ABSTRACT
According to what people have so far stated in connection with palaeontology the object of an evolutionary or transformation hypothesis is fairly well defined. But no one could seriously attempt to use the ether hypothesis in order, say, to explain consciousness, memory, and the will, since consciousness by its entire nature has absolutely nothing to do with a material state of vibration. It is a quite inadmissible procedure to put forward things and processes in the explanatory formula of an evolutionary hypothesis as the postulate of the same, when such things or processes cannot be recognized in their entire nature as the results of an evolutionary process. If two things—of which the one has the perfection or capacity under consideration, the other possessing neither even as a commencement—exist together, these may have manifold relations to each other and naturally may affect each other, but through ‘evolution’ they have no connection.
