1871 Critic of Darwinism Whose Criticisms Still Pack a Punch

Breathing new life into St. George Jackson Mivart's On the Genesis of Species

Inkwell Press has just published the largely lost second edition of St. George Jackson Mivart’s On the Genesis of Species. This book provides a classic deconstruction of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Many of Mivart’s arguments hold as much today as back when it was published in 1871. This edition is available from Amazon—click here. Most publishers publish the first edition of this book, which appeared in January of 1871. But the following month, in February 1871, Darwin published his Descent of Man, where he asserted that his theory of evolution demonstrated full ontological continuity between humans and the rest of the animal world.

A Roman Catholic believer who saw humans occupying an exceptional place in the the scheme of creation, Mivart therefore felt compelled to respond in a second edition (also published in 1871) to the Descent of Man. This edition of On the Genesis of Species is the first in a series of books to be published by Inkwell Press: Inkwell Classics in Evolution and Design. What follows is (1) a description of this new series; (2) the text on the back cover of this new edition of On the Genesis of Species; and (3) five extensive quotes from Mivart exemplifying his incisive argumentation in refuting Darwinism. Mivart was an evolutionist. But he saw natural selection as inadequate to account for evolutionary change, arguing that Darwin’s theory was fundamentally incomplete.

1. Inkwell Classics in Evolution and Design

Inkwell Classics in Evolution and Design in an extended series of classic texts (books, monographs, and anthologies) on evolution and design that Inkwell Press will publish in coming years. To hear only scientific naturalists or materialists since the time of Darwin, one would think that non-teleological views of evolution are alone compatible with the progress of science. Thus, any attempt to give credence to teleology or design in biology is said no longer to be tenable.

But in fact, design has always been part of the discussion about biological origins. This series will give equal time to the main voices in this discussion. We will thus publish Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel. But we will also publish Paley, Babbage, and Wallace. Nor will this series confine itself to texts written before the twentieth century. A serious, intellectually vital debate about evolution and design has existed not just since the time of Darwin. It continues to the present. It has also existed since antiquity, as witnessed by Greek atomists such as Democritus and Epicurus versus Greek teleologists such as Plato and Aristotle.

As for the intellectual merits of this debate, it matters not whether at various periods one side or the other has dominated the limelight. Nor is the question whether some sort of evolutionary process may be responsible for life’s emergence and subsequent development. The question is whether purely material or physical forces, lacking any inherent teleology or design, can bring about the complexity and diversity of living forms. It is the key question about the nature of nature.

This series aims to restore a historically honest balance to the debate over evolution and design in the study of biological origins.

2. Back Cover for This New Edition

On the Genesis of Species(1871) is St. George Jackson Mivart’s seminal critique of Darwinian natural selection. Drawing on his expertise in comparative anatomy and paleontology, Mivart highlights key challenges to Darwin’s theory, including the origin of incipient structures, the convergence of traits in unrelated species, abrupt appearances in the fossil record, and the intrinsic harmony of biological parts. He argues that natural selection alone cannot fully account for the transformation of species and hints at innate formative principles guiding evolution. The book concludes with chapters on ethics and theology, integrating scientific critique with broader philosophical concerns. Historically, it marks the first major challenge to Darwin from a credentialed scientist, helping inaugurate a tradition of scientific dissent regarding the sufficiency of natural selection.

Praise for On the Genesis of Species

I shall be abundantly satisfied and pleased if my Essays do a quarter of the good which I hear your volume is doing… It is pleasant to find that the first real exposition of the logical insufficiency of Mr. Darwin’s theory comes from a Catholic.
—John Henry Newman, theologian, author of An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870)

Even those who differ from his conclusions will find a mine of physiological information and ingenious speculation… Mr. Mivart supports his arguments with so much cogency of reasoning, so great a knowledge of anatomical structure, and so complete an acknowledgement of the strength of his opponent’s position, that they cannot be disregarded by anyone interested in the subject.
—Alfred William Bennett, botanist, author of The Flora of the Alps (1897)

For apt learning, for clearness of exposition, for force of proof combined with utmost courtesy and good temper, there is no work on the subject that can be compared to the compact volume now before us.
—William George Ward, theologian, author of The Ideal of a Christian Church (1844)

In no work in the English language has this great controversy been treated at once with the same broad and vigorous grasp of facts, and the same liberal and candid temper.
—Anonymous reviewer, The Saturday Review

About the Author

St. George Jackson Mivart (1827–1900) was a Victorian naturalist and expert in primate comparative anatomy. A London-born convert to Catholicism, he gained fame for On the Genesis of Species (1871), a scientific critique of Darwinian natural selection. Mivart wrote extensively on mammalian anatomy and humanity’s spiritual nature but later faced conflict with both Darwinists and Catholic authorities, dying excommunicated.

3. Examples of Mivart Refuting Darwinism

3.1 Incipient Stages (ch. 2)

Another difficulty seems to be the first formation of the limbs of the higher animals. The lowest Vertebrata are perfectly limbless, and if, as most Darwinians would probably assume, the primeval vertebrate creature was also apodal, how are the preservation and development of the first rudiments of limbs to be accounted for—such rudiments being, on the hypothesis in question, infinitesimal and functionless? (p. 56)

Now, these complex and simultaneous co-ordinations could never have been produced by infinitesimal beginnings, since, until so far developed as to effect the requisite junctions, they are useless. But the eye and ear when fully developed present conditions which are hopelessly difficult to reconcile with the mere action of “Natural Selection.” (p. 68)

That minute, fortuitous, and indefinite variations could have brought about such special forms and modifications as have been enumerated in this chapter, seems to contradict not imagination, but reason. (p.78)

In spite of all the resources of a fertile imagination, the Darwinian, pure and simple, is reduced to the assertion of a paradox as great as any he opposes. In the place of a mere assertion of our ignorance as to the way these phenomena have been produced, he brings forward, as their explanation, a cause which it is contended in this work is demonstrably insufficient.

