Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

Neither Creation nor Evolution
geological revolutions. Species had originated autochthonously and their patterns of
distribution across the globe reflected favourable conditions for their spontaneous origin
and were not the result of migrations. 16 In the case of today's fauna and flora as well as in
that of all the previous extinct ones, species must have originated in situ, in the regions
where they now live, in approximately the same numbers of individuals as they at present
have, and all at the same time, because the economy of their existence depended on the
totality of their interactions. 17 "Those species which consist of many individuals, also
originated in large numbers" ("Diejenigen Arten, welche zahlreich an Individuen sind,
entstanden auch in zahlreicher Menge" (Vogt 1854, 387)). The belief that species came
from a single pair in a single location was a theological notion and derived from the story
of Noah's Ark. This made no scientific sense, because survival of species was only possible
if they existed as communities of, in many instances, large numbers of individuals.
Like Bronn, Vogt took an active part in the Darwinian debates, and not long after the
appearance of the Origin of Species he became a fervent supporter of Darwin. At the same
time that Thomas Henry Huxley published his Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863),
Vogt came out with Vorlesungen über den Menschen, seine Stellung in der Schöpfung und in der
Geschichte der Erde (1863), which was translated into English and French. In the last of
these lectures, Vogt admitted that in the wake of Darwin's book he had changed his
views, dropping his opposition to the theory of evolution. His opposition to the creationist
view, which postulated a God who from time to time refurbished the earth with
new furniture after having destroyed the old, had remained. Before the Origin of Species –
he rather disingenuously asserted – he had not known what to put in the place of creationism
(Vogt 1863, vol. 2, 259). With Darwin's theory, this now had changed.
Early Autochthonists
Vogt's style, I repeat, was aggressively adversarial and his utterances about the origin of
species for the most part negative, attacking at length the transformism of Lamarck and
the creationism of Agassiz. When it came to describing his own views about the origin of
species, his writings were, excepting the 1852 essay "Die Erzeugung der Jungen," notably
16 "So stellt es sich denn klar heraus, daß für unsere jetzige Schöpfung mehrere wichtige Gesetze existiren,
welche schon beim Beginn derselben obgewaltet haben. Die Arten sind Autochthonen – d.h. mit geringen Ausnahmen,
welche sich meist historisch nachweisen lassen und nur einzelne wenige Species betreffen, sind alle
Arten an denjenigen Orten entstanden, welche ihnen noch jetzt als Wohnsitze angewiesen sind. Die Verbreitungsbezirke
sind nicht Resultate von Wanderungen, sondern von Entstehungen zur Stelle und zwar ist es oft geschehen,
dass dieselbe Art an verschiedenen Orten zugleich erschien, wo eben die Verhältnisse ihrer Existenz
günstig waren" (Vogt 1859, 370).
17 "Die Arten, welche unsere Schöpfung zusammensetzen, müssen endlich in ähnlichen Verhältnissen der Zahl, in
welchen sie sich noch jetzt vorfinden, und zwar zu gleichen Zeiten entstanden sein, da die ganze organische Oekonomie
der Erdoberfläche auf dieser gleichzeitigen Existenz beruht und diese Verhältnisse nur innerhalb sehr
geringer Gränzen, nicht aber in ihrer Gesammtheit, geändert werden können, indem solche Aenderungen
den Untergang der ganzen Schöpfung herbeiziehen würden.
Die gleichen Gesetze werden wohl für die vorhergehenden Schöpfungen gelten müssen" (Vogt 1859,
371).
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005)
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