., cci (1959), 215.
75 Charles Darwin, op. cit. (7I), I40.
7'
72

The Metaphysics
of Evolution
335
logically and philosophically. Although there is, broadly speaking, a

deductive core to the Origin, by and large it is one long, involved inductive
argument conducted in the midst of a mass of very concrete facts. Darwin's
argument as presented in the Origin is a genuinely inductive argument, not
just a deduction set up on end.76 It is this aspect of Darwin's theory which
leads Ernst Mayr to say:77
"It is almost universally stated that Darwin was no philosopher, that he
was totally unphilosophical. Even though he himself would probably have
pleaded guilty, this accusation is quite misleading. To be sure, Darwin did not
belong to any of the established schools of philosophy, nor did he publish an
essay or volume explicitly devoted to an exposition of his philosophical ideas.
Yet few writers in the last 200 years have had so profound an impact on our
thinking. This holds for logic, metaphysics, and ethics. It has taken ioo years to
appreciate that Darwin's conceptual framework is, indeed, a new philosophical
system."
It is this aspect of the Origin which Gertrude Himmelfarb misses
completely when she complains:78
"What Darwin was doing, in effect, was creating a 'logic of possibilities'.
Unlike conventional logic, where the compound of possibilities results not in a
greater possibility, a probability, but in a lesser one, the logic of the Originwas
one in which possibilities were assumed to add up to probability."
Darwin was creating a "logic of possibilities", a logic whose value logicians
only now are beginning to appreciate.79 Darwin received considerable
support for his materialism and his opposition to teleology from many of
the philosophers in his day, but he certainly received little support for the
type of inductive logic which his book exhibited.8o
Although Darwin's early ignorance of certain basic metaphysical
issues was undoubtedly an advantage in the formulation of his theory, such
76 A. J. Ayer, "The Structure of Darwinism", New Biology,xxii (Baltimore, I959), 25-44,
points out just what role deduction played in Darwin's theory. The key issue in any estimation of
Darwin as a logician is the difference between deduction and induction. The difference emphasized by Aristotle and successive logicians such as William Whewell, The Philosophyof theInductive
Sciences(2nd edn., London, i847), ii, 92-93, is that deduction supposedly goes from the general
to the particular and induction from the particular to the general. Such a characterization is
grossly inadequate.
77 Ernst Mayr, "Introduction to 'On the Origin of Species' by Charles Darwin"
(Cambridge, Mass., I966), xviii.
78 Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution(Garden City, New York,
I959), 274.
79
Abraham Kaplan, The Conductof Inquiry (San Francisco, I964),
VI & Vill.
especially chapters
80 Darwin himself evinced admiration for John Herschel, William Whewell and, by
praising Huxley's lectures on logic, forJohn Stuart Mill. Darwin, op. cit. (71), 66, 104; Darwin,
Op.cit. (72), iii, 3. But all three of these authors held views on inductive inferences incompatible
with Darwin's actual practice in the Origin.Both Herschel and Whewell were adamantly opposed
to Darwin's way of doing science. Even Mill, although he says that Darwin does not violate the
rules of induction, says that it is because Darwin is not concerned with proof but with hypothesis.
See James R. Loewenberg, "The Mosaic of Darwinian Thought", VictorianStudies,iii, I6, and
Ellegard, op. cit. (48). Strangely, Passmore, op. cit. (73), 42, thinks that Darwin and Whewell
were largely in accord in their views of philosophy of science. What is at issue here is the
nature and role of inductive inferences.

336
DAVID
L. HULL
ignorance was a decided disadvantage when it came to defending his

theory. Here his ineptness as a "philosopher" took its toll. It is one thing
to recognize that evolutionary theory conflicts with some of the more
simple-minded versions of teleology.8i It is another to realize that it
conflicts with some of the subtler tenets of teleology. Darwin was aware of
some of the more obvious ramifications of his theory for philosophy, but
he did not see just how extensive these ramifications actually were. For
example, he did not appreciate the consequences which evolutionary
theory had for the logic of definition.8z
Darwin's notion of definition was the traditional one. A definition
must provide a set of characters which are severally necessary and jointly
sufficient. For instance, he declines any attempt to define "instinct"
because none of the characteristics of instinct happens to be universal.83
It was this notion of definition which led Darwin, like Buffon and Lamarck
before him, to dismiss the divisions which systematists might make between
species in evolving lineages as "imaginary".84 Systematists need not "be
incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this or that form be
in essence a species", since after all species "are merely artificial combinations made for convenience".85 The only concern of the systematist
is whether a form "be sufficiently constant and distinct from other forms,
to be capable of definition; and if definable, whether the differences be
sufficiently important to deserve a specific name".86
In an evolving lineage there will be no sharp break in the gradual
changes among morphological characters, the characters traditionally
used to establish systematic affinity. Hence, species delimitation will be
arbitrary. For Darwin as for the philosophers in his day, the only acceptable distinctions were clear distinctions. A hazy border was no border at
all.87 Many contemporary biologists might agree and yet nevertheless
argue that because of the biological definition of species, many of the
divisions between contemporary species are real. But Darwin felt obliged
to say that "neither sterility nor fertility offers any clear distinction between
species and varieties".88 He even accuses biologists who change their
estimation of systematic affinity in the light of information concerning
interbreeding of "arguing in a circle".89
8I For example, Darwin feels called upon to say, "I do not believe that any animal in the
world performs an action for the exclusive good of another of a distinct species. . ." Darwin,
op. cit. (77), 2 I I. Neither did Aristotle.
8z Hull, op. cit. (35).
83 Darwin, op. cit. (77), 207, 208.
84 Ibid., ii9.
85 Ibid., 484,
86 Ibid., 484.
87 Ibid., 248;
opposite view.
485.
see Ludwig Wittgenstein, PhilosophicalInvestigations(New York, 1953), for the
88 Darwin, Op. cit. (77), 248.

89 Ibid., 245; and the controversy
vicious circularity
still rages. For a summary of the arguments concerning
see Hull, op. cit. (49).

337
Darwin was forced to reject anything like the biological definition of

species because his primary mode of reasoning throughout the Origin was
to argue that since gradual variation among contemporary forms was
actual, gradual variation in time was possible. Varieties were incipient
species. Since the chief criterion for distinguishing between species and
varieties was sterility and fertility, he was forced to disparage it. Now that
evolution has been universally accepted by the scientific community,
biologists can afford to emphasize reproductive isolation. In fact, it has
become one of the cornerstones of modern evolutionary theory.
What then, according to Darwin, is the metaphysical status of species?
Are they real? they evolve. Do they exist? These are metaphysical
questions, and perhaps expecting a biologist to provide explicit answers
to them is expecting too much. But a great deal of the controversy and
dissatisfaction which has plagued evolutionary theory since the publication of the Origin might have been avoided had Darwin presented
consciously formulated and explicitly stated answers to these questions.
As it is, it is difficult to decide what Darwin thought about the reality of
species. Evolving species do not sit comfortably in any of the traditional
metaphysical niches. They are not as "real" as essentialists would have
them. Nor are they as "unreal" as the nominalists would have them. After
all, it is species that evolve.
Darwin's position seems to lie somewhere between these two extremes,
but because of his reticence on the subject, it is impossible to decide where.
In part because of the personality of its founder and in part because of the
very nature of evolution by random mutation and natural selection,
evolutionary theory has had to get along without a metaphysics. Only
since the so-called new systematics have biologists begun to realize that
such a thing as a metaphysics of evolution as a biologicalphenomenonis not
only desirable but also necessary.9? In fact, the development of evolutionary theory since Darwin might well be described as a scientific theory
in search of a metaphysics.
90 Almost all of the various metaphysical viewpoints sketched in this paper can be found
expressed in the writings of biologists since Darwin. For example, W. R. Thompson, "The
Philosophical Foundations of Systematics", TheCanadianEntomologist,lxxxiv (I 952), I - I 6, argues
for a position very much like Aristotelian essentialism. Mellville Hatch, "The Species Concept",
TheAmer.Nat., lxxv (I 94 1), is clearly a nominalist.J. S. L. Gilmour, "Taxonomy and Philosophy",
New Systematics(Oxford, 1940), Julian Huxley, ed., 461-474, recommends a sense data version
of Idealism; i.e. phenomenalism. F. A. Bather, "Biological Classification: Past and Future",
Proc. GeologicalSoc., lxxxiii, lxi-civ, has definite idealist overtones. The two biologists who hold
positions closest to that of Darwin and who, though they would be the last to admit it, have gone
a long way toward providing an explicitly formulated metaphysics for evolutionary theory as a
biological theory are G. G. Simpson, Principlesof Animal Taxonomy(New York, I 96 I) and Emst
Mayr, op. cit. (45). It is precisely for this reason that a philosopher, Marjorie Grene, "Two
Evolutionary Theories", Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., ix (I959), 0II-I27,
185-193, has seen fit to take issue
with at least the first of these two biologists.


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The Metaphysics of Evolution

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THE BRITISH JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE VOL. 3 NO.

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The AlIetaphysicsof Evolution

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production of seed but without pairing.I5 Second, although in the cases

Although Aristotle and Theophrastus believed that almost all higher

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The Metaphysicsof Evolution

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logical motivation of Aristotle's metaphysics, pass over it with little or no

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. can be produced spontaneously are those

Aristotle, De PartibusAnimalium,640a17 & 642a15; De Mundo, 403b26; Physica, 198a22.

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Aristotle has capitulated to the materialists. Matter all by itself can

If anything is characteristicof biology after the sixteenth century, it

duced Aristotelianmetaphysicsinto biology but in a much lesssophisticated

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The Metaphysicsof Evolution

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parts".37 The shift in metaphysics from Aristotle to Buffon is complete.

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simple properties. Nominalists emphasized the importance of relations

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reputation of making contradictory pronouncements. In certain places,

The Rise of Neoplatonism

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The Metaphysicsof Evolution

include hypotheses about God. These supposedly were never hypotheses

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The Metaphysicsof Evolution

Coleman, op. cit. (47), 176.

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adaptations could be transmitted to the organism's progeny as long as the

Although Lamarck took pride in having established several of these

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No real time dimension is present in

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called unphilosophical. Given one rather unflattering view of philosophy,

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logically and philosophically. Although there is, broadly speaking, a

Abraham Kaplan, The Conductof Inquiry (San Francisco, I964),

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ignorance was a decided disadvantage when it came to defending his

88 Darwin, Op. cit. (77), 248.

still rages. For a summary of the arguments concerning

see Hull, op. cit. (49).

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The Metaphysicsof Evolution