ON THE GENESIS OF SPECIES.
ON THE
GENESIS OF SPECIES.
BY
ST. GEORGE MIVART, F.R.S.
London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1871.
[The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.]
LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.
TO
SIR HENRY HOLLAND, Bart., M.D.,
F.R.S., D.C.L., ETC. ETC.
My dear Sir Henry,
In giving myself the pleasure to dedicate, as I now do, this work to
you, it is not my intention to identify you with any views of my own
advocated in it.
I simply avail myself of an opportunity of paying a tribute of esteem
and regard to my earliest scientific friend—the first to encourage
me in pursuing the study of nature.
I remain,
My dear Sir Henry,
Ever faithfully yours,
ST. GEORGE MIVART.
7, North Bank, Regent’s Park,
December 8, 1870.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY
The problem of the genesis of species stated.—Nature of its
probable solution.—Importance of the question.—Position here
defended.—Statement of the Darwinian
Theory.—Its applicability to details of geographical
distribution; to rudimentary structures; to homology; to mimicry,
&c.—Consequent utility of the theory.—Its wide
acceptance.—Reasons for this other than, and in addition to, its
scientific value. Its simplicity.—Its bearing on religious
questions.—Odium theologicum and odium
antitheologicum.—The antagonism supposed by many to exist
between it and theology neither necessary nor universal.—Christian
authorities in favour of evolution.—Mr. Darwin’s “Animals and
Plants under Domestication.”—Difficulties of the Darwinian theory
enumerated … Page 1
CHAPTER II.
THE INCOMPETENCY OF “NATURAL SELECTION” TO ACCOUNT FOR
THE INCIPIENT STAGES OF USEFUL STRUCTURES.
Mr. Darwin supposes that Natural-Selection acts by slight
variations.—These must be useful at once.—Difficulties as to
the giraffe; as to mimicry; as to the heads of flat-fishes; as to the
origin and constancy of the vertebrate, limbs; as to whalebone; as to the
young kangaroo; [viii]as to sea-urchins; as to certain
processes of metamorphosis; as to the mammary gland; as to certain ape
characters; as to the rattlesnake and cobra; as to the process of
formation of the eye and ear; as to the fully developed condition of the
eye and ear; as to the voice; as to shell-fish; as to orchids; as to
ants.—The necessity for the simultaneous modification of many
individuals.—Summary and conclusion … Page 23
CHAPTER III.
THE CO-EXISTENCE OF CLOSELY SIMILAR STRUCTURES OF
DIVERSE ORIGIN.
Chances against concordant variations.—Examples of discordant
ones.—Concordant variations not unlikely on a non-Darwinian
evolutionary hypothesis.—Placental and implacental
mammals.—Birds and reptiles.—Independent origins of similar
sense organs.—The ear.—The eye.—Other
coincidences.—Causes besides Natural Selection produce concordant
variations in certain geographical regions.—Causes besides Natural
Selection produce concordant variations in certain zoological and
botanical groups.—There are homologous parts not genetically
related.—Harmony in respect of the organic and inorganic
worlds.—Summary and conclusion … Page 63
CHAPTER IV.
MINUTE AND GRADUAL MODIFICATIONS.
There are difficulties as to minute modifications, even if not
fortuitous.—Examples of sudden and considerable modifications of
different kinds.—Professor Owen’s view.—Mr.
Wallace.—Professor Huxley.—Objections to sudden
changes.—Labyrinthodont.—Potto.—Cetacea.—As to
origin of bird’s wing.—Tendrils of climbing plants.—Animals
once supposed to be connecting links.—Early specialization of
structure.—Macrauchenia.—Glyptodon.—Sabre-toothed
tiger.—Conclusion … Page 97
CHAPTER V.
AS TO SPECIFIC STABILITY.
What is meant by the phrase “specific stability;” such stability to be
expected a priori, or else considerable changes at
once.—Rapidly increasing difficulty of intensifying race
characters; alleged causes of this phenomenon; probably an internal cause
co-operates.—A certain definiteness in variations.—Mr. Darwin
admits the principle of specific stability in certain cases of unequal
variability.—The goose.—The peacock.—The guinea
fowl.—Exceptional causes of variation under
domestication.—Alleged tendency to
reversion.—Instances.—Sterility of hybrids.—Prepotency
of pollen of same species, but of different race.—Mortality in
young gallinaceous hybrids.—A bar to intermixture exists
somewhere.—Guinea-pigs.—Summary and conclusion …
Page 113
CHAPTER VI.
SPECIES AND TIME.
Two relations of species to time.—No evidence of past existence
of minutely intermediate forms when such might be expected a
priori.—Bats, Pterodactyles, Dinosauria, and
Birds.—Ichthyosauria, Chelonia, and Anoura.—Horse
ancestry.—Labyrinthodonts and Trilobites.—Two subdivisions of
the second relation of species to time.—Sir William Thomson’s
views.—Probable period required for ultimate specific evolution
from primitive ancestral forms.—-Geometrical increase of time
required for rapidly multiplying increase of structural
differences.—Proboscis monkey.—Time required for deposition
of strata necessary for Darwinian evolution.—High organization of
Silurian forms of life.—Absence of fossils in oldest
rocks.—Summary and conclusion … Page 128
CHAPTER VII.
SPECIES AND SPACE.
The geographical distribution of animals presents
difficulties.—These not insurmountable in themselves; harmonize
with other difficulties.—Fresh-water fishes.—Forms common to
Africa and India; to Africa and [x]South America; to China and Australia; to
North America and China; to New Zealand and South America; to South
America and Tasmania; to South America and Australia.—Pleurodont
lizards.—Insectivorous mammals.—Similarity of European and
South American frogs.—Analogy between European salmon and fishes of
New Zealand, &c.—An ancient Antarctic continent
probable.—Other modes of accounting for facts of
distribution.—Independent origin of closely similar
forms.—Conclusion … Page 144
CHAPTER VIII.
HOMOLOGIES.
Animals made up of parts mutually related in various ways.—What
homology is.—Its various kinds.—Serial
homology.—Lateral homology.—Vertical homology.—Mr.
Herbert Spencer’s explanations.—An internal power necessary, as
shown by facts of comparative anatomy.—-Of teratology.—M. St.
Hilaire.—Professor Burt Wilder.—Foot-wings.—Facts of
pathology.—Mr. James Paget.—Dr. William Budd.—The
existence of such an internal power of individual development diminishes
the improbability of an analogous law of specific origination …
Page 155
CHAPTER IX.
EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.
The origin of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this
book.—Modern utilitarian view as to that origin.—Mr. Darwin’s
speculation as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest.—Cause
assigned by him insufficient.—Care of the aged and infirm opposed
by “Natural Selection;” also self-abnegation and
asceticism.—Distinctness of the ideas right and useful.—Mr.
John Stuart Mill.—Insufficiency of “Natural Selection” to account
for the origin of the distinction between duty and
profit.—Distinction of moral acts into material and
formal.—No [xi]ground for believing that formal morality
exists in brutes.—Evidence that it does exist in
savages.—Facility with which savages may be
misunderstood.—Objections as to diversity of customs.—Mr.
Button’s review of Mr. Herbert Spencer.—Anticipatory character of
morals.—Sir John Lubbock’s explanation.—Summary and
conclusion … Page 188
CHAPTER X.
PANGENESIS.
A provisional hypothesis supplementing “Natural
Selection.”—Statement of the hypothesis.—Difficulty as to
multitude of gemmules.—As to certain modes of
reproduction.—As to formations without the requisite
gemmules.—Mr. Lewes and Professor Delpino.—Difficulty as to
developmental force of gemmules.—As to their spontaneous
fission.—Pangenesis and Vitalism.—Paradoxical
reality.—Pangenesis scarcely superior to anterior
hypotheses.—Buffon.—Owen.—Herbert
Spencer.—Gemmules as mysterious as “physiological
units.”—Conclusion … Page 208
CHAPTER XI.
SPECIFIC GENESIS.
Review of the statements and arguments of preceding
chapters.—Cumulative argument against predominant action of
“Natural Selection.”—Whether anything positive as well as negative
can be enunciated.—Constancy of laws of nature does not necessarily
imply constancy of specific evolution.—Possible exceptional
stability of existing epoch.—Probability that an internal cause of
change exists.—Innate powers somewhere must be
accepted.—Symbolism of molecular action under vibrating impulses.
Professor Owen’s statement.—Statement of the Author’s
view.—It avoids the difficulties which oppose “Natural
Selection.”—It harmonizes apparently conflicting
conceptions.—Summary and conclusion … Page 220 [xii]
CHAPTER XII.
THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION.
Prejudiced opinions on the subject.—”Creation” sometimes denied
from prejudice.—The unknowable.—Mr. Herbert Spencer’s
objections to theism; to creation.—Meanings of term
“creation.”—Confusion from not distinguishing between “primary” and
“derivative” creation.—Mr. Darwin’s objections.—Bearing of
Christianity on evolution.—Supposed opposition, the result of a
misconception.—Theological authority not opposed to
evolution.—St. Augustin.—St. Thomas Aquinas.—Certain
consequences of want of flexibility of mind.—Reason and
imagination.—The first cause and demonstration.—Parallel
between Christianity and natural theology.—What evolution of
species is.—Professor Agassiz.—Innate powers must be
recognized.—Bearing of evolution on religious
belief.—Professor Huxley.—Professor Owen.—Mr.
Wallace.—Mr. Darwin.—A priori conception of Divine
action.—Origin of man.—Absolute creation and dogma.—Mr.
Wallace’s view.—A supernatural origin for man’s body not
necessary.—Two orders of being in man.—Two modes of
origin.—Harmony of the physical, hyperphysical, and
supernatural.—Reconciliation of science and religion as regards
evolution.—Conclusion … Page 243
INDEX … Page 289
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Leaf Butterfly in flight and repose (from Mr. A. Wallace’s “Malay
Archipelago”) … 31
Walking-Leaf Insect … 35
Pleuronectidæ, with the peculiarly placed eye in different positions
(from Dr. Traquair’s paper in Linn. Soc. Trans., 1865) … 37, 166
Mouth of Whale (from Professor Owen’s “Odontography”) … 40
Four plates of Baleen seen obliquely from within (from Professor
Owen’s “Odontography”) … 41
Echinus or Sea Urchin … 43, 167
Pedicellariæ of Echinus very much enlarged … 44
Rattlesnake … 49
Cobra (from Sir Andrew Smith’s “Southern Africa”) … 50
Wingbones of Pterodactyle, Bat, and Bird (from Mr. Andrew Murray’s
“Geographical Distribution of Mammals”) … 64,
130, 157
Skeleton of Flying-Dragon … 65, 158
Centipede (from a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons) … 66, 159
Teeth of Urotrichus and Perameles … 68
The Archeopteryx (from Professor Owen’s “Anatomy of
Vertebrata”) … 73, 132
Skeleton of Ichthyosaurus … 78, 107, 132, 177
Cytheridea Torosa (from Messrs. Brady and Robertson’s paper in Ann.
and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 1870) … 79
A Polyzoon, with Bird’s-head processes … 80
Bird’s-head processes greatly enlarged … 81
Antechimis Minutissimus and Mus Delicatulus (from Mr. Andrew
Murray’s “Geographical Distribution of Mammals”) … 82
Outlines of Wings of Butterflies of Celebes compared with those of
allied species elsewhere … 86
Great Shielded Grasshopper … 89
The Six-shafted Bird of Paradise … 90
The Long-tailed Bird of Paradise … 91
The Red Bird of Paradise … 92
Horned Flies … 93
The Magnificent Bird of Paradise … 93
(The above seven figures are from Mr. A. Wallace’s “Malay
Archipelago”)
Much enlarged horizontal Section of the Tooth of a Labyrinthodon
(from Professor Owen’s “Odontography”) … 104
Hand of the Potto (from life) … 105
Skeleton of Plesiosaurus … 106, 133
The Aye-Aye (from Trans, of Zool. Soc.) … 108
Dentition of Sabre-toothed Tiger (from Professor Owen’s
“Odontography”) … 110
Inner side of Lower Jaw of Pleurodont Lizard (from Professor Owen’s
“Odontography”) … 148
Solenodon (from Berlin Trans.) … 149
Tarsal Bones of Galago and Cheirogaleus (from Proc. Zool. Soc.)
… 159
Squilla … 160
Parts of the Skeleton of the Lobster … 161
[xv]
Spine of Galago Allenii (from Proc. Zool. Soc.) … 162
Vertebrae of Axolotl (from Proc. Zool. Soc.) … 165
Annelid undergoing spontaneous fission … 169,
211
Aard-Vark (Orycteropus capensis) … 174
Pangolin (Manis) … 175
Skeleton of Manus and Pes of a Tailed Batrachian (from Professor
Gegenbaur’s “Tarsus and Carpus”) … 178
Flexor Muscles of Hand of Nycticetus (from Proc. Zool. Soc.)
… 180
The Fibres of Corti … 279
THE GENESIS OF SPECIES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
The problem of the genesis of species stated.—Nature of its
probable solution.—Importance of the question.—Position here
defended.—Statement of the Darwinian
Theory.—Its applicability to details of geographical
distribution; to rudimentary structures; to homology; to mimicry,
&c.—Consequent utility of the theory.—Its wide
acceptance.—Reasons for this, other than, and in addition to, its
scientific value.—Its simplicity.—Its bearing on religious
questions.—Odium theologicum and odium
antitheologicum.—The antagonism supposed by many to exist
between it and theology neither necessary nor universal.—Christian
authorities in favour of evolution.—Mr. Darwin’s “Animals and
Plants under Domestication.”—Difficulties of the Darwinian theory
enumerated.
The great problem which has so long exercised the minds of
naturalists, namely, that concerning the origin of different kinds of
animals and plants, seems at last to be fairly on the road to
receive—perhaps at no very distant future—as satisfactory a
solution as it can well have.
But the problem presents peculiar difficulties. The birth of a
“species” has often been compared with that of an “individual.” The
origin, however, of even an individual animal or plant (that which
determines an embryo to evolve itself,—as, [2]e.g., a spider
rather than a beetle, a rose-plant rather than a pear) is shrouded in
obscurity. A fortiori must this be the case with the origin of a
“species.”
Moreover, the analogy between a “species” and an “individual” is a
very incomplete one. The word “individual” denotes a concrete whole with
a real, separate, and distinct existence. The word “species,” on the
other hand, denotes a peculiar congeries of characters, innate powers and
qualities, and a certain nature realized indeed in individuals, but
having no separate existence, except ideally as a thought in some
mind.
Thus the birth of a “species” can only be compared metaphorically, and
very imperfectly, with that of an “individual.”
Individuals as individuals, actually and directly produce and
bring forth other individuals; but no “congeries of characters” no
“common nature” as such, can directly bring forth another “common
nature,” because, per se, it has no existence (other than ideal)
apart from the individuals in which it is manifested.
The problem then is, “by what combination of natural laws does a new
‘common nature’ appear upon the scene of realized existence?” i.e.
how is an individual embodying such new characters produced?
For the approximation we have of late made towards the solution of
this problem, we are mainly indebted to the invaluable labours and active
brains of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.
Nevertheless, important as has been the impulse and direction given by
those writers to both our observations and speculations, the solution
will not (if the views here advocated are correct) ultimately present
that aspect and character with which it has issued from the hands of
those writers.
Neither, most certainly, will that solution agree in appearance or
substance with the more or less crude conceptions which have been put
forth by most of the opponents of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace. [3]
Rather, judging from the more recent manifestations of thought on
opposite sides, we may expect the development of some tertium
quid—the resultant of forces coming from different quarters,
and not coinciding in direction with any one of them.
As error is almost always partial truth, and so consists in the
exaggeration or distortion of one verity by the suppression of another
which qualifies and modifies the former, we may hope, by the synthesis of
the truths contended for by various advocates, to arrive at the one
conciliating reality.
Signs of this conciliation are not wanting: opposite scientific views,
opposite philosophical conceptions, and opposite religious beliefs, are
rapidly tending by their vigorous conflict to evolve such a systematic
and comprehensive view of the genesis of species as will completely
harmonize with the teachings of science, philosophy, and religion.
To endeavour to add one stone to this temple of concord, to try and
remove a few of the misconceptions and mutual misunderstandings which
oppose harmonious action, is the aim and endeavour of the present work.
This aim it is hoped to attain, not by shirking difficulties, but
analysing them, and by endeavouring to dig down to the common root which
supports and unites diverging stems of truth.
It cannot but be a gain when the labourers in the three fields above
mentioned, namely, science, philosophy, and religion, shall fully
recognize this harmony. Then the energy too often spent in futile
controversy, or withheld through prejudice, may be profitably and
reciprocally exercised for the mutual benefit of all.
Remarkable is the rapidity with which an interest in the question of
specific origination has spread. But a few years ago it scarcely occupied
the minds of any but naturalists. Then the crude theory put forth by
Lamarck, and by his English interpreter the author of the “Vestiges of
Creation,” had rather discredited than helped on a belief in organic
evolution—a belief, [4]that is, in new kinds being produced from
older ones by the ordinary and constant operation of natural laws. Now,
however, this belief is widely diffused. Indeed, there are few
drawing-rooms where it is not the subject of occasional discussion, and
artisans and schoolboys have their views as to the permanence of organic
forms. Moreover, the reception of this doctrine tends actually, though by
no means necessarily, to be accompanied by certain beliefs with regard to
quite distinct and very momentous subject-matter. So that the question of
the “Genesis of Species” is not only one of great interest, but also of
much importance.
But though the calm and thorough consideration of this matter is at
the present moment exceedingly desirable, yet the actual importance of
the question itself as to its consequences in the domain of theology has
been strangely exaggerated by many, both of its opponents and supporters.
This is especially the case with that form of the evolution theory which
is associated with the name of Mr. Darwin; and yet neither the refutation
nor the demonstration of that doctrine would be necessarily accompanied
by the results which are hoped for by one party and dreaded by
another.
The general theory of evolution has indeed for some time past steadily
gained ground, and it may be safely predicted that the number of facts
which can be brought forward in its support will, in a few years, be
vastly augmented. But the prevalence of this theory need alarm no one,
for it is, without any doubt, perfectly consistent with strictest and
most orthodox Christian theology. Moreover, it is not altogether without
obscurities, and cannot yet be considered as fully demonstrated.
The special Darwinian hypothesis, however, is beset with certain
scientific difficulties, which must by no means be ignored, and some of
which, I venture to think, are absolutely insuperable. What Darwinism or
“Natural Selection” is, will [5]be shortly explained; but before doing so, I
think it well to state the object of this book, and the view taken up and
defended in it. It is its object to maintain the position that “Natural
Selection” acts, and indeed must act, but that still, in order that we
may be able to account for the production of known kinds of animals and
plants, it requires to be supplemented by the action of some other
natural law or laws as yet undiscovered.[1] Also, that the consequences which have
been drawn from Evolution, whether exclusively Darwinian or not, to the
prejudice of religion, by no means follow from it, and are in fact
illegitimate.
The Darwinian theory of “Natural Selection” may be shortly stated
thus:[2]—
Every kind of animal and plant tends to increase in numbers in a
geometrical progression.
Every kind of animal and plant transmits a general likeness, with
individual differences, to its offspring.
Every individual may present minute variations of any kind and in any
direction.
Past time has been practically infinite.
Every individual has to endure a very severe struggle for existence,
owing to the tendency to geometrical increase of all kinds of animals and
plants, while the total animal and vegetable population (man and his
agency excepted) remains almost stationary.
Thus, every variation of a kind tending to save the life of the
individual possessing it, or to enable it more surely to propagate its
kind, will in the long run be preserved, and will transmit its favourable
peculiarity to some of its offspring, [6]which peculiarity will thus
become intensified till it reaches the maximum degree of utility. On the
other hand, individuals presenting unfavourable peculiarities will be
ruthlessly destroyed. The action of this law of Natural Selection may
thus be well represented by the convenient expression “survival of the
fittest.”[3]
Now this conception of Mr. Darwin’s is perhaps the most interesting
theory, in relation to natural science, which has been promulgated during
the present century. Remarkable, indeed, is the way in which it groups
together such a vast and varied series of biological[4] facts, and even paradoxes, which it
appears more or less clearly to explain, as the following instances will
show. By this theory of “Natural Selection,” light is thrown on the more
singular facts relating to the geographical distribution of animals and
plants; for example, on the resemblance between the past and present
inhabitants of different parts of the earth’s surface. Thus in Australia
remains have been found of creatures closely allied to kangaroos and
other kinds of pouched beasts, which in the present day exist nowhere but
in the Australian region. Similarly in South America, and nowhere else,
are found sloths and armadillos, and in that same part of the world have
been discovered bones of animals different indeed from existing sloths
and armadillos, but yet much more nearly related to them than to any
other kinds whatever. Such coincidences between the existing and
antecedent geographical distribution of forms are numerous. Again,
“Natural Selection” serves to explain the circumstance that often in
adjacent islands we find animals closely resembling, and appearing to
represent, each other; while if certain of these islands show signs (by
depth of surrounding sea or what not) of more ancient separation, the
[7]animals inhabiting them exhibit a
corresponding divergence.[5]
The explanation consists in representing the forms inhabiting the islands
as being the modified descendants of a common stock, the modification
being greatest where the separation has been the most prolonged.
“Rudimentary structures” also receive an explanation by means of this
theory. These structures are parts which are apparently functionless and
useless where they occur, but which represent similar parts of large size
and functional importance in other animals. Examples of such “rudimentary
structures” are the fœtal teeth of whales, and of the front part of
the jaw of ruminating quadrupeds. These fœtal structures are minute
in size, and never cut the gum, but are reabsorbed without ever coming
into use, while no other teeth succeed them or represent them in the
adult condition of those animals. The mammary glands of all male beasts
constitute another example, as also does the wing of the apteryx—a
New Zealand bird utterly incapable of flight, and with the wing in a
quite rudimentary condition (whence the name of the animal). Yet this
rudimentary wing contains bones which are miniature representatives of
the ordinary wing-bones of birds of flight. Now, the presence of these
useless bones and teeth is explained if they may be considered as
actually being the inherited diminished representatives of parts of large
size and functional importance in the remote ancestors of these various
animals.
Again, the singular facts of “homology” are capable of a similar
explanation. “Homology” is the name applied to the investigation of those
profound resemblances which have so often been found to underlie
superficial differences between animals of very different form and habit.
Thus man, the horse, the whale, and the bat, all have the pectoral limb,
whether it be the arm, or fore-leg, or paddle, or wing, formed on
essentially the same type, though [8]the number and proportion of parts may more or
less differ. Again, the butterfly and the shrimp, different as they are
in appearance and mode of life, are yet constructed on the same common
plan, of which they constitute diverging manifestations. No a
priori reason is conceivable why such similarities should be
necessary, but they are readily explicable on the assumption of a genetic
relationship and affinity between the animals in question, assuming, that
is, that they are the modified descendants of some ancient
form—their common ancestor.
That remarkable series of changes which animals undergo before they
attain their adult condition, which is called their process of
development, and during which they more or less closely resemble other
animals during the early stages of the same process, has also great light
thrown on it from the same source. The question as to the singularly
complex resemblances borne by every adult animal and plant to a certain
number of other animals and plants—resemblances by means of which
the adopted zoological and botanical systems of classification have been
possible—finds its solution in a similar manner, classification
becoming the expression of a genealogical relationship. Finally, by this
theory—and as yet by this alone—can any explanation be given
of that extraordinary phenomenon which is metaphorically termed
mimicry. Mimicry is a close and striking, yet superficial
resemblance borne by some animal or plant to some other, perhaps very
different, animal or plant. The “walking leaf” (an insect belonging to
the grasshopper and cricket order) is a well-known and conspicuous
instance of the assumption by an animal of the appearance of a vegetable
structure (see illustration on p. 35); and the bee, fly, and spider
orchids are familiar examples of a converse resemblance. Birds,
butterflies, reptiles, and even fish, seem to bear in certain instances a
similarly striking resemblance to other birds, butterflies, reptiles, and
fish, of altogether distinct kinds. The explanation of this matter which
“Natural Selection” offers, as [9]to animals, is that certain varieties of one
kind have found exemption from persecution in consequence of an
accidental resemblance which such varieties have exhibited to animals of
another kind, or to plants; and that they were thus preserved, and the
degree of resemblance was continually augmented in their descendants. As
to plants, the explanation offered by this theory might perhaps be that
varieties of plants which presented a certain superficial resemblance in
their flowers to insects, have thereby been helped to propagate their
kind, the visit of certain insects being useful or indispensable to the
fertilization of many flowers.
We have thus a whole series of important facts which “Natural
Selection” helps us to understand and co-ordinate. And not only are all
these diverse facts strung together, as it were, by the theory in
question; not only does it explain the development of the complex
instincts of the beaver, the cuckoo, the bee, and the ant, as also the
dazzling brilliancy of the humming-bird, the glowing tail and neck of the
peacock, and the melody of the nightingale; the perfume of the rose and
the violet, the brilliancy of the tulip and the sweetness of the nectar
of flowers; not only does it help us to understand all these, but serves
as a basis of future research and of inference from the known to the
unknown, and it guides the investigator to the discovery of new facts
which, when ascertained, it seems also able to co-ordinate.[6] Nay, “Natural Selection”
seems capable of application not only to the building up of the smallest
and most insignificant organisms, but even of extension beyond the
biological domain altogether, so as possibly to have relation to [10]the
stable equilibrium of the solar system itself, and even of the whole
sidereal universe. Thus, whether this theory be true or false, all lovers
of natural science should acknowledge a deep debt of gratitude to Messrs.
Darwin and Wallace, on account of its practical utility. But the utility
of a theory by no means implies its truth. What do we not owe, for
example, to the labours of the Alchemists? The emission theory of light,
again, has been pregnant with valuable results, as still is the Atomic
theory, and others which will readily suggest themselves.
With regard to Mr. Darwin (with whose name, on account of the noble
self-abnegation of Mr. Wallace, the theory is in general exclusively
associated), his friends may heartily congratulate him on the fact that
he is one of the few exceptions to the rule respecting the
non-appreciation of a prophet in his own country. It would be difficult
to name another living labourer in the field of physical science who has
excited an interest so widespread, and given rise to so much praise,
gathering round him, as he has done, a chorus of more or less completely
acquiescing disciples, themselves masters in science, and each the
representative of a crowd of enthusiastic followers.
Such is the Darwinian theory of “Natural Selection,” such are the more
remarkable facts which it is potent to explain, and such is the reception
it has met with in the world. A few words now as to the reasons for the
very widespread interest it has awakened, and the keenness with which the
theory has been both advocated and combated.
The important bearing it has on such an extensive range of scientific
facts, its utility, and the vast knowledge and great ingenuity of its
promulgator, are enough to account for the heartiness of its reception by
those learned in natural history. But quite other causes have concurred
to produce the general and higher degree of interest felt in the theory
beside the readiness with which it harmonizes with biological facts.
These latter could only be appreciated by physiologists, zoologists, and
botanists; whereas [11]the Darwinian theory, so novel and so
startling, has found a cloud of advocates and opponents beyond and
outside the world of physical science.
In the first place, it was inevitable that a great crowd of
half-educated men and shallow thinkers should accept with eagerness the
theory of “Natural Selection,” or rather what they think to be such (for
few things are more remarkable than the way in which it has been
misunderstood), on account of a certain characteristic it has in common
with other theories; which should not be mentioned in the same breath
with it, except, as now, with the accompaniment of protest and apology.
We refer to its remarkable simplicity, and the ready way in which
phenomena the most complex appear explicable by a cause for the
comprehension of which laborious and persevering efforts are not
required, but which may be represented by the simple phrase “survival of
the fittest.” With nothing more than this, can, on the Darwinian theory,
all the most intricate facts of distribution and affinity, form, and
colour, be accounted for; as well the most complex instincts and the most
admirable adjustments, such as those of the human eye and ear. It is in
great measure then, owing to this supposed simplicity, and to a belief in
its being yet easier and more simple than it is, that Darwinism, however
imperfectly understood, has become a subject for general conversation,
and has been able thus widely to increase a certain knowledge of
biological matters; and this excitation of interest in quarters where
otherwise it would have been entirely wanting, is an additional motive
for gratitude on the part of naturalists to the authors of the new
theory. At the same time it must be admitted that a similar
“simplicity”—the apparently easy explanation of complex
phenomena—also constitutes the charm of such matters as hydropathy
and phrenology, in the eyes of the unlearned or half-educated public. It
is indeed the charm of all those seeming “short cuts” to
knowledge, by which the labour of mastering scientific details is [12]spared
to those who yet believe that without such labour they can attain all the
most valuable results of scientific research. It is not, of course, for a
moment meant to imply that its “simplicity” tells at all against “Natural
Selection,” but only that the actual or supposed possession of that
quality is a strong reason for the wide and somewhat hasty acceptance of
the theory, whether it be true or not.
In the second place, it was inevitable that a theory appearing to have
very grave relations with questions of the last importance and interest
to man, that is, with questions of religious belief, should call up an
army of assailants and defenders. Nor have the supporters of the theory
much reason, in many cases, to blame the more or less unskilful and hasty
attacks of adversaries, seeing that those attacks have been in great part
due to the unskilful and perverse advocacy of the cause on the part of
some of its adherents. If the odium theologicum has inspired some
of its opponents, it is undeniable that the odium antitheologicum
has possessed not a few of its supporters. It is true (and in
appreciating some of Mr. Darwin’s expressions it should never be
forgotten) that the theory has been both at its first promulgation and
since vehemently attacked and denounced as unchristian, nay, as
necessarily atheistic; but it is not less true that it has been made use
of as a weapon of offence by irreligious writers, and has been again and
again, especially in continental Europe, thrown, as it were, in the face
of believers, with sneers and contumely. When we recollect the warmth
with which what he thought was Darwinism was advocated by such a writer
as Professor Vogt, one cause of his zeal was not far to seek—a
zeal, by the way, certainly not “according to knowledge;” for few
conceptions could have been more conflicting with true Darwinism than the
theory he formerly maintained, but has since abandoned, viz. that the men
of the Old World were descended from African and Asiatic apes, while,
similarly, the American apes were the progenitors of the human beings of
the New World. [13]The cause of this palpable error in a too
eager disciple one might hope was not anxiety to snatch up all or any
arms available against Christianity, were it not for the tone unhappily
adopted by this author. But it is unfortunately quite impossible to
mistake his meaning and intention, for he is a writer whose offensiveness
is gross, while it is sometimes almost surpassed by an amazing
shallowness. Of course, as might fully be expected, he adopts and
reproduces the absurdly trivial objections to absolute morality drawn
from differences in national customs.[7] And he seems to have as little conception
of the distinction between “formally” moral actions and those which are
only “materially” moral, as of that between the verbum mentale and
the verbum oris. As an example of his onesidedness, it may be
remarked that he compares the skulls of the American monkeys (Cebus
apella and C. albifrons) with the intention of showing that
man is of several distinct species, because skulls of different men are
less alike than are those of these two monkeys; and he does this
regardless of how the skulls of domestic animals (with which it is far
more legitimate to compare races of men than with wild kinds),
e.g. of different dogs or pigeons, tell precisely in the opposite
direction. Regardless also of the fact that perhaps no genus of monkeys
is in a more unsatisfactory state as to the determination of its
different kinds than the genus chosen by him for illustration. This is so
much the case that J. A. Wagner (in his supplement to Schreber’s great
work on Beasts) at first included all the kinds in a single species.
As to the strength of his prejudice and his regretable coarseness, one
quotation will be enough to display both. Speaking of certain early
Christian missionaries, he says,[8] “It is not so very improbable that the
new religion, before which the flourishing Roman civilization relapsed
into a state of barbarism, should have [14]been introduced by people
in whose skulls the anatomist finds simious characters so well developed,
and in which the phrenologist finds the organ of veneration so much
enlarged. I shall, in the meanwhile, call these simious narrow skulls of
Switzerland ‘Apostle skulls,’ as I imagine that in life they must have
resembled the type of Peter, the Apostle, as represented in
Byzantine-Nazarene art.”
In face of such a spirit, can it be wondered at that disputants have
grown warm? Moreover, in estimating the vehemence of the opposition which
has been offered, it should be borne in mind that the views defended by
religious writers are, or should be, all-important in their eyes. They
could not be expected to view with equanimity the destruction in many
minds of “theology, natural and revealed, psychology, and metaphysics;”
nor to weigh with calm and frigid impartiality arguments which seemed to
them to be fraught with results of the highest moment to mankind, and,
therefore, imposing on their consciences strenuous opposition as a first
duty. Cool judicial impartiality in them would have been a sign perhaps
of intellectual gifts, but also of a more important deficiency of
generous emotion.
It is easy to complain of the onesidedness of many of those who oppose
Darwinism in the interest of orthodoxy; but not at all less patent is the
intolerance and narrow-mindedness of some of those who advocate it,
avowedly or covertly, in the interest of heterodoxy. This hastiness of
rejection or acceptance, determined by ulterior consequences believed to
attach to “Natural Selection,” is unfortunately in part to be accounted
for by some expressions and a certain tone to be found in Mr. Darwin’s
writings. That his expressions, however, are not always to be construed
literally is manifest. His frequent use metaphorically of the
expressions, “contrivance,” for example, and “purpose,” has elicited,
from the Duke of Argyll and others, criticisms which fail to tell against
their [15]opponent, because such expressions are, in
Mr. Darwin’s writings, merely figurative—metaphors, and nothing
more.
It may be hoped, then, that a similar looseness of expression will
account for passages of a directly opposite tendency to that of his
theistic metaphors.
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that he frequently uses that
absolutely theological term, “the Creator,” and that he has retained in
all the editions of his “Origin of Species” an expression which has been
much criticised. He speaks “of life, with its several powers, having been
originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or into one.”[9] This is merely mentioned in
justice to Mr. Darwin, and by no means because it is a position which
this book is intended to support. For, from Mr. Darwin’s usual mode of
speaking, it appears that by such divine action he means a supernatural
intervention, whereas it is here contended that throughout the whole
process of physical evolution—the first manifestation of life
included—supernatural action is assuredly not to be looked
for.
Again, in justice to Mr. Darwin, it may be observed that he is
addressing the general public, and opposing the ordinary and common
objections of popular religionists, who have inveighed against
“Evolution” and “Natural Selection” as atheistic, impious, and directly
conflicting with the dogma of creation.