Of course in this matter, as elsewhere throughout nature, we have to do with the operation of fixed and constant natural laws, and the knowledge of these may before long be obtained by human patience or human genius; but there is, it is believed, already enough evidence to show that these as yet unknown natural laws or law will never be resolved into the action of “Natural Selection,” but will constitute or exemplify a mode and condition of organic action of which the Darwinian theory takes no account whatsoever. (pp. 78–79)

3.2 Convergence (ch. 3)

It would be easy to produce a multitude of such instances of similar ends being attained by dissimilar means, and it is here contended that by “the action of Natural Selection” only it is so improbable as to be practically impossible for two exactly similar structures to have ever been independently developed. It is so because the number of possible variations is indefinitely great, and it is therefore an indefinitely great number to one against a similar series of variations occurring and being similarly preserved in any two independent instances. (pp. 83–84)

In this third chapter an effort has been made to show that while on the Darwinian theory concordant variations are extremely improbable, yet Nature presents us with abundant examples of such; the most striking of which are, perhaps, the higher organs of sense. Also that an important influence is exercised by conditions connected with geographical distribution, but that a deeper-seated influence is at work, which is hinted at by those special tendencies in definite directions, which are the properties of certain groups. Finally, that these facts, when taken together, afford strong evidence that “Natural Selection” has not been the exclusive or predominant cause of the various organic structural peculiarities. This conclusion has also been re-enforced by the consideration of phenomena presented to us by the inorganic world. (pp. 109–110)

3.3 Minute and Gradual Changes (ch. 4)

Again, to anticipate somewhat, the great group of whales (Cetacea) was fully developed at the deposition of the Eocene strata. On the other hand, we may pretty safely conclude that these animals were absent as late as the latest secondary rocks, so that their development could not have been so very slow, unless geological time is (although we shall presently see there are grounds to believe it is not) practically infinite. It is quite true that it is, in general, very unsafe to infer the absence of any animal forms during a certain geological period, because no remains of them have as yet been found in the strata then deposited: but in the case of the Cetacea it is safe to do so; for, as Sir Charles Lyell remarks, they are animals, the remains of which are singularly likely to have been preserved had they existed, in the same way that the remains were preserved of the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, which appear to have represented the Cetacea during the secondary geological period. (p. 119)

It appears then that, apart from fortuitous changes, there are certain difficulties in the way of accepting extremely minute modifications of any kind, although these difficulties may not be insuperable. Something, at all events, is to be said in favour of the opinion that sudden and appreciable changes have from time to time occurred, however they may have been induced. Marked races have undoubtedly so arisen (some striking instances having been here recorded), and it is at least conceivable that such may be the mode of specific manifestation generally, the possible conditions as to which will be considered in a later chapter. (p. 124)

3.4 Time and the fossil record (ch. 6)

Thus, then, we find a remarkable (and on Darwinian principles an inexplicable) absence of minutely graduated transitional forms. All the most marked groups, bats, pterodactyles, chelonians, Ichthyosauria, anoura, &c., appear at once upon the scene. Even the horse, the animal whose pedigree has been probably best preserved, affords no conclusive evidence of specific origin by insignificant, fortuitous variations; while some forms, as the labyrinthodonts and trilobites, which seemed to exhibit gradual change, are shown by further investigation to do nothing of the sort. As regards the time required for evolution (whether estimated by the probably minimum period required for organic change or for the deposition of strata which accompanied that change), reasons have been suggested why it is likely that the past history of the earth does not supply us with enough. First, because of the prodigious increase in the importance and number of differences and modifications which we meet with as we traverse successively greater and more primary zoological groups; and, secondly, because of the vast series of strata necessarily deposited if the period since the Lower Silurian marks but a small fraction of the whole period of organic evolution. Finally, the absence or rarity of fossils in the oldest rocks is a point at present inexplicable, and not to be forgotten or neglected.

Now all these difficulties are avoided if we admit that new forms of animal life of all degrees of complexity appear from time to time with comparative suddenness, being evolved according to laws in part depending on surrounding conditions, in part internal—similar to the way in which crystals (and, perhaps from recent researches, the lowest forms of life) build themselves up according to the internal laws of their component substance, and in harmony and correspondence with all environing influences and conditions. (pp, 153–154)

3.5 Homological structures (ch. 8)

Now, it is here contended that the relationships borne one to another by various component parts, imply the existence of some innate, internal condition, conveniently spoken of as a power or tendency, which is quite as mysterious as is any innate condition, power, or tendency, resulting in the orderly evolution of successive specific manifestations. These relationships, as also this developmental power, will doubtless, in a certain sense, be somewhat further explained as science advances. But the result will be merely a shifting of the inexplicability a point backwards, by the intercalation of another step between the action of the internal condition or power and its external result. In the meantime, even if by “Natural Selection” we could eliminate the puzzles of the “origin of species,” yet other phenomena, not less remarkable (namely, those noticed in this chapter), would still remain unexplained and as yet inexplicable. It is not improbable that, could we arrive at the causes conditioning all the complex inter-relations between the several parts of one animal, we should at the same time obtain the key to unlock the secrets of specific origination. (p. 166)

Altogether, then, it appears that each organism has an innate tendency to develop in a symmetrical manner, and that this tendency is controlled and subordinated by the action of external conditions, and not that this symmetry is superinduced only ab externo. In fact, that each organism has its own internal and special laws of growth and development. (p. 193)