The Fruitful Facets of Galton's Polyhedron 359
"brand" of Neo-Darwinism—Weismann and Wallace's hyperadaptationism—with
the same term as adopted by the Modern Synthesis of the 1940's, and continuing
today). Weismann, as discussed extensively in Chapter 3, strongly advocated the
Allmacht ("all-power," or omnipotence) of natural selection. In a rhetorical dig,
Eimer countered with the Ohnmacht ("without-power," or weakness) of Darwin's
primary force. *
Eimer attempted to land squarely in the middle of this debate (1890, p. 63):
"Neither Nageli's view, which ascribes the principle of utility an almost
infinitesimal effect, nor Weismann's which regards adaptation as all powerful, can
be unreservedly accepted. The truth lies between them." Eimer joins inside and
outside with a model of internal orthogenesis as the architect of possible pathways
for change (with ontogenetic trajectories as the most important channels) and
environmental forces as potentiators of the channels into actual expression as
evolutionary alteration. As a simple, but instructive example, channels feature two
directions. Orthogenesis builds the channel— thus constraining change to two
paths in a potential infinity—but doesn't specify the direction. Environment
supplies the required push, thus assuring that the prefigured change will be either
adaptive or at least neutral, for selection operates as an efficient executioner of the
ill designed. (Or, taking an even larger role, environment might choose the
channel, if several stand open for possible entry.)
*In an obvious foray against Weismann, Eimer (1897) used this word in the subtitle of
his second and final volume on orthogenesis—Ein Beweis bestimmt gericbteter
Entwickelung und Ohnmacht der naturlichen Zuchtwahl bei der Artbildung ("a proof of
definitely directed development and the weakness of natural selection in the origin of spe-
cies"). I focus here on the more balanced view of external and internal forces presented in
Eimer's first volume of 1888, his only major work translated into English, and therefore the
main source of his influence among anglophone evolutionists. Natural selection gets short
enough shrift in this balanced view (for Eimer, as we shall see, grants most external power to
Lamarckian forces and little to Darwinian selection). But in the 1897 work, and largely (I
suspect) as a result of long and bitter polemics with Weismann, Eimer became ever more
dismissive about natural selection (while still giving lip service to the importance of envi-
ronment, though largely through use and disuse). Eimer continually contrasts the Ohnmacht
der Selection with the Herrschaft (domination) der Orthogenese. He considers natural
selection (1897, p. i) "von der geringsten Bedeutung" (of the smallest significance) as a
factor of change. He cites the standard argument—that selection creates nothing but can only
choose among variants presented by another process—as the Fundamental Einwurf
(objection) to Darwin's system: "Selection can create nothing new, but can only work with
characters that already exist and are useful in and of themselves" (1897, p. iii). Eimer waxes
polemical about "the exaggerated, blinkered presentation of the principle of selection, right
up to the proclamation of Allmacht" (1897, p. iv), and he particularly lambastes assumptions
made by strict selectionists about adaptation: "They satisfy themselves either in simply
stating that this or that is 'adaptive,' thereby bringing investigation to an end; or they begin a
round of groundless speculation, which surely has nothing to do with exact science" (1897,
p. iv). Further comparison of Eimer's earlier "balanced" version of 1888 with his anti-
Weismann polemic of 1897 would make an interesting historical project. The Weismann
connection, as well as the polemical tone, may be sampled in Eimer's motto: "orthogenesis is
the mortal enemy [Todfeind] not only of the omnipotence [Allmacht] of natural selection,
but also of the hypothesis of the germ plasm that is based upon it." (1897, pp. xiv-xv).