Still, in so important a matter, it is to be regretted that he did not
take the trouble to distinguish between such merely popular views and
those which repose upon some more venerable authority. Mr. John Stuart
Mill has replied to similar critics, and shown that the assertion that
his philosophy is irreconcilable with theism is unfounded; and it would
have been better if Mr. Darwin had dealt in the same manner with some of
his assailants, and shown the futility of certain of their [16]objections when
viewed from a more elevated religious standpoint. Instead of so doing, he
seems to adopt the narrowest notions of his opponents, and, far from
endeavouring to expand them, appears to wish to endorse them, and to lend
to them the weight of his authority. It is thus that Mr. Darwin seems to
admit and assume that the idea of “creation” necessitates a belief in an
interference with, or dispensation of, natural laws, and that “creation”
must be accompanied by arbitrary and unorderly phenomena. None but the
crudest conceptions are placed by him to the credit of supporters of the
dogma of creation, and it is constantly asserted that they, to be
consistent, must offer “creative fiats” as explanations of physical
phenomena, and be guilty of numerous other such absurdities. It is
impossible, therefore, to acquit Mr. Darwin of at least a certain
carelessness in this matter; and the result is, he has the appearance of
opposing ideas which he gives no clear evidence of having ever fully
appreciated. He is far from being alone in this, and perhaps merely takes
up and reiterates, without much consideration, assertions previously
assumed by others. Nothing could be further from Mr. Darwin’s mind than
any, however small, intentional misrepresentation; and it is therefore
the more unfortunate that he should not have shown any appreciation of a
position opposed to his own other than that gross and crude one which he
combats so superfluously—that he should appear, even for a moment,
to be one of those, of whom there are far too many, who first
misrepresent their adversary’s view, and then elaborately refute it; who,
in fact, erect a doll utterly incapable of self-defence and then, with a
flourish of trumpets and many vigorous strokes, overthrow the helpless
dummy they had previously raised.
This is what many do who more or less distinctly oppose theism in the
interests, as they believe, of physical science; and they often
represent, amongst other things, a gross and narrow anthropomorphism as
the necessary consequence of views [17]opposed to those which
they themselves advocate. Mr. Darwin and others may perhaps be excused if
they have not devoted much time to the study of Christian philosophy; but
they have no right to assume or accept, without careful examination, as
an unquestioned fact, that in that philosophy there is a necessary
antagonism between the two ideas, “creation” and “evolution,” as applied
to organic forms.
It is notorious and patent to all who choose to seek, that many
distinguished Christian thinkers have accepted and do accept both ideas,
i.e. both “creation” and “evolution.”
As much as ten years ago, an eminently Christian writer observed: “The
creationist theory does not necessitate the perpetual search after
manifestations of miraculous powers and perpetual ‘catastrophes.’
Creation is not a miraculous interference with the laws of nature, but
the very institution of those laws. Law and regularity, not arbitrary
intervention, was the patristic ideal of creation. With this notion, they
admitted without difficulty the most surprising origin of living
creatures, provided it took place by law. They held that when God
said, ‘Let the waters produce,’ ‘Let the earth produce,’ He conferred
forces on the elements of earth and water, which enabled them naturally
to produce the various species of organic beings. This power, they
thought, remains attached to the elements throughout all time.”[10] The same writer quotes
St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to the effect that, “in the
institution of nature we do not look for miracles, but for the laws of
nature.”[11] And, again,
St. Basil,[12] speaks of
the continued operation of natural laws in the production of all
organisms. [18]
So much for writers of early and mediæval times. As to the present
day, the Author can confidently affirm that there are many as well versed
in theology as Mr. Darwin is in his own department of natural knowledge,
who would not be disturbed by the thorough demonstration of his theory.
Nay, they would not even be in the least painfully affected at witnessing
the generation of animals of complex organization by the skilful
artificial arrangement of natural forces, and the production, in the
future, of a fish, by means analogous to those by which we now produce
urea.
And this because they know that the possibility of such phenomena,
though by no means actually foreseen, has yet been fully provided for in
the old philosophy centuries before Darwin, or even before Bacon, and
that their place in the system can be at once assigned them without even
disturbing its order or marring its harmony.
Moreover, the old tradition in this respect has never been abandoned,
however much it may have been ignored or neglected by some modern
writers. In proof of this it may be observed that perhaps no
post-mediæval theologian has a wider reception amongst Christians
throughout the world than Suarez, who has a separate section[13] in opposition to those
who maintain the distinct creation of the various kinds—or
substantial forms—of organic life.
But the consideration of this matter must be deferred for the present,
and the question of evolution, whether Darwinian or other, be first gone
into. It is proposed, after that has been done, to return to this subject
(here merely alluded to), and to consider at some length the bearing of
“Evolution,” whether Darwinian or non-Darwinian, upon “Creation and
Theism.”
Now we will revert simply to the consideration of the theory of
“Natural Selection” itself.
Whatever may have hitherto been the amount of acceptance that this
theory has met with, all, I think, anticipated that the appearance of Mr.
Darwin’s large and careful work on “Animals and Plants under
Domestication” could but further increase that acceptance. It is,
however, somewhat problematical how far such anticipations will be
realized. The newer book seems to add after all but little in support of
the theory, and to leave most, if not all, its difficulties exactly where
they were. It is a question, also, whether the hypothesis of
“Pangenesis”[14] may not be
found rather to encumber than to support the theory it was intended to
subserve. However, the work in question treats only of domestic animals,
and probably the next instalment will address itself more vigorously and
directly to the difficulties which seem to us yet to bar the way to a
complete acceptance of the doctrine.
If the theory of Natural Selection can be shown to be quite
insufficient to explain any considerable number of important phenomena
connected with the origin of species, that theory, as the
explanation, must be considered as provisionally discredited.
If other causes than Natural (including sexual) Selection can be
proved to have acted—if variation can in any cases be proved to be
subject to certain determinations in special directions by other means
than Natural Selection, it then becomes probable a priori that it
is so in others, and that Natural Selection [20]depends upon, and only
supplements, such means, which conception is opposed to the pure
Darwinian position.
Now it is certain, a priori, that variation is obedient to some
law and therefore that “Natural Selection” itself must be capable of
being subsumed into some higher law; and it is evident, I believe, a
posteriori, that Natural Selection is, at the very least, aided and
supplemented by some other agency.
Admitting, then, organic and other evolution, and that new forms of
animals and plants (new species, genera, &c.) have from time to time
been evolved from preceding animals and plants, it follows, if the views
here advocated are true, that this evolution has not taken place by the
action of “Natural Selection” alone, but through it (amongst other
influences) aided by the concurrent action of some other natural law or
laws, at present undiscovered; and probably that the genesis of species
takes place partly, perhaps mainly, through laws which may be most
conveniently spoken of as special powers and tendencies existing in each
organism; and partly through influences exerted on each by surrounding
conditions and agencies organic and inorganic, terrestrial and cosmical,
among which the “survival of the fittest” plays a certain but subordinate
part.
The theory of “Natural Selection” may (though it need not) be taken in
such a way as to lead men to regard the present organic world as formed,
so to speak, accidentally, beautiful and wonderful as is
confessedly the hap-hazard result. The same may perhaps be said with
regard to the system advocated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, who, however, also
relegates “Natural Selection” to a subordinate rôle. The view here
advocated, on the other hand, regards the whole organic world as arising
and going forward in one harmonious development similar to that which
displays itself in the growth and action of each separate individual
organism. It also regards each such separate [21]organism as the
expression of powers and tendencies not to be accounted for by “Natural
Selection” alone, or even by that together with merely the direct
influence of surrounding conditions.
The difficulties which appear to oppose themselves to the reception of
“Natural Selection” or “the survival of the fittest,” as the one
explanation of the origin of species, have no doubt been already
considered by Mr. Darwin. Nevertheless, it may be worth while to
enumerate them, and to state the considerations which appear to give them
weight; and there is no doubt but that a naturalist so candid and careful
as the author of the theory in question, will feel obliged, rather than
the reverse, by the suggestion of all the doubts and difficulties which
can be brought against it.
What is to be brought forward may be summed up as follows:—
That “Natural Selection” is incompetent to account for the incipient
stages of useful structures.
That it does not harmonize with the co-existence of closely similar
structures of diverse origin.
That there are grounds for thinking that specific differences may be
developed suddenly instead of gradually.
That the opinion that species have definite though very different
limits to their variability is still tenable.
That certain fossil transitional forms are absent, which might have
been expected to be present.
That some facts of geographical distribution supplement other
difficulties.
That the objection drawn from the physiological difference between
“species” and “races” still exists unrefuted.
That there are many remarkable phenomena in organic forms upon which
“Natural Selection” throws no light whatever, but the explanations of
which, if they could be attained, might throw light upon specific
origination. [22]
Besides these objections to the sufficiency of “Natural Selection,”
others may be brought against the hypothesis of “Pangenesis,” which,
professing as it does to explain great difficulties, seems to do so by
presenting others not less great—almost to be the explanation of
obscurum per obscurius. [23]
CHAPTER II.
THE INCOMPETENCY OF “NATURAL SELECTION” TO ACCOUNT FOR THE INCIPIENT STAGES OF USEFUL STRUCTURES.
Mr. Darwin supposes that natural selection acts by slight
variations.—These must be useful at once.—Difficulties as to
the giraffe; as to mimicry; as to the heads of flat-fishes; as to the
origin and constancy of the vertebrate limbs; as to whalebone; as to the
young kangaroo; as to sea-urchins; as to certain processes of
metamorphosis; as to the mammary gland; as to certain ape characters; as
to the rattlesnake and cobra; as to the process of formation of the eye
and ear; as to the fully developed condition of the eye and ear; as to
the voice; as to shell-fish; as to orchids; as to ants.—The
necessity for the simultaneous modification of many
individuals.—Summary and conclusion.
“Natural Selection,” simply and by itself, is potent to explain the
maintenance or the further extension and development of favourable
variations, which are at once sufficiently considerable to be useful from
the first to the individual possessing them. But Natural Selection
utterly fails to account for the conservation and development of the
minute and rudimentary beginnings, the slight and infinitesimal
commencements of structures, however useful those structures may
afterwards become.
Now, it is distinctly enunciated by Mr. Darwin, that the spontaneous
variations upon which his theory depends are individually slight, minute,
and insensible. He says,[15] “Slight [24]individual differences,
however, suffice for the work, and are probably the sole differences
which are effective in the production of new species.” And again, after
mentioning the frequent sudden appearances of domestic varieties, he
speaks of “the false belief as to the similarity of natural species in
this respect.”[16] In his
work on the “Origin of Species,” he also observes, “Natural Selection
acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited
modifications.”[17] And
“Natural Selection, if it be a true principle, will banish the belief …
of any great and sudden modification in their structure.”[18] Finally, he adds, “If it could be
demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly
have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory
would absolutely break down.”[19]
Now the conservation of minute variations in many instances is, of
course, plain and intelligible enough; such, e.g., as those which
tend to promote the destructive faculties of beasts of prey on the one
hand, or to facilitate the flight or concealment of the animals pursued
on the other; provided always that these minute beginnings are of such a
kind as really to have a certain efficiency, however small, in favour of
the conservation of the individual possessing them; and also provided
that no unfavourable peculiarity in any other direction accompanies and
neutralizes, in the struggle for life, the minute favourable
variation.
But some of the cases which have been brought forward, and which have
met with very general acceptance, seem less satisfactory when carefully
analysed than they at first appear to be. Amongst these we may mention
“the neck of the giraffe.”
At first sight it would seem as though a better example in support of
“Natural Selection” could hardly have been chosen. [25]Let the fact of the
occurrence of occasional, severe droughts in the country which that
animal has inhabited be granted. In that case, when the ground vegetation
has been consumed, and the trees alone remain, it is plain that at such
times only those individuals (of what we assume to be the nascent giraffe
species) which were able to reach high up would be preserved, and would
become the parents of the following generation, some individuals of which
would, of course, inherit that high-reaching power which alone preserved
their parents. Only the high-reaching issue of these high-reaching
individuals would again, cæteris paribus, be preserved at the next
drought, and would again transmit to their offspring their still loftier
stature; and so on, from period to period, through æons of time, all the
individuals tending to revert to the ancient shorter type of body, being
ruthlessly destroyed at the occurrence of each drought.
(1.) But against this it may be said, in the first place, that the
argument proves too much; for, on this supposition, many species must
have tended to undergo a similar modification, and we ought to have at
least several forms, similar to the giraffe, developed from different
Ungulata.[20] A careful
observer of animal life, who has long resided in South Africa, explored
the interior, and lived in the giraffe country, has assured the Author
that the giraffe has powers of locomotion and endurance fully equal to
those possessed by any of the other Ungulata of that continent. It would
seem, therefore, that some of these other Ungulates ought to have
developed in a similar manner as to the neck, under pain of being
starved, when the long neck of the giraffe was in its incipient
stage.
To this criticism it has been objected that different kinds of animals
are preserved, in the struggle for life, in very different [26]ways, and even
that “high reaching” may be attained in more modes than one—as, for
example, by the trunk of the elephant. This is, indeed, true, but then
none of the African Ungulata[21] have, nor do they appear ever to have
had, any proboscis whatsoever; nor have they acquired such a development
as to allow them to rise on their hind limbs and graze on trees in a
kangaroo-attitude, nor a power of climbing, nor, as far as known, any
other modification tending to compensate for the comparative shortness of
the neck. Again, it may perhaps be said that leaf-eating forms are
exceptional, and that therefore the struggle to attain high branches
would not affect many Ungulates. But surely, when these severe droughts
necessary for the theory occur, the ground vegetation is supposed to be
exhausted; and, indeed, the giraffe is quite capable of feeding from off
the ground. So that, in these cases, the other Ungulata must have
taken to leaf eating or have starved, and thus must have had any
accidental long-necked varieties favoured and preserved exactly as the
long-necked varieties of the giraffe are supposed to have been favoured
and preserved.
The argument as to the different modes of preservation has been very
well put by Mr. Wallace,[22] in reply to the objection that “colour,
being dangerous, should not exist in nature.” This objection appears
similar to mine; as I say that a giraffe neck, being needful, there
should be many animals with it, while the objector noticed by Mr. Wallace
says, “a dull colour being needful, all animals should be so coloured.”
And Mr. Wallace shows in reply how porcupines, tortoises and mussels,
very hard-coated bombadier beetles, stinging insects and nauseous-tasted
caterpillars, can afford to be brilliant by the various means of active
defence or passive protection [27]they possess, other than obscure
colouration. He says “the attitudes of some insects may also protect
them, as the habit of turning up the tail by the harmless rove-beetles
(Staphylinidæ) no doubt leads other animals, besides children, to the
belief that they can sting. The curious attitude assumed by sphinx
caterpillars is probably a safeguard, as well as the blood-red tentacles
which can suddenly be thrown out from the neck by the caterpillars of all
the true swallow-tailed butterflies.”
But, because many different kinds of animals can elude the observation
or defy the attack of enemies in a great variety of ways, it by no means
follows that there are any similar number and variety of ways for
attaining vegetable food in a country where all such food, other than the
lofty branches of trees, has been for a time destroyed. In such a country
we have a number of vegetable-feeding Ungulates, all of which present
minute variations as to the length of the neck. If, as Mr. Darwin
contends, the natural selection of these favourable variations has alone
lengthened the neck of the giraffe by preserving it during droughts;
similar variations, in similarly-feeding forms, at the same times, ought
similarly to have been preserved and so lengthened the neck of some other
Ungulates by similarly preserving them during the same droughts.
(2.) It may be also objected, that the power of reaching upwards,
acquired by the lengthening of the neck and legs, must have necessitated
a considerable increase in the entire size and mass of the body (larger
bones requiring stronger and more voluminous muscles and tendons, and
these again necessitating larger nerves, more capacious blood-vessels,
&c.), and it is very problematical whether the disadvantages thence
arising would not, in times of scarcity, more than counterbalance the
advantages.
For a considerable increase in the supply of food would be requisite
on account of this increase in size and mass, while at the same time
there would be a certain decrease in strength; [28]for, as Mr. Herbert
Spencer says,[23] “It is
demonstrable that the excess of absorbed over expended nutriment must,
other things equal, become less as the size of an animal becomes greater.
In similarly-shaped bodies, the masses vary as the cubes of the
dimensions; whereas the strengths vary as the squares of the
dimensions.”…. “Supposing a creature which a year ago was one foot
high, has now become two feet high, while it is unchanged in proportions
and structure—what are the necessary concomitant changes that have
taken place in it? It is eight times as heavy; that is to say, it has to
resist eight times the strain which gravitation puts on its structure;
and in producing, as well as in arresting, every one of its movements, it
has to overcome eight times the inertia. Meanwhile, the muscles and bones
have severally increased their contractile and resisting powers, in
proportion to the areas of their transverse sections; and hence are
severally but four times as strong as they were. Thus, while the creature
has doubled in height, and while its ability to overcome forces has
quadrupled, the forces it has to overcome have grown eight times as
great. Hence, to raise its body through a given space, its muscles have
to be contracted with twice the intensity, at a double cost of matter
expended.” Again, as to the cost at which nutriment is distributed
through the body, and effete matters removed from it, “Each increment of
growth being added at the periphery of an organism, the force expended in
the transfer of matter must increase in a rapid progression—a
progression more rapid than that of the mass.”
There is yet another point. Vast as may have been the time during
which the process of evolution has continued, it is nevertheless not
infinite. Yet, as every kind, on the Darwinian hypothesis, varies
slightly but indefinitely in every organ and every part of every organ,
how very generally must favourable [29]variations as to the
length of the neck have been accompanied by some unfavourable variation
in some other part, neutralizing the action of the favourable one, the
latter, moreover, only taking effect during these periods of drought! How
often must not individuals, favoured by a slightly increased length of
neck, have failed to enjoy the elevated foliage which they had not
strength or endurance to attain; while other individuals, exceptionally
robust, could struggle on yet further till they arrived at vegetation
within their reach.
However, allowing this example to pass, many other instances will be
found to present great difficulties.
Let us take the cases of mimicry amongst lepidoptera and other
insects. Of this subject Mr. Wallace has given a most interesting and
complete account,[24]
showing in how many and strange instances this superficial resemblance by
one creature to some other quite distinct creature acts as a safeguard to
the first. One or two instances must here suffice. In South America there
is a family of butterflies, termed Heliconidæ, which are very
conspicuously coloured and slow in flight, and yet the individuals abound
in prodigious numbers, and take no precautions to conceal themselves,
even when at rest, during the night. Mr. Bates (the author of the very
interesting work “The Naturalist on the River Amazons,” and the
discoverer of “Mimicry”) found that these conspicuous butterflies had a
very strong and disagreeable odour; so much so that any one handling them
and squeezing them, as a collector must do, has his fingers stained and
so infected by the smell, as to require time and much trouble to remove
it.
It is suggested that this unpleasant quality is the cause of the
abundance of the Heliconidæ; Mr. Bates and other observers reporting that
they have never seen them attacked by the birds, reptiles, or insects
which prey upon other lepidoptera.
Now it is a curious fact that very different South American [30]butterflies
put on, as it were, the exact dress of these offensive beauties and mimic
them even in their mode of flight.
In explaining the mode of action of this protecting resemblance Mr.
Wallace observes:[25]
“Tropical insectivorous birds very frequently sit on dead branches of a
lofty tree, or on those which overhang forest paths, gazing intently
around, and darting off at intervals to seize an insect at a considerable
distance, with which they generally return to their station to devour. If
a bird began by capturing the slow-flying conspicuous Heliconidæ, and
found them always so disagreeable that it could not eat them, it would
after a very few trials leave off catching them at all; and their whole
appearance, form, colouring, and mode of flight is so peculiar, that
there can be little doubt birds would soon learn to distinguish them at a
long distance, and never waste any time in pursuit of them. Under these
circumstances, it is evident that any other butterfly of a group which
birds were accustomed to devour, would be almost equally well protected
by closely resembling a Heliconia externally, as if it acquired also the
disagreeable odour; always supposing that there were only a few of them
among a great number of Heliconias.”
“The approach in colour and form to the Heliconidæ, however, would be
at the first a positive, though perhaps a slight, advantage; for although
at short distances this variety would be easily distinguished and
devoured, yet at a longer distance it might be mistaken for one of the
uneatable group, and so be passed by and gain another day’s life, which
might in many cases be sufficient for it to lay a quantity of eggs and
leave a numerous progeny, many of which would inherit the peculiarity
which had been the safeguard of their parent.”
LEAF BUTTERFLY IN FLIGHT AND REPOSE.
(From Mr. Wallace’s
“Malay Archipelago.“)
As a complete example of mimicry Mr. Wallace refers to a common Indian
butterfly. He says:[26]
“But the most wonderful and undoubted case of protective resemblance in a
butterfly, [31]which I have ever seen, is that of the
common Indian Kallima inachis, and its Malayan ally, Kallima
paralekta. The upper surface of these is very striking and showy, as
they are of a [32]large size, and are adorned with a broad
band of rich orange on a deep bluish ground. The under side is very
variable in colour, so that out of fifty specimens no two can be found
exactly alike, but every one of them will be of some shade of ash, or
brown, or ochre, such as are found among dead, dry, or decaying leaves.
The apex of the upper wings is produced into an acute point, a very
common form in the leaves of tropical shrubs and trees, and the lower
wings are also produced into a short narrow tail. Between these two
points runs a dark curved line exactly representing the midrib of a leaf,
and from this radiate on each side a few oblique lines, which serve to
indicate the lateral veins of a leaf. These marks are more clearly seen
on the outer portion of the base of the wings, and on the inner side
towards the middle and apex, and it is very curious to observe how the
usual marginal and transverse striæ of the group are here modified and
strengthened so as to become adapted for an imitation of the venation of
a leaf.” … “But this resemblance, close as it is, would be of little
use if the habits of the insect did not accord with it. If the butterfly
sat upon leaves or upon flowers, or opened its wings so as to expose the
upper surface, or exposed and moved its head and antennæ as many other
butterflies do, its disguise would be of little avail. We might be sure,
however, from the analogy of many other cases, that the habits of the
insect are such as still further to aid its deceptive garb; but we are
not obliged to make any such supposition, since I myself had the good
fortune to observe scores of Kallima paralekta, in Sumatra, and to
capture many of them, and can vouch for the accuracy of the following
details. These butterflies frequent dry forests, and fly very swiftly.
They were seen to settle on a flower or a green leaf, but were many times
lost sight of in a bush or tree of dead leaves. On such occasions they
were generally searched for in vain, for while gazing intently at the
very spot where one had disappeared, it would often suddenly dart out,
and again vanish twenty or fifty yards [33]further on. On one or two
occasions the insect was detected reposing, and it could then be seen how
completely it assimilates itself to the surrounding leaves. It sits on a
nearly upright twig, the wings fitting closely back to back, concealing
the antennæ and head, which are drawn up between their bases. The little
tails of the hind wing touch the branch, and form a perfect stalk to the
leaf, which is supported in its place by the claws of the middle pair of
feet, which are slender and inconspicuous. The irregular outline of the
wings gives exactly the perspective effect of a shrivelled leaf. We thus
have size, colour, form, markings, and habits, all combining together to
produce a disguise which may be said to be absolutely perfect; and the
protection which it affords is sufficiently indicated by the abundance of
the individuals that possess it.”
Beetles also imitate bees and wasps, as do some Lepidoptera; and
objects the most bizarre and unexpected are simulated, such as dung and
drops of dew. Some insects, called bamboo and walking-stick insects, have
a most remarkable resemblance to pieces of bamboo, to twigs and branches.
Of these latter insects Mr. Wallace says:[27] “Some of these are a foot long and as
thick as one’s finger, and their whole colouring, form, rugosity, and the
arrangement of the head, legs, and antennæ, are such as to render them
absolutely identical in appearance with dry sticks. They hang loosely
about shrubs in the forest, and have the extraordinary habit of
stretching out their legs unsymmetrically, so as to render the deception
more complete.” Now let us suppose that the ancestors of these various
animals were all destitute of the very special protections they at
present possess, as on the Darwinian hypothesis we must do. Let it also
be conceded that small deviations from the antecedent colouring or form
would tend to make some of their ancestors escape destruction by causing
them more or less frequently to [34]be passed over, or mistaken by their
persecutors. Yet the deviation must, as the event has shown, in each case
be in some definite direction, whether it be towards some other animal or
plant, or towards some dead or inorganic matter. But as, according to Mr.
Darwin’s theory, there is a constant tendency to indefinite variation,
and as the minute incipient variations will be in all directions,
they must tend to neutralize each other, and at first to form such
unstable modifications that it is difficult, if not impossible, to see
how such indefinite oscillations of infinitesimal beginnings can ever
build up a sufficiently appreciable resemblance to a leaf, bamboo, or
other object, for “Natural Selection” to seize upon and perpetuate. This
difficulty is augmented when we consider—a point to be dwelt upon
hereafter—how necessary it is that many individuals should be
similarly modified simultaneously. This has been insisted on in an able
article in the North British Review for June 1867, p. 286, and the
consideration of the article has occasioned Mr. Darwin to make an
important modification in his views.[28]
In these cases of mimicry it seems difficult indeed to imagine a
reason why variations tending in an infinitesimal degree in any
special direction should be preserved. All variations would be preserved
which tended to obscure the perception of an animal by its enemies,
whatever direction those variations might take, and the common
preservation of conflicting tendencies would greatly favour their mutual
neutralization and obliteration if we may rely on the many cases recently
brought forward by Mr. Darwin with regard to domestic animals.
THE WALKING-LEAF INSECT.
Mr. Darwin explains the imitation of some species by others more or
less nearly allied to it, by the common origin of both the mimic and the
mimicked species, and the consequent possession by both (according to the
theory of “Pangenesis”) of gemmules tending to reproduce ancestral
characters, which characters the [35]mimic must be assumed first to have lost and
then to have recovered. Mr. Darwin says,[29] “Varieties of one species frequently
mimic distinct species, a fact in perfect harmony with the foregoing
cases, and explicable only on the theory of descent.” But this at
the best is but a partial and very incomplete explanation. It is one,
moreover, which Mr. Wallace does not accept.[30] It is very incomplete, because it has
no bearing on some of the most striking cases, and of course Mr. Darwin
does not pretend that it has. We should have to go back far indeed to
reach the common ancestor of the mimicking walking-leaf [36]insect and the
real leaf it mimics, or the original progenitor of both the bamboo insect
and the bamboo itself. As these last most remarkable cases have certainly
nothing to do with heredity,[31] it is unwarrantable to make use of that
explanation for other protective resemblances, seeing that its
inapplicability, in certain instances, is so manifest.
Again, at the other end of the process it is as difficult to account
for the last touches of perfection in the mimicry. Some insects which
imitate leaves extend the imitation even to the very injuries on those
leaves made by the attacks of insects or of fungi. Thus, speaking of one
of the walking-stick insects, Mr. Wallace says:[32] “One of these creatures obtained by
myself in Borneo (Ceroxylus laceratus) was covered over with
foliaceous excrescences of a clear olive-green colour, so as exactly to
resemble a stick grown over by a creeping moss or jungermannia. The Dyak
who brought it me assured me it was grown over with moss although alive,
and it was only after a most minute examination that I could convince
myself it was not so.” Again, as to the leaf butterfly, he says:[33] “We come to a still more
extraordinary part of the imitation, for we find representations of
leaves in every stage of decay, variously blotched, and mildewed, and
pierced with holes, and in many cases irregularly covered with powdery
black dots, gathered into patches and spots, so closely resembling the
various kinds of minute fungi that grow on dead leaves, that it is
impossible to avoid thinking at first sight that the butterflies
themselves have been attacked by real fungi.”
Here imitation has attained a development which seems utterly beyond
the power of the mere “survival of the fittest” to produce. How this
double mimicry can importantly aid in the struggle for life seems
puzzling indeed, but much more so [37]how the first faint
beginnings of the imitation of such injuries in the leaf can be developed
in the animal into such a complete representation of them—a
fortiori how simultaneous and similar first beginnings of imitations
of such injuries could ever have been developed in several individuals,
out of utterly indifferent and indeterminate infinitesimal variations in
all conceivable directions.
PLEURONECTIDÆ, WITH THE PECULIARLY PLACED EYE IN DIFFERENT
POSITIONS.
(From Dr. Traquair’s paper in the “Transactions of
the Linnean Society, 1865.”)
Another instance which may be cited is the asymmetrical condition of
the heads of the flat-fishes (Pleuronectidæ), such as the sole, the
flounder, the brill, the turbot, &c. In all these fishes the two
eyes, which in the young are situated as usual one on each side, come to
be placed, in the adult, both on the same side of the head. If this
condition had appeared at once, if in the hypothetically fortunate common
ancestor of these fishes an eye had suddenly become thus transferred,
then the perpetuation of such a transformation by the action of “Natural
Selection” is conceivable enough. Such sudden changes, however, are not
those favoured by the Darwinian theory, and indeed the accidental
occurrence of such a spontaneous transformation is hardly conceivable.
But if this is not so, if the transit was [38]gradual, then how such
transit of one eye a minute fraction of the journey towards the other
side of the head could benefit the individual is indeed far from clear.
It seems, even, that such an incipient transformation must rather have
been injurious. Another point with regard to these flat-fishes is that
they appear to be in all probability of recent origin—i.e.
geologically speaking. There is, of course, no great stress to be laid on
the mere absence of their remains from the secondary strata, nevertheless
that absence is noteworthy, seeing that existing fish families,
e.g. sharks (Squalidæ), have been found abundantly even down so
far as the carboniferous rocks, and traces of them in the Upper
Silurian.
Another difficulty seems to be the first formation of the limbs of the
higher animals. The lowest Vertebrata[34] 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?
In reply to this it has been suggested that a mere flattening of the
end of the body has been useful, such, e.g., as we see in
sea-snakes,[35] which may
be the rudiment of a tail formed strictly to aid in swimming. Also that a
mere roughness of the skin might be useful to a swimming animal by
holding the water better, that thus minute processes might be selected
and preserved, and that, in the same way, these might be gradually
increased into limbs. But it is, to say the least, very questionable
whether a roughness of the skin, or minute processes, would be [39]useful to a
swimming animal; the motion of which they would as much impede as aid,
unless they were at once capable of a suitable and appropriate action,
which is against the hypothesis. Again, the change from mere indefinite
and accidental processes to two regular pairs of symmetrical limbs, as
the result of merely fortuitous, favouring variations, is a step the
feasibility of which hardly commends itself to the reason, seeing the
very different positions assumed by the ventral fins in different fishes.
If the above suggestion made in opposition to the views here asserted be
true, then the general constancy of position of the limbs of vertebrata
may be considered as due to the position assumed by the primitive
rugosities from which those limbs were generated. Clearly only two pairs
of rugosities were so preserved and developed, and all limbs (on this
view) are descendants of the same two pairs, as all have so similar a
fundamental structure. Yet we find in many fishes the pair of fins, which
correspond to the hinder limbs of other animals, placed so far forwards
as to be either on the same level with, or actually in front of, the
normally anterior pair of limbs; and such fishes are from this
circumstance called “thoracic,” or “jugular” fishes respectively, as the
weaver fishes and the cod. This is a wonderful contrast to the fixity of
position of vertebrate limbs generally. If then such a change can have
taken place in the comparatively short time occupied by the evolution of
these special fish forms, we might certainly expect other and far more
bizarre structures would (did not some law forbid) have been developed,
from other rugosities, in the manifold exigencies of the multitudinous
organisms which must (on the Darwinian hypothesis) have been gradually
evolved during the enormous period intervening between the first
appearance of vertebrate life and the present day. Yet, with these
exceptions, the position of the limbs is constant from the lower fishes
up to man, there being always an anterior pectoral pair placed in front
of a posterior or pelvic pair when both are [40]present, and in no single
instance are there more than these two pairs.
MOUTH OF A WHALE.
The development of whalebone (baleen) in the mouth of the whale is
another difficulty. A whale’s mouth is furnished with very numerous horny
plates, which hang down from the palate along each side of the mouth.
They thus form two longitudinal series, each plate of which is placed
transversely to the long axis of the body, and all are very close
together. On depressing the lower lip the free outer edges of these
plates come into view. Their inner edges are furnished with numerous
coarse hair-like processes, consisting of some of the constituent fibres
of the horny plates—which, as it were, fray out—and the mouth
is thus lined, except below, by a network of countless fibres formed by
the inner edges of the two series of plates. This [41]network acts as a sort of
sieve. When the whale feeds it takes into its mouth a great gulp of
water, which it drives out again through the intervals of the horny
plates of baleen, the fluid thus traversing the sieve of horny fibres,
which retains the minute creatures on which these marine monsters
subsist. Now it is obvious, that if this baleen had once attained such a
size and development as to be at all useful, then its preservation and
augmentation within serviceable limits, would be promoted by “Natural
Selection” alone. But how to obtain the beginning of such useful
development? There are indeed certain animals of exclusively aquatic
habits (the dugong and manatee) which also possess more or less horn on
the palate, and at first sight this might be taken as a mitigation of the
difficulty; but it is not so, and the fact does not help us one step
further along the road: for, in the first place, these latter animals
differ so importantly in structure from whales and porpoises that they
form an altogether distinct order, and cannot be thought to approximate
to the whale’s progenitors. They are vegetarians, the whales feed on
animals; the former never have the ribs articulated in the mode in which
they are in some of the latter; the [42]former have pectoral
mammæ, and the latter are provided with two inguinal mammary glands, and
have the nostrils enlarged into blowers, which the former have not. The
former thus constitute the order Sirenia, while the latter belong to the
Cetacea. In the second place, the horny matter on the palates of the
dugong and manatee has not, even initially, that “strainer” action, which
is the characteristic function of the Cetacean “baleen.”
FOUR PLATES OF BALEEN SEEN OBLIQUELY FROM WITHIN.
DUGONG.
There is another very curious structure, the origin or the
disappearance of which it seems impossible to account for on the
hypothesis of minute indefinite variations. It is that of the mouth of
the young kangaroo. In all mammals, as in ourselves, the air-passage from
the lungs opens in the floor of the mouth behind the tongue, and in front
of the opening of the gullet, so that each particle of food as it is
swallowed passes over the opening, but is prevented from falling into it
(and thus causing death from choking) by the action of a small
cartilaginous shield (the epiglottis), which at the right moment bends
back and protects the orifice. Now the kangaroo is born in such an
exceedingly imperfect and undeveloped condition, that it is quite unable
to suck. The mother therefore places the minute blind and naked young
upon the nipple, and then injects milk into it by means of a special
muscular envelope of the mammary gland. Did no special provision exist,
the young one must infallibly be choked by the intrusion of the milk into
the windpipe. But there is a special provision. The larynx is so
elongated that it rises up into the posterior end of the nasal passage,
and is thus enabled to give free entrance to the air for the lungs, while
the milk passes harmlessly on each side of this elongated larynx, and so
safely attains the gullet behind it.
Now, on the Darwinian hypothesis, either all mammals descended from
marsupial progenitors, or else the marsupials, sprung from animals having
in most respects the ordinary mammalian structure. [43]
On the first alternative, how did “Natural Selection” remove this (at
least perfectly innocent and harmless) structure in almost all other
mammals, and, having done so, again reproduce it in precisely those forms
which alone require it, namely, the Cetacea? That such a harmless
structure need not be removed any Darwinian must confess, since a
structure exists in both the crocodiles and gavials, which enables the
former to breathe themselves while drowning the prey which they hold in
their mouths. On Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis it could only have been
developed where useful, therefore not in the gavials(!) which feed on
fish, but which yet retain, as we might expect, this, in them superfluous
but harmless formation.
On the second alternative, how did the elongated larynx itself arise,
seeing that if its development lagged behind that of the maternal
structure, the young primeval kangaroo must be choked: while without the
injecting power in the mother, it must be starved? The struggle by the
sole action of which such a form was developed must indeed have been
severe!
AN ECHINUS, OR SEA-URCHIN
(The spines removed from
one-half.)
The sea-urchins (Echinus) present us also with structures the origin
of which it seems impossible to explain by the action [44]of “Natural
Selection” only. These lowly animals belong to that group of the
star-fish class (Echinodermata), the species of which possess generally
spheroidal bodies, built up of multitudinous calcareous plates, and
constitute the order Echinoidea. They are also popularly known as
sea-eggs. Utterly devoid of limbs, the locomotion of these creatures is
effected by means of rows of small tubular suckers (which protrude
through pores in the calcareous plates) and by moveable spines scattered
over the body.
PEDICELLARIÆ. (Immensely enlarged.)
Besides these spines and suckers there are certain very peculiar
structures, termed “Pedicellariæ.” Each of these consists of a long
slender stalk, ending in three short limbs—or rather jaws—the
whole supported by a delicate internal skeleton. The three limbs (or
jaws), which start from a common point at the end of the stalk, are in
the constant habit of opening and closing together again with a snapping
action, while the stalk itself sways about. The utility of these
appendages is, even now, problematical. It may be that they remove from
the surface of the animal’s body foreign substances which would be
prejudicial to it, and which it cannot otherwise get rid of. But granting
this, what would be the utility of the first rudimentary
beginnings of such structures, and how could such incipient buddings
have ever preserved the life of a single Echinus? It is true that on
Darwinian principles the ancestral form from which the sea-urchin
developed was different, and must not be conceived merely as an Echinus
devoid of pedicellariæ; but this makes the difficulty none the less. It
is equally hard to imagine that the first rudiments of such structures
could have been useful to any animal [45]from which the Echinus
might have been derived. Moreover, not even the sudden development
of the snapping action could have been beneficial without the freely
moveable stalk, nor could the latter have been efficient without the
snapping jaws, yet no minute merely indefinite variations could
simultaneously evolve these complex co-ordinations of structure; to deny
this seems to do no less than to affirm a startling paradox.
Mr. Darwin explains the appearance of some structures, the utility of
which is not apparent, by the existence of certain “laws of correlation.”
By these he means that certain parts or organs of the body are so related
to other organs or parts, that when the first are modified by the action
of “Natural Selection,” or what not, the second are simultaneously
affected, and increase proportionally or possibly so decrease. Examples
of such are the hair and teeth in the naked Turkish dog, the general
deafness of white cats with blue eyes, the relation between the presence
of more or less down on young birds when first hatched, and the future
colour of their plumage,[36] with many others. But the idea that the
modification of any internal or external part of the body of an Echinus
carries with it the effect of producing elongated, flexible, triradiate,
snapping processes, is, to say the very least, fully as obscure and
mysterious as what is here contended for, viz. the efficient presence of
an unknown internal natural law or laws conditioning the evolution of new
specific forms from preceding ones, modified by the action of surrounding
conditions, by “Natural Selection” and by other controlling
influences.
The same difficulty seems to present itself in other examples of
exceptional structure and action. In the same Echinus, as in many allied
forms, and also in some more or less remote ones, a very peculiar mode of
development exists. The adult is not [46]formed from the egg
directly, but the egg gives rise to a creature which swims freely about,
feeds, and is even somewhat complexly organized. Soon a small lump
appears on one side of its stomach; this enlarges, and, having
established a communication with the exterior, envelopes and appropriates
the creature’s stomach, with which it swims away and develops into the
complete adult form, while the dispossessed individual perishes.
Again, certain flies present a mode of development equally bizarre,
though quite different. In these flies, the grub is, as usual, produced
from the ovum, but this grub, instead of growing up into the adult in the
ordinary way, undergoes a sort of liquefaction of a great part of its
body, while certain patches of formative tissue, which are attached to
the ramifying air tubes, or tracheæ (and which patches bear the name of
“imaginal disks”), give rise to the legs, wings, eyes, &c.,
respectively; and these severally formed parts grow together, and build
up the head and body by their mutual approximation. Such a process is
unknown outside the class of insects, and inside that class it is only
known in a few of the two-winged flies. Now, how “Natural Selection,” or
any “laws of correlation,” can account for the gradual development of
such an exceptional process of development—so extremely divergent
from that of other insects—seems nothing less than inconceivable.
Mr. Darwin himself[37]
gives an account of a very peculiar and abnormal mode of development of a
certain beetle, the sitaris, as described by M. Fabre. This insect,
instead of at first appearing in its grub stage, and then, after a time,
putting on the adult form, is at first active and furnished with six
legs, two long antennæ, and four eyes. Hatched in the nests of bees, it
at first attaches itself to one of the males, and then crawls, when the
opportunity offers, upon a female bee. When the female bee lays her eggs,
the young sitaris springs upon them [47]and devours them. Then,
losing its eyes, legs, and antennæ, and becoming rudimentary, it sinks
into an ordinary grub-like form, and feeds on honey, ultimately
undergoing another transformation, re-acquiring its legs, &c., and
emerging a perfect beetle! That such a process should have arisen by the
accumulation of minute accidental variations in structure and habit,
appears to many minds, quite competent to form an opinion on the subject,
absolutely incredible.
It may be objected, perhaps, that these difficulties are
difficulties of ignorance—that we cannot explain them
because we do not know enough of the animals. But it is here
contended that this is not the case; it is not that we merely fail to see
how Natural Selection acted, but that there is a positive incompatibility
between the cause assigned and the results. It will be stated shortly
what wonderful instances of co-ordination and of unexpected utility Mr.
Darwin has discovered in orchids. The discoveries are not disputed or
undervalued, but the explanation of their origin is deemed
thoroughly unsatisfactory—utterly insufficient to explain the
incipient, infinitesimal beginnings of structures which are of utility
only when they are considerably developed.
Let us consider the mammary gland, or breast. Is it conceivable that
the young of any animal was ever saved from destruction by accidentally
sucking a drop of scarcely nutritious fluid from an accidentally
hypertrophied cutaneous gland of its mother? And even if one was so, what
chance was there of the perpetuation of such a variation? On the
hypothesis of Natural Selection itself, we must assume that up to that
time the race had been well adapted to the surrounding conditions; the
temporary and accidental trial and change of conditions, which caused the
so-sucking young one to be the “fittest to survive” under the supposed
circumstances, would soon cease to act, and then the progeny of the
mother, with the accidentally hypertrophied, sebaceous glands, would have
no tendency to survive [48]the far outnumbering descendants of the
normal ancestral form. If, on the other hand, we assume the change of
conditions not to have been temporary but permanent, and also assume that
this permanent change of conditions was accidentally synchronous with the
change of structure, we have a coincidence of very remote probability
indeed. But if, again, we accept the presence of some harmonizing law
simultaneously determining the two changes, or connecting the second with
the first by causation, then, of course, we remove the accidental
character of the coincidence.
Again, how explain the external position of the male sexual glands in
certain mammals? The utility of the modification, when accomplished, is
problematical enough, and no less so the incipient stages of the
descent.
As was said in the first chapter, Mr. Darwin explains the brilliant
plumage of the peacock or the humming-bird by the action of sexual
selection: the more and more brilliant males being selected by the
females (which are thus attracted) to become the fathers of the next
generation, to which generation they tend to communicate their own bright
nuptial vesture. But there are peculiarities of colour and of form which
it is exceedingly difficult to account for by any such action. Thus,
amongst apes, the female is notoriously weaker, and is armed with much
less powerful canine tusks than the male. When we consider what is known
of the emotional nature of these animals, and the periodicity of its
intensification, it is hardly credible that a female would often risk
life or limb through her admiration of a trifling shade of colour, or an
infinitesimally greater though irresistibly fascinating degree of
wartiness.[38]
RATTLESNAKE.
Yet the males of some kinds of ape are adorned with quite
exceptionally brilliant local decoration, and the male orang is provided
with remarkable, projecting, warty lumps of skin upon the cheeks. As we
have said, the weaker female can hardly be supposed to have developed
these by persevering and long-continued selection, nor can they be
thought to tend to the preservation of the individual. On the contrary,
the presence of this enlarged appendage must occasion a slight increase
in the need of nutriment, and in so far must be a detriment, although its
detrimental effect would not be worth speaking of except in relation to
“Darwinism,” according to which, [50]“selection” has acted through unimaginable
ages, and has ever tended to suppress any useless development by the
struggle for life.[39]
COBRA.
(Copied, by permission, from Sir Andrew Smith’s
“Reptiles of South Africa.”)
In poisonous serpents, also, we have structures which, at all events
at first sight, seem positively hurtful to those reptiles. Such are the
rattle of the rattlesnake, and the expanding neck of the cobra, the
former seeming to warn the ear of the intended victim, as the latter
warns the eye. It is true we cannot perhaps demonstrate that the victims
are alarmed and warned, but, on [51]Darwinian principles, they certainly ought
to be so. For the rashest and most incautious of the animals preyed on
would always tend to fall victims, and the existing individuals being the
long-descended progeny of the timid and cautious, ought to have an
inherited tendency to distrust, amongst other things, both “rattling” and
“expanding” snakes. As to any power of fascination exercised by means of
these actions, the most distinguished naturalists, certainly the most
distinguished erpetologists, entirely deny it, and it is opposed to the
careful observations of those known to us.[40]
The mode of formation of both the eye and the ear of the highest
animals is such that, if it is (as most Darwinians assert processes of
development to be) a record of the actual steps by which such structures
were first evolved in antecedent forms, it almost amounts to a
demonstration that those steps were never produced by “Natural
Selection.”
The eye is formed by a simultaneous and corresponding ingrowth of one
part and outgrowth of another. The skin in front of the future eye
becomes depressed, the depression increases and assumes the form of a
sac, which changes into the aqueous humour and lens. An outgrowth of
brain substance, on the other hand, forms the retina, while a third
process is a lateral ingrowth of connective tissue, which afterwards
changes into the vitreous humour of the eye.
The internal ear is formed by an involution of the integument, and not
by an outgrowth of the brain. But tissue, in connexion with it, becomes
in part changed, thus forming the auditory nerve, which places the
tegumentary sac in direct communication with the brain itself.
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.” The
difficulties with regard to the eye have been well put by Mr. Murphy,
especially that of the concordant result of visual development springing
from different starting-points and continued on by independent roads.
He says,[41] speaking of
the beautiful structure of the perfect eye, “The higher the organization,
whether of an entire organism or of a single organ, the greater is the
number of the parts that co-operate, and the more perfect is their
co-operation; and consequently, the more necessity there is for
corresponding variations to take place in all the co-operating parts at
once, and the more useless will be any variation whatever unless it is
accompanied by corresponding variations in the co-operating parts; while
it is obvious that the greater the number of variations which are needed
in order to effect an improvement, the less will be the probability of
their all occurring at once. It is no reply to this to say, what is no
doubt abstractedly true, that whatever is possible becomes probable, if
only time enough be allowed. There are improbabilities so great that the
common sense of mankind treats them as impossibilities. It is not, for
instance, in the strictest sense of the word, impossible that a poem and
a mathematical proposition should be obtained by the process of shaking
letters out of a box; but it is improbable to a degree that cannot be
distinguished from impossibility; and the improbability of obtaining an
improvement in an organ by means of several spontaneous variations, all
occurring together, is an improbability of the same kind. If we suppose
that any single variation occurs [53]on the average once in m times, the
probability of that variation occurring in any individual will be
1 m | ; |
and suppose that x variations must concur in order to make an
improvement, then the probability of the necessary variations all
occurring together will be
| 1 mx | . |
Now suppose, what I think a moderate proposition, that the value of
m is 1,000, and the value of x is 10, then
| 1 mx | = | 1 100010 | = | 1 1030 | . |
A number about ten thousand times as great as the number of waves of
light that have fallen on the earth since historical time began. And it
is to be further observed, that no improvement will give its possessor a
certainty of surviving and leaving offspring, but only an extra
chance, the value of which it is quite impossible to estimate.” This
difficulty is, as Mr. Murphy points out, greatly intensified by the
undoubted fact that the wonderfully complex structure has been arrived at
quite independently in beasts on the one hand and in cuttle-fishes on the
other; while creatures of the insect and crab division present us with a
third and quite separately developed complexity.
As to the ear, it would take up too much space to describe its
internal structure;[42] it
must suffice to say that in its interior there is an immense series of
minute rod-like bodies, termed fibres of Corti, having the
appearance of a key-board, and each fibre being connected with a filament
of the auditory nerve, these nerves being like strings to be struck by
the keys, i.e. by the fibres of Corti. Moreover, this apparatus is
supposed to be a key-board [54]in function as well as in appearance, the
vibration of each one fibre giving rise, it is believed, to the sensation
of one particular tone, and combinations of such vibrations producing
chords. It is by the action of this complex organ then, that all the
wonderful intricacy and beauty of Beethoven and Mozart come, most
probably, to be perceived and appreciated.
Now it can hardly be contended that the preservation of any race of
men in the struggle for life ever depended on such an extreme delicacy
and refinement of the internal ear,—a perfection only exercised in
the enjoyment and appreciation of the most perfect musical performances.
How, then, could either the minute incipient stages, or the final
perfecting touches of this admirable structure, have been brought about
by vague, aimless, and indefinite variations in all conceivable
directions of an organ, suitable to enable the rudest savage to minister
to his necessities, but no more?
Mr. Wallace[43] makes an
analogous remark with regard to the organ of voice in man—the human
larynx. He says of singing: “The habits of savages give no indication of
how this faculty could have been developed by Natural Selection, because
it is never required or used by them. The singing of savages is a more or
less monotonous howling, and the females seldom sing at all. Savages
certainly never choose their wives for fine voices, but for rude health,
and strength, and physical beauty. Sexual selection could not therefore
have developed this wonderful power, which only comes into play among
civilized people.”
Reverting once more to beauty of form and colour, there is one
manifestation of it for which no one can pretend that sexual selection
can possibly account. The instance referred to is that presented by
bivalve shell-fish.[44]
Here we meet with charming tints and elegant forms and markings of no
direct use to their [55]possessors[45] in the struggle for life, and of no
indirect utility as regards sexual selection, for fertilization takes
place by the mere action of currents of water, and the least beautiful
individual has fully as good a chance of becoming a parent as has the one
which is the most favoured in beauty of form and colour.
Again, the peculiar outline and coloration of certain
orchids—notably of our own bee, fly, and spider orchids—seem
hardly explicable by any action of “Natural Selection.” Mr. Darwin says
very little on this singular resemblance of flowers to insects, and what
he does say seems hardly to be what an advocate of “Natural Selection”
would require. Surely, for minute accidental indefinite variations to
have built up such a striking resemblance to insects, we ought to find
that the preservation of the plant, or the perpetuation of its race,
depends almost constantly on relations between bees, spiders, and flies
respectively and the bee, spider, and fly orchids.[46] This process must have continued for
ages constantly and perseveringly, and yet what is the fact? Mr. Darwin
tells us, in his work on the Fertilization of Orchids, that neither the
spider nor the fly orchids are much visited by insects, while, with
regard to the bee orchid, he says, “I have never seen an insect visit
these flowers.” And he shows how this species is even wonderfully and
specially modified to effect self-fertilization.
In the work just referred to Mr. Darwin gives a series of the most
wonderful and minute contrivances by which the visits of insects are
utilized for the fertilization of orchids,—structures [56]so wonderful
that nothing could well be more so, except the attribution of their
origin to minute, fortuitous, and indefinite variation.
The instances are too numerous and too long to quote, but in his
“Origin of Species”[47] he
describes two which must not be passed over. In one (Coryanthes)
the orchid has its lower lip enlarged into a bucket, above which stand
two water-secreting horns. These latter replenish the bucket from which,
when half-filled, the water overflows by a spout on one side. Bees
visiting the flower fall into the bucket and crawl out at the spout. By
the peculiar arrangement of the parts of the flower, the first bee which
does so carries away the pollen-mass glued to his back, and then when he
has his next involuntary bath in another flower, as he crawls out the
pollen-mass attached to him comes in contact with the stigma of that
second flower and fertilizes it. In the other example (Catasetum),
when a bee gnaws a certain part of the flower, he inevitably touches a
long delicate projection, which Mr. Darwin calls the antenna. “This
antenna transmits a vibration to a certain membrane, which is instantly
ruptured; this sets free a spring by which the pollen-mass is shot forth
like an arrow in the right direction, and adheres by its viscid extremity
to the back of the bee!”
Another difficulty, and one of some importance, is presented by those
communities of ants which have not only a population of sterile females,
or workers, but two distinct and very different castes of such. Mr.
Darwin believes that he has got over this difficulty by having found
individuals intermediate in form and structure[48] between the two working castes; others
may think [57]that we have in this belief of Mr. Darwin,
an example of the unconscious action of volition upon credence. A vast
number of difficulties similar to those which have been mentioned might
easily be cited—those given, however, may suffice.
There remains, however, to be noticed a very important consideration,
which was brought forward in the North British Review for June
1867, p. 286, namely, the necessity for the simultaneous modification of
many individuals. This consideration seems to have escaped Mr.
Darwin, for at p. 104 of his last (fifth) edition of “Natural Selection,”
he admits, with great candour, that until reading this article he did not
“appreciate how rarely single variations, whether slight or strongly
marked, could be perpetuated.”
The North British Review (speaking of the supposition that a
species is changed by the survival of a few individuals in a century
through a similar and favourable variation) says: “It is very difficult
to see how this can be accomplished, even when the variation is eminently
favourable indeed; and still more difficult when the advantage gained is
very slight, as must generally be the case. The advantage, whatever it
may be, is utterly outbalanced by numerical inferiority. A million
creatures are born; ten thousand survive to produce offspring. One of the
million has twice as good a chance as any other of surviving; but the
chances are fifty to one against the gifted individuals being one of the
hundred survivors. No doubt the chances are twice as great against any
one other individual, but this does not prevent their being enormously in
favour of some average individual. However slight the advantage
may be, if it is shared by half the individuals produced, it will
probably be present in at least fifty-one of the survivors, and in a
larger proportion of their offspring; but the chances are against the
preservation of any one ‘sport’ (i.e. sudden, marked variation) in
a numerous tribe. The vague use of an imperfectly understood doctrine of
chance has led Darwinian supporters, first, to confuse the two [58]cases above
distinguished; and, secondly, to imagine that a very slight balance in
favour of some individual sport must lead to its perpetuation. All that
can be said is that in the above example the favoured sport would be
preserved once in fifty times. Let us consider what will be its influence
on the main stock when preserved. It will breed and have a progeny of say
100; now this progeny will, on the whole, be intermediate between the
average individual and the sport. The odds in favour of one of this
generation of the new breed will be, say one and a half to one, as
compared with the average individual; the odds in their favour will,
therefore, be less than that of their parents; but owing to their greater
number, the chances are that about one and a half of them would survive.
Unless these breed together, a most improbable event, their progeny would
again approach the average individual; there would be 150 of them, and
their superiority would be, say in the ratio of one and a quarter to one;
the probability would now be that nearly two of them would survive, and
have 200 children, with an eighth superiority. Rather more than two of
these would survive; but the superiority would again dwindle, until after
a few generations it would no longer be observed, and would count for no
more in the struggle for life than any of the hundred trifling advantages
which occur in the ordinary organs. An illustration will bring this
conception home. Suppose a white man to have been wrecked on an island
inhabited by negroes, and to have established himself in friendly
relations with a powerful tribe, whose customs he has learnt. Suppose him
to possess the physical strength, energy, and ability of a dominant white
race, and let the food and climate of the island suit his constitution;
grant him every advantage which we can conceive a white to possess over
the native; concede that in the struggle for existence his chance of a
long life will be much superior to that of the native chiefs; yet from
all these admissions, there does not follow the conclusion that, after a
[59]limited or unlimited number of generations,
the inhabitants of the island will be white. Our shipwrecked hero would
probably become king; he would kill a great many blacks in the struggle
for existence; he would have a great many wives and children.” … “In
the first generation there will be some dozens of intelligent young
mulattoes, much superior in average intelligence to the negroes. We might
expect the throne for some generations to be occupied by a more or less
yellow king; but can any one believe that the whole island will gradually
acquire a white, or even a yellow, population?”
“Darwin says that in the struggle for life a grain may turn the
balance in favour of a given structure, which will then be preserved. But
one of the weights in the scale of nature is due to the number of a given
tribe. Let there be 7000 A’s and 7000 B’s, representing two varieties of
a given animal, and let all the B’s, in virtue of a slight difference of
structure, have the better chance of life by 1/7000 part. We must allow
that there is a slight probability that the descendants of B will
supplant the descendants of A; but let there be only 7001 A’s against
7000 B’s at first, and the chances are once more equal, while if there be
7002 A’s to start, the odds would be laid on the A’s. True, they stand a
greater chance of being killed; but then they can better afford to be
killed. The grain will only turn the scales when these are very nicely
balanced, and an advantage in numbers counts for weight, even as an
advantage in structure. As the numbers of the favoured variety diminish,
so must its relative advantages increase, if the chance of its existence
is to surpass the chance of its extinction, until hardly any conceivable
advantage would enable the descendants of a single pair to exterminate
the descendants of many thousands if they and their descendants are
supposed to breed freely with the inferior variety, and so gradually lose
their ascendency.”
Mr. Darwin himself says of the article quoted: “The justice of these
remarks cannot, I think, be disputed. If, for instance, [60]a bird of some
kind could procure its food more easily by having its beak curved, and if
one were born with its beak strongly curved, and which consequently
flourished, nevertheless there would be a very poor chance of this one
individual perpetuating its kind to the exclusion of the common form.”
This admission seems almost to amount to a change of front in the face of
the enemy!
These remarks have been quoted at length because they so greatly
intensify the difficulties brought forward in this chapter. If the most
favourable variations have to contend with such difficulties, what must
be thought as to the chance of preservation of the slightly displaced eye
in a sole or of the incipient development of baleen in a whale?
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
It has been here contended that a certain few facts, out of many which
might have been brought forward, are inconsistent with the origination of
species by “Natural Selection” only or mainly.
Mr. Darwin’s theory requires minute, indefinite, fortuitous variations
of all parts in all directions, and he insists that the sole operation of
“Natural Selection” upon such is sufficient to account for the great
majority of organic forms, with their most complicated structures,
intricate mutual adaptations and delicate adjustments.
To this conception has been opposed the difficulties presented by such
a structure as the form of the giraffe, which ought not to have been the
solitary structure it is; also the minute beginnings and the last
refinements of protective mimicry equally difficult or rather impossible
to account for by “Natural Selection.” Again the difficulty as to the
heads of flat-fishes has been insisted on, as also the origin, and at the
same time the constancy, of the limbs of the highest animals. Reference
has also been made to the whalebone of whales, and to the [61]impossibility of
understanding its origin through “Natural Selection” only; the same as
regards the infant kangaroo, with its singular deficiency of power
compensated for by maternal structures on the one hand, to which its own
breathing organs bear direct relation on the other. Again, the delicate
and complex pedicellariæ of Echinoderms, with a certain process of
development (through a secondary larva) found in that class, together
with certain other exceptional modes of development, have been brought
forward. The development of colour in certain apes, the hood of the
cobra, and the rattle of the rattlesnake have also been cited. Again,
difficulties as to the process of formation of the eye and ear, and as to
the fully developed condition of those complex organs, as well as of the
voice, have been considered. The beauty of certain shell-fish; the
wonderful adaptations of structure, and variety of form and resemblance,
found in orchids; together with the complex habits and social conditions
of certain ants, have been hastily passed in review. When all these
complications are duly weighed and considered, and when it is borne in
mind how necessary it is for the permanence of a new variety that many
individuals in each case should be simultaneously modified, the
cumulative argument seems irresistible.
The Author of this book can say that though by no means disposed
originally to dissent from the theory of “Natural Selection,” if only its
difficulties could be solved, he has found each successive year that
deeper consideration and more careful examination have more and more
brought home to him the inadequacy of Mr. Darwin’s theory to account for
the preservation and intensification of incipient, specific, and generic
characters. 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. [62]
That either many individuals amongst a species of butterfly should be
simultaneously preserved through a similar accidental and minute
variation in one definite direction, when variations in many other
directions would also preserve; or that one or two so varying should
succeed in supplanting the progeny of thousands of other individuals, and
that this should by no other cause be carried so far as to produce the
appearance (as we have before stated) of spots of fungi,
&c.—are alternatives of an improbability so extreme as to be
practically equal to impossibility.
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. [63]
CHAPTER III.
THE CO-EXISTENCE OF CLOSELY SIMILAR STRUCTURES OF DIVERSE ORIGIN.
Chances against concordant variations.—Examples of discordant
ones.—Concordant variations not unlikely on a non-Darwinian
evolutionary hypothesis.—Placental and implacental
mammals.—Birds and reptiles.—Independent origins of similar
sense organs.—The ear.—The eye.—Other
coincidences.—Causes besides Natural Selection produce concordant
variations in certain geographical regions.—Causes besides Natural
Selection produce concordant variations in certain zoological and
botanical groups.—There are homologous parts not genetically
related.—Harmony in respect of the organic and inorganic
worlds.—Summary and conclusion.
The theory of “Natural Selection” supposes that the varied forms and
structure of animals and plants have been built up merely by indefinite,
fortuitous,[49] minute
variations in every part and in all directions—those variations
only being preserved which are directly or indirectly useful to the
individual possessing them, or necessarily correlated with such useful
variations.
WINGBONES OF PTERODACTYLE, BAT, AND BIRD.
(Copied, by
permission, from Mr. Andrew Murray’s “Geographical Distribution of
Mammals.”)
On this theory the chances are almost infinitely great against the
independent, accidental occurrence and preservation of two similar series
of minute variations resulting in the independent development of two
closely similar forms. In all cases, no doubt (on this same theory),
some adaptation to habit or need [64]would gradually be
evolved, but that adaptation would surely be arrived at by different
roads. The organic world supplies us with multitudes of examples of
similar functional results being attained by the most diverse means. Thus
the body is sustained in the air by birds and by bats. In the first case
it is so sustained by a limb in which the bones of the hand are
excessively reduced, but which is provided with immense outgrowths from
the skin—namely, the feathers of the wing. In the second case,
however, the body is sustained in the air by a limb in which the bones of
the hand are enormously increased in length, and so sustain a great
expanse of naked skin, which is the flying membrane of the bat’s wing.
Certain fishes and certain reptiles can also flit and take very prolonged
jumps in the air. The flying-fish, however, takes these by means of a
great elongation of the rays of the pectoral fins—parts which
cannot be said to be of the same nature as the constituents of the wing
of either the bat or the bird. The little lizard, which enjoys the
formidable name of “flying-dragon,” flits by means of a structure
altogether peculiar—namely, by the liberation and great elongation
of some of the ribs which support a fold of skin. In the extinct [65]pterodactyles—which were truly
flying reptiles—we meet with an approximation to the structure of
the bat, but in the pterodactyle we have only one finger elongated in
each hand: a striking example of how the very same function may be
provided for by a modification similar in principle, yet surely
manifesting the independence of its origin. When we go to lower animals,
we find flight produced by organs, as the wings of insects, which are not
even modified limbs at all; or we find even the function sometimes
subserved by quite artificial means, as in the aërial spiders, which use
their own threads to float with in the air. In the vegetable kingdom the
atmosphere is often made use of for the scattering of seeds, by their
being furnished with special structures of very different kinds. The
diverse modes by which such seeds are dispersed are well expressed by Mr.
Darwin. He says:[50] “Seeds
[66]are
disseminated by their minuteness,—by their capsule being converted
into a light balloon-like envelope,—by being embedded in pulp or
flesh, formed of the most diverse parts, and rendered nutritious, as well
as conspicuously coloured, so as to attract and be devoured by
birds,—by having hooks and grapnels of many kinds and serrated
awns, so as to adhere to the fur of quadrupeds,—and by being
furnished with wings and plumes, as different in shape as elegant in
structure, so as to be wafted by every breeze.”
SKELETON OF THE FLYING-DRAGON.
(Showing the elongated ribs which
support the flitting organ.)
Again, if we consider the poisoning apparatus possessed by different
animals, we find in serpents a perforated—or rather very deeply
channelled—tooth. In wasps and bees the sting is formed of modified
parts, accessory in reproduction. In the scorpion, we have the median
terminal process of the body specially organized. In the spider, we have
a specially constructed antenna; and finally in the centipede a pair of
modified thoracic limbs.
A CENTIPEDE.
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 [67]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.
The difficulty here asserted applies, however, only to pure Darwinism,
which makes use only of indirect modifications through the
survival of the fittest.
Other theories (for example, that of Mr. Herbert Spencer) admit the
direct action of conditions upon animals and plants—in ways
not yet fully understood—there being conceived to be at the same
time a certain peculiar but limited power of response and adaptation in
each animal and plant so acted on. Such theories have not to contend
against the difficulty proposed, and it is here urged that even very
complex extremely similar structures have again and again been developed
quite independently one of the other, and this because the process has
taken place not by merely haphazard, indefinite variations in all
directions, but by the concurrence of some other and internal natural law
or laws co-operating with external influences and with Natural Selection
in the evolution of organic forms.
It must never be forgotten that to admit any such constant operation
of any such unknown natural cause is to deny the purely Darwinian theory,
which relies upon the survival of the fittest by means of minute
fortuitous indefinite variations.
Amongst many other obligations which the Author has to acknowledge to
Professor Huxley, are the pointing out of this very difficulty, and the
calling his attention to the striking resemblance between certain teeth
of the dog and of the thylacine as one instance, and certain ornithic
peculiarities of pterodactyles as another.
Mammals[51] are
divisible into one great group, which comprises [68]the immense majority of
kinds termed, from their mode of reproduction, placental Mammals,
and into another very much smaller group comprising the pouched-beasts or
marsupials (which are the kangaroos, bandicoots, phalangers, &c., of
Australia), and the true opossums of America, called implacental
Mammals. Now the placental mammals are subdivided into various
orders, amongst which are the flesh-eaters (Carnivora, i.e. cats,
dogs, otters, weasels, &c.), and the insect-eaters (Insectivora,
i.e. moles, hedgehogs, shrew-mice, &c.). The marsupial mammals
also present a variety of forms (some of which are carnivorous beasts,
whilst others are insectivorous), so marked that it has been even
proposed to divide them into orders parallel to the orders of placental
beasts.
The resemblance, indeed, is so striking as, on Darwinian principles,
to suggest the probability of genetic affinity; and it even led Professor
Huxley, in his Hunterian Lectures, in 1866, to promulgate the notion that
a vast and widely-diffused marsupial fauna may have existed anteriorly to
the development of the ordinary placental, non-pouched beasts, and that
the carnivorous, insectivorous, and herbivorous placentals may have
respectively descended from the carnivorous, insectivorous, and
herbivorous marsupials.
TEETH OF UROTRICHUS AND PERAMELES.
Amongst other points Professor Huxley called attention to the
resemblance between the anterior molars of the placental dog with those
of the marsupial thylacine. These, indeed, are strikingly similar, but
there are better examples still of this [69]sort of coincidence. Thus
it has often been remarked that the insectivorous marsupials, e.g.
Perameles, wonderfully correspond, as to the form of certain of the
grinding teeth, with certain insectivorous placentals, e.g.
Urotrichus.
Again, the saltatory insectivores of Africa (Macroscelides) not
only resemble the kangaroo family (Macropodidæ) in their jumping
habits and long hind legs, but also in the structure of their molar
teeth, and even further, as I have elsewhere[52] pointed out, in a certain similarity of
the upper cutting teeth, or incisors.
Now these correspondences are the more striking when we bear in mind
that a similar dentition is often put to very different uses. The food of
different kinds of apes is very different, yet how uniform is their
dental structure! Again, who, looking at the teeth of different kinds of
bears, would ever suspect that one kind was frugivorous, and another a
devourer exclusively of animal food?
The suggestion made by Professor Huxley was therefore one which had
much to recommend it to Darwinians, though it has not met with any
notable acceptance, and though he seems himself to have returned to the
older notion, namely, that the pouched-beasts, or marsupials, are a
special ancient offshoot from the great mammalian class.
But whichever view may be the correct one, we have in either case a
number of forms similarly modified in harmony with surrounding
conditions, and eloquently proclaiming some natural plastic power, other
than mere fortuitous variation with survival of the fittest. If, however,
the Reader thinks that teeth are parts peculiarly qualified for rapid
variation (in which view the Author cannot concur), he is requested to
suspend his judgment till he has considered the question of the
independent evolution of the highest organs of sense. If this
seems to establish the existence [70]of some other law than that of “Natural
Selection,” then the operation of that other law may surely be also
traced in the harmonious co-ordinations of dental form.
The other difficulty, kindly suggested to me by the learned Professor,
refers to the structure of birds, and of extinct reptiles more or less
related to them.
The class of birds is one which is remarkably uniform in its
organization. So much is this the case, that the best mode of subdividing
the class is a problem of the greatest difficulty. Existing birds,
however, present forms which, though closely resembling in the greater
part of their structure, yet differ importantly the one from the other.
One form is exemplified by the ostrich, rhea, emeu, cassowary, apteryx,
dinornis, &c. These are the struthious birds. All other
existing birds belong to the second division, and are called (from the
keel on the breast-bone) carinate birds.
Now birds and reptiles have such and so many points in common, that
Darwinians must regard the former as modified descendants of ancient
reptilian forms. But on Darwinian principles it is impossible that the
class of birds so uniform and homogeneous should have had a double
reptilian origin. If one set of birds sprang from one set of reptiles,
and another set of birds from another set of reptiles, the two sets could
never, by “Natural Selection” only, have grown into such a perfect
similarity. To admit such a phenomenon would be equivalent to abandoning
the theory of “Natural Selection” as the sole origin of species.
Now, until recently it has generally been supposed by evolutionists
that those ancient flying reptiles, the pterodactyles, or forms allied to
them, were the progenitors of the class of birds; and certain parts of
their structure especially support this view. Allusion is here made to
the bladebone (scapula), and the bone which passes down from the
shoulder-joint to the breast-bone (viz. the coracoid). These bones are
such remarkable anticipations [71]of the same parts in ordinary (i.e.
carinate) birds that it is hardly possible for a Darwinian not to regard
the resemblance as due to community of origin. This resemblance was
carefully pointed out by Professor Huxley in his “Hunterian Course” for
1867, when attention was called to the existence in Dimorphodon
macronyx of even that small process which in birds gives attachment
to the upper end of the merrythought. Also Mr. Seeley[53] has shown that in pterodactyles, as in
birds, the optic lobes of the brain were placed low down on each
side—”lateral and depressed.” Nevertheless, the view has been put
forward and ably maintained by the same Professor,[54] as also by Professor Cope in the United
States, that the line of descent from reptiles to birds has not been from
ordinary reptiles, through pterodactyle-like forms, to ordinary birds,
but to the struthious ones from certain extinct reptiles termed
Dinosauria; one of the most familiarly known of which is the Iguanodon of
the Wealden formation. In these Dinosauria we find skeletal characters
unlike those of ordinary (i.e. carinate) birds, but closely
resembling in certain points the osseous structure of the struthious
birds. Thus a difficulty presents itself as to the explanation of the
three following relationships:—(1) That of the Pterodactyles with
carinate birds; (2) that of the Dinosauria with struthious birds; (3)
that of the carinate and struthious birds with each other.
Either birds must have had two distinct origins whence they grew to
their present conformity, or the very same skeletal, and probably
cerebral characters must have spontaneously and independently arisen.
