366 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
that such inadaptive orthogenesis might arise by mutation pressure too high for
natural selection to overcome.)
An even stronger anti-Darwinian version of the theory—a maximal departure
from functionalist explanation—held that all stages of a trend might follow a
prefigured, internally programmed path, and that environmental selection need not
be invoked at all, even for an initiating push. These versions usually anchored their
argument in a more than metaphorical reading of phylogeny as akin to ontogeny
and imbued with similar, inevitable stages of youth, maturity and old age.
To illustrate this hardest-line account of orthogenesis (and to set up a contrast
with the opposite and most accommodating version of C. O. Whitman, discussed in
the next section), I turn to an influential monograph on Miocene snails (see, for
example, the lengthy popular and well illustrated account in Le Conte, 1888, pp.
236 - 239), published in 1880 by the American paleontologist Alpheus Hyatt. The
case becomes particularly relevant for this historical chapter because Darwin and
Hyatt had engaged in a long and frustrating correspondence, full of
misunderstanding, about the theory of ontogenetically programmed phylogeny (see
F. Darwin, 1903, pp. 338- 34 8). Hyatt later sent Darwin a copy of his 1880
monograph, and Darwin replied, less than a year before his death, with an
uncharacteristically ungracious acknowledgment (reprinted in F. Darwin, 1903, p.
393 —letter of May 8, 1881): "I am much obliged for your kind gift... which I shall
be glad to read, as the case has always seemed to me a very curious one. It is all the
kinder in you to send me this book, as I am aware that you think that I have done
nothing to advance the good cause of the Descent-theory."
Hyatt, deeply stung, donned his hair shirt, and quickly penned a response on
May 23: "I tell you that your strongest supporters can hardly give you greater
esteem and honor. I have striven to get a just idea of your theory, but no doubt
have failed to convey this in my publications as it ought to be done." Francis
Darwin, Charles' son and editor of this volume, then adds, after quoting Hyatt: "We
find other equally strong and genuine expressions of respect in Prof. Hyatt's
letters." But, genuine respect notwithstanding—and I don't doubt Hyatt's bonae
fides for a moment—no version of orthogenesis could be more contrary to
Darwinism than the theory of internally programmed phylogeny.
From a parochial American standpoint at least, the evolutionary theories
devised and promoted by paleontologists E. D. Cope and Alpheus Hyatt occupy an
important historical position. For a nation still coming of age as a scientific power,
and still bearing a reputation, at least in natural history, as supplier of data to the
theory-mills of a more sophisticated Europe, the rise of an American movement,
centered in a novel theoretical perspective, and gaining both attention and respect
in Europe, marked an important gain in maturity. Cope and Hyatt led this co-called
"American school," often identified as "Neo-Lamarckism."
Cope and Hyatt did accept the inheritance of acquired characters, but a new
view on the mechanism of recapitulation, and a distinctive argument about
ontogeny in general, built the truly central and characteristic argument