ABSTRACT
As further witnesses to the passing of Darwinism, two botanists may be cited; the first is Professor Korschinsky who in No. 24, 1899, of the Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift published an article on “Heterogenesis and Evolution,” which was to be followed later by a large work on this subject. With precision and emphasis he points to the numerous instances in which there occurs on or in a plant, suddenly and without intervention, a variation which may become hereditary under certain circumstances; thus during the last century a number of varieties of garden plants have been evolved. On the basis of such experiments Korschinsky developed the theory which had been proposed by Koelliker in Wuerzburg thirty years earlier, namely, the theory of “heterogeneous production” or heterogenesis,” as Korschinsky calls it. When one understands that a plant gives rise suddenly and without any intervention to a grain of seed, which produces a different plant, it becomes evident that all Darwinistic speculations about selection and struggle for existence are forthwith absolutely excluded. The effect can proceed only from the internal vital powers inherent in the specified organism acting in connection, perhaps, with the internal conditions of life, which suddenly exert an influence in a new direction.