Here is a dilemma, either horn of which bears a threatening aspect to the
exclusive supporter of “Natural [72]Selection,” and between which it seems
somewhat difficult to choose.
It has been suggested to me that this difficulty may be evaded by
considering pterodactyles and carinate birds as independent branches from
one side of an ancient common trunk, while similarly the Dinosauria and
struthious birds are taken to be independent branches from the other side
of the same common trunk; the two kinds of birds resembling each other so
much on account of their later development from that trunk as compared
with the development of the reptilian forms. But to this it may be
replied that the ancient common stock could not have had at one and the
same time a shoulder structure of both kinds. It must have been
that of the struthious birds or that of the carinate birds, or something
different from both. If it was that of the struthious birds, how did the
pterodactyles and carinate birds independently arrive at the very same
divergent structure? If it was that of the carinate birds, how did the
struthious birds and Dinosauria independently agree to differ? Finally,
if it was something different from either, how did the carinate birds and
pterodactyles take on independently one special common structure when
disagreeing in so many; while the struthious birds, agreeing in many
points with the Dinosauria, agree yet more with the carinate birds?
Indeed by no arrangement of branches from a stem can the difficulty be
evaded.
Professor Huxley seems inclined[55] to cut the Gordian knot by considering
the shoulder structure of the pterodactyle as independently educed, and
having relation to physiology only. This conception is one which
harmonizes completely with the views here advocated, and with those of
Mr. Herbert Spencer, who also calls in direct modification to the aid of
“Natural Selection.” That merely minute, indefinite variations in all
directions should unaided have independently built up the [73]shoulder
structure of the pterodactyles and carinate birds, and have laterally
depressed their optic lobes, at a time so far back as the deposition of
the Oolite strata,[56] is a
coincidence of the highest improbability; but that an innate power and
evolutionary law, aided by the corrective action of “Natural Selection,”
should have furnished like needs with like aids, is not at all
improbable. The difficulty does not tell against the theory of evolution,
but only against the specially Darwinian form of it. Now this form has
never been expressly adopted by Professor Huxley; so far from it, in his
lecture on this subject at the Royal Institution before referred to, he
observes,[57] “I can
testify, from personal experience, it is possible to have a complete
faith in the general doctrine of evolution, and yet to hesitate in
accepting the Nebular, or the Uniformitarian, or the Darwinian hypotheses
in all their integrity and fulness.”
THE ARCHEOPTERYX (of the Oolite strata).
It is quite consistent, then, in the Professor to explain the [74]difficulty as he does; but it would not be
similarly so with an absolute and pure Darwinian.
Yet stronger arguments of an analogous kind are, however, to be
derived from the highest organs of sense. In the most perfectly organized
animals—those namely which, like ourselves, possess a spinal
column—the internal organs of hearing consist of two more or less
complex membranous sacs (containing calcareous particles—otoliths),
which are primitively or permanently lodged in two chambers, one on each
side of the cartilaginous skull. The primitive cartilaginous cranium
supports and protects the base of the brain, and the auditory nerves pass
from that brain into the cartilaginous chambers to reach the auditory
sacs. These complex arrangements of parts could not have been evolved by
“Natural Selection,” i.e. by minute accidental variations, except
by the action of such through a vast period of time; nevertheless, it was
fully evolved at the time of the deposition of the upper Silurian
rocks.
Cuttle-fishes (Cephalopoda) are animals belonging to the
molluscous primary division of the animal kingdom, which division
contains animals formed upon a type of structure utterly remote from that
on which the animals of the higher division provided with a spinal column
are constructed. And indeed no transitional form (tending even to bridge
over the chasm between these two groups) has ever yet been discovered,
either living or in a fossilized condition.[58]
Nevertheless, in the two-gilled Cephalopods (Dibranchiata) we
find the brain supported and protected by a cartilaginous cranium. In the
base of this cranium are two cartilaginous chambers. In each chamber is a
membranous sac containing an otolith, and the auditory nerves pass from
the cerebral ganglia into the cartilaginous chambers to reach the
auditory sacs. Moreover, [75]it has been suggested by Professor Owen that
sinuosities between processes projecting from the inner wall of each
chamber “seem to be the first rudiments of those which, in the higher
classes (i.e. in animals with a spinal column), are extended in
the form of canals and spiral chambers, within the substance of the dense
nidus of the labyrinth.”[59]
CUTTLE-FISH.
A. Ventral aspect. B. Dorsal
aspect.
Here, then, we have a wonderful coincidence indeed; two highly complex
auditory organs, marvellously similar in structure, but which must
nevertheless have been developed in entire and complete independence one
of the other! It would be difficult to calculate the odds against the
independent occurrence and conservation of two such complex series of
merely accidental and minute haphazard variations. And it can never [76]be
maintained that the sense of hearing could not be efficiently subserved
otherwise than by such sacs, in cranial cartilaginous capsules so
situated in relation to the brain, &c.
Our wonder, moreover, may be increased when we recollect that the
two-gilled cephalopods have not yet been found below the lias, where they
at once abound; whereas the four-gilled cephalopods are Silurian forms.
Moreover, the absence is in this case significant in spite of the
imperfection of the geological record, because when we consider how many
individuals of various kinds of four-gilled cephalopods have been found,
it is fair to infer that at the least a certain small percentage of
dibranchs would also have left traces of their presence had they existed.
Thus it is probable that some four-gilled form was the progenitor of the
dibranch cephalopods. Now the four-gilled kinds (judging from the only
existing form, the nautilus) had the auditory organ in a very inferior
condition of development to what we find in the dibranch; thus we have
not only evidence of the independent high development of the organ in the
former, but also evidence pointing towards a certain degree of
comparative rapidity in its development.
Such being the case with regard to the organ of hearing, we have
another yet stronger argument with regard to the organ of sight, as has
been well pointed out by Mr. J. J. Murphy.[60] He calls attention to the fact that the
eye must have been perfected in at least “three distinct lines of
descent,” alluding not only to the molluscous division of the animal
kingdom, and the division provided with a spinal column, but also to a
third primary division, namely, that which includes all insects, spiders,
crabs, &c., which are spoken of as Annulosa, and the type of whose
structure is as distinct from that of the molluscous type on the one
hand, as it is from that of the type with a spinal column (i.e.
the vertebrate type) on the other.
In the cuttle-fishes we find an eye even more completely constructed
on the vertebrate type than is the ear. Sclerotic, retina, choroid,
vitreous humour, lens, aqueous humour, all are present. The
correspondence is wonderfully complete, and there can hardly be any
hesitation in saying that for such an exact, prolonged, and correlated
series of similar structures to have been brought about in two
independent instances by merely indefinite and minute accidental
variations, is an improbability which amounts practically to
impossibility. Moreover, we have here again the same imperfection of the
four-gilled cephalopod, as compared with the two-gilled, and therefore
(if the latter proceeded from the former) a similar indication of a
certain comparative rapidity of development. Finally, and this is perhaps
one of the most curious circumstances, the process of formation appears
to have been, at least in some respects, the same in the eyes of these
molluscous animals as in the eyes of vertebrates. For in these latter the
cornea is at first perforated, while different degrees of perforation of
the same part are presented by different adult cuttle-fishes—large
in the calamaries, smaller in the octopods, and reduced to a minute
foramen in the true cuttle-fish sepia.
Some may be disposed to object that the conditions requisite for
effecting vision are so rigid that similar results in all cases must be
independently arrived at. But to this objection it may well be replied
that Nature herself has demonstrated that there is no such necessity as
to the details of the process. For in the higher Annulosa, such as the
dragon-fly, we meet with an eye of an unquestionably very high degree of
efficiency, but formed on a type of structure only remotely comparable
with that of the fish or the cephalopod. The last-named animal might have
had an eye as efficient as that of a vertebrate, but formed on a distinct
type, instead of being another edition, as it were, of the very same
structure.
In the beginning of this chapter examples have been given of [78]the very
diverse mode in which similar results have in many instances been arrived
at; on the other hand, we have in the fish and the cephalopod not only
the eye, but at one and the same time the ear also similarly evolved, yet
with complete independence.
Thus it is here contended that the similar and complex structures of
both the highest organs of sense, as developed in the vertebrates on the
one hand, and in the mollusks on the other, present us with residuary
phenomena for which “Natural Selection” alone is quite incompetent to
account. And that these same phenomena must therefore be considered as
conclusive evidence for the action of some other natural law or laws
conditioning the simultaneous and independent evolution of these
harmonious and concordant adaptations.
Provided with this evidence, it may be now profitable to enumerate
other correspondences, which are not perhaps in themselves inexplicable
by Natural Selection, but which are more readily to be explained by the
action of the unknown law or laws referred to—which action, as its
necessity has been demonstrated in one case, becomes a priori
probable in the others.
SKELETON OF AN ICHTHYOSAURUS.
Thus the great oceanic Mammalia—the whales—show striking
resemblances to those prodigious, extinct, marine reptiles, the
Ichthyosauria, and this not only in structures readily referable to
similarity of habit, but in such matters as greatly elongated
premaxillary bones, together with the concealment of certain bones of the
skull by other cranial bones. [79]
Again, the aërial mammals, the bats, resemble those flying reptiles of
the secondary epoch, the pterodactyles; not only to a certain extent in
the breast-bone and mode of supporting the flying membrane, but also in
the proportions of different parts of the spinal column and the hinder
(pelvic) limbs.
Also bivalve shell-fish (i.e. creatures of the mussel, cockle,
and oyster class, which receive their name from the body being protected
by a double shell, one valve of which is placed on each side) have their
two shells united by one or two powerful muscles, which pass directly
across from one shell to the other, and which are termed “adductor
muscles” because by their contraction they bring together the valves and
so close the shell.
CYTHERIDEA TOROSA.
[An ostracod (Crustacean), externally like a
bivalve shell-fish (Lamellibranch).
Now there are certain animals which belong to the crab and lobster
class (Crustacea)—a class constructed on an utterly different type
from that on which the bivalve shell-fish are constructed—which
present a very curious approximation to both the form and, in a certain
respect, the structure of true bivalves. Allusion is here made to certain
small Crustacea—certain phyllopods and ostracods—which have
the hard outer coat of their thorax so [80]modified as to look
wonderfully like a bivalve shell, although its nature and composition are
quite different. But this is by no means all,—not only is there
this external resemblance between the thoracic armour of the crustacean
and the bivalve shell, but the two sides of the ostracod and phyllopod
thorax are connected together also by an adductor muscle!
A POLYZOON WITH BIRD’S-HEAD PROCESSES.
The pedicellariæ of the echinus have been already spoken of, and the
difficulty as to their origin from minute, fortuitous, indefinite
variations has been stated. But structures essentially similar (called
avicularia, or “bird’s-head processes”) are developed from the surface of
the compound masses of certain of the highest of the polyp-like animals
(viz. the Polyzoa or, as they are sometimes called, the Bryozoa).
These compound animals have scattered over the surface of their bodies
minute processes, each of which is like the head of a bird, with an upper
and lower beak, the whole supported on a slender neck. The beak opens and
shuts at intervals, like the jaws of the pedicellariæ of the echinus, and
there is altogether, in general principle, a remarkable similarity
between the structures. Yet the echinus can have, at the best, none but
the most distant genetic relationship with the Polyzoa. We have here
again therefore complex and similar organs of diverse and independent
origin.
BIRD’S-HEAD PROCESSES VERY GREATLY ENLARGED.
In the highest class of animals (the Mammalia) we have almost always a
placental mode of reproduction, i.e. the blood of the fœtus
is placed in nutritive relation with the blood of the mother by means of
vascular prominences. No trace of such a structure exists in any bird or
in any reptile, and yet it crops out again in certain sharks. There
indeed it might well be supposed to end, but, marvellous as it seems, it
reappears in very lowly creatures; namely, in certain of the ascidians,
sometimes called tunicaries or sea-squirts. [82]
Now, if we were to concede that the ascidians were the common
ancestors[61] of both these
sharks and of the higher mammals, we should be little, if any, nearer to
an explanation of the phenomenon by means of “Natural Selection,” for in
the sharks in question the vascular prominences are developed from one
fœtal structure (the umbilical vesicle), while in the higher
mammals they are developed from quite another part, viz. the
allantois.
Upper Figure—Antechinus
minutissimus (implacental).
Lower Figure—Mus
delicatulus (placental).
So great, however, is the number of similar, but apparently
independent, structures, that we suffer from a perfect embarras de
richesses. Thus, for example, we have the convoluted windpipe [83]of the
sloth, reminding us of the condition of the windpipe in birds; and in
another mammal, allied to the sloth, namely the great ant-eater
(Myrmecophaga), we have again an ornithic character in its horny
gizzard-like stomach. In man and the highest apes the cæcum has a
vermiform appendix, as it has also in the wombat!
Also the similar forms presented by the crowns of the teeth in some
seals, in certain sharks, and in some extinct Cetacea may be referred to;
as also the similarity of the beak in birds, some reptiles, in the
tadpole, and cuttle-fishes. As to entire external form, may be adduced
the wonderful similarity between a true mouse (Mus delicatulus)
and a small marsupial, pointed out by Mr. Andrew Murray in his work on
the “Geographical Distribution of Mammals,” p. 53, and represented in the
frontispiece by figures copied from Gould’s “Mammals of Australia;” but
instances enough for the present purpose have been already quoted.
Additional reasons for believing that similarity of structure is
produced by other causes than merely by “Natural Selection” are furnished
by certain facts of zoological geography, and by a similarity in the mode
of variation being sometimes extended to several species of a genus, or
even to widely different groups; while the restriction and the limitation
of such similarity are often not less remarkable. Thus Mr. Wallace
says,[62] as to local
influence: “Larger or smaller districts, or even single islands, give a
special character to the majority of their Papilionidæ. For
instance:—1. The species of the Indian region (Sumatra, Java, and
Borneo) are almost invariably smaller than the allied species inhabiting
Celebes and the Moluccas. 2. The species of New Guinea and Australia are
also, though in a less degree, smaller than the nearest species or
varieties of the Moluccas. 3. In the Moluccas themselves the species of
Amboyna are the largest. 4. The species of Celebes equal or even surpass
in size those [84]of Amboyna. 5. The species and varieties of
Celebes possess a striking character in the form of the anterior wings,
different from that of the allied species and varieties of all the
surrounding islands. 6. Tailed species in India or the Indian region
become tailless as they spread eastward through the Archipelago. 7. In
Amboyna and Ceram the females of several species are dull-coloured, while
in the adjacent islands they are more brilliant.” Again:[63] “In Amboyna and Ceram the female of the
large and handsome Ornithoptera Helena has the large patch on the
hind wings constantly of a pale dull ochre or buff colour; while in the
scarcely distinguishable varieties from the adjacent islands, of Bouru
and New Guinea, it is of a golden yellow, hardly inferior in brilliancy
to its colour in the male sex. The female of Ornithoptera Priamus
(inhabiting Amboyna and Ceram exclusively) is of a pale dusky brown tint,
while in all the allied species the same sex is nearly black, with
contracted white markings. As a third example, the female of Papilio
Ulysses has the blue colour obscured by dull and dusky tints, while
in the closely allied species from the surrounding islands, the females
are of almost as brilliant an azure blue as the males. A parallel case to
this is the occurrence, in the small islands of Goram, Matabello, Ké, and
Aru, of several distinct species of Euplœa and Diadema, having
broad bands or patches of white, which do not exist in any of the allied
species from the larger islands. These facts seem to indicate some local
influence in modifying colour, as unintelligible and almost as remarkable
as that which has resulted in the modifications of form previously
described.”
After endeavouring to explain some of the facts in a way to be noticed
directly, Mr. Wallace adds:[64] “But even the conjectural explanation
now given fails us in the other cases of local modification. Why the
species of the Western Islands should be smaller than those further east;
why those of Amboyna [85]should exceed in size those of Gilolo and
New Guinea; why the tailed species of India should begin to lose that
appendage in the islands, and retain no trace of it on the borders of the
Pacific; and why, in three separate cases, the females of Amboyna species
should be less gaily attired than the corresponding females of the
surrounding islands, are questions which we cannot at present attempt to
answer. That they depend, however, on some general principle is certain,
because analogous facts have been observed in other parts of the world.
Mr. Bates informs me that, in three distinct groups, Papilios, which, on
the Upper Amazon, and in most other parts of South America, have spotless
upper wings, obtain pale or white spots at Pará and on the Lower Amazon,
and also that the Æneas group of Papilios never have tails in the
equatorial regions and the Amazon valley, but gradually acquire tails in
many cases as they range towards the northern or southern tropic. Even in
Europe we have somewhat similar facts, for the species and varieties of
butterflies peculiar to the Island of Sardinia are generally smaller and
more deeply coloured than those of the mainland, and the same has been
recently shown to be the case with the common tortoiseshell butterfly in
the Isle of Man; while Papilio Hospiton, peculiar to the former
island, has lost the tail, which is a prominent feature of the closely
allied P. Machaon.
“Facts of a similar nature to those now brought forward would no doubt
be found to occur in other groups of insects, were local faunas carefully
studied in relation to those of the surrounding countries; and they seem
to indicate that climate and other physical causes have, in some cases, a
very powerful effect in modifying specific form and colour, and thus
directly aid in producing the endless variety of nature.”
OUTLINES OF WINGS OF BUTTERFLIES OF CELEBES COMPARED
WITH THOSE OF ALLIED SPECIES ELSEWHERE.
Outer outline, Papilio gigon, of Celebes. Inner
outline, P. demolion, of Singapore and Java.—2. Outer
outline, P. miletus, of Celebes. Inner outline, P.
sarpedon, India.—3. Outer outline, Tachyris zarinda,
Celebes. Inner outline, T. nero.
With regard to butterflies of Celebes belonging to different families,
they present “a peculiarity of outline which distinguishes them at a
glance from those of any other part of the [86]world:”[65] it is that the upper wings are
generally more elongated and the anterior margin more curved. Moreover,
there is, in most instances, near the base an abrupt bend or elbow, which
in some species is very conspicuous. Mr. Wallace [87]endeavours to explain
this phenomenon by the supposed presence at some time of special
persecutors of the modified forms, supporting the opinion by the remark
that small, obscure, very rapidly flying and mimicked kinds have not had
the wing modified. Such an enemy occasioning increased powers of flight,
or rapidity in turning, he adds, “one would naturally suppose to be an
insectivorous bird; but it is a remarkable fact that most of the genera
of fly-catchers of Borneo and Java on the one side, and of the Moluccas
on the other, are almost entirely absent from Celebes. Their place seems
to be supplied by the caterpillar-catchers, of which six or seven species
are known from Celebes, and are very numerous in individuals. We have no
positive evidence that these birds pursue butterflies on the wing, but it
is highly probable that they do so when other food is scarce. Mr. Bates
suggested to me that the larger dragon-flies prey upon butterflies, but I
did not notice that they were more abundant in Celebes than elsewhere.”[66]
Now, every opinion or conjecture of Mr. Wallace is worthy of
respectful and attentive consideration, but the explanation suggested and
before referred to hardly seems a satisfactory one. What the past fauna
of Celebes may have been is as yet conjectural. Mr. Wallace tells us that
now there is a remarkable scarcity of fly-catchers, and that their
place is supplied by birds of which it can only be said that it is
“highly probable” that they chase butterflies “when other food is
scarce.” The quick eye of Mr. Wallace failed to detect them in the act,
as also to note any unusual abundance of other insectivorous forms, which
therefore, considering Mr. Wallace’s zeal and powers of observation, we
may conclude do not exist. Moreover, even if there ever has been an
abundance of such, it is by no means certain that they would have
succeeded in producing the conformation in question, for the effect of
this peculiar curvature on flight is by no means clear. We have here,
then, a structure [88]hypothetically explained by an uncertain
property induced by a cause the presence of which is only
conjectural.
Surely it is not unreasonable to class this instance with the others
before given, in which a common modification of form or colour coexists
with a certain geographical distribution quite independently of the
destructive agencies of animals. If physical causes connected with
locality can abbreviate or annihilate the tails of certain butterflies,
why may not similar causes produce an elbow-like prominence on the wings
of other butterflies? There are many such instances of simultaneous
modification. Mr. Darwin himself[67] quotes Mr. Gould as believing that
birds of the same species are more brightly coloured under a clear
atmosphere, than when living on islands or near the coast. Mr. Darwin
also informs us that Wollaston is convinced that residence near the sea
affects the colour of insects; and finally, that Moquin-Tandon gives a
list of plants which, when growing near the sea-shore, have their leaves
in some degree fleshy, though not so elsewhere. In his work on “Animals
and Plants under Domestication,”[68] Mr. Darwin refers to M. Costa as having
(in Bull. de la Soc. Imp. d’Acclimat. tome viii. p. 351) stated
“that young shells taken from the shores of England and placed in the
Mediterranean at once altered their manner of growth, and formed
prominent diverging rays like those on the shells of the proper
Mediterranean oyster;” also to Mr. Meehan, as stating (Proc. Acad.
Nat. Sc. of Philadelphia, Jan. 28, 1862) “that twenty-nine kinds of
American trees all differ from their nearest European allies in a
similar manner, leaves less toothed, buds and seeds smaller, fewer
branchlets,” &c. These are striking examples indeed!
But cases of simultaneous and similar modifications abound on all
sides. Even as regards our own species there is a very generally admitted
opinion that a new type has been developed in the United States, and this
in about a couple of [89]centuries only, and in a vast multitude of
individuals of diverse ancestry. The instances here given, however, must
suffice, though more could easily be added.
THE GREAT SHIELDED GRASSHOPPER.
It may be well now to turn to groups presenting similar variations,
not through, but independently of, geographical distribution, and, as far
as we know, independently of conditions other than some peculiar nature
and tendency (as yet unexplained) common to members of such groups, which
nature and tendency seem to induce them to vary in certain definite lines
or directions which are different in different groups. Thus with regard
to the group of insects, of which the walking leaf is a member, Mr.
Wallace observes:[69] “The
whole family[70] of
the Phasmidæ, or spectres, to which this insect belongs, is more or less
imitative, and a great number of the species are called [90]‘walking-stick
insects,’ from their singular resemblance to twigs and branches.”
THE SIX-SHAFTED BIRD OF PARADISE.
Again, Mr. Wallace[71]
tells us of no less than four kinds of orioles, which birds mimic, more
or less, four species of a genus of honey-suckers, the weak orioles
finding their profit in being mistaken by certain birds of prey for the
strong, active, and gregarious honey-suckers. Now, many other birds would
be benefited by similar mimicry, which is none the less confined, in this
part of the world, to the oriole genus. It is true that the absence of
mimicry in other forms may be explained by their possessing some other
(as yet unobserved) means of preservation. But it is nevertheless
remarkable, not so much that one species should mimic, as that no less
than four should do so in different [91]ways and degrees, all
these four belonging to one and the same genus.
THE LONG-TAILED BIRD OF PARADISE.
In other cases, however, there is not even the help of protective
action to account for the phenomenon. Thus we have the wonderful birds of
Paradise,[72] which agree
in developing plumage unequalled in beauty, but a beauty which, as to
details, is of different kinds, and produced in different ways in
different species. To develop “beauty and singularity of plumage” is a
character of the group, but not of any one definite kind, to be explained
merely by inheritance.
Again, we have the very curious horned flies,[73] which agree indeed in a common
peculiarity, but in one singularly different in detail, in different
species and not known to have any protecting effect.
Amongst plants, also, we meet with the same peculiarity. The great
group of Orchids presents a number of species [93]which offer strange and
bizarre approximations to different animal forms, and which have often
the appearance of cases of mimicry, as it were in an incipient stage.
HORNED FLIES.
THE MAGNIFICENT BIRD OF PARADISE.
The number of similar instances which could be brought forward from
amongst animals and plants is very great, but the [94]examples given are, it is
hoped, amply sufficient to point towards the conclusion which other facts
will, it is thought, establish, viz. that there are causes operating (in
the evocation of these harmonious diverging resemblances) other than
“Natural Selection,” or heredity, and other even than merely
geographical, climatal, or any simply external conditions.
Many cases have been adduced of striking likenesses between different
animals, not due to inheritance; but this should be the less surprising,
in that the very same individual presents us with likenesses between
different parts of its body (e.g., between the several joints of
the backbone), which are certainly not so explicable. This, however,
leads to a rather large subject, which will be spoken of in the eighth
chapter of the present work. Here it will be enough to affirm (leaving
the proof of the assertion till later) that parts are often homologous
which have no direct genetic relationship,—a fact which harmonizes
well with the other facts here given, but which “Natural Selection,” pure
and simple, seems unable to explain.
But surely the independent appearance of similar organic forms is what
we might expect, a priori, from the independent appearance of
similar inorganic ones. As Mr. G. H. Lewes well observes,[74] “We do not suppose the carbonates and
phosphates found in various parts of the globe—we do not suppose
that the families of alkaloids and salts have any nearer kinship than
that which consists in the similarity of their elements, and the
conditions of their combination. Hence, in organisms, as in salts,
morphological identity may be due to a community of causal connexion,
rather than community of descent.
“Mr. Darwin justly holds it to be incredible that individuals
identically the same should have been produced through Natural Selection
from parents specifically distinct, but he will not deny that
identical forms may issue from parents genetically distinct, [95]when
these parent forms and the conditions of production are identical. To
deny this would be to deny the law of causation.”
Professor Huxley has, however, suggested[75] that such mineral identity may be
explained by applying also to minerals a law of descent; that is, by
considering such similar forms as the descendants of atoms which
inhabited one special part of the primitive nebular cosmos, each
considerable space of which may be supposed to have been under the
influence of somewhat different conditions.
Surely, however, there can be no real parity between the relationship
of existing minerals to nebular atoms, and the relationship of existing
animals and plants to the earliest organisms. In the first place, the
latter have produced others by generative multiplication, which mineral
atoms never did. In the second, existing animals and plants spring from
the living tissues of preceding animals and plants, while existing
minerals spring from the chemical affinity of separate elements.
Carbonate of soda is not formed, by a process of reproduction, from other
carbonate of soda, but directly by the suitable juxtaposition of carbon,
oxygen, and sodium.
Instead of approximating animals and minerals in the mode suggested,
it may be that they are to be approximated in quite a contrary fashion;
namely, by attributing to mineral species an internal innate power. For,
as we must attribute to each elementary atom an innate power and tendency
to form (under the requisite external conditions) certain unions with
other atoms, so we may attribute to certain mineral species—as
crystals—an innate power and tendency to exhibit (the proper
conditions being supplied) a definite and symmetrical external form. The
distinction between animals and vegetables on the one hand, and minerals
on the other, is that, while in the organic world close similarity is the
result sometimes of inheritance, sometimes of direct production
independently of parental [96]action, in the inorganic world the latter is
the constant and only mode in which such similarity is produced.
When we come to consider the relations of species to space—in
other words, the geographical distribution of organisms—it will be
necessary to return somewhat to the subject of the independent origin of
closely similar forms, in regard to which some additional remarks will be
found towards the end of the seventh chapter.
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. [97]
CHAPTER IV.
MINUTE AND GRADUAL MODIFICATIONS.
There are difficulties as to minute modifications, even if not
fortuitous.—Examples of sudden and considerable modifications of
different kinds.—Professor Owen’s view.—Mr.
Wallace.—Professor Huxley.—Objections to sudden
changes.—Labyrinthodont.—Potto.—Cetacea.—As to
origin of bird’s wing.—Tendrils of climbing plants.—Animals
once supposed to be connecting links.—Early specialization of
structure.—Macrauchenia.—Glyptodon.—Sabre-toothed
tiger.—Conclusion.
Not only are there good reasons against the acceptance of the
exclusive operation of “Natural Selection” as the one means of specific
origination, but there are difficulties in the way of accounting for such
origination by the sole action of modifications which are infinitesimal
and minute, whether fortuitous or not.
Arguments may yet be advanced in favour of the view that new species
have from time to time manifested themselves with suddenness, and by
modifications appearing at once (as great in degree as are those which
separate Hipparion from Equus), the species remaining
stable in the intervals of such modifications: by stable being meant that
their variations only extend for a certain degree in various directions,
like oscillations in a stable equilibrium. This is the conception of Mr.
Galton,[76] who compares
the development of species with a many facetted [98]spheroid tumbling over
from one facet, or stable equilibrium, to another. The existence of
internal conditions in animals corresponding with such facets is denied
by pure Darwinians, but it is contended in this work, though not in this
chapter, that something may also be said for their existence.
The considerations brought forward in the last two chapters, namely,
the difficulties with regard to incipient and closely similar structures
respectively, together with palæontological considerations to be noticed
later, appear to point strongly in the direction of sudden and
considerable changes. This is notably the case as regards the young
oysters already mentioned, which were taken from the shores of England
and placed in the Mediterranean, and at once altered their mode of growth
and formed prominent diverging rays, like those of the proper
Mediterranean oyster; as also the twenty-nine kinds of American
trees, all differing from their nearest European allies
similarly—”leaves less toothed, buds and seeds smaller,
fewer branchlets,” &c. To these may be added other facts given by Mr.
Darwin. Thus he says, “that climate, to a certain extent, directly
modifies the form of dogs.”[77]
The Rev. R. Everett found that setters at Delhi, though most carefully
paired, yet had young with “nostrils more contracted, noses more pointed,
size inferior, and limbs more slender.” Again, cats at Mombas, on the
coast of Africa, have short stiff hairs instead of fur, and a cat at
Algoa Bay, when left only eight weeks at Mombas, “underwent a complete
metamorphosis, having parted with its sandy-coloured fur.”[78] The conditions of life
seem to produce a considerable effect on horses, and instances are given
by Mr. Darwin of pony breeds[79] having independently arisen in
different parts of the world, possessing a certain similarity in their
physical [99]conditions. Also changes due to climate may
be brought about at once in a second generation, though no appreciable
modification is shown by the first. Thus “Sir Charles Lyell mentions that
some Englishmen, engaged in conducting the operations of the Real del
Monte Company in Mexico, carried out with them some greyhounds of the
best breed to hunt the hares which abound in that country. It was found
that the greyhounds could not support the fatigues of a long chase in
this attenuated atmosphere, and before they could come up with their prey
they lay down gasping for breath; but these same animals have produced
whelps, which have grown up, and are not in the least degree incommoded
by the want of density in the air, but run down the hares with as much
ease as do the fleetest of their race in this country.”[80]
We have here no action of “Natural Selection;” it was not that certain
puppies happened accidentally to be capable of enduring more rarefied
air, and so survived, but the offspring were directly modified by the
action of surrounding conditions. Neither was the change elaborated by
minute modifications in many successive generations, but appeared at once
in the second.
With regard once more to sudden alterations of form, Nathusius is said
to state positively as to pigs,[81] that the result of common experience
and of his experiments was that rich and abundant food, given during
youth, tends by some direct action to make the head broader and shorter.
Curious jaw appendages often characterize Normandy pigs, according to M.
Eudes Deslongchamps. Richardson figures these appendages on the old
“Irish greyhound pig,” and they are said by Nathusius to appear
occasionally in all the long-eared races. Mr. Darwin observes,[82] “As no wild pigs are
known to have analogous [100]appendages, we have at present no reason
to suppose that their appearance is due to reversion; and if this be so,
we are forced to admit that somewhat complex, though apparently useless
structures may be suddenly developed without the aid of selection.”
Again, “Climate directly affects the thickness of the skin and hair” of
cattle.[83] In the English
climate an individual Porto Santo rabbit[84] recovered the proper colour of its fur
in rather less than four years. The effect of the climate of India on the
turkey is considerable. Mr. Blyth[85] describes it as being much degenerated
in size, “utterly incapable of rising on the wing,” of a black colour,
and “with long pendulous appendages over the beak enormously developed.”
Mr. Darwin again tells us that there has suddenly appeared in a bed of
common broccoli a peculiar variety, faithfully transmitting its newly
acquired and remarkable characters;[86] also that there have been a rapid
transformation and transplantation of American varieties of maize with a
European variety;[87] that
certainly “the Ancon and Manchamp breeds of sheep,” and that (all but
certainly) Niata cattle, turnspit and pug dogs, jumper and frizzled
fowls, short-faced tumbler pigeons, hook-billed ducks, &c., and a
multitude of vegetable varieties, have suddenly appeared in nearly the
same state as we now see them.[88] Lastly, Mr. Darwin tells us, that there
has been an occasional development (in five distinct cases) in England of
the “japanned” or “black-shouldered peacock” (Pavo nigripennis), a
distinct species, according to Dr. Sclater,[89] yet arising in Sir J. Trevelyan’s flock
composed entirely of the common kind, and increasing, “to the
extinction of the previously existing breed.”[90] Mr. Darwin’s only explanation of the
phenomena (on the supposition of the [101]species being distinct)
is by reversion, owing to a supposed ancestral cross. But he candidly
admits, “I have heard of no other such case in the animal or vegetable
kingdom.” On the supposition of its being only a variety, he observes,
“The case is the most remarkable ever recorded of the abrupt appearance
of a new form, which so closely resembles a true species, that it has
deceived one of the most experienced of living ornithologists.”
As to plants, M. C. Naudin[91] has given the following instances of
the sudden origination of apparently permanent forms. “The first case
mentioned is that of a poppy, which took on a remarkable variation in its
fruit—a crown of secondary capsules being added to the normal
central capsule. A field of such poppies was grown, and M. Göppert, with
seed from this field, obtained still this monstrous form in great
quantity. Deformities of ferns are sometimes sought after by
fern-growers. They are now always obtained by taking spores from the
abnormal parts of the monstrous fern; from which spores ferns presenting
the same peculiarities invariably grow…. The most remarkable case is
that observed by Dr. Godron, of Nancy. In 1861 that botanist observed,
amongst a sowing of Datura tatula, the fruits of which are very
spinous, a single individual of which the capsule was perfectly smooth.
The seeds taken from this plant all furnished plants having the character
of this individual. The fifth and sixth generations are now growing
without exhibiting the least tendency to revert to the spinous form. More
remarkable still, when crossed with the normal Datura tatula,
hybrids were produced, which, in the second generation, reverted to the
original types, as true hybrids do.”
There are, then, abundant instances to prove that considerable [102]modifications may suddenly develop
themselves, either due to external conditions or to obscure internal
causes in the organisms which exhibit them. Moreover, these
modifications, from whatever cause arising, are capable of
reproduction—the modified individuals “breeding true.”
The question is whether new species have been developed by
non-fortuitous variations which are insignificant and minute, or whether
such variations have been comparatively sudden, and of appreciable size
and importance? Either hypothesis will suit the views here maintained
equally well (those views being opposed only to fortuitous, indefinite
variations), but the latter is the more remote from the Darwinian
conception, and yet has much to be said in its favour.
Professor Owen considers, with regard to specific origination, that
natural history “teaches that the change would be sudden and
considerable: it opposes the idea that species are transmitted by minute
and slow degrees.”[92] “An
innate tendency to deviate from parental type, operating through periods
of adequate duration,” being “the most probable nature, or way of
operation of the secondary law, whereby species have been derived one
from the other.”[93]
Now, considering the number of instances adduced of sudden
modifications in domestic animals, it is somewhat startling to meet with
Mr. Darwin’s dogmatic assertion that it is “a false belief” that
natural species have often originated in the same abrupt manner. The
belief may be false, but it is difficult to see how its falsehood
can be positively asserted.
It is demonstrated by Mr. Darwin’s careful weighings and measurements,
that, though little used parts in domestic animals get reduced in weight
and somewhat in size, yet that they show no inclination to become truly
“rudimentary structures.” [103]Accordingly he asserts[94] that such rudimentary parts are formed
“suddenly, by arrest of development” in domesticated animals, but in wild
animals slowly. The latter assertion, however, is a mere
assertion; necessary, perhaps, for the theory of “Natural Selection,”
but as yet unproved by facts.
But why should not these changes take place suddenly in a state of
nature? As Mr. Murphy says,[95] “It may be true that we have no
evidence of the origin of wild species in this way. But this is not a
case in which negative evidence proves anything. We have never witnessed
the origin of a wild species by any process whatever; and if a species
were to come suddenly into being in the wild state, as the Ancon Sheep
did under domestication, how could you ascertain the fact? If the first
of a newly-begotten species were found, the fact of its discovery would
tell nothing about its origin. Naturalists would register it as a very
rare species, having been only once met with, but they would have no
means of knowing whether it were the first or the last of its race.”
To this Mr. Wallace has replied (in his review of Mr. Murphy’s work in
Nature[96]), by
objecting that sudden changes could very rarely be useful, because each
kind of animal is a nicely balanced and adjusted whole, any one sudden
modification of which would in most cases be hurtful unless accompanied
by other simultaneous and harmonious modifications. If, however, it is
not unlikely that there is an innate tendency to deviate at certain
times, and under certain conditions, it is no more unlikely that that
innate tendency should be an harmonious one, calculated to simultaneously
adjust the various parts of the organism to their new relations. The
objection as to the sudden abortion of rudimentary organs may be
similarly met.
Professor Huxley seems now disposed to accept the, at least [104]occasional, intervention of sudden and
considerable variations. In his review of Professor Kölliker’s[97] criticisms, he himself
says,[98] “We greatly
suspect that she” (i.e. Nature) “does make considerable jumps in
the way of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to
some of the gaps which appear to exist in the series of known forms.”
MUCH ENLARGED HORIZONTAL SECTION OF THE TOOTH OF A LABYRINTHODON.
In addition to the instances brought forward in the second chapter
against the minute action of Natural Selection, may be [105]mentioned such
structures as the wonderfully folded teeth of the labyrinthodonts. The
marvellously complex structure of these organs is not merely
unaccountable as due to Natural “Selection,” but its production by
insignificant increments of complexity is hardly less difficult to
comprehend.
Similarly the aborted index of the Potto (Perodicticus) is a
structure not likely to have been induced by minute changes; while, as to
“Natural Selection,” the reduction of the fore-finger to a mere rudiment
is inexplicable indeed! “How this mutilation can have aided in the
struggle for life, we must confess, baffles our conjectures on the
subject; for that any very appreciable gain to the individual can have
resulted from the slightly lessened degree of required nourishment thence
resulting (i.e. from the suppression), seems to us to be an almost
absurd proposition.”[99]
HAND OF THE POTTO (PERODICTICUS), FROM LIFE.
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 [106]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,[100] 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.
SKELETON OF A PLESIOSAURUS.
As another example, let us take the origin of wings, such as exist in
birds. Here we find an arm, the bones of the hand of which are atrophied
and reduced in number, as compared with those of most other Vertebrates.
Now, if the wing arose from a terrestrial or subaërial organ, this
abortion of the bones could hardly have been serviceable—hardly
have preserved individuals in the struggle for life. If it arose from an
aquatic organ, like the wing of the penguin, we have then a singular
divergence from the ordinary vertebrate fin-limb. In the ichthyosaurus,
in the plesiosaurus, in the whales, in the porpoises, in the seals, and
in others, we have shortening of the bones, but no reduction in the
number either of the fingers or of their joints, which are, on the
contrary, multiplied in Cetacea and the ichthyosaurus. And even in the
turtles we have eight carpal bones and five digits, [107]while no
finger has less than two phalanges. It is difficult, then, to believe
that the Avian limb was developed in any other way than by a
comparatively sudden modification of a marked and important kind.
SKELETON OF AN ICHTHYOSAURUS.
How, once more, can we conceive the peculiar actions of the tendrils
of some climbing plants to have been produced by minute modifications?
These, according to Mr. Darwin,[101] oscillate till they touch an object,
and then embrace it. It is stated by that observer, “that a thread
weighing no more than the thirty-second of a grain, if placed on the
tendril of the Passiflora gracilis, will cause it to bend; and
merely to touch the tendril with a twig causes it to bend; but if the
twig is at once removed, the tendril soon straightens itself. But the
contact of other tendrils of the plant, or of the falling of drops of
rain, do not produce these effects.”[102] But some of the zoological and
anatomical discoveries of late years tend rather to diminish than to
augment the evidence in favour of minute and gradual modification. Thus
all naturalists now admit that certain animals, which were at one time
supposed to be connecting links between groups, belong altogether to one
group, and not at all to the other. For example, the aye-aye[103] (Chiromys
Madagascariensis). [108]was till lately considered to be allied to
the squirrels, and was often classed with them in the rodent order,
principally on account of its dentition; at the same time that its
affinities to the lemurs and apes were admitted. The thorough
investigation into its anatomy that has now been made, demonstrates that
it has no more essential affinity to rodents than any other lemurine
creature has.
THE AYE-AYE.
Bats were, by the earliest observers, naturally supposed to have a
close relationship to birds, and cetaceans to fishes. It is almost
superfluous to observe that all now agree that these mammals make not
even an approach to either one or other of the two inferior classes.
In the same way it has been recently supposed that those extinct
flying saurians, the pterodactyles, had an affinity with birds more
marked than any other known animals. Now, however, as has been said
earlier, it is contended that not only had they no such close affinity,
but that other extinct reptiles had a far closer one.
The amphibia (i.e. frogs, toads, and efts) were long
considered (and are so still by some) to be reptiles, showing an affinity
to fishes. It now appears that they form with the latter one great
group—the ichthyopsida of Professor Huxley—which differs
widely from reptiles; while its two component classes (fishes and
amphibians) are difficult to separate from each other in a thoroughly
satisfactory manner.
If we admit the hypothesis of gradual and minute modification, the
succession of organisms on this planet must have been a progress from the
more general to the more special, and no doubt this has been the case in
the majority of instances. Yet it cannot be denied that some of the most
recently formed fossils show a structure singularly more generalized than
any exhibited by older forms; while others are more specialized than are
any allied creatures of the existing creation.
A notable example of the former circumstance is offered by
macrauchenia—a hoofed animal, which was at first supposed to be a
kind of great llama (whence its name)—the llama being a ruminant,
which, like all the rest, has two toes to each foot. Now hoofed animals
are divisible into two very distinct series, according as the number of
functional toes on each hind foot is odd or even. And many other
characters are found to go with this obvious one. Even the very earliest
Ungulata show this distinction, which is completely developed and marked
even in the Eocene palæotherium and anoplotherium found in Paris by
Cuvier. The former of these has the toes odd (perissodactyle), the other
has them even (artiodactyle).
Now, the macrauchenia, from the first relics of it which were [110]found, was thought to belong, as has been
said, to the even-toed division. Subsequent discoveries, however, seemed
to give it an equal claim to rank amongst the perissodactyle forms.
Others again inclined the balance of probability towards the
artiodactyle. Finally, it appears that this very recently extinct beast
presents a highly generalized type of structure, uniting in one organic
form both artiodactyle and perissodactyle characters, and that in a
manner not similarly found in any other known creature living, or fossil.
At the same time the differentiation of artiodactyle and perissodactyle
forms existed as long ago as in the period of the Eocene ungulata, and
that in a marked degree, as has been before observed.
Again, no armadillo now living presents nearly so remarkable a
speciality of structure as was possessed by the extinct glyptodon.
In that singular animal the spinal column had most of its joints fused
together, forming a rigid cylindrical rod, a modification, as far as yet
known, absolutely peculiar to it.
DENTITION OF THE SABRE-TOOTHED TIGER (MACHAIRODUS).
In a similar way the extinct machairodus, or sabre-toothed
tiger, is characterized by a more highly differentiated and specially
carnivorous dentition than is shown by any predacious beast of [111]the
present day. The specialization is of this kind. The grinding
teeth (or molars) of beasts are divided into premolars and true molars.
The premolars are molars which have deciduous vertical predecessors (or
milk teeth), and any which are in front of such, i.e. between such
and the canine tooth. The true molars are those placed behind the molars
having deciduous vertical predecessors. Now, as a dentition becomes more
distinctly carnivorous, so the hindmost molars and the foremost premolars
disappear. In the existing cats this process is carried so far that in
the upper jaw only one true molar is left on each side. In the
machairodus there is no upper true molar at all, while the premolars are
reduced to two, there being only these two teeth above, on each side,
behind the canine.
Now, with regard to these instances of early specialization, as also
with regard to the changed estimate of the degrees of affinity between
forms, it is not pretended for a moment that such facts are
irreconcilable with “Natural Selection.” Nevertheless, they point in an
opposite direction. Of course not only is it conceivable that certain
antique types arrived at a high degree of specialization and then
disappeared; but it is manifest they did do so. Still the fact of this
early degree of excessive specialization tells to a certain, however
small, extent against a progress through excessively minute steps,
whether fortuitous or not; as also does the distinctness of forms
formerly supposed to constitute connecting links. For, it must not be
forgotten, that if species have manifested themselves generally by
gradual and minute modifications, then the absence, not in one but in
all cases, of such connecting links, is a phenomenon which remains
to be accounted for.
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 [112]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. [113]
CHAPTER V.
AS TO SPECIFIC STABILITY.
What is meant by the phrase “specific stability;” such stability to be
expected a priori, or else considerable changes at
once.—Rapidly increasing difficulty of intensifying race
characters; alleged causes of this phenomenon; probably an internal cause
co-operates.—A certain definiteness in variations.—Mr. Darwin
admits the principle of specific stability in certain cases of unequal
variability.—The goose.—The peacock.—The guinea
fowl.—Exceptional causes of variation under
domestication.—Alleged tendency to
reversion.—Instances.—Sterility of hybrids.—Prepotency
of pollen of same species, but of different race.—Mortality in
young gallinaceous hybrids.—A bar to intermixture exists
somewhere.—Guinea-pigs.—Summary and conclusion.
As was observed in the preceding chapters, arguments may yet be
advanced in favour of the opinion that species are stable (at least in
the intervals of their comparatively sudden successive manifestations);
that the organic world consists, according to Mr. Galton’s
before-mentioned conception, of many facetted spheroids, each of which
can repose upon any one facet, but, when too much disturbed, rolls over
till it finds repose in stable equilibrium upon another and distinct
facet. Something, it is here contended, may be urged, in favour of the
existence of such facets—of such intermitting conditions of stable
equilibrium.
A view as to the stability of species, in the intervals of change, has
been well expressed in an able article, before quoted from, as follows:[104]—”A given animal
or plant appears to be [114]contained, as it were, within a sphere of
variation: one individual lies near one portion of the surface; another
individual, of the same species, near another part of the surface; the
average animal at the centre. Any individual may produce descendants
varying in any direction, but is more likely to produce descendants
varying towards the centre of the sphere, and the variations in that
direction will be greater in amount than the variations towards the
surface.” This might be taken as the representation of the normal
condition of species (i.e. during the periods of repose of the
several facets of the spheroids), on that view which, as before said, may
yet be defended.
Judging the organic world from the inorganic, we might expect, a
priori, that each species of the former, like crystallized species,
would have an approximate limit of form, and even of size, and at the
same time that the organic, like the inorganic forms, would present
modifications in correspondence with surrounding conditions; but that
these modifications would be, not minute and insignificant, but definite
and appreciable, equivalent to the shifting of the spheroid on to another
facet for support.
Mr. Murphy says,[105]
“Crystalline formation is also dependent in a very remarkable way on the
medium in which it takes place.” “Beudant has found that common salt
crystallizing from pure water forms cubes, but if the water contains a
little boracic acid, the angles of the cubes are truncated. And the Rev.
E. Craig has found that carbonate of copper, crystallizing from a
solution containing sulphuric acid, forms hexagonal tubular prisms; but
if a little ammonia is added, the form changes to that of a long
rectangular prism, with secondary planes in the angles. If a little more
ammonia is added, several varieties of rhombic octahedra appear; if a
little nitric acid is added, the rectangular prism appears again. The
changes take place not by the addition of new crystals, but by changing
the growth of [115]the original ones.” These, however, may be
said to be the same species, after all; but recent researches by Dr. H.
Charlton-Bastian seem to show that modifications in the conditions may
result in the evolution of forms so diverse as to constitute different
organic species.
Mr. Murphy observes[106] that “it is scarcely possible to
doubt that the various forms of fungi which are characteristic of
particular situations are not really distinct species, but that the same
germ will develop into different forms, according to the soil on which it
falls;” but it is possible to interpret the facts differently, and it may
be that these are the manifestations of really different and distinct
species, developed according to the different and distinct circumstances
in which each is placed. Mr. Murphy quotes Dr. Carpenter[107] to the effect that “No
Puccinia but the Puccinia rosæ is found upon rose bushes,
and this is seen nowhere else; Omygena exigua is said to be never
seen but on the hoof of a dead horse; and Isaria felina has only
been observed upon the dung of cats, deposited in humid and obscure
situations.” He adds, “We can scarcely believe that the air is full of
the germs of distinct species of fungi, of which one never vegetates
until it falls on the hoof of a dead horse, and another till it falls on
cat’s dung in a damp and dark place.” This is true, but it does not quite
follow that they are necessarily the same species if, as Dr. Bastian
seems to show, thoroughly different and distinct organic forms[108] can be evolved one
from another by modifying the conditions. This observer has brought
forward arguments and facts from which it would appear that such
definite, sudden, and considerable transformations may take place in the
lowest organisms. If such is really the case, we might expect, a
priori, to find in the highest organisms a tendency (much more
impeded [116]and rare in its manifestations) to
similarly appreciable and sudden changes, under certain stimuli; but a
tendency to continued stability, under normal and ordinary conditions.
The proposition that species have, under ordinary circumstances, a
definite limit to their variability, is largely supported by facts
brought forward by the zealous industry of Mr. Darwin himself. It is
unquestionable that the degrees of variation which have been arrived at
in domestic animals have been obtained more or less readily in a moderate
amount of time, but that further development in certain desired
directions is in some a matter of extreme difficulty, and in others
appears to be all but, if not quite, an impossibility. It is also
unquestionable that the degree of divergence which has been attained in
one domestic species is no criterion of the amount of divergence which
has been attained in another. It is contended on the other side that we
have no evidence of any limits to variation other than those imposed by
physical conditions, such, e.g., as those which determine the
greatest degree of speed possible to any animal (of a given size) moving
over the earth’s surface; also it is said that the differences in degree
of change shown by different domestic animals depend in great measure
upon the abundance or scarcity of individuals subjected to man’s
selection, together with the varying direction and amount of his
attention in different cases; finally, it is said that the changes found
in nature are within the limits to which the variation of domestic
animals extends,—it being the case that when changes of a certain
amount have occurred to a species under nature, it becomes another
species, or sometimes two or more other species by divergent
variations, each of these species being able again to vary and diverge in
any useful direction.
But the fact of the rapidly increasing difficulty found in producing
by ever such careful selection, any further extreme in some charge
already carried very far (such as the tail of the “fan-tailed pigeon” or
the crop of the “pouter”), is certainly, so [117]far as it goes, on the
side of the existence of definite limits to variability. It is asserted
in reply, that physiological conditions of health and life may bar any
such further development. Thus, Mr. Wallace says[109] of these developments: “Variation
seems to have reached its limits in these birds. But so it has in nature.
The fantail has not only more tail-feathers than any of the three hundred
and forty existing species of pigeons, but more than any of the eight
thousand known species of birds. There is, of course, some limit to the
number of feathers of which a tail useful for flight can consist, and in
the fantail we have probably reached that limit. Many birds have the
œsophagus or the skin of the neck more or less dilatable, but in no
known bird is it so dilatable as in the pouter pigeon. Here again the
possible limit, compatible with a healthy existence, has probably been
reached. In like manner, the differences in the size and form of the beak
in the various breeds of the domestic pigeon, is greater than that
between the extreme forms of beak in the various genera and sub-families
of the whole pigeon tribe. From these facts, and many others of the same
nature, we may fairly infer, that if rigid selection were applied to any
organ, we could in a comparatively short time produce a much greater
amount of change than that which occurs between species and species in a
state of nature, since the differences which we do produce are often
comparable with those which exist between distinct genera or distinct
families.”
But in a domestic bird like the fantail where Natural Selection does
not come into play, the tail-feathers could hardly be limited by “utility
for flight,” yet two more tail-feathers could certainly exist in a fancy
breed if “utility for flight” were the only obstacle. It seems probable
that the real barrier is an internal one in the nature of the
organism, and the existence of such is just what is contended for in this
chapter. As to the [118]differences between domestic races being
greater than those between species or even genera, that is not enough for
the argument. For upon the theory of “Natural Selection” all birds have a
common origin, from which they diverged by infinitesimal changes, so that
we ought to meet with sufficient changes to warrant the belief that a
hornbill could be produced from a humming-bird, proportionate time being
allowed.
But not only does it appear that there are barriers which oppose
change in certain directions, but that there are positive tendencies to
development along certain special lines. In a bird which has been kept
and studied like the pigeon, it is difficult to believe that any
remarkable spontaneous variations would pass unnoticed by breeders, or
that they would fail to be attended to and developed by some one fancier
or other. On the hypothesis of indefinite variability, it is then
hard to say why pigeons with bills like toucans, or with certain feathers
lengthened like those of trogans, or those of birds of paradise, have
never been produced. This, however, is a question which may be settled by
experiment. Let a pigeon be bred with a bill like a toucan’s, and with
the two middle tail-feathers lengthened like those of the king bird of
paradise, or even let individuals be produced which exhibit any marked
tendency of the kind, and indefinite variability shall be at once
conceded.
As yet all the changes which have taken place in pigeons are of a few
definite kinds only, such as may be well conceived to be compatible with
a species possessed of a certain inherent capacity for considerable yet
definite variation, a capacity for the ready production of certain
degrees of abnormality, which then cannot be further increased.
Mr. Darwin himself has already acquiesced in the proposition here
maintained, inasmuch as he distinctly affirms the existence of a marked
internal barrier to change in certain cases. And if this is admitted in
one case, the principle is conceded, and it immediately becomes
probable that such internal barriers exist [119]in all, although
enclosing a much larger field for variation in some cases than in others.
Mr. Darwin abundantly demonstrates the variability of dogs, horses,
fowls, and pigeons, but he none the less shows clearly the very
small extent to which the goose, the peacock, and the guinea-fowl
have varied.[110] Mr.
Darwin attempts to explain this fact as regards the goose by the animal
being valued only for food and feathers, and from no pleasure having been
felt in it on other accounts. He adds, however, at the end the striking
remark,[111] which
concedes the whole position, “but the goose seems to have a singularly
inflexible organization.” This is not the only place in which such
expressions are used. He elsewhere makes use of phrases which quite
harmonize with the conception of a normal specific constancy, but varying
greatly and suddenly at intervals. Thus he speaks[112] of a whole organization seeming to
have become plastic, and tending to depart from the parental type.
That different organisms should have different degrees of variability, is
only what might have been expected a priori from the existence of
parallel differences in inorganic species, some of these having but a
single form, and others being polymorphic.
To return to the goose, however, it may be remarked that it is at
least as probable that its fixity of character is the cause of the
neglect, as the reverse. It is by no means unfair to assume that
had the goose shown a tendency to vary similar in degree to the
tendency to variation of the fowl or pigeon, it would have received
attention at once on that account.
As to the peacock it is excused on the pleas (1), that the individuals
maintained are so few in number, and (2) that its beauty is so great it
can hardly be improved. But the individuals maintained have not been
too few for the independent origin of the black-shouldered form, or
for the supplanting of the [120]commoner one by it. As to any neglect in
selection, it can hardly be imagined that with regard to this bird (kept
as it is all but exclusively for its beauty), any spontaneous beautiful
variation in colour or form would have been neglected. On the contrary,
it would have been seized upon with avidity and preserved with anxious
care. Yet apart from the black-shouldered and white varieties, no
tendency to change has been known to show itself. As to its being too
beautiful for improvement, that is a proposition which can hardly be
maintained. Many consider the Javan bird as much handsomer than the
common peacock, and it would be easy to suggest a score of improvements
as regards either species.
The guinea-fowl is excused, as being “no general favourite, and
scarcely more common than the peacock;” but Mr. Darwin himself shows and
admits that it is a noteworthy instance of constancy under very varied
conditions.
These instances alone (and there are yet others) seem sufficient to
establish the assertion, that degree of change is different in different
domestic animals. It is, then, somewhat unwarrantable in any Darwinian to
assume that all wild animals have a capacity for change similar to
that existing in some of the domestic ones. It seems more
reasonable to assert the opposite, namely, that if, as Mr. Darwin says,
the capacity for change is different in different domestic animals, it
must surely be limited in those which have it least, and a
fortiori limited in wild animals.
Indeed, it cannot be reasonably maintained that wild species certainly
vary as much as do domestic races; it is possible that they may do so,
but at least this has not been yet shown. Indeed, the much greater degree
of variation amongst domestic animals than amongst wild ones is asserted
over and over again by Mr. Darwin, and his assertions are supported by an
overwhelming mass of facts and instances.
Of course, it may be asserted that a tendency to indefinite change
exists in all cases, and that it is only the [121]circumstances and
conditions of life which modify the effects of this tendency to change so
as to produce such different results in different cases. But assertion is
not proof, and this assertion has not been proved. Indeed, it may be
equally asserted (and the statement is more consonant with some of the
facts given), that domestication in certain animals induces and occasions
a capacity for change which is wanting in wild animals—the
introduction of new causes occasioning new effects. For, though a certain
degree of variability (normally, in all probability, only oscillation)
exists in all organisms, yet domestic ones are exposed to new and
different causes of variability, resulting in such striking divergencies
as have been observed. Not even in this latter case, however, is it
necessary to believe that the variability is indefinite, but only that
the small oscillations become in certain instances intensified into large
and conspicuous ones. Moreover, it is possible that some of our domestic
animals have been in part chosen and domesticated through possessing
variability in an eminent degree.
That each species exhibits certain oscillations of structure is
admitted on all hands. Mr. Darwin asserts that this is the exhibition of
a tendency to vary which is absolutely indefinite. If this indefinite
variability does exist, of course no more need be said. But we
have seen that there are arguments a priori and a
posteriori against it, while the occurrence of variations in certain
domestic animals greater in degree than the differences between many wild
species, is no argument in favour of its existence, until it can be shown
that the causes of variability in the one case are the same as in the
other. An argument against it, however, may be drawn from the fact, that
certain animals, though placed under the influence of those exceptional
causes of variation to which domestic animals are subject, have yet never
been known to vary, even in a degree equal to that in which certain wild
kinds have been ascertained to vary.
In addition to this immutability of character in some animals, [122]it is
undeniable, that domestic varieties have little stability, and much
tendency to reversion, whatever be the true explanation of such
phenomena.
In controverting the generally received opinion as to “reversion,” Mr.
Darwin has shown that it is not all breeds which in a few years revert to
the original form; but he has shown no more. Thus, the feral rabbits of
Porto Santo, Jamaica, and the Falkland Islands, have not yet so reverted
in those several localities.[113] Nevertheless, a Porto Santo rabbit
brought to England reverted in a manner the most striking, recovering the
proper colour of its fur “in rather less than four years.”[114] Again, the white silk
fowl, in our climate, “reverts to the ordinary colour of the common fowl
in its skin and bones, due care having been taken to prevent any
cross.”[115] This
reversion taking place in spite of careful selection, is very
remarkable.
Numerous other instances of reversion are given by Mr. Darwin, both as
regards plants and animals; amongst others, the singular fact of bud
reversion.[116] The
curiously recurring development of black sheep, in spite of the most
careful breeding, may also be mentioned, though, perhaps, reversion has
no part in the phenomenon.
These facts seem certainly to tell in favour of limited variability,
while the cases of non-reversion do not contradict it, as it is not
contended that all species have the same tendency to revert, but rather
that their capacities in this respect, as well as for change, are
different in different kinds, so that often reversion may only show
itself at the end of very long periods indeed.
Yet some of the instances given as probable or possible causes of
reversion by Mr. Darwin, can hardly be such. He cites, for example, the
occasional presence of supernumerary digits in man.[117] For this notion, however, he is not
responsible, [123]as he rests his remark on the authority of
a passage published by Professor Owen. Again, he refers[118] to “the greater frequency of a
monster proboscis in the pig than in any other animal.” But with the
exception of the peculiar muzzle of the Saiga (or European antelope), the
only known proboscidian Ungulates are the elephants and tapirs, and to
neither of these has the pig any close affinity. It is rather in the
horse than in the pig that we might look for the appearance of a
reversionary proboscis, as both the elephants and the tapirs have the
toes of the hind foot of an odd number. It is true that the elephants are
generally considered to form a group apart from both the odd and the
even-toed Ungulata. But of the two, their affinities with the odd-toed
division are more marked.[119]
Another argument in favour of the, at least intermitting, constancy of
specific forms and of sudden modification, may be drawn from the absence
of minute transitional forms, but this will be considered in the next
chapter.
It remains now to notice in favour of specific stability, that the
objection drawn from physiological difference between “species” and
“races” still exists unrefuted.
Mr. Darwin freely admits difficulties regarding the sterility of
different species when crossed, and shows satisfactorily that it could
never have arisen from the action of “Natural Selection.” He remarks[120] also: “With some few
exceptions, in the case of plants, domesticated varieties, such as those
of the dog, fowl, pigeon, several fruit trees, and culinary vegetables,
which differ from each other in external characters more than many
species, are perfectly fertile when crossed, or even fertile [124]in excess,
whilst closely allied species are almost invariably in some degree
sterile.”
Again, after speaking of “the general law of good being, derived from
the intercrossing of distinct individuals of the same species,” and the
evidence that the pollen of a distinct variety or race is
prepotent over a flower’s own pollen, adds the very significant remark,[121] “When distinct
species are crossed, the case is directly the reverse, for a
plant’s own pollen is almost always prepotent over foreign pollen.”
Again he adds:[122] “I
believe from observations communicated to me by Mr. Hewitt, who has had
great experience in hybridizing pheasants and fowls, that the early death
of the embryo is a very frequent cause of sterility in first crosses. Mr.
Salter has recently given the results of an examination of about 500 eggs
produced from various crosses between three species of Gallus and their
hybrids. The majority of these eggs had been fertilized, and in the
majority of the fertilized eggs the embryos either had been partially
developed and had then aborted, or had become nearly mature, but the
young chickens had been unable to break through the shell. Of the
chickens which were born, more than four-fifths died within the first few
days, or at latest weeks, ‘without any obvious cause, apparently from
mere inability to live,’ so that from 500 eggs only twelve chickens were
reared. The early death of hybrid embryos probably occurs in like manner
with plants, at least it is known that hybrids raised from very distinct
species are sometimes weak and dwarfed, and perish at an early age, of
which fact Max Wichura has recently given some striking cases with hybrid
willows.”
Mr. Darwin objects to the notion that there is any special sterility
imposed to check specific intermixture and change, saying,[123] “To grant to species
the special power of producing [125]hybrids, and then to stop their further
propagation by different degrees of sterility, not strictly related to
the facility of the first union between their parents, seems a strange
arrangement.”
But this only amounts to saying that the author himself would not have
so acted had he been the Creator. A “strange arrangement” must be
admitted anyhow, and all who acknowledge teleology at all, must admit
that the strange arrangement was designed. Mr. Darwin says, as to the
sterility of species, that the cause lies exclusively in their sexual
constitution; but all that need be affirmed is that sterility is brought
about somehow, and it is undeniable that “crossing” is checked.
All that is contended for is that there is a bar to the
intermixture of species, but not of breeds; and if the
conditions of the generative products are that bar, it is enough for the
argument, no special kind of barring action being contended for.
He, however, attempts to account for the modification of the sexual
products of species as compared with those of varieties, by the exposure
of the former to more uniform conditions during longer periods of time
than those to which varieties are exposed, and that as wild animals, when
captured, are often rendered sterile by captivity, so the influence of
union with another species may produce a similar effect. It seems to the
author an unwarrantable assumption that a cross with what, on the
Darwinian theory, can only be a slightly diverging descendant of a common
parent, should produce an effect equal to that of captivity, and
consequent change of habit, as well as considerable modification of
food.
No clear case has been given by Mr. Darwin in which mongrel animals,
descended from the same undoubted species, have been persistently
infertile inter se; nor any clear case in which hybrids between
animals, generally admitted to be distinct species, have been
continuously fertile inter se.
It is true that facts are brought forward tending to establish the
probability of the doctrine of Pallas, that species may [126]sometimes be
rendered fertile by domestication. But even if this were true, it would
be no approximation towards proving the converse, i.e. that races
and varieties may become sterile when wild. And whatever may be the
preference occasionally shown by certain breeds to mate with their own
variety, no sterility is recorded as resulting from unions with other
varieties. Indeed, Mr. Darwin remarks,[124] “With respect to sterility from the
crossing of domestic races, I know of no well-ascertained case with
animals. This fact (seeing the great difference in structure between some
breeds of pigeons, fowls, pigs, dogs, &c.) is extraordinary when
contrasted with the sterility, of many closely-allied natural species
when crossed.”
It has been alleged that the domestic and wild guinea-pig do not breed
together, but the specific identity of these forms is very problematical.
Mr. A. D. Bartlett, superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, whose
experience is so great, and observation so quick, believes them to be
decidedly distinct species.
Thus, then, it seems that a certain normal specific stability in
species, accompanied by occasional sudden and considerable modifications,
might be expected a priori from what we know of crystalline
inorganic forms and from what we may anticipate with regard to the lowest
organic ones. This presumption is strengthened by the knowledge of the
increasing difficulties which beset any attempt to indefinitely intensify
any race characteristics. The obstacles to this indefinite
intensification, as well as to certain lines of variation in certain
cases, appear to be not only external, but to depend on internal causes
or an internal cause. We have seen that Mr. Darwin himself implicitly
admits the principle of specific stability in asserting the singular
inflexibility of the organization of the goose. We have also seen that it
is not fair to conclude that all wild races can vary as much as the most
variable domestic ones. It has [127]also been shown that there are grounds for
believing in a tendency to reversion generally, as it is distinctly
present in certain instances. Also that specific stability is confirmed
by the physiological obstacles which oppose themselves to any
considerable or continued intermixture of species, while no such barriers
oppose themselves to the blending of varieties. All these considerations
taken together may fairly be considered as strengthening the belief that
specific manifestations are relatively stable. At the same time the view
advocated in this book does not depend upon, and is not identified with,
any such stability. All that the Author contends for is that specific
manifestation takes place along certain lines, and according to law, and
not in an exceedingly minute, indefinite, and fortuitous manner. Finally,
he cannot but feel justified, from all that has been brought forward, in
reiterating the opening assertion of this chapter that something is still
to be said for the view which maintains that species are stable, at least
in the intervals of their comparatively rapid successive manifestations.
[128]
CHAPTER VI.
SPECIES AND TIME.
Two relations of species to time.—No evidence of past existence
of minutely intermediate forms when such might be expected a
priori.—Bats, Pterodactyles, Dinosauria, and
Birds.—Ichthyosauria, Chelonia, and Anoura.—Horse
ancestry.—Labyrinthodonts and Trilobites.—Two subdivisions of
the second relation of species to time.—Sir William Thomson’s
views.—-Probable period required for ultimate specific evolution
from primitive ancestral forms.—Geometrical increase of time
required for rapidly multiplying increase of structural
differences.—Proboscis monkey.—Time required for deposition
of strata necessary for Darwinian evolution.—High organization of
Silurian forms of life.—Absence of fossils in oldest
rocks.—Summary and conclusion.
Two considerations present themselves with regard to the necessary
relation of species to time if the theory of “Natural Selection” is valid
and sufficient.
The first is with regard to the evidences of the past existence of
intermediate form, their duration and succession.
The second is with regard to the total amount of time required for the
evolution of all organic forms from a few original ones, and the bearing
of other sciences on this question of time.
As to the first consideration, evidence is as yet against the
modification of species by “Natural Selection” alone, because not only
are minutely transitional forms generally absent, but they are absent in
cases where we might certainly a priori have expected them to be
present. [129]
Now it has been said:[125] “If Mr. Darwin’s theory be true, the
number of varieties differing one from another a very little must have
been indefinitely great, so great indeed as probably far to exceed the
number of individuals which have existed of any one variety. If this be
true, it would be more probable that no two specimens preserved as
fossils should be of one variety than that we should find a great many
specimens collected from a very few varieties, provided, of course, the
chances of preservation are equal for all individuals.” “It is really
strange that vast numbers of perfectly similar specimens should be found,
the chances against their perpetuation as fossils are so great; but it is
also very strange that the specimens should be so exactly alike as they
are, if, in fact, they came and vanished by a gradual change.”
Mr. Darwin attempts[126] to show cause why we should believe
a priori that intermediate varieties would exist in lesser numbers
than the more extreme forms; but though they would doubtless do so
sometimes, it seems too much to assert that they would do so generally,
still less universally. Now little less than universal and very marked
inferiority in numbers would account for the absence of certain series of
minutely intermediate fossil specimens. The mass of palæontological
evidence is indeed overwhelmingly against minute and gradual
modification. It is true that when once an animal has obtained powers of
flight its means of diffusion are indefinitely increased, and we might
expect to find many relics of an aërial form and few of its antecedent
state—with nascent wings just commencing their suspensory power.
Yet had such a slow mode of origin, as Darwinians contend for, operated
exclusively in all cases, it is absolutely incredible that birds, bats,
and pterodactyles should have left the remains they have, and yet not a
[130]single relic be preserved in any one
instance of any of these different forms of wing in their incipient and
relatively imperfect functional condition!
WING-BONES OF PTERODACTYLE, BAT, AND BIRD.
Whenever the remains of bats have been found they have presented the
exact type of existing forms, and there is as yet no indication of the
conditions of an incipient elevation from the ground.
The pterodactyles, again, though a numerous group, are all true and
perfect pterodactyles, though surely some of the many incipient
forms, which on the Darwinian theory have existed, must have had a good
chance of preservation.
As to birds, the only notable instance in which discoveries recently
made appear to fill up an important hiatus, is the interpretation given
by Professor Huxley[127]
to the remains of Dinosaurian reptiles, and which were noticed in the
third chapter of this work. The learned Professor has (as also has
Professor Cope in America) shown that in very important and [131]significant
points the skeletons of the Iguanodon and of its allies approach very
closely to that existing in the ostrich, emeu, rhea, &c. He has given
weighty reasons for thinking that the line of affinity between birds and
reptiles passes to the birds last named from the Dinosauria rather than
from the Pterodactyles, through Archeopteryx-like forms to the ordinary
birds. Finally, he has thrown out the suggestion that the celebrated
footsteps left by some extinct three-toed creatures on the very ancient
sandstone of Connecticut were made, not, as hitherto supposed, by true
birds, but by more or less ornithic reptiles. But even supposing all that
is asserted or inferred on this subject to be fully proved, it would not
approach to a demonstration of specific origin by minute
modification. And though it harmonizes well with “Natural Selection,” it
is equally consistent with the rapid and sudden development of new
specific forms of life. Indeed, Professor Huxley, with a laudable caution
and moderation too little observed by some Teutonic Darwinians, guarded
himself carefully from any imputation of asserting dogmatically the
theory of “Natural Selection,” while upholding fully the doctrine of
evolution.
But, after all, it is by no means certain, though very probable, that
the Connecticut footsteps were made by very ornithic reptiles, or
extremely sauroid birds. And it must not be forgotten that a completely
carinate[128] bird (the
Archeopteryx) existed at a time, when, as yet, we have no evidence of
some of the Dinosauria having come into being. Moreover, if the
remarkable and minute similarity of the coracoid of a pterodactyle to
that of a bird be merely the result of function and no sign of genetic
affinity, it is not inconceivable that pelvic and leg resemblances of
Dinosauria to birds may be functional likewise, [132]though such an
explanation is, of course, by no means necessary to support the view
maintained in this book.
THE ARCHEOPTERYX (OF THE OOLITE STRATA).
SKELETON OF AN ICHTHYOSAURUS.
But the number of forms represented by many individuals, yet by no
transitional ones, is so great that only two or three can be selected
as examples. Thus those remarkable fossil reptiles, the Ichthyosauria and
Plesiosauria, extended, through the secondary period, probably over the
greater part of the globe. Yet no single transitional form has yet been
met with in spite of the multitudinous individuals preserved. Again, with
their modern representatives the Cetacea, one or two aberrant forms [133]alone
have been found, but no series of transitional ones indicating minutely
the line of descent. This group, the whales, is a very marked one, and it
is curious, on Darwinian principles, that so few instances tending to
indicate its mode of origin should have presented themselves. Here, as in
the bats, we might surely expect that some relics of unquestionably
incipient stages of its development would have been left.
SKELETON OF A PLESIOSAURUS.
The singular order Chelonia, including the tortoises, turtles, and
terrapins (or fresh-water tortoises), is another instance of an extreme
form without any, as yet known, transitional stages. Another group may be
finally mentioned, viz. the frogs and toads, anourous Batrachians, of
which we have at present no relic of any kind linking them on to the Eft
group on the one hand, or to reptiles on the other.
The only instance in which an approach towards a series of nearly
related forms has been obtained is the existing horse, its predecessor
Hipparion and other extinct forms. But even here there is no proof
whatever of modification by minute and infinitesimal steps; a
fortiori no approach to a proof of modification by “Natural
Selection,” acting upon indefinite fortuitous variations. On the
contrary, the series is an admirable example of successive modification
in one special direction along one beneficial line, and the teleologist
must [134]here be allowed to consider that one
motive of this modification (among probably an indefinite number of
motives inconceivable to us) was the relationship in which the horse was
to stand to the human inhabitants of this planet. These extinct forms, as
Professor Owen, remarks,[129] “differ from each other in a greater
degree than do the horse, zebra, and ass,” which are not only good
zoological species as to form, but are species
physiologically, i.e. they cannot produce a race of hybrids
fertile inter se.
As to the mere action of surrounding conditions, the same Professor
remarks:[130] “Any
modification affecting the density of the soil might so far relate to the
changes of limb-structure, as that a foot with a pair of small hoofs
dangling by the sides of the large one, like those behind the cloven hoof
of the ox, would cause the foot of Hipparion, e.g., and a
fortiori the broader based three-hoofed foot of the Palæothere, to
sink less deeply into swampy soil, and be more easily withdrawn than the
more concentratively simplified and specialized foot of the horse.
Rhinoceroses and zebras, however, tread together the arid plains of
Africa in the present day; and the horse has multiplied in that half of
America where two or more kinds of tapir still exist. That the continents
of the Eocene or Miocene periods were less diversified in respect of
swamp and sward, pampas or desert, than those of the Pliocene period, has
no support from observation or analogy.”
Not only, however, do we fail to find any traces of the incipient
stages of numerous very peculiar groups of animals, but it is undeniable
that there are instances which appeared at first to indicate a gradual
transition, yet which instances have been shown by further
investigation and discovery not to indicate truly anything of the kind.
Thus at one time the remains of Labyrinthodonts, which up till then had
been discovered, seemed to justify the opinion that as time went on,
forms had [135]successively appeared with more and more
complete segmentation and ossification of the backbone, which in the
earliest forms was (as it is in the lowest fishes now) a soft continuous
rod or notochord. Now, however, it is considered probable that the soft
back-boned Labyrinthodont Archegosaurus, was an immature or larval
form,[131] while
Labyrinthodonts with completely developed vertebræ have been found to
exist amongst the very earliest forms yet discovered. The same may be
said regarding the eyes of the trilobites, some of the oldest forms
having been found as well furnished in that respect as the very last of
the group which has left its remains accessible to observation.
TRILOBITE.
Such instances, however, as well as the way in which marked and
special forms (as the Pterodactyles, &c., before referred to) appear
at once in and similarly disappear from the geological record, are of
course explicable on the Darwinian theory, provided a sufficiently
enormous amount of past time be allowed. The alleged extreme, and
probably great, imperfection of that record may indeed be pleaded in
excuse. But it is an excuse.[132] [136]Nor is it possible to
deny the a priori probability of the preservation of at least a
few minutely transitional forms in some instances if every
species without exception has arisen exclusively by such minute and
gradual transitions.
It remains, then, to turn to the other considerations with regard to
the relation of species to time: namely (1) as to the total amount of
time allowable by other sciences for organic evolution; and (2) the
proportion existing, on Darwinian principles, between the time anterior
to the earlier fossils, and the time since; as evidenced by the
proportion between the amount of evolutionary change during the latter
epoch and that which must have occurred anteriorly.
Sir William Thomson has lately[133] advanced arguments from three
distinct lines of inquiry, and agreeing in one approximate result. The
three lines of inquiry were—1. The action of the tides upon the
earth’s rotation. 2. The probable length of time during which the sun has
illuminated this planet; and 3. The temperature of the interior of the
earth. The result arrived at by these investigations is a conclusion that
the existing state of things on the earth, life on the earth, all
geological history showing continuity of life, must be limited within
some such period of past time as one hundred million years. The first
question which suggests itself, supposing Sir W. Thomson’s views to be
correct, is, Is this period anything like enough for the evolution of all
organic forms by “Natural Selection”? The second is, Is this period
anything like enough for the deposition of the strata which must have
been deposited if all organic forms have been evolved by minute
steps, according to the Darwinian theory?
In the first place, as to Sir William Thomson’s views, the Author of
this book cannot presume to advance any opinion; but the fact that they
have not been refuted, pleads strongly in [137]their favour when we
consider how much they tell against the theory of Mr. Darwin. The
last-named author only remarks that “many of the elements in the
calculation are more or less doubtful,”[134] and Professor Huxley[135] does not attempt to refute Sir
W. Thomson’s arguments, but only to show cause for suspense of judgment,
inasmuch as the facts may be capable of other explanations.
Mr. Wallace, on the other hand,[136] seems more disposed to accept them,
and, after considering Sir William’s objections and those of Mr. Croll,
puts the probable date of the beginning of the Cambrian deposits[137] at only twenty-four
million years ago. On the other hand, he seems to consider that specific
change has been more rapid than generally supposed, and exceptionally
stable during the last score or so of thousand years.
Now, first, with regard to the time required for the evolution of all
organic forms by merely accidental, minute, and fortuitous variations,
the useful ones of which have been preserved:
Mr. Murphy[138] is
distinctly of opinion that there has not been time enough. He says, “I am
inclined to think that geological time is too short for the evolution of
the higher forms of life out of the lower by that accumulation of
imperceptibly slow variations, to which alone Darwin ascribes the whole
process.”
“Darwin justly mentions the greyhound as being equal to any natural
species in the perfect co-ordination of its parts, ‘all adapted for
extreme fleetness and for running down weak prey.'” “Yet it is an
artificial species (and not physiologically a species at
all), formed by long-continued selection under domestication; and
there is no reason to suppose that any of the variations which have been
selected to form it have been other than gradual and [138]almost
imperceptible. Suppose that it has taken five hundred years to form the
greyhound out of his wolf-like ancestor. This is a mere guess, but it
gives the order of the magnitude.” Now, if so, “how long would it take to
obtain an elephant from a protozoon, or even from a tadpole-like fish?
Ought it not to take much more than a million times as long?”[139]
Mr. Darwin[140] would
compare with the natural origin of a species “unconscious selection, that
is, the preservation of the most useful or beautiful animals, with no
intention of modifying the breed.” He adds: “But by this process of
unconscious selection, various breeds have been sensibly changed in the
course of two or three centuries.”
“Sensibly changed!” but not formed into “new species.” Mr. Darwin, of
course, could not mean that species generally change so rapidly,
which would be strangely at variance with the abundant evidence we have
of the stability of animal forms as represented on Egyptian monuments and
as shown by recent deposits. Indeed, he goes on to say,—”Species,
however, probably change much more slowly, and within the same country
only a few change at the same time. This slowness follows from all the
inhabitants of the same country being already so well adapted to each
other, that places in the polity of nature do not occur until after long
intervals, when changes of some kind in the physical conditions, or
through immigration, have occurred, and individual differences and
variations of the right nature, by which some of the inhabitants might be
better fitted to their new places under altered circumstances, might not
at once occur.” This is true, and not only will these changes occur at
distant intervals, but it must be borne in mind that in tracing back an
animal to a remote ancestry, we pass through modifications of such
rapidly increasing number and importance that a geometrical progression
can alone indicate the increase of periods [139]which such profound
alterations would require for their evolution through “Natural Selection”
only.
Thus let us take for an example the proboscis monkey of Borneo
(Semnopithecus nasalis). According to Mr. Darwin’s own opinion,
this form might have been “sensibly changed” in the course of two or
three centuries. According to this, to evolve it as a true and perfect
species one thousand years would be a very moderate period. Let ten
thousand years be taken to represent approximately the period of
substantially constant conditions during which no considerable change
would be brought about. Now, if one thousand years may represent the
period required for the evolution of the species S. nasalis, and
of the other species of the genus Semnopithecus; ten times that period
should, I think, be allowed for the differentiation of that genus, the
African Cercopithecus and the other genera of the family
Simiidæ—the differences between the genera being certainly more
than tenfold greater than those between the species of the same genus.
Again we may perhaps interpose a period of ten thousand years’
comparative repose.
For the differentiation of the families Simiidæ and Cebidæ—so
very much more distinct and different than any two genera of either
family—a period ten times greater should, I believe, be allowed
than that required for the evolution of the subordinate groups. A
similarly increasing ratio should be granted for the successive
developments of the difference between the Lemuroid and the higher forms
of primates; for those between the original primate and other root-forms
of placental mammals; for those between primary placental and implacental
mammals, and perhaps also for the divergence of the most ancient stock of
these and of the monotremes, for in all these cases modifications of
structure appear to increase in complexity in at least that ratio.
Finally, a vast period must be granted for the development of the lowest
mammalian type from the primitive stock of the whole vertebrate
sub-kingdom. Supposing this primitive stock [140]to have arisen directly
from a very lowly organized animal indeed (such as a nematoid worm, or an
ascidian, or a jelly-fish), yet it is not easy to believe that less than
two thousand million years would be required for the totality of animal
development by no other means than minute, fortuitous, occasional, and
intermitting variations in all conceivable directions. If this be even an
approximation to the truth, then there seem to be strong reasons for
believing that geological time is not sufficient for such a process.
The second question is, whether there has been time enough for the
deposition of the strata which must have been deposited, if all organic
forms have been evolved according to the Darwinian theory?
Now this may at first seem a question for geologists only, but, in
fact, in this matter geology must in some respects rather take its time
from zoology than the reverse; for if Mr. Darwin’s theory be true, past
time down to the deposition of the Upper Silurian strata can have been
but a very small fraction of that during which strata have been
deposited. For when those Upper Silurian strata were formed, organic
evolution had already run a great part of its course, perhaps the
longest, slowest, and most difficult part of that course.
At that ancient epoch not only were the vertebrate, molluscous, and
arthropod types distinctly and clearly differentiated, but highly
developed forms had been produced in each of these sub-kingdoms. Thus in
the Vertebrata there were fishes not belonging to the lowest but to the
very highest groups which are known to have ever been developed, namely,
the Elasmobranchs (the highly organized sharks and rays) and the Ganoids,
a group now poorly represented, but for which the sturgeon may stand as a
type, and which in many important respects more nearly resemble higher
Vertebrata than do the ordinary or osseous fishes. Fishes in which the
ventral fins are placed in front of the pectoral ones (i.e.
jugular fishes) have been generally considered to be comparatively modern
forms. But Professor [141]Huxley has kindly informed me that he has
discovered a jugular fish in the Permian deposits.
Amongst the molluscous animals we have members of the very highest
known class, namely, the Cephalopods, or cuttle-fish class; and amongst
articulated animals we find Trilobites and Eurypterida, which do not
belong to any incipient worm-like group, but are distinctly
differentiated Crustacea of no low form.
CUTTLE-FISH.
A. Ventral aspect. B. Dorsal
aspect.
We have in all these animal types nervous systems differentiated on
distinctly different patterns, fully formed organs of circulation,
digestion, excretion, and generation, complexly constructed eyes and
other sense organs; in fact, all the most elaborate and complete animal
structures built up, and not only once, for in the fishes and mollusca we
have (as described in the third chapter of this work) the coincidence of
the independently developed organs of sense attaining a nearly similar
complexity [142]in two quite distinct forms. If, then, so
small an advance has been made in fishes, molluscs, and arthropods since
the Upper Silurian deposits, it will probably be within the mark to
consider that the period before those deposits (during which all these
organs would, on the Darwinian theory, have slowly built up their
different perfections and complexities) occupied time at least a
hundredfold greater.
Now it will be a moderate computation to allow 25,000,000 years for
the deposition of the strata down to and including the Upper Silurian.
If, then, the evolutionary work done during this deposition, only
represents a hundredth part of the sum total, we shall require
2,500,000,000 (two thousand five hundred million) years for the complete
development of the whole animal kingdom to its present state. Even one
quarter of this, however, would far exceed the time which physics and
astronomy seem able to allow for the completion of the process.
Finally, a difficulty exists as to the reason of the absence of rich
fossiliferous deposits in the oldest strata—if life was then as
abundant and varied as, on the Darwinian theory, it must have been. Mr.
Darwin himself admits[141] “the case at present must remain
inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the
views” entertained in his book.
Thus, then, we find a wonderful (and on Darwinian principles an all
but inexplicable) absence of minutely 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 infinitesimal, 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
[143]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 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. [144]
CHAPTER VII.
SPECIES AND SPACE.
The geographical distribution of animals presents
difficulties.—These not insurmountable in themselves; harmonize
with other difficulties.—Fresh-water fishes.—Forms common to
Africa and India; to Africa and South America; to China and Australia; to
North America and China; to New Zealand and South America; to South
America and Tasmania; to South America and Australia.—Pleurodont
lizards.—Insectivorous mammals.—Similarity of European and
South American frogs—Analogy between European salmon and fishes of
New Zealand, &c. An ancient Antarctic continent probable.—Other
modes of accounting for facts of distribution.—Independent origin
of closely similar forms.—Conclusion.
The study of the distribution of animals over the earth’s surface
presents us with many facts having certain not unimportant bearings on
the question of specific origin. Amongst these are instances which, at
least at first sight, appear to conflict with the Darwinian theory of
“Natural Selection.” It is not, however, here contended that such facts
do by any means constitute by themselves obstacles which cannot be got
over. Indeed it would be difficult to imagine any obstacles of the kind
which could not be surmounted by an indefinite number of terrestrial
modifications of surface—submergences and
emergences—junctions and separations of continents in all
directions and combinations of any desired degree of frequency. All this
being supplemented by the intercalation of armies of enemies, multitudes
of ancestors of all kinds, and myriads of connecting forms, whose
raison d’être [145]may be simply their utility or necessity
for the support of the theory of “Natural Selection.”
Nevertheless, when brought in merely to supplement and accentuate
considerations and arguments derived from other sources, in that case
difficulties connected with the geographical distribution of animals are
not without significance, and are worthy of mention even though, by
themselves, they constitute but feeble and more or less easily explicable
puzzles which could not alone suffice either to sustain or to defeat any
theory of specific origination.
Many facts as to the present distribution of animal life over the
world are very readily explicable by the hypothesis of slight elevations
and depressions of larger and smaller parts of its surface, but there are
others the existence of which it is much more difficult so to
explain.
The distribution either of animals possessing the power of flight, or
of inhabitants of the ocean, is, of course, easily to be accounted for;
the difficulty, if there is really any, must mainly be with strictly
terrestrial animals of moderate or small powers of locomotion and with
inhabitants of fresh water. Mr. Darwin himself observes,[142] “In regard to fish, I believe that
the same species never occur in the fresh waters of distant continents.”
Now, the Author is enabled, by the labours and through the kindness of
Dr. Günther, to show that this belief cannot be maintained; he having
been so obliging as to call attention to the following facts with regard
to fish-distribution. These facts show that though only one species which
is absolutely and exclusively an inhabitant of fresh water is as yet
known to be found in distant continents, yet that in several other
instances the same species is found in the fresh water of distant
continents, and that very often the same genus is so
distributed.
The genus Mastacembelus belongs to a family of fresh-water [146]Indian fishes. Eight species of this genus
are described by Dr. Günther in his catalogue.[143] These forms extend from Java and
Borneo on the one hand, to Aleppo on the other. Nevertheless, a new
species (M. cryptacanthus) has been described by the same
author,[144] which is an
inhabitant of the Camaroon country of Western Africa. He observes,
“The occurrence of Indian forms on the West Coast of Africa, such as
Periophthalmus, Psettus, Mastacembelus, is of the
highest interest, and an almost new fact in our knowledge of the
geographical distribution of fishes.”
Ophiocephalus, again, is a truly Indian genus, there being no
less than twenty-five species,[145] all from the fresh waters of the East
Indies. Yet Dr. Günther informs me that there is a species in the Upper
Nile and in West Africa.
The acanthopterygian family (Labyrinthici) contains nine
freshwater genera, and these are distributed between the East Indies and
South and Central Africa.
The Carp fishes (Cyprinoids) are found in India, Africa, and
Madagascar, but there are none in South America.
Thus existing fresh-water fishes point to an immediate connexion
between Africa and India, harmonizing with what we learn from Miocene
mammalian remains.
On the other hand, the Characinidæ (a family of the physostomous
fishes) are found in Africa and South America, and not in India, and even
its component groups are so distributed,—namely, the
Tetragonopterina[146] and the Hydrocyonina.[147]
Again, we have similar phenomena in that almost exclusively
fresh-water group the Siluroids.
Thus the genera Clarias[148] and Heterobranchus[149] are found both [147]in
Africa and the East Indies. Plotosus is found in Africa, India,
and Australia, and the species P. anguillaris[150] has been brought from both China and
Moreton Bay. Here, therefore, we have the same species in two distinct
geographical regions. It is however a coast fish, which, though entering
rivers, yet lives in the sea.
Eutropius[151]
is an African genus, but E. obtusirostris comes from India. On the
other hand, Amiurus is a North American form; but one species,
A. cantonensis,[152] comes from China.
The genus Galaxias[153] has at least one species common to
New Zealand and South America, and one common to South America and
Tasmania. In this genus we thus have an absolutely and completely
fresh-water form of the very same species distributed between
different and distinct geographical regions.
Of the lower fishes, a lamprey, Mordacia mordax,[154] is common to South
Australia and Chile; while another form of the same family, namely,
Geotria chilensis,[155] is found not only in South America
and Australia, but in New Zealand also. These fishes, however, probably
pass part of their lives in the sea.
We thus certainly have several species which are common to the
fresh waters of distant continents, although it cannot be certainly
affirmed that they are exclusively and entirely fresh-water fishes
throughout all their lives except in the case of Galaxias.
Existing forms point to a close union between South America and Africa
on the one hand, and between South America, Australia, Tasmania, and New
Zealand on the other; but these unions were not synchronous any more than
the unions indicated between India and Australia, China and Australia,
China and North America, and India and Africa.
Pleurodont lizards are such as have the teeth attached by [148]their
sides to the inner surface of the jaw, in contradistinction to acrodont
lizards, which have the bases of their teeth anchylosed to the summit of
the margin of the jaw. Now pleurodont iguanian lizards abound in the
South American region; but nowhere else, and are not as yet known to
inhabit any part of the present continent of Africa. Yet pleurodont
lizards, strange to say, are found in Madagascar. This is the more
remarkable, inasmuch as we have no evidence yet of the existence in
Madagascar of fresh-water fishes common to Africa and South America.
INNER SIDE OF LOWER JAW OF PLEURODONT LIZARD.
(Showing the teeth
attached to the inner surface of its side.)
Again, that remarkable island Madagascar is the home of very singular
and special insectivorous beasts of the genera Centetes, Ericulus, and
Echinops; while the only other member of the group to which they belong
is Solenodon, which is a resident in the West Indian Islands, Cuba and
Hayti. The connexion, however, between the West Indies and Madagascar
must surely have been at a time when the great lemurine group was absent;
for it is difficult to understand the spread of such a form as Solenodon,
and at the same time the non-extension of the active lemurs, or their
utter extirpation, in such a congenial locality as the West Indian
Archipelago.
The close connexion of South America and Australia is demonstrated (on
the Darwinian theory), not only from the marsupial fauna of both, but
also from the frogs and toads which respectively inhabit those regions. A
truly remarkable similarity and parallelism exist, however, between
certain of the [149]same animals inhabiting South Western
America and Europe. Thus Dr. Günther has described[156] a frog from Chile by the name of
cacotus, which singularly resembles the European bombinator.
SOLENODON.
Again of the salmons, two genera from South America, New Zealand, and
Australia, are analogous to European salmons.
In addition to this may be mentioned a quotation from Professor Dana,
given by Mr. Darwin,[157]
to the effect that “it is certainly a wonderful fact that New Zealand
should have a closer resemblance in its crustacea to Great Britain, its
antipode, than to any other part of the world:” and Mr. Darwin adds “Sir
J. Richardson also speaks of the reappearance on the shores of New
Zealand, Tasmania, &c. of northern forms of fish. Dr. Hooker informs
me that twenty-five species of algæ are [150]common to New Zealand
and to Europe, but have not been found in the intermediate tropical
seas.”
Many more examples of the kind could easily be brought, but these must
suffice. As to the last-mentioned cases Mr. Darwin explains them by the
influence of the glacial epoch, which he would extend actually across the
equator, and thus account, amongst other things, for the appearance in
Chile of frogs having close genetic relations with European forms. But it
is difficult to understand the persistence and preservation of such
exceptional forms with the extirpation of all the others which probably
accompanied them, if so great a migration of northern kinds had been
occasioned by the glacial epoch.
Mr. Darwin candidly says,[158] “I am far from supposing that all
difficulties in regard to the distribution and affinities of the
identical and allied species, which now live so widely separated in the
north and south, and sometimes on the intermediate mountain-ranges, are
removed.” … “We cannot say why certain species and not others have
migrated; why certain species have been modified and have given rise to
new forms, whilst others have remained unaltered.” Again he adds,
“Various difficulties also remain to be solved; for instance, the
occurrence, as shown by Dr. Hooker, of the same plants at points so
enormously remote as Kerguelen Land, New Zealand, and Fuegia; but
icebergs, as suggested by Lyell, may have been concerned in their
dispersal. The existence, at these and other distant points of the
southern hemisphere, of species which, though distinct, belong to genera
exclusively confined to the south, is a more remarkable case. Some of
these species are so distinct that we cannot suppose that there has been
time since the commencement of the last glacial period for their
migration and subsequent modification to the necessary degree.” Mr.
Darwin goes on to account for these facts by the probable existence of a
rich antarctic [151]flora in a warm period anterior to the
last glacial epoch. There are indeed many reasons for thinking that a
southern continent, rich in living forms, once existed. One such reason
is the way in which struthious birds are, or have been, distributed
around the antarctic region: as the ostrich in Africa, the rhea in South
America, the emeu in Australia, the apteryx, dinornis, &c. in New
Zealand, the epiornis in Madagascar. Still the existence of such a land
would not alone explain the various geographical cross relations which
have been given above. It would not, for example, account for the
resemblance between the crustacea or fishes of New Zealand and of
England. It would, however, go far to explain the identity (specific or
generic) between fresh water and other forms now simultaneously existing
in Australia and South America, or in either or both of these, and New
Zealand.
Again, mutations of elevation small and gradual (but frequent and
intermitting), through enormous periods of time—waves, as it were,
of land rolling many times in many directions—might be made to
explain many difficulties as to geographical distribution, and any cases
that remained would probably be capable of explanation, as being isolated
but allied animal forms, now separated indeed, but being merely remnants
of extensive groups which, at an earlier period, were spread over the
surface of the earth. Thus none of the facts here given are any serious
difficulty to the doctrine of “evolution,” but it is contended in this
book that if other considerations render it improbable that the
manifestation of the successive forms of life has been brought about by
minute, indefinite, and fortuitous variations, then these facts as to
geographical distribution intensify that improbability, and are so far
worthy of attention.
All geographical difficulties of the kind would be evaded if we could
concede the probability of the independent origin, in different
localities, of the same organic forms in animals high in [152]the scale of
nature. Similar causes must produce similar results, and new reasons have
been lately adduced for believing, as regards the lowest
organisms, that the same forms can arise and manifest themselves
independently. The difficulty as to higher animals is, however, much
greater, as (on the theory of evolution) one acting force must always be
the ancestral history in each case, and this force must always tend to go
on acting in the same groove and direction in the future as it has in the
past. So that it is difficult to conceive that individuals, the ancestral
history of which is very different, can be acted upon by all influences,
external and internal, in such diverse ways and proportions that the
results (unequals being added to unequals) shall be equal and similar.
Still, though highly improbable, this cannot be said to be impossible;
and if there is an innate law of any kind helping to determine
specific evolution, this may more or less, or entirely, neutralize or
even reverse the effect of ancestral habit. Thus, it is quite conceivable
that a pleurodont lizard might have arisen in Madagascar in perfect
independence of the similarly-formed American lacertilia: just as certain
teeth of carnivorous and insectivorous marsupial animals have been seen
most closely to resemble those of carnivorous and insectivorous placental
beasts; just as, again, the paddles of the Cetacea resemble, in the fact
of a multiplication in the number of the phalanges, the many-jointed feet
of extinct marine reptiles, and as the beak of the cuttle-fish or of the
tadpole resembles that of birds. We have already seen (in Chapter III.)
that it is impossible, upon any hypothesis, to escape admitting the
independent origins of closely similar forms, It may be that they are
both more frequent and more important than is generally thought.
That closely similar structures may arise without a genetic
relationship has been lately well urged by Mr. Ray Lankester.[159] [153]He has brought this
notion forward even as regards the bones of the skull in osseous fishes
and in mammals. He has done so on the ground that the probable common
ancestor of mammals and of osseous fishes was a vertebrate animal of so
low a type that it could not be supposed to have possessed a skull
differentiated into distinct bony elements—even if it was bony at
all. If this was so, then the cranial bones must have had an independent
origin in each class, and in this case we have the most strikingly
harmonious and parallel results from independent actions. For the bones
of the skull in an osseous fish are so closely conformed to those of a
mammal, that “both types of skull exhibit many bones in common,” though
“in each type some of these bones acquire special arrangements and very
different magnitudes.”[160] And no investigator of homologies
doubts that a considerable number of the bones which form the skull of
any osseous fish are distinctly homologous with the cranial bones of man.
The occipital, the parietal, and frontal, the bones which surround the
internal ear, the vomer, the premaxilla, and the quadrate bones, may be
given as examples. Now, if such close relations of homology can be
brought about independently of any but the most remote genetic affinity,
it would be rash to affirm dogmatically that there is any impossibility
in the independent origin of such forms as centetes and solenodon, or of
genetically distinct batrachians, as similar to each other as are some of
the frogs of South America and of Europe. At the same time such phenomena
must at present be considered as very improbable, from the action of
ancestral habit, as before stated.
We have seen, then, that the geographical distribution of animals
presents difficulties, though not insuperable ones, for the Darwinian
hypothesis. If, however, other reasons against it appear of any
weight—if, especially, there is reason to believe that geological
[154]time has not been sufficient for it, then
it will be well to bear in mind the facts here enumerated. These facts,
however, are not opposed to the doctrine of evolution; and if it could be
established that closely similar forms had really arisen in complete
independence one of the other, they would rather tend to strengthen and
to support that theory. [155]
CHAPTER VIII.
HOMOLOGIES.
Animals made-up of parts mutually related in various ways.—What
homology is.—Its various kinds.—Serial
homology.—Lateral homology.—Vertical homology.—Mr.
Herbert Spencer’s explanations.—An internal power necessary, as
shown by facts of comparative anatomy.—Of teratology.—M. St.
Hilaire.—Professor Burt Wilder.—Foot-wings.—Facts of
pathology.—Mr. James Paget.—Dr. William Budd.—The
existence of such an internal power of individual development diminishes
the improbability of an analogous law of specific origination.
That concrete whole which is spoken of as “an individual” (such,
e.g., as a bird or a lobster) is formed of a more or less complex
aggregation of parts which are actually (from whatever cause or causes)
grouped, together in a harmonious interdependency, and which have a
multitude of complex relations amongst themselves.
The mind detects a certain number of these relations as it
contemplates the various component parts of an individual in one or other
direction—as it follows up different lines of thought. These
perceived relations, though subjective, as relations, have
nevertheless an objective foundation as real parts, or conditions of
parts, of real wholes; they are, therefore, true relations, such,
e.g., as those between the right and left hand, between the hand
and the foot, &c.
The component parts of each concrete whole have also a relation of
resemblance to the parts of other concrete wholes, whether [156]of the same or
of different kinds, as the resemblance between the hands of two men, or
that between the hand of a man and the fore-paw of a cat.
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.
It is desirable, then, to see what facts there are in animal
organization which point to innate conditions (powers and tendencies), as
yet unexplained, and upon which the theory of “Natural Selection” is
unable to throw any explanatory light.
The facts to be considered are the phenomena of “homology,” and
especially of serial, bilateral, and vertical homology.
The word “homology” indicates such a relation between two parts that
they may be said in some sense to be “the same,” or at least “of similar
nature.” This similarity, however, does not relate to the use to
which parts are put, but only to their relative position with regard to
other parts, or to their [157]mode of origin. There are many kinds of
homology,[161] but it is
only necessary to consider the three kinds above enumerated.
WINGBONES OF PTERODACTYLE, BAT, AND BIRD.
The term “homologous” may be applied to parts in two individual
animals of different kinds, or to different parts of the same individual.
Thus “the right and left hands,” or “joints of the backbone,” or “the
teeth of the two jaws,” are homologous parts of the same individual. But
the arm of a man, the fore-leg of the horse, the paddle of the whale, and
the wing of the bat and the bird are all also homologous parts, yet of
another kind, i.e. they are the same parts existing in animals of
different species.
On the other hand, the wing of the humming-bird and the wing of the
humming-bird moth are not homologous at all, or in any sense; for the
resemblance between them consists solely in the use to which they are
put, and is therefore only a relation of analogy. There is no
relation of homology between them, because they have no common
resemblance as to their relations to surrounding parts, or as to their
mode of origin. Similarly, [158]there is no homology between the wing of
the bat and that of the flying-dragon, for the latter is formed of
certain ribs, and not of limb bones.
SKELETON OF THE FLYING DRAGON.
(Showing the elongated ribs which
support the flitting organ.)
Homology may be further distinguished into (1) a relationship which,
on evolutionary principles, would be due to descent from a common
ancestor, as the homological relation between the arm-bone of the horse
and that of the ox, or between the singular ankle bones of the two
lemurine genera, cheirogaleus and galago, and which relation has been
termed by Mr. Ray Lankester “homogeny;”[162] and (2) a relationship induced, not
derived—such as exists between parts closely similar in relative
position, but with no genetic affinity, or only a remote one, as the
homological relation between the chambers of the heart of a [159]bat and those
of a bird, or the similar teeth of the thylacine and the dog before
spoken of. For this relationship Mr. Bay Lankester has proposed the term
“homoplasy.”
TARSAL BONES OF DIFFERENT LEMUROIDS.
(Right tarsus of Galago;
left tarsus of Cheirogaleus.)
A CENTIPEDE.
“Serial homology” is a relation of resemblance existing between two or
more parts placed in series one behind the other in the same individual.
Examples of such homologues are the ribs, [160]or joints of the
backbone of a horse, or the limbs of a centipede. The latter animal is a
striking example of serial homology. The body (except at its two ends)
consists of a longitudinal series of similar segments. Each segment
supports a pair of limbs, and the appendages of all the segments (except
as before) are completely alike.
SQUILLA.
A less complete case of serial homology is presented by Crustacea
(animals of the crab class), notably by the squilla and by the common
lobster. In the latter animal we have a [161]six-jointed abdomen
(the so-called tail), in front of which is a large solid mass (the
cephalo-thorax), terminated anteriorly by a jointed process (the
rostrum). On the under surface of the body we find a quantity of moveable
appendages. Such are, e.g., feelers (Fig. 9), jaws (Figs. 6, 7,
and 8), foot-jaws (Fig. 5), claws and legs (Figs. 3 and 4), beneath the
cephalo-thorax; and flat processes (Fig. 2), called “swimmerets,” beneath
the so-called tail or abdomen.
PART OF THE SKELETON OF THE LOBSTER.
Now, these various appendages are distinct and different [162]enough as we
see them in the adult, but they all appear in the embryo as buds of
similar form and size, and the thoracic limbs at first consist each of
two members, as the swimmerets always do.
This shows what great differences may exist in size, in form, and in
function, between parts which are developmentally the same, for all these
appendages are modifications of one common kind of structure, which
becomes differently modified in different situations; in other words,
they are serial homologues.
The segments of the body, as they follow one behind the other, are
also serially alike, as is plainly seen in the abdomen or tail. In the
cephalo-thorax of the lobster, however, this is disguised. It is
therefore very interesting to find that in the other crustacean before
mentioned, the squilla, the segmentation of the body is more completely
preserved, and even the first three segments, which go to compose the
head, remain permanently distinct.
SPINE OF GALAGO ALLENII.
Such an obvious and unmistakeable serial repetition of parts does not
obtain in the highest, or backboned animals, the Vertebrata. Thus in man
and other mammals, nothing of the kind is externally visible, and
we have to penetrate to his skeleton to find such a series of homologous
parts.
There, indeed, we discover a number of pairs of bones, each pair so
obviously resembling the others, that they all receive a common
name—the ribs. There also (i.e. in the skeleton) we find a
still more remarkable series of similar parts, the joints of the spine or
backbone (vertebræ), which are admitted by all to possess a certain
community of structure. [163]
It is in their limbs, however, that the Vertebrata present the most
obvious and striking serial homology—almost the only serial
homology noticeable externally.
The facts of serial homology seem hardly to have excited the amount of
interest they certainly merit.
Very many writers, indeed, have occupied themselves with
investigations and speculations as to what portions of the leg and foot
answer to what parts of the arm and hand, a question which has only
recently received a more or less satisfactory solution through the
successive concordant efforts of Professor Humphry,[163] Professor Huxley,[164] the Author of this work,[165] and Professor
Flower.[166] Very few
writers, however, have devoted much time or thought to the question of
serial homology in general. Mr. Herbert Spencer, indeed, in his very
interesting “First Principles of Biology,” has given forth ideas on this
subject, which are well worthy careful perusal and consideration, and
some of which apply also to the other kinds of homology mentioned above.
He would explain the serial homologies of such creatures as the lobster
and centipede thus: Animals of a very low grade propagate themselves by
spontaneous fission. If certain creatures found benefit from this process
of division remaining incomplete, such creatures (on the theory of
“Natural Selection”) would transmit their selected tendency to such
incomplete division to their posterity. In this way, it is conceivable,
that animals might arise in the form of long chains of similar segments,
each of which chains would consist of a number of imperfectly separated
individuals, and be equivalent to a series of separate individuals
belonging to kinds in which the fission was complete. In other words, Mr.
[164]Spencer would explain it as the
coalescence of organisms of a lower degree of aggregation in one
longitudinal series, through survival of the fittest aggregations. This
may be so. It is certainly an ingenious speculation, but facts have not
yet been brought forward which demonstrate it. Had they been so, this
kind of serial homology might be termed “homogenetic.”
The other kind of serial repetitions, namely, those of the vertebral
column, are explained by Mr. Spencer as the results of alternate strains
and compressions acting on a primitively homogeneous cylinder. The serial
homology of the fore and hind limbs is explained by the same writer as
the result of a similarity in the influences and conditions to which they
are exposed. Serial homologues so formed might be called, as Mr. Ray
Lankester has proposed, “homoplastic.” But there are, it is here
contended, abundant reasons for thinking that the predominant agent in
the production of the homologies of the limbs is an internal force
or tendency. And if such a power can be shown to be necessary in this
instance, it may also be legitimately used to explain such serial
homologies as those of the centipede’s segments and of the joints of the
backbone. At the same time it is not, of course, pretended that external
conditions do not contribute their own effects in addition. The presence
of this internal power will be rendered more probable if valid arguments
can be brought forward against the explanations which Mr. Herbert Spencer
has offered.
Lateral homology (or bilateral symmetry) is the resemblance
between the right and left sides of an animal, or of part of an animal;
as, e.g., between our right hand and our left. It exists more or
less at one or other time of life in all animals, except some very lowly
organized creatures. In the highest animals this symmetry is laid down at
the very dawn of life, the first trace of the future creature being a
longitudinal streak—the embryonic “primitive groove.” This kind of
homology is explained by Mr. Spencer as the result of the similar [165]way
in which conditions affect the right and left sides respectively.
VERTEBRÆ OF AXOLOTL.
Vertical homology (or vertical symmetry) is the resemblance
existing between parts which are placed one above the other beneath. It
is much less general and marked than serial, or lateral homology.
Nevertheless, it is plainly to be seen in the tail region of most fishes,
and in the far-extending dorsal (back) and ventral (belly) fins of such
kinds as the sole and the flounder.
It is also strikingly shown in the bones of the tail of certain efts,
as in Chioglossa, where the complexity of the upper (neural) arch
is closely repeated by the inferior one. Again, in Spelerpes
rubra, where almost vertically ascending articular processes above
are repeated by almost vertically descending articular processes below.
Also in the axolotl, where there are douple pits, placed side by side,
not only superiorly but at the same time inferiorly.[167]
This kind of homology is also explained by Mr. Spencer as the result
of the similarity of conditions affecting the two parts. Thus he explains
the very general absence of symmetry between the dorsal and ventral
surfaces of animals by the different conditions to which these two
surfaces are respectively exposed, and in the same way he explains the
asymmetry of the flat-fishes (Pleuronectidæ), of snails,
&c.
Now, first, as regards Mr. Spencer’s explanation of animal forms by
means of the influence of external conditions, the following observations
may be made. Abundant instances are brought forward by him of admirable
adaptation of structure to circumstances, but as to the immense majority
of these it is very difficult, if not impossible, to see how
external [166]conditions can have produced, or even
tended to have produced them. For example, we may take the migration of
one eye of the sole to the other side of its head. What is there here
either in the darkness, or the friction, or in any other conceivable
external cause, to have produced the first beginning of such an
unprecedented displacement of the eye? Mr. Spencer has beautifully
illustrated that correlation which all must admit to exist between the
forms of organisms and their surrounding external conditions, but by no
means proved that the latter are the cause of the former.
PLEURONECTIDÆ, WITH THE PECULIARLY PLACED EYE IN DIFFERENT POSITIONS.
Some internal conditions (or in ordinary language some internal power
and force) must be conceded to living organisms, otherwise incident
forces must act upon them and upon non-living aggregations of matter in
the same way and with similar effects.
If the mere presence of these incident forces produces so ready a
response in animals and plants, it must be that there are, in their case,
conditions disposing and enabling them so to respond, according to the
old maxim, Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis, as
the same rays of light which bleach a piece of silk, blacken nitrate of
silver. If, therefore, we [167]attribute the forms of organisms to the
action of external conditions, i.e. of incident forces on their
modifiable structure, we give but a partial account of the matter,
removing a step back, as it were, the action of the internal condition,
power, or force which must be conceived as occasioning such ready
modifiability. But indeed it is not at all easy to see how the influence
of the surface of the ground or any conceivable condition or force can
produce the difference which exists between the ventral and dorsal
shields of the carapace of a tortoise, or by what differences of merely
external causes the ovaries of the two sides of the body can be made
equal in a bat and unequal in a bird.
AN ECHINUS, OR SEA-URCHIN.
(The spines removed from
one-half.)
There is, on the other hand, an a priori reason why we should
expect to find that the symmetrical forms of all animals are due to
internal causes. This reason is the fact that the symmetrical forms of
minerals are undoubtedly due to such causes. It is unnecessary here to do
more than allude to the beautiful and complex forms presented by
inorganic structures. With regard to organisms, however, the wonderful
Acanthometræ and the Polycystina may be mentioned as presenting
complexities of form which can hardly be thought to be due to other than
internal causes. The same may be said of the great group of [168]Echinoderms, with their amazing variety of
component parts. If then internal forces can so build up the most varied
structures, they are surely capable of producing the serial, lateral, and
vertical symmetries which higher animal forms exhibit. Mr. Spencer is the
more bound to admit this, inasmuch as in his doctrine of “physiological
units” he maintains that these organic atoms of his have an innate power
of building up and evolving the whole and perfect animal from which they
were in each case derived. To build up and evolve the various symmetries
here spoken of is not one whit more mysterious. Directly to refute Mr.
Spencer’s assertion, however, would require the bringing forward of
examples of organisms which are ill-adapted to their positions, and out
of harmony with their surroundings—a difficult task indeed.[168]
Secondly, as regards the last-mentioned author’s explanation of such
serial homology as exists in the centipede and its allies, the very
groundwork is open to objection. Multiplication by spontaneous fission
seems from some recent researches to be much less frequent than has been
supposed, and more evidence is required as to the fact of the habitual
propagation of any planariæ in this fashion.[169] But even if this were as asserted,
[169]nevertheless it fails to explain the
peculiar condition presented by Syllis and some other annelids,
where a new head is formed at intervals in certain segments of the body.
Here there is evidently an innate tendency to the development at
intervals of a complex whole. It is not the budding out or spontaneous
fission of certain segments, but the transformation in a definite and
very peculiar manner of parts which already exist into other and more
complex parts. Again, the processes of development presented by some of
these creatures do not by any means point [170]to an origin through
the linear coalescence of primitively distinct animals by means of
imperfect segmentation. Thus in certain Diptera (two winged flies) the
legs, wings, eyes, &c., are derived from masses of formative tissue
(termed imaginal disks), which by their mutual approximation together
build up parts of the head and body,[170] recalling to mind the development of
Echinoderms.
AN ANNELID DIVIDING SPONTANEOUSLY.
(A new head having been formed
towards the hinder end of the body of the parent.)
Again, Nicholas Wagner found in certain other Diptera, the Hessian
flies, that the larva gives rise to secondary larvæ within it, which
develop and burst the body of the primary larva. The secondary larvæ give
rise, similarly, to another set within them, and these again to another[171] set.
Again, the fact that in Tænia echinococcus one egg produces
numerous individuals, tends to invalidate the argument that the increase
of segments during development is a relic of specific genesis.
Mr. H. Spencer seems to deny serial homology to the mollusca, but it
is difficult to see why the shell segments of chiton are not such
homologues because the segmentation is superficial. Similarly the
external processes of eolis, doris, &c., are good examples of serial
homology, as also are plainly the successive chambers of the
orthoceratidæ. Nor are parts of a series less serial, because arranged
spirally, as in most gasteropods. Mr. Spencer observes of the molluscous
as of the vertebrate animal, “You cannot cut it into transverse slices,
each of which contains a digestive organ, a respiratory organ, a
reproductive organ, &c.”[172] But the same may be said of every
single arthropod and annelid if it be meant that all these organs are not
contained in every possible slice. While if it be meant that parts of all
such organs are contained in certain slices, then some of the mollusca
may also be included.
Another objection to Mr. Spencer’s speculation is derived from
considerations which have already been stated, as to past [171]time. For if
the annulose animals have been formed by aggregation, we ought to find
this process much less perfect in the oldest form. But a complete
development, such as already obtains in the lobster, &c., was reached
by the Eurypterida and Trilobites of the palæozoic strata; and annelids,
probably formed mainly like those of the present day, abounded during the
deposition of the oldest fossiliferous rocks.
TRILOBITE.
Thirdly, and lastly, as regards such serial homology as is exemplified
by the backbone of man, there are also several objections to Mr.
Spencer’s mechanical explanation.
On the theory of evolution most in favour, the first Vertebrata were
aquatic. Now, as natation is generally effected by repeated and vigorous
lateral flexions of the body, we ought to find the segmentation much more
complete laterally than on the dorsal and ventral aspects of the spinal
column. Nevertheless, in those species which, taken together, constitute
a series of more and more distinctly segmented forms, the segmentation
gradually increases all round the central part of the spinal
column.
Mr. Spencer[173]
thinks it probable that the sturgeon has retained the notochordal (that
is, the primitive, unsegmented) structure [172]because it is sluggish.
But Dr. Günther informs me that the sluggishness of the common tope
(Galeus vulgaris) is much like that of the sturgeon, and yet the
bodies of its vertebræ are distinct and well-ossified. Moreover, the
great salamander of Japan is much more inert and sluggish than either,
and yet it has a well-developed, bony spine.
I can learn nothing of the habits of the sharks Hexanchus,
Heptanchus, and Echinorhinus, but Müller describes them as
possessing a persistent chorda dorsalis.[174] It may be they have the habits of the
tope, but other sharks are amongst the very swiftest and most active of
fishes.
In the bony pike (lepidosteus), the rigidity of the bony scales
by which it is completely enclosed must prevent any excessive flexion of
the body, and yet its vertebral column presents a degree of ossification
and vertebral completeness greater than that found in any other fish
whatever.
Mr. Spencer supports his argument by the non-segmentation of the
anterior end of the skeletal axis, i.e. by the non-segmentation of
the skull. But in fact the skull is segmented, and, according to
the quasi-vertebral theory of the skull put forward by Professor
Huxley,[175] is probably
formed of a number of coalesced segments, of some of which the trabeculæ
cranii and the mandibular and hyoidean arches are indications. What is,
perhaps, most remarkable however is, that the segmentation of the
skull—its separation into the three occipital, parietal, and
frontal elements—is most complete and distinct in the highest
class, and this can have nothing, however remotely, to do with the cause
suggested by Mr. Spencer.
Thus, then, there is something to be said in opposition to both the
aggregational and the mechanical explanations of serial homology. The
explanations suggested are very ingenious, yet [173]repose upon a very
small basis of fact. Not but that the process of vertebral segmentation
may have been sometimes assisted by the mechanical action suggested.
It remains now to consider what are the evidences in support of the
existence of an internal power, by the action of which these homological
manifestations are evolved. It is here contended that there is
good evidence of the existence of some such special internal power, and
that not only from facts of comparative anatomy, but also from those of
teratology[176] and
pathology. These facts appear to show, not only that there are
homological internal relations, but that they are so strong and energetic
as to re-assert and re-exhibit themselves in creatures which, on the
Darwinian theory, are the descendants of others in which they were much
less marked. They are, in fact, sometimes even more plain and distinct in
animals of the highest types than in inferior forms, and, moreover, this
deep-seated tendency acts even in diseased and abnormal conditions.
Mr. Darwin recognizes[177] these homological relations, and does
“not doubt that they may be mastered more or less completely by Natural
Selection.” He does not, however, give any explanation of these phenomena
other than the imposition on them of the name “laws of correlation;” and
indeed he says, “The nature of the bond of correlation is frequently
quite obscure.” Now, it is surely more desirable to make use, if
possible, of one conception than to imagine a number of, to all
appearance, separate and independent “laws of correlation” between
different parts of each animal.
THE AARD-VARK (ORYCTEROPUS).
THE PANGOLIN (MANIS).
But even some of these alleged laws hardly appear well founded. Thus
Mr. Darwin, in support of such a law of concomitant variation as regards
hair and teeth, brings forward the [174]case of Julia
Pastrana,[178] and a man
of the Burmese Court, and adds,[179] “These cases and those of the
hairless dogs forcibly call to mind the fact that the two orders of
mammals, namely, the Edentata and Cetacea, which are the most abnormal in
their dermal covering, are likewise the most abnormal either by
deficiency or redundancy of teeth.” The assertion with regard to these
orders is certainly true, but it should be borne in mind at the same time
that the armadillos, which are much more abnormal than are the American
anteaters as regards their dermal covering, in their dentition are less
so. The Cape ant-eater, on the other hand, the Aard-vark (Orycteropus),
has teeth formed on a type quite different from that existing in any
other mammal; yet its hairy coat is not known to exhibit any such strange
peculiarity. Again, those remarkable scaly ant-eaters of the Old
World—the pangolins (Manis)—stand alone amongst mammals as
[175]regards their dermal covering; having been
classed with lizards by early naturalists on account of their clothing of
scales, yet their mouth is like that of the hairy ant-eaters of the New
World. On the other hand, the duck-billed platypus of Australia
(Ornithorhynchus) is the only mammal which has teeth formed of horn, yet
its furry coat is normal and ordinary. Again, the Dugong and Manatee are
dermally alike, yet extremely different as regards the structure and
number of their teeth. The porcupine also, in spite of its enormous
armature of quills, is furnished with as good a supply of teeth as are
the hairy members of the same family, but not with a better one; and in
spite of the deficiency of teeth in the hairless dogs, no converse
redundancy of teeth has, it is believed, been remarked in Angora cats and
rabbits. To [176]say the least, then, this law of
correlation presents numerous and remarkable exceptions.
DUGONG.
To return, however, to the subject of homological relations: it is
surely inconceivable that indefinite variation with survival of the
fittest can ever have built up these serial, bilateral, and vertical
homologies, without the action of some special innate power or tendency
so to build up, possessed by the organism itself in each case. By
“special tendency” is meant one the laws and conditions of which are as
yet unknown, but which is analogous to the innate power and tendency
possessed by crystals similarly, to build up certain peculiar and very
definite forms.
First, with regard to comparative anatomy. The correspondence between
the thoracic and pelvic limbs is notorious. Professor Gegenbaur has
lately endeavoured[180]
to explain this resemblance by the derivation of each limb from a
primitive form of fin. This fin is supposed to have had a marginal
external (radial) series of cartilages, each of which supported a series
of secondary cartilages, starting from the inner (ulnar) side of the
distal part of the supporting marginal piece. The root marginal piece
would become the humerus or femur, as the case might be: the second
marginal piece, with the piece attached to the inner side of the distal
end of the root marginal piece, would together form either the radius and
ulna or the tibia and fibula, and so on.
Now there is little doubt (from a priori considerations) but
that the special differentiation of the limb bones of the higher
Vertebrates has been evolved from anterior conditions existing in some
fish-like form or other. But the particular view advocated by the learned
Professor is open to criticism. Thus, it may be objected against this
view, first, that it takes no account of the radial ossicle which becomes
so enormous in the mole; secondly, that it does not explain the extra
series of [177]ossicles which are formed on the
outer (radial or marginal) side of the paddle in the
Ichthyosaurus; and thirdly, and most importantly, that even if this had
been the way in which the limbs had been differentiated, it would not be
at all inconsistent with the possession of an innate power of producing,
and an innate tendency to produce similar and symmetrical homological
resemblances. It would not be so because resemblances of the kind are
found to exist, which, on the Darwinian theory, must be subsequent and
secondary, not primitive and ancestral. Thus we find in animals of the
eft kind (certain amphibians), in which the tarsus is cartilaginous, that
the carpus is cartilaginous likewise. And we shall see in cases of
disease and of malformation what a tendency there is to a similar
affection of homologous parts. In efts, as Professor Gegenbaur himself
has pointed out,[181]
there is a striking correspondence between the bones or cartilages
supporting the arm, wrist, and fingers, and those sustaining the leg,
ankle, and toes, with the exception that the toes exceed the fingers in
number by one.
SKELETON OF AN ICHTHYOSAURUS.
A. SKELETON OF ANTERIOR EXTREMITY OF AN EFT.
B. SKELETON OF
POSTERIOR EXTREMITY OF THE SAME.
Yet these animals are far from being the root-forms from which all the
Vertebrata have diverged, as is evidenced from the degree of
specialization which their structure presents. If they have [178]descended from
such primitive forms as Professor Gegenbaur imagines, then they have
built up a secondary serial homology—a repetition of similar
modifications—fully as remarkable as if it were primary. The
Plesiosauria—those extinct marine reptiles of the Secondary period,
with long necks, small heads, and paddle-like limbs—are of yet
higher organization than are the efts and other Amphibia. Nevertheless
they present us with a similarity of structure between the fore and hind
limb, which is so great [179]as almost to be identity. But the Amphibia
and Plesiosauria, though not themselves primitive vertebrate types, may
be thought by some to have derived their limb-structure by direct descent
from such. Tortoises, however, must be admitted to be not only highly
differentiated organisms, but to be far indeed removed from primeval
vertebrate structure. Yet certain tortoises[182] (notably Chelydra Temminckii)
exhibit such a remarkable uniformity in fore and hind limb structure
(extending even up to the proximal ends of the humerus and femur) that it
is impossible to doubt its independent development in these forms.
SKELETON OF A PLESIOSAURUS.
Again in the Potto (Perodicticus) there is an extra bone in the foot,
situated in the transverse ligament enclosing the flexor tendons. It is
noteworthy that in the hand of the same animal a serially
homologous structure should also be developed.[183] In the allied form called the slow
lemur (Nycticebus) we have certain arrangements of the muscles and
tendons of the hand which reproduce in great measure those of the foot
and vice versâ.[184] And in the Hyrax another myological
resemblance appears.[185]
It is, however, needless to multiply instances which can easily be
produced in large numbers if required.
Secondly, with regard to teratology, it is notorious that similar
abnormalities are often found to co-exist in both the pelvic and thoracic
limbs.
M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire remarks,[186] “L’anomalie se répète d’un membre
thoracique au membre abdominal du même côté.” And he afterwards quotes
from Weitbrecht,[187] who
had “observé dans un cas l’absence simultanée aux deux mains [180]et aux
deux pieds, de quelques doigts, de quelques metacarpiens et metatarsiens,
enfin de quelques os du carpe et du tarse.”
LONG FLEXOR MUSCLES AND TENDONS OF THE HAND.
P.t. Pronator teres. F.s. Flexor sublimis
digitorum. F.p. Flexor profundus digitorum. F.l.p. Flexor
longus pollicis.
Professor Burt G. Wilder, in his paper on extra digits,[188] has [181]recorded no
less than twenty-four cases where such excess coexisted in both little
fingers; also one case in which the right little finger and little toe
were so affected; six in which it was both the little fingers and both
the little toes; and twenty-two other cases more or less the same, but in
which the details were not accurately to be obtained.
Mr. Darwin cites[189]
a remarkable instance of what he is inclined to regard as the development
in the foot of birds of a sort of representation of the wing-feathers of
the hand. He says: “In several distinct breeds of the pigeon and fowl the
legs and the two outer toes are heavily feathered, so that, in the
trumpeter pigeon, they appear like little wings. In the feather-legged
bantam, the ‘boots,’ or feathers, which grow from the outside of the leg,
and generally from the two outer toes, have, according to the excellent
authority of Mr. Hewitt, been seen to exceed the wing-feathers in length,
and in one case were actually nine and a half inches in length! As Mr.
Blyth has remarked to me, these leg-feathers resemble the primary
wing-feathers, and are totally unlike the fine down which naturally grows
on the legs of some birds, such as grouse and owls. Hence it may be
suspected that excess of food has first given redundancy to the plumage,
and then that the law of homologous variation has led to the development
of feathers on the legs, in a position corresponding with those on the
wing, namely, on the outside of the tarsi and toes. I am strengthened in
this belief by the following curious case of correlation, which for a
long time seemed to me utterly inexplicable,—namely, that in
pigeons of any breed, if the legs are feathered, the two outer toes are
partially connected by skin. These two outer toes correspond with our
third and fourth toes. Now, in the wing of the pigeon, or any other bird,
the first and fifth digits are wholly aborted; the second is rudimentary,
and carries the so-called ‘bastard wing;’ whilst the third and fourth
[182]digits are completely united and enclosed
by skin, together forming the extremity of the wing. So that in
feather-footed pigeons not only does the exterior surface support a row
of long feathers like wing-feathers, but the very same digits which in
the wing are completely united by skin become partially united by skin in
the feet; and thus, by the law of the correlated variation of homologous
parts, we can understand the curious connexion of feathered legs and
membrane between the outer toes.”
Irregularities in the circulating system are far from uncommon, and
sometimes illustrate this homological tendency. My friend and colleague
Mr. George G. Gascoyen, assistant surgeon at St. Mary’s Hospital, has
supplied me with two instances of symmetrical affections which have come
under his observation.
In the first of these the brachial artery bifurcated almost at its
origin, the two halves re-uniting at the elbow-joint, and then dividing
into the radial and ulnar arteries in the usual manner. In the second
case an aberrant artery was given off from the radial side of the
brachial artery, again almost at its origin. This aberrant artery
anastomosed below the elbow-joint with the radial side of the radial
artery. In each of these cases the right and left sides varied in
precisely the same manner.
Thirdly, as to pathology. Mr. James Paget,[190] speaking of symmetrical diseases,
says: “A certain morbid change of structure on one side of the body is
repeated in the exactly corresponding part of the other side.” He then
quotes and figures a diseased lion’s pelvis from the College of Surgeons
Museum, and says of it: “Multiform as the pattern is in which the new
bone, the product of some disease comparable with a human rheumatism, is
deposited—a pattern more complex and irregular than the spots upon
a map—there is not one spot or line on one side which is not
represented, as exactly as it would be in a mirror, on the other. The
likeness has more than [183]daguerreotype exactness.” He goes on to
observe: “I need not describe many examples of such diseases. Any
out-patients’ room will furnish abundant instances of exact symmetry in
the eruptions of eczema, lepra, and psoriasis; in the deformities of
chronic rheumatism, the paralyses from lead; in the eruptions excited by
iodide of potassium or copaiba. And any large museum will contain
examples of equal symmetry in syphilitic ulcerations of the skull; in
rheumatic and syphilitic deposits on the tibiæ and other bones; in all
the effects of chronic rheumatic arthritis, whether in the bones, the
ligaments, or the cartilages; in the fatty and earthy deposits in the
coats of arteries.”[191]
He also considered it to be proved that, “Next to the parts which are
symmetrically placed, none are so nearly identical in composition as
those which are homologous. For example, the backs of the hands and of
the feet, or the palms and soles, are often not only symmetrically, but
similarly, affected with psoriasis. So are the elbows and the knees; and
similar portions of the thighs and the arms may be found affected with
ichthyosis. Sometimes also specimens of fatty and earthy deposits in the
arteries occur, in which exact similarity is shown in the plan, though
not in the degree, with which the disease affects severally the humeral
and femoral, the radial and peroneal, the ulnar and posterior tibial
arteries.”
Dr. William Budd[192]
gives numerous instances of symmetry in disease, both lateral and serial.
Thus, amongst others, we have one case (William Godfrey), in which the
hands and feet were distorted. “The distortion of the right hand is
greater than that of the left, of the right foot greater than that of the
left foot.” In another (Elizabeth Alford) lepra affected the extensor
surfaces of the thoracic and pelvic limbs. Again, in the case of skin
disease illustrated in Plate III., “The analogy between [184]the elbows and
knees is clearly expressed in the fact that these were the only parts
affected with the disease.”[193]
Professor Burt Wilder,[194] in his paper on “Pathological
Polarities,” strongly supports the philosophical importance of these
peculiar relations, adding arguments in favour of antero-posterior
homologies, which it is here unnecessary to discuss, enough having been
said, it is believed, to thoroughly demonstrate the existence of these
deep internal relations which are named lateral and serial
homologies.
What explanation can be offered of these phenomena? To say that they
exhibit a “nutritional relation” brought about by a “balancing of forces”
is merely to give a new denomination to the unexplained fact. The changes
are, of course, brought about by a “nutritional” process, and the
symmetry is undoubtedly the result of a “balance of forces,” but to say
so is a truism. The question is, what is the cause of this “nutritional
balancing”? It is here contended that it must be due to an internal cause
which at present science is utterly incompetent to explain. It is an
internal property possessed by each living organic whole as well as by
each non-living crystalline mass, and that there is such internal power
or tendency, which may be spoken of as a “polarity,” seems to be
demonstrated by the instances above given, which can easily be multiplied
indefinitely. Mr. Herbert Spencer[195] (speaking of the reproduction, by
budding, of a Begonia-leaf) recognizes a power of the kind. He says, “We
have, therefore, no alternative but to say that the living particles
composing one of these fragments have an innate tendency to arrange
themselves into the shape of the organism to which they belong. We must
infer that a plant or animal of any species is made up of special units,
in all of which there dwells the intrinsic [185]aptitude to aggregate
into the form of that species; just as in the atoms of a salt, there
dwells the intrinsic aptitude to crystallize in a particular way. It
seems difficult to conceive that this can be so; but we see that it
is so.” … “For this property there is no fit term. If we accept
the word polarity as a name for the force by which inorganic units are
aggregated into a form peculiar to them, we may apply this word to the
analogous force displayed by organic limits.”
Dr. Jeffries Wyman,[196] in his paper on the “Symmetry and
Homology of Limbs,” has a distinct chapter on the “Analogy between
Symmetry and Polarity,” illustrating it by the effects of magnets on
“particles in a polar condition.”
Mr. J. J. Murphy, after noticing[197] the power which crystals have to
repair injuries inflicted on them and the modifications they undergo
through the influence of the medium in which they may be formed, goes on
to say:[198] “It needs no
proof that in the case of spheres and crystals the forms and the
structures are the effect, and not the cause, of the formative
principles. Attraction, whether gravitative or capillary, produces the
spherical form; the spherical form does not produce attraction. And
crystalline polarities produce crystalline structure and form;
crystalline structure and form do not produce crystalline polarities. The
same is not quite so evident of organic forms, but it is equally true of
them also.” … “It is not conceivable that the microscope should reveal
peculiarities of structure corresponding to peculiarities of habitual
tendency in the embryo, which at its first formation has no structure
whatever;”[199] and he
adds that “there is something quite inscrutable and mysterious” in the
formation of a new individual [186]from the germinal matter of the embryo. In
another place[200] he
says: “We know that in crystals, notwithstanding the variability of form
within the limits of the same species, there are definite and very
peculiar formative laws, which cannot possibly depend on anything like
organic functions, because crystals have no such functions; and it ought
not to surprise us if there are similar formative or morphological laws
among organisms, which, like the formative laws of crystallization,
cannot be referred to any relation of form or structure to function.
Especially, I think, is this true of the lowest organisms, many of which
show great beauty of form, of a kind that appears to be altogether due to
symmetry of growth; as the beautiful star-like rayed forms of the
acanthometræ, which are low animal organisms not very different
from the Foraminifera.” Their “definiteness of form does not appear to be
accompanied by any corresponding differentiation of function between
different parts; and, so far as I can see, the beautiful regularity and
symmetry of their radiated forms are altogether due to unknown laws of
symmetry of growth, just like the equally beautiful and somewhat similar
forms of the compound six-rayed, star-shaped crystals of snow.”
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.
If, then, it is still necessary to conceive an internal law or
“substantial form,” moulding each organic being,[201] and directing [187]its development as a
crystal is built up, only in an indefinitely more complex manner, it is
congruous to imagine the existence of some internal law accounting at the
same time for specific divergence as well as for specific identity.
A principle regulating the successive evolution of different organic
forms is not one whit more mysterious than is the mysterious power by
which a particle of structureless sarcode develops successively into an
egg, a grub, a chrysalis, a butterfly, when all the conditions, cosmical,
physical, chemical, and vital, are supplied, which are the requisite
accompaniments to determine such evolution. [188]
CHAPTER IX.
EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.
The origin of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this
book.—Modern utilitarian view as to that origin.—Mr. Darwin’s
speculation as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest.—Cause
assigned by him insufficient.—Care of the aged and infirm opposed
by “Natural Selection;” also self-abnegation and
asceticism.—Distinctness of the ideas “right” and
“useful.”—Mr. John Stuart Mill.—Insufficiency of “Natural
Selection” to account for the origin of the distinction between duty and
profit.—-Distinction of moral acts into “material” and
“formal.”—No ground for believing that formal morality exists in
brutes.—Evidence that it does exist in savages.—Facility with
which savages may be misunderstood.—Objections as to diversity of
customs.—Mr. Hutton’s review of Mr. Herbert
Spencer.—Anticipatory character of morals.—Sir John Lubbock’s
explanation.—Summary and conclusion.
Any inquiry into the origin of the notion of “morality”—the
conception of “right”—may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat
remote from the question of the Genesis of Species; the more so, since
Mr. Darwin, at one time, disclaimed any pretension to explain the origin
of the higher psychical phenomena of man. His disciples, however, were
never equally reticent, and indeed he himself is now not only about to
produce a work on man (in which this question must be considered), but he
has distinctly announced the extension of the application of his theory
to the very phenomena in question. He says:[202] “In the [189]distant future I see
open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based
on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental
power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of
man and his history.” It may not be amiss then to glance slightly at the
question, so much disputed, concerning the origin of ethical conceptions
and its bearing on the theory of “Natural Selection.”
The followers of Mr. John Stuart Mill, of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and
apparently, also, of Mr. Darwin, assert that in spite of the great
present difference between the ideas “useful” and “right,” yet
that they are, nevertheless, one in origin, and that that origin
consisted ultimately of pleasurable and painful sensations.
They say that “Natural Selection” has evolved moral conceptions from
perceptions of what was useful, i.e. pleasurable, by having
through long ages preserved a predominating number of those individuals
who have had a natural and spontaneous liking for practices and habits of
mind useful to the race, and that the same power has destroyed a
predominating number of those individuals who possessed a marked tendency
to contrary practices. The descendants of individuals so preserved have,
they say, come to inherit such a liking and such useful habits of mind,
and that at last (finding this inherited tendency thus existing in
themselves, distinct from their tendency to conscious self-gratification)
they have become apt to regard it as fundamentally distinct,
innate, and independent of all experience. In fact, according to
this school, the idea of “right” is only the result of the gradual
accretion of useful predilections which, from time to time, arose in a
series of ancestors naturally selected. In this way, “morality” is, as it
were, the congealed past experience of the race, and “virtue” becomes no
more than a sort of “retrieving,” which the thus improved human animal
practises by a perfected and inherited habit, regardless of
self-gratification, just as the brute animal has acquired the habit of
seeking [190]prey and bringing it to his master,
instead of devouring it himself.
Though Mr. Darwin has not as yet expressly advocated this view, yet
some remarks made by him appear to show his disposition to sympathise
with it. Thus, in his work on “Animals and Plants under Domestication,”[203] he asserts that “the
savages of Australia and South America hold the crime of incest in
abhorrence;” but he considers that this abhorrence has probably arisen by
“Natural Selection,” the ill effects of close interbreeding causing the
less numerous and less healthy offspring of incestuous unions to
disappear by degrees, in favour of the descendants (greater both in
number and strength) of individuals who naturally, from some cause or
other, as he suggests, preferred to mate with strangers rather than with
close blood-relations; this preference being transmitted and becoming
thus instinctive, or habitual, in remote descendants.
But on Mr. Darwin’s own ground, it maybe objected that this notion
fails to account for “abhorrence,” and “moral reprobation;” for, as no
stream can rise higher than its source, the original “slight feeling”
which was useful would have been perpetuated, but would never have
been augmented beyond the degree requisite to ensure this beneficial
preference, and therefore would not certainly have become magnified into
“abhorrence.” It will not do to assume that the union of males and
females, each possessing the required “slight feeling,” must give rise to
offspring with an intensified feeling of the same kind; for, apart from
reversion, Mr. Darwin has called attention to the unexpected
modifications which sometimes result from the union of similarly
constituted parents. Thus, for example, he tells us:[204] “If two top-knotted canaries are
matched, the young, instead of having very fine top-knots, are generally
bald.” From examples of this kind, it is fair, on Darwinian principles,
to infer that the [191]union of parents who possessed a similar
inherited aversion might result in phenomena quite other than the
augmentation of such aversion, even if the two aversions should be
altogether similar; while, very probably, they might be so different in
their nature as to tend to neutralize each other. Besides, the union of
parents so similarly emotional would be rare indeed amongst savages,
where marriages would be owing to almost anything rather than to
congeniality of mind between the spouses. Mr. Wallace tells us,[205] that they choose their
wives for “rude health and physical beauty,” and this is just what might
be naturally supposed. Again, we must bear in mind the necessity there is
that many individuals should be similarly and simultaneously
affected with this aversion from consanguineous unions; as we have seen
in the second chapter, how infallibly variations presented by only a few
individuals, tend to be eliminated by mere force of numbers. Mr. Darwin
indeed would throw back this aversion, if possible, to a pre-human
period; since he speculates as to whether the gorillas or orang-utans, in
effecting their matrimonial relations, show any tendency to respect the
prohibited degrees of affinity.[206] No tittle of evidence, however, has
yet been adduced pointing in any such direction, though surely if it were
of such importance and efficiency as to result (through the aid of
“Natural Selection” alone) in that “abhorrence” before spoken of, we
might expect to be able to detect unmistakeable evidence of its incipient
stages. On the contrary, as regards the ordinary apes (for with regard to
the highest there is no evidence of the kind) as we see them in
confinement, it would be difficult to name any animals less restricted,
by even a generic bar, in the gratification of the sexual instinct. And
although the conditions under which they have been observed are abnormal,
yet these are hardly the animals to present us in a state of nature, with
an extraordinary and exceptional sensitiveness in such matters. [192]
To take an altogether different case. Care of, and tenderness towards,
the aged and infirm are actions on all hands admitted to be “right;” but
it is difficult to see how such actions could ever have been so useful to
a community as to have been seized on and developed by the exclusive
action of the law of the “survival of the fittest.” On the contrary, it
seems probable that on strict utilitarian principles the rigid political
economy of Tierra del Fuego would have been eminently favoured and
diffused by the impartial action of “Natural Selection” alone. By the
rigid political economy referred to, is meant that destruction and
utilization of “useless mouths” which Mr. Darwin himself describes in his
highly interesting “Journal of Researches.”[207] He says: “It is certainly true, that
when pressed in winter by hunger, they kill and devour their old women
before they kill their dogs. The boy being asked why they did this,
answered, ‘Doggies catch otters, old women no.’ They often run away into
the mountains, but they are pursued by the men and brought back to the
slaughter-house at their own firesides.” Mr. Edward Bartlett, who has
recently returned from the Amazons, reports that at one Indian village
where the cholera made its appearance, the whole population immediately
dispersed into the woods, leaving the sick to perish uncared for and
alone. Now, had the Indians remained, undoubtedly far more would have
died; as doubtless, in Tierra del Fuego, the destruction of the
comparatively useless old women has often been the means of preserving
the healthy and reproductive young. Such acts surely must be greatly
favoured by the stern and unrelenting action of exclusive “Natural
Selection.”
In the same way that admiration which all feel for acts of self-denial
done for the good of others, and tending even towards the destruction of
the actor, could hardly be accounted for on Darwinian principles alone;
for self-immolators must but rarely leave direct descendants, while the
community they benefit must [193]by their destruction tend, so far, to
morally deteriorate. But devotion to others of the same community is by
no means all that has to be accounted for. Devotion to the whole
human race, and devotion to God—in the form of
asceticism—have been and are very generally recognized as “good;”
and the Author contends that it is simply impossible to conceive that
such ideas and sanctions should have been developed by “Natural
Selection” alone, from only that degree of unselfishness necessary for
the preservation of brutally barbarous communities in the struggle for
life. That degree of unselfishness once attained, further improvement
would be checked by the mutual opposition of diverging moral tendencies
and spontaneous variations in all directions. Added to which, we have the
principle of reversion and atavism, tending powerfully to restore and
reproduce that more degraded anterior condition whence the later and
better state painfully emerged.
Very few, however, dispute the complete distinctness, here and now, of
the ideas of “duty” and “interest” whatever may have been the origin of
those ideas. No one pretends that ingratitude may, in any past abyss of
time, have been a virtue, or that it may be such now in Arcturus or the
Pleiades. Indeed, a certain eminent writer of the utilitarian school of
ethics has amusingly and very instructively shown how radically distinct
even in his own mind are the two ideas which he nevertheless endeavours
to identify. Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his examination of “Sir William
Hamilton’s Philosophy,” says,[208] if “I am informed that the world is
ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we
cannot learn, nor what the principles of his government, except that ‘the
highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving’ does not
sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But
when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this
[194]being by the names which express and
affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not.
Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he
shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being
good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my
fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so
calling him, to hell I will go.”
This is unquestionably an admirable sentiment on the part of Mr. Mill
(with which every absolute moralist will agree), but it contains a
complete refutation of his own position, and is a capital instance[209] of the vigorous life
of moral intuition in one who professes to have eliminated any
fundamental distinction between the “right” and the “expedient.” For if
an action is morally good, and to be done, merely in proportion to the
amount of pleasure it secures, and morally bad and to be avoided as
tending to misery, and if it could be proved that by calling God
good—whether He is so or not, in our sense of the term,—we
could secure a maximum of pleasure, and by refusing to do so we should
incur endless torment, clearly, on utilitarian principles, the flattery
would be good.
Mr. Mill, of course, must also mean that, in the matter in question,
all men would do well to act with him. Therefore, he must mean that it
would be well for all to accept (on the hypothesis above given) infinite
and final misery for all as the result of the pursuit of happiness as the
only end.
It must be recollected that in consenting to worship this unholy God,
Mr. Mill is not asked to do harm to his neighbour, so that his refusal
reposes simply on his perception of the immorality of the requisition. It
is also noteworthy that an omnipotent Deity is supposed incapable of
altering Mr. Mill’s mind and moral perceptions.
Mr. Mill’s decision is right, but it is difficult indeed to see [195]how,
without the recognition of an “absolute morality,” he can justify so
utter and final an abandonment of all utility in favour of a clear and
distinct moral perception.
These two ideas, the “right” and the “useful,” being so distinct here
and now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from
some common source, than met us before when considering the first
beginnings of certain bodily structures. For the distinction between the
“right” and the “useful” is so fundamental and essential that not only
does the idea of benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that
the very fact of an act not being beneficial to us makes it the
more praiseworthy, while gain tends to diminish the merit of an action.
Yet this idea, “right,” thus excluding, as it does, all reference to
utility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from
utility and pleasure, and ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we
are to accept pure Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the
evolution of man’s psychical nature and highest powers, by the exclusive
action of “Natural Selection,” from such faculties as are possessed by
brutes; in other words, if we are to believe that the conceptions of the
highest human morality arose through minute and fortuitous variations of
brutal desires and appetites in all conceivable directions.
It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any
such variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of
any such moral perceptions; that by “Natural Selection” alone the maxim
fiat justitia, ruat cœlum could never have been excogitated,
still less have found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to
suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the first
beginning of the idea of “right.” It need hardly be remarked that
acts may be distinguished not only as pleasurable, useful, or beautiful,
but also as good in two different senses: (1) materially moral
acts, and (2) acts which are formally moral. The first are acts
good in themselves, as acts, apart from any intention of the agent
which may or may not [196]have been directed towards “right.” The
second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as acts, but also
in the deliberate intention of the agent who recognizes his
actions as being “right.” Thus acts may be materially moral or
immoral, in a very high degree, without being in the least
formally so. For example, a person may tend and minister to a sick
man with scrupulous care and exactness, having in view all the time
nothing but the future reception of a good legacy. Another may, in the
dark, shoot his own father, taking him to be an assassin, and so commit
what is materially an act of parricide, though formally it
is only an act of self-defence of more or less culpable rashness. A woman
may innocently, because ignorantly, marry a married man, and so commit a
material act of adultery. She may discover the facts, and persist,
and so make her act formal also.
Actions of brutes, such as those of the bee, the ant, or the beaver,
however materially good as regards their relation to the community to
which such animals belong, are absolutely destitute of the most incipient
degree of real, i.e. formal “goodness,” because unaccompanied by
mental acts of conscious will directed towards the fulfilment of duty.
Apology is due for thus stating so elementary a distinction, but the
statement is not superfluous, for confusion of thought, resulting from
confounding together these very distinct things, is unfortunately far
from uncommon.
Thus some Darwinians assert that the germs of morality exist in
brutes, and we have seen that Mr. Darwin himself speculates on the
subject as regards the highest apes. It may safely be affirmed, however,
that there is no trace in brutes of any actions simulating morality which
are not explicable by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, or
by personal affection. No sign of moral reprobation is given by any
brute, and yet had such existed in germ through Darwinian abysses of past
time, some evidence of its existence must surely have been rendered
perceptible through “survival of the fittest” in other forms besides [197]man,
if that “survival” has alone and exclusively produced it in him.
Abundant examples may, indeed, be brought forward of useful acts which
simulate morality, such as parental care of the young, &c. But did
the most undeviating habits guide all brutes in such matters, were even
aged and infirm members of a community of insects or birds carefully
tended by young which benefited by their experience, such acts would not
indicate even the faintest rudiment of real, i.e. formal,
morality. “Natural Selection” would, of course, often lead to the
prevalence of acts beneficial to a community, and to acts
materially good; but unless they can be shown to be
formally so, they are not in the least to the point, they do not
offer any explanation of the origin of an altogether new and
fundamentally different motive and conception.
It is interesting, on the other hand, to note Mr. Darwin’s statement
as to the existence of a distinct moral feeling, even in, perhaps, the
very lowest and most degraded of all the human races known to us. Thus in
the same “Journal of Researches”[210] before quoted, bearing witness to the
existence of moral reprobation on the part of the Fuegians, he says: “The
nearest approach to religious feeling which I heard of was shown by York
Minster (a Fuegian so named), who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very young
ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn manner, ‘Oh, Mr.
Bynoe, much rain, snow, blow much.’ This was evidently a retributive
punishment for wasting human food.”
Mr. Wallace gives the most interesting testimony, in his “Malay
Archipelago,” to the existence of a very distinct, and in some instances
highly developed moral sense in the natives with whom he came in contact.
In one case,[211] a
Papuan who had been paid in advance for bird-skins and who had not been
able [198]to fulfil his contract before Mr. Wallace
was on the point of starting, “came running down after us holding up a
bird, and saying with great satisfaction, ‘Now I owe you nothing!'” And
this though he could have withheld payment with complete impunity.
Mr. Wallace’s observations and opinions on this head seem hardly to
meet with due appreciation in Sir John Lubbock’s recent work on Primitive
Man.[212] But considering
the acute powers of observation and the industry of Mr. Wallace, and
especially considering the years he passed in familiar and uninterrupted
intercourse with natives, his opinion and testimony should surely carry
with it great weight. He has informed the Author that he found a strongly
marked and widely diffused modesty, in sexual matters, amongst all the
tribes with which he came in contact. In the same way Mr. Bonwick, in his
work on the Tasmanians, testifies to the modesty exhibited by the naked
females of that race, who by the decorum of their postures gave evidence
of the possession in germ of what under circumstances would become the
highest chastity and refinement.
Hasty and incomplete observations and inductions are prejudicial
enough to physical science, but when their effect is to degrade
untruthfully our common humanity, there is an additional motive to regret
them. A hurried visit to a tribe, whose language, traditions and customs
are unknown, is sometimes deemed sufficient for “smart” remarks as to
“ape characters,” &c., which are as untrue as irrelevant. It should
not be forgotten how extremely difficult it is to enter into the ideas
and feelings of an alien race. If in the nineteenth century a French
theatrical audience can witness with acquiescent approval, as a type of
English manners and ideas, the representation of a marquis who sells his
wife at Smithfield, &c. &c., it is surely no [199]wonder if the
ideas of a tribe of newly visited savages should be more or less
misunderstood. To enter into such ideas requires long and familiar
intimacy, like that experienced by the explorer of the Malay Archipelago.
From him, and others, we have abundant evidence that moral ideas exist,
at least in germ, in savage races of men, while they sometimes attain
even a highly developed state. No amount of evidence as to acts of moral
depravity is to the point, as the object here aimed at is to establish
that moral intuitions exist in savages, not that their actions are
good.
Objections, however, are sometimes drawn from the different notions as
to the moral value of certain acts, entertained by men of various
countries or of different epochs; also from the difficulty of knowing
what particular actions in certain cases are the right ones, and from the
effects which prejudice, interest, passion, habit, or even, indirectly,
physical conditions, may have upon our moral perceptions. Thus Sir John
Lubbock speaks[213] of
certain Feejeeans, who, according to the testimony of Mr. Hunt,[214] have the custom of
piously choking their parents under certain circumstances, in order to
insure their happiness in a future life. Should any one take such facts
as telling against the belief in an absolute morality, he would
show a complete misapprehension of the point in dispute; for such facts
tell in favour of it.
Were it asserted that man possesses a distinct innate power and
faculty by which he is made intuitively aware what acts considered in and
by themselves are right and what wrong,—an infallible and universal
internal code,—the illustration would be to the point. But all that
need be contended for is that the intellect perceives not only truth, but
also a quality of “higher” which ought to be followed, and of “lower”
which ought to be avoided; when two lines of conduct are presented to the
will for choice, the intellect so acting being the conscience.
This has been well put by Mr. James Martineau in his excellent essay
on Whewell’s Morality. He says,[215] “If moral good were a quality
resident in each action, as whiteness in snow, or sweetness in fruits;
and if the moral faculty was our appointed instrument for detecting its
presence; many consequences would ensue which are at variance with fact.
The wide range of differences observable in the ethical judgments of men
would not exist; and even if they did, could no more be reduced and
modified by discussion than constitutional differences of hearing or of
vision. And, as the quality of moral good either must or must not exist
in every important operation of the will, we should discern its presence
or absence separately in each; and even though we never had the
conception of more than one insulated action, we should be able to
pronounce upon its character. This, however, we have plainly no power to
do. Every moral judgment is relative, and involves a comparison of two
terms. When we praise what has been done, it is with the
coexistent conception of something else that might have
been done; and when we resolve on a course as right, it is to the
exclusion of some other that is wrong. This fact, that every ethical
decision is in truth a preference, an election of one act as
higher than another, appears of fundamental importance in the analysis of
the moral sentiments.”
From this point of view it is plain how trifling are arguments drawn
from the acts of a savage, since an action highly immoral in us might be
one exceedingly virtuous in him—being the highest presented to his
choice in his degraded intellectual condition and peculiar
circumstances.
It need only be contended, then, that there is a perception of
“right” incapable of further analysis; not that there is any infallible
internal guide as to all the complex actions which [201]present themselves for
choice. The principle is given in our nature, the
application of the principle is the result of a thousand
educational influences.
It is no wonder, then, that, in complex “cases of conscience,” it is
sometimes a matter of exceeding difficulty to determine which of two
courses of action is the less objectionable. This no more invalidates the
truth of moral principles than does the difficulty of a mathematical
problem cast doubt on mathematical principles. Habit, education, and
intellectual gifts facilitate the correct application of both.
Again, if our moral insight is intensified or blunted by our habitual
wishes or, indirectly, by our physical condition, the same may be said of
our perception of the true relations of physical facts one to another. An
eager wish for marriage has led many a man to exaggerate the powers of a
limited income, and a fit of dyspepsia has given an unreasonably gloomy
aspect to more than one balance-sheet.
Considering that moral intuitions have to do with insensible
matters, they cannot be expected to be more clear than the perception of
physical facts. And if the latter perceptions may be influenced by
volition, desire, or health, our moral views may also be expected to be
so influenced, and this in a higher degree because they so often run
counter to our desires. A bottle or two of wine may make a sensible
object appear double; what wonder, then, if our moral perceptions are
sometimes warped and distorted by such powerful agencies as an evil
education or an habitual absence of self-restraint. In neither case does
occasional distortion invalidate the accuracy of normal and habitual
perception.
The distinctness here and now of the ideas of “right” and “useful” is
however, as before said, fully conceded by Mr. Herbert Spencer, although
he contends that these conceptions are one in root and origin.
His utilitarian Genesis of Morals, however, has been recently [202]combated by Mr. Richard Holt Hutton in a
paper which appeared in Macmillan’s Magazine.[216]
This writer aptly objects an argumentum ad hominem, applying to
morals the same argument that has been applied in this work to our sense
of musical harmony, and by Mr. Wallace to the vocal organs of man.
Mr. Herbert Spencer’s notions on the subject are thus expressed by
himself: “To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add
that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed moral
science, there have been, and still are developing in the race certain
fundamental moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are
the result of accumulated experiences of utility gradually organized and
inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious
experience. Just in the same way that I believe the intuition of space
possessed by any living individual to have arisen from organized and
consolidated experiences of all antecedent individuals, who bequeathed to
him their slowly developed nervous organizations; just as I believe that
this intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by
personal experiences, has practically become a form of thought quite
independent of experience;—so do I believe that the experiences of
utility, organized and consolidated through all past generations of the
human race, have been producing corresponding nervous modifications
which, by continued transmissions and accumulation, have become in us
certain faculties of moral intuition, active emotions responding to right
and wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual
experiences of utility. I also hold that, just as the space intuition
responds to the exact demonstrations of geometry, and has its rough
conclusions interpreted and verified by them, so will moral intuitions
respond to the demonstrations of moral science, and will have their rough
conclusions interpreted and verified by them.”
Against this view of Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Hutton objects—”1.
That even as regards Mr. Spencer’s illustration from geometrical
intuitions, his process would be totally inadequate, since you could not
deduce the necessary space intuition of which he speaks from any possible
accumulations of familiarity with space relations…. We cannot
inherit more than our fathers had: no amount of experience
of facts, however universal, can give rise to that particular
characteristic of intuitions and a priori ideas, which compels us
to deny the possibility that in any other world, however otherwise
different, our experience (as to space relations) could be otherwise.
“2. That the case of moral intuitions is very much stronger.
“3. That if Mr. Spencer’s theory accounts for anything, it accounts
not for the deepening of a sense of utility and inutility into right and
wrong, but for the drying up of the sense of utility and inutility into
mere inherent tendencies, which would exercise over us not more
authority but less, than a rational sense of utilitarian
issues.
“4. That Mr. Spencer’s theory could not account for the intuitional
sacredness now attached to individual moral rules and principles,
without accounting a fortiori for the general claim of the
greatest happiness principle over us as the final moral
intuition—-which is conspicuously contrary to the fact, as not even
the utilitarians themselves plead any instinctive or intuitive sanction
for their great principle.
“5. That there is no trace of positive evidence of any single instance
of the transformation of a utilitarian rule of right into an intuition,
since we find no utilitarian principle of the most ancient times which is
now an accepted moral intuition, nor any moral intuition, however sacred,
which has not been promulgated thousands of years ago, and which has not
constantly had to stop the tide of utilitarian objections to its
authority—and this age after age, in our own day quite as much as
in days gone by…. Surely, if anything is remarkable in [204]the history of
morality, it is the anticipatory character, if I may use the
expression, of moral principles—the intensity and absoluteness with
which they are laid down ages before the world has approximated to the
ideal thus asserted.”
Sir John Lubbock, in his work on Primitive Man before referred to,
abandons Mr. Spencer’s explanation of the genesis of morals while
referring to Mr. Hutton’s criticisms on the subject. Sir John proposes to
substitute “deference to authority” instead of “sense of interest” as the
origin of our conception of “duty,” saying that what has been found to be
beneficial has been traditionally inculcated on the young, and thus has
become to be dissociated from “interest” in the mind, though the
inculcation itself originally sprung from that source. This, however,
when analysed, turns out to be a distinction without a difference. It is
nothing but utilitarianism, pure and simple, after all. For it can never
be intended that authority is obeyed because of an intuition that it
should be deferred to, for that would be to admit the very
principle of absolute morality which Sir John combats. It must be meant,
then, that authority is obeyed through fear of the consequences of
disobedience, or through pleasure felt in obeying the authority which
commands. In the latter case we have “pleasure” as the end and no
rudiment of the conception “duty.” In the former we have fear of
punishment, which appeals directly to the sense of “utility to the
individual,” and no amount of such a sense will produce the least germ of
“ought” which is a conception different in kind, and in which the
notion of “punishment” has no place. Thus, Sir John Lubbock’s explanation
only concerns a mode in which the sense of “duty” may be
stimulated or appealed to, and makes no approximation to an explanation
of its origin.
Could the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer, of Mr. Mill, or of Mr. Darwin
on this subject be maintained, or should they come to be generally
accepted, the consequences would be disastrous indeed! Were it really the
case that virtue was a mere kind of [205]“retrieving,” then
certainly we should have to view with apprehension the spread of
intellectual cultivation, which would lead the human “retrievers” to
regard from a new point of view their fetching and carrying. We should be
logically compelled to acquiesce in the vociferations of some continental
utilitarians, who would banish altogether the senseless words “duty” and
“merit;” and then, one important influence which has aided human progress
being withdrawn, we should be reduced to hope that in this case the maxim
cessante causa cessat ipse effectus might through some
incalculable accident fail to apply.
It is true that Mr. Spencer tries to erect a safeguard against such
moral disruption, by asserting that for every immoral act, word, or
thought, each man during this life receives minute and exact retribution,
and that thus a regard for individual self-interest will effectually
prevent any moral catastrophe. But by what means will he enforce the
acceptance of a dogma which is not only incapable of proof, but is
opposed to the commonly received opinion of mankind in all ages? Ancient
literature, sacred and profane, teems with protests against the
successful evil-doer, and certainly, as Mr. Hutton observes,[217] “Honesty must have
been associated by our ancestors with many unhappy as well as many happy
consequences, and we know that in ancient Greece dishonesty was openly
and actually associated with happy consequences…. When the concentrated
experience of previous generations was held, not indeed to
justify, but to excuse by utilitarian considerations, craft,
dissimulation, sensuality, selfishness.”
This dogma is opposed to the moral consciousness of many as to the
events of their own lives; and the Author, for one, believes that it is
absolutely contrary to fact.
History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be
selected from one of the most critical periods of modern [206]times. Let it
be granted that Lewis the Sixteenth of France and his queen had all the
defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians; let
all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Lewis the
Fifteenth, and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that
there are grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far
exceeded those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly
and evidently just? that while the two former died in their beds, after a
life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth
through coming time as examples of the most appalling and calamitous
tragedy?
This theme, however, is too foreign to the immediate matter in hand to
be further pursued, tempting as it is. But a passing protest against a
superstitious and deluding dogma may stand,—a dogma which may, like
any other dogma, be vehemently asserted and maintained, but which is
remarkable for being destitute, at one and the same time, of both
authoritative sanction and the support of reason and observation.
To return to the bearing of moral conceptions on “Natural Selection,”
it seems that, from the reasons given in this chapter, we may safely
affirm—1. That “Natural Selection” could not have produced, from
the sensations of pleasure and pain experienced by brutes, a higher
degree of morality than was useful; therefore it could have produced any
amount of “beneficial habits,” but not abhorrence of certain acts as
impure and sinful.
2. That it could not have developed that high esteem for acts of care
and tenderness to the aged and infirm which actually exists, but would
rather have perpetuated certain low social conditions which obtain in
some savage localities.
3. That it could not have evolved from ape sensations the noble virtue
of a Marcus Aurelius, or the loving but manly devotion of a St.
Lewis.
4. That, alone, it could not have given rise to the maxim fiat
justitia, ruat cœlum. [207]
5. That the interval between material and formal morality is one
altogether beyond its power to traverse.
Also, that the anticipatory character of moral principles is a fatal
bar to that explanation of their origin which is offered to us by Mr.
Herbert Spencer. And, finally, that the solution of that origin proposed
recently by Sir John Lubbock is a mere version of simple utilitarianism,
appealing to the pleasure or safety of the individual, and therefore
utterly incapable of solving the riddle it attacks.
Such appearing to be the case as to the power of “Natural Selection,”
we, nevertheless, find moral conceptions—formally moral
ideas—not only spread over the civilized world, but manifesting
themselves unmistakeably (in however rudimentary a condition, and however
misapplied) amongst the lowest and most degraded of savages. If from
amongst these, individuals can be brought forward who seem to be
destitute of any moral conception, similar cases also may easily be found
in highly civilized communities. Such cases tell no more against moral
intuitions than do cases of colour-blindness or idiotism tell against
sight and reason. We have thus a most important and conspicuous fact, the
existence of which is fatal to the theory of “Natural Selection,” as put
forward of late by Mr. Darwin and his most ardent followers. It must be
remarked, however, that whatever force this fact may have against a
belief in the origination of man from brutes by minute, fortuitous
variations, it has no force whatever against the conception of the
orderly evolution and successive manifestation of specific forms by
ordinary natural law—even if we include amongst such the upright
frame, the ready hand and massive brain of man himself. [208]
CHAPTER X.
PANGENESIS.
A provisional hypothesis supplementing “Natural
Selection.”—Statement of the hypothesis.—Difficulty as to
multitude of gemmules.—As to certain modes of
reproduction.—As to formations without the requisite
gemmules.—Mr. Lewes and Professor Delpino.—Difficulty as to
developmental force of gemmules.—As to their spontaneous
fission.—Pangenesis and Vitalism.—Paradoxical
reality.—Pangenesis scarcely superior to anterior
hypotheses.—Buffon.—Owen.—Herbert
Spencer.—”Gemmules” as mysterious as “physiological
units.”—Conclusion.
In addition to the theory of “Natural Selection,” by which it has been
attempted to account for the origin of species, Mr. Darwin has also put
forward what he modestly terms “a provisional hypothesis” (that of
Pangenesis), by which to account for the origin of each and every
individual form.
Now, though the hypothesis of Pangenesis is no necessary part of
“Natural Selection,” still any treatise on specific origination would be
incomplete if it did not take into consideration this last speculation of
Mr. Darwin. The hypothesis in question may be stated as follows: That
each living organism is ultimately made up of an almost infinite number
of minute particles, or organic atoms, termed “gemmules,” each of which
has the power of reproducing its kind. Moreover, that these particles
circulate freely about the organism which is made up of them, and are
derived from all the parts of all the organs of the less [209]remote
ancestors of each such organism during all the states and stages of such
several ancestors’ existence; and therefore of the several states of each
of such ancestors’ organs. That such a complete collection of gemmules is
aggregated in each ovum and spermatozoon in most animals, and in each
part capable of reproducing by gemmation (budding) in the lowest animals
and in plants. Therefore in many of such lower organisms such a congeries
of ancestral gemmules must exist in every part of their bodies, since in
them every part is capable of reproducing by gemmation. Mr. Darwin must
evidently admit this, since he says: “It has often been said by
naturalists that each cell of a plant has the actual or potential
capacity of reproducing the whole plant; but it has this power only in
virtue of containing gemmules derived from every part.”[218]
Moreover, these gemmules are supposed to tend to aggregate themselves,
and to reproduce in certain definite relations to other gemmules. Thus,
when the foot of an eft is cut off, its reproduction is explained by Mr.
Darwin as resulting from the aggregation of those floating gemmules which
come next in order to those of the cut surface, and the successive
aggregations of the other kinds of gemmules which come after in regular
order. Also, the most ordinary processes of repair are similarly
accounted for, and the successive development of similar parts and organs
in creatures in which such complex evolutions occur is explained in the
same way, by the independent action of separate gemmules.
In order that each living creature may be thus furnished, the number
of such gemmules in each must be inconceivably great. Mr. Darwin says:[219] “In a highly organized
and complex animal, the gemmules thrown off from each different cell or
unit throughout the body must be inconceivably numerous and minute. Each
unit of each part, as it changes during development—and we [210]know
that some insects undergo at least twenty metamorphoses—must throw
off its gemmules. All organic beings, moreover, include many dormant
gemmules derived from their grandparents and more remote progenitors, but
not from all their progenitors. These almost infinitely numerous
and minute gemmules must be included in each bud, ovule, spermatozoon,
and pollen grain.” We have seen also that in certain cases a similar
multitude of gemmules must be included also in every considerable part of
the whole body of each organism, but where are we to stop? There must be
gemmules not only from every organ, but from every component part of such
organ, from every subdivision of such component part, and from every
cell, thread, or fibre entering into the composition of such subdivision.
Moreover, not only from all these, but from each and every successive
stage of the evolution and development of such successively more and more
elementary parts. At the first glance this new atomic theory has charms
from its apparent simplicity, but the attempt thus to follow it out into
its ultimate limits and extreme consequences seems to indicate that it is
at once insufficient and cumbrous.
Mr. Darwin himself is, of course, fully aware that there must be
some limit to this aggregation of gemmules. He says:[220] “Excessively minute
and numerous as they are believed to be, an infinite number derived,
during a long course of modification and descent, from each cell of each
progenitor, could not be supported and nourished by the organism.”
But apart from these matters, which will be more fully considered
further on, the hypothesis not only does not appear to account for
certain phenomena which, in order to be a valid theory, it ought to
account for; but it seems absolutely to conflict with patent and
notorious facts.
How, for example, does it explain the peculiar reproduction [211]which is
found to take place in certain marine worms—certain annelids?
AN ANNELID DIVIDING SPONTANEOUSLY.
(A new head having been formed
towards the hinder end of the body of the parent.)
In such creatures we see that, from time to time, one of the segments
of the body gradually becomes modified till it assumes the condition of a
head, and this remarkable phenomenon is repeated again and again, the
body of the worm thus multiplying serially into new individuals which
successively detach themselves from the older portion. The development of
such a mode of reproduction by “Natural Selection” seems not less
inexplicable than does its continued performance through the aid of [212]“pangenesis.” For how can gemmules attach
themselves to others to which they do not normally or generally succeed?
Scarcely less difficult to understand is the process of the
stomach-carrying-off mode of metamorphosis before spoken of as existing
in the Echinoderms. Next, as to certain patent and notorious facts: On
the hypothesis of pangenesis, no creature can develop an organ unless it
possesses the component gemmules which serve for its formation. No
creature can possess such gemmules unless it inherits them from its
parents, grandparents, or its less remote ancestors. Now, the Jews are
remarkably scrupulous as to marriage, and rarely contract such a union
with individuals not of their own race. This practice has gone on for
thousands of years, and similarly also for thousands of years the rite of
circumcision has been unfailingly and carefully performed. If then the
hypothesis of pangenesis is well founded, that rite ought to be now
absolutely or nearly superfluous from the necessarily continuous absence
of certain gemmules through so many centuries and so many generations.
Yet it is not at all so, and this fact seems to amount almost to an
experimental demonstration that the hypothesis of pangenesis is an
insufficient explanation of individual evolution.
Two exceedingly good criticisms of Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis have
appeared. One of these is by Mr. G. H. Lewes,[221] the other by Professor Delpino of
Florence.[222] The latter
gentleman gives a report of an observation made by him upon a certain
plant, which observation adds force to what has just been said about the
Jewish race. He says:[223] “If we examine and compare the
numerous species of the genus Salvia, commencing with Salvia
officinalis, which may pass as the main state of the genus, and [213]concluding with Salvia
verticillata, which may be taken as the most highly developed form,
and as the most distant from the type, we observe a singular phenomenon.
The lower cell of each of the two fertile anthers, which is much reduced
and different from the superior even in Salvia officinalis, is
transmuted in other salviæ into an organ (nectarotheca) having a
very different form and function, and finally disappears entirely in
Salvia verticillata.
“Now, on one occasion, in a flower belonging to an individual of
Salvia verticillata, and only on the left stamen, I observed a
perfectly developed and pollinigerous lower cell, perfectly homologous
with that which is normally developed in Salvia officinalis. This
case of atavism is truly singular. According to the theory of Pangenesis,
it is necessary to assume that all the gemmules of this anomalous
formation, and therefore the mother-gemmule of the cell, and the
daughter-gemmules of the special epidermic tissue, and of the very
singular subjacent tissue of the endothecium, have been perpetuated, and
transmitted from parent to offspring in a dormant state, and through a
number of generations, such as startles the imagination, and leads it to
refuse its consent to the theory of Pangenesis, however seductive it may
be.” This seems a strong confirmation of what has been here advanced.
The main objection raised against Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis is that it
(Pangenesis) requires so many subordinate hypotheses for its support, and
that some of these are not tenable.
Professor Delpino considers[224] that as many as eight of these
subordinate hypotheses are required, namely, that—
“1. The emission of the gemmules takes place, or may take place in all
states of the cell.
“2. The quantity of gemmules emitted from every cell is very
great.
“3. The minuteness of the gemmules is extreme.
“4. The gemmules possess two sorts of affinity, one of which might be
called propagative, and the other germinative affinity.
“5. By means of the propagative affinity all the gemmules emitted by
all the cells of the individual flow together and become condensed in the
cells which compose the sexual organs, whether male or female (embryonal
vesicle, cells of the embryo, pollen grains, fovilla, antherozoids,
spermatozoids), and likewise flow together and become condensed in the
cells which constitute the organs of a sexual or agamic reproduction
(buds, spores, bulbilli, portions of the body separated by scission,
&c.).
“6. By means of the germinative affinity, every gemmule (except in
cases of anomalies or monstrosities) can be developed only in cells
homologous with the mother-cells of the cell from which they originated.
In other words, the gemmules from any cell can only be developed in
unison with the cell preceding it in due order of succession, and whilst
in a nascent state.
“7. Of each kind of gernmule a great number perishes; a great number
remains in a dormant state through many generations in the bodies of
descendants; the remainder germinate and reproduce the mother-cell.
“8. Every gemmule may multiply itself by a process of scission into
any number of equivalent gemmules.”
Mr. Darwin has published a short notice in reply to Professor Delpino,
in Scientific Opinion of October 20, 1869, p. 426. In this reply
he admits the justice of Professor Delpino’s attack, but objects to the
alleged necessity of the first subordinate hypothesis, namely, that the
emission of gemmules takes place in all states of the cell. But if this
is not the case, then a great part of the utility and distinction of
pangenesis is destroyed, or as Mr. Lewes justly says,[225] “If gemmules produce whole cells, we
have the very power which was pronounced mysterious in larger
organisms.”
Mr. Darwin also does not see the force of the objection to the power
of self-division which must be asserted of the gemmules themselves if
Pangenesis be true. The objection, however, appears to many to be
formidable. To admit the power of spontaneous division and multiplication
in such rudimentary structures, seems a complete contradiction. The
gemmules, by the hypothesis of Pangenesis, are the ultimate organized
components of the body, the absolute organic atoms of which each body is
composed; how then can they be divisible? Any part of a gemmule
would be an impossible (because a less than possible) quantity. If
it is divisible into still smaller organic wholes, as a germ-cell is, it
must be made up as the germ-cell is, of subordinate component atoms,
which are then the true gemmules. This process may be repeated
ad infinitum, unless we get to true organic atoms, the true
gemmules, whatever they may be, and they necessarily will be incapable of
any process of spontaneous fission. It is remarkable that Mr. Darwin
brings forward in support of gemmule fission, the observation that
“Thuret has seen the zoospore of an alga divide itself, and both halves
germinate.” Yet on the hypothesis of Pangenesis, the zoospore of an alga
must contain gemmules from all the cells of the parent algæ, and from all
the parts of all their less remote ancestors in all their stages of
existence. What wonder then that such an excessively complex body should
divide and multiply; and what parity is there between such a body and a
gemmule? A steam-engine and a steel-filing might equally well be compared
together.
Professor Delpino makes a further objection which, however, will only
be of weight in the eyes of Vitalists. He says,[226] Pangenesis is not to be received
because “it leads directly to the negation of a specific vital principle,
co-ordinating and regulating all the movements, acts, and functions of
the individuals in which it is incarnated. For Pangenesis of the
individual is a [216]term without meaning. If, in contemplating
an animal of high organization, we regard it purely as an aggregation of
developed gemmules, although these gemmules have been evolved
successively one after the other, and one within the other,
notwithstanding they elude the conception of the real and true
individual, these problematical and invisible gemmules must be
regarded as so many individuals. Now, that real, true, living individuals
exist in nature, is a truth which is persistently attested to us by our
consciousness. But how, then, can we explain that a great quantity of
dissimilar elements, like the atoms of matter, can unite to form those
perfect unities which we call individuals, if we do not suppose the
existence of a specific principle, proper to the individual but foreign
to the component atoms, which aggregates these said atoms, groups them
into molecules, and then moulds the molecules into cells, the cells into
tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into apparatus?”
“But, it may be urged in opposition by the Pangenesists, your vital
principle is an unknown and irresolute x. This is true; but, on
the other hand, let us see whether Pangenesis produces a clearer formula,
and one free from unknown elements. The existence of the gemmules is a
first unknown element; the propagative affinity of the gemmules is a
second; their germinative affinity is a third; their multiplication by
fission is a fourth—and what an unknown element!”
“Thus, in Pangenesis, everything proceeds by force of unknown
elements