Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

144
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005)
Nicolaas A. Rupke
regarded the doctrine of special creation as incommensurable with science but at the
same time thought that the notion of species transformation/transmutation, going
against the observed fixity of species and being allied to the speculations of German
Naturphilosophie, was poor science, too. If they held neither of these two beliefs about the
cause of organic diversity, what then did they believe?
In the literature about the history of Darwinism and of evolutionary biology in general,
the debate about the origin of species has traditionally been discussed in terms of
the two possibilities of "creation" and "evolution" only, and scientific views on the issue
have been measured by a yardstick that ranges from orthodox creationism to radical
Darwinism (from the large body of literature see for example Zimmermann 1953, 337-
456; Bowler 1984, 109-150; Junker and Hoßfeld 2001, 49-74). This portrayal is incomplete,
however. Some of the life scientists, in opposing "evolution" as well as "creation,"
put forward a third theory of the origin of species. This was referred to as the doctrine of
"autochthons" (from a Greek word meaning "sprung from the earth;" Wagner 1845, 408;
synonymously used was "Urzeugung der Arten;" here I use "autochthonous generation").
Autochthonous generation postulated not just spontaneous generation of simple
forms of life but a kind of spontaneous mega-generation of all species, small and large,
simple and complex, primitive and advanced, Homo sapiens included; and not only that:
autochthonous generation was said to have produced new species as groups of individuals
(not as a single representative or a pair of each), and as communities of species (not
as one species at a time), in several different, geographically widely separate locations
(not in one place), and this process had taken place repeatedly throughout geological
history (not once in the distant, primordial past). Autochthonous generation postulated
much more than conventional spontaneous generation, being primarily a theory of the
origin of species and not an hypothesis about the origin of life – like "normal" spontaneous
generation was and today still is. For this reason – and because it was not a view of
cranks but was advocated by leading life scientists – the theory must rank as a separate,
third category of nineteenth-century thought about organic origins. It was a theory rather
than an hypothesis, in the sense that it was a proposition based on a broad basis of
sound inferences and observations rather than a speculative supposition.
The autochthony view, however seemingly fanciful, was the product of strict scientific
reasoning – its advocates emphasized. The main links in the chain of reasoning were
the following (disregarding several subsidiary "buts" and "ifs"). (1) Species are not eternal,
as shown by historical geology, but originate, disappear and are replaced by new
ones. (2) Species are fixed, as shown by universal experience. (3) Creation of species by
divine interference is not a scientifically meaningful interpretation. (4) Evolution in the
sense of transformation of one species into another goes against observation. (5) Ergo,
species have originated in a natural way and abiogenetically, from lifeless matter. This
was the logical "tertium datur:" if no creation and if no transmutation of species, then
there must have been in operation a non-miraculous process of origin de novo of fullblown
species. Thus the very first appearance on earth of a species was envisaged as an
instantaneous development, possibly from vital germs that under special circumstances
had coalesced from inanimate matter. To some authors this process of abiogenesis represented
the incarnation of ideal types by means of a separate life force, to others no