Page:Anton Pannekoek - Marxism and Darwinism - tr. Nathan Weiser (1912).pdf/11

Rh kind to another take place before our eyes, so that we could observe it. But this is impossible. How then is it at all possible to prove that animal forms are really changing into new forms? This can be done by showing the cause, the propelling force of such development. This Darwin did. Darwin discovered the mechanism of animal development, and in doing so he showed that under certain conditions some animal-kinds will necessarily develop into other animal-kinds. We will now make clear this mechanism.

Its main foundation is the nature of transmission, the fact that parents transmit their peculiarities to children, but that at the same time the children diverge from their parents in some respects and also differ from each other. It is for this reason that animals of the same kind are not all alike, but differ in all directions from the average type. Without this so-called variation it would be wholly impossible for one animal species to develop into another. All that is necessary for the formation of a new species is that the divergence from the central type become greater and that it goes on in the same direction until this divergence has become so great that the new animal no longer resembles the one from which it descended. But where is that force that could call forth the ever growing variation in the same direction?

Lamarck declared that this was owing to the usage and much exercise of certain organs; that, owing to the continuous exercise of certain organs, these become ever more perfected. Just as the muscles of men's legs get strong from running much, in the same way the lion acquired its powerful paws and the hare its speedy legs. In the same way the giraffes got their long necks because in order to reach the tree leaves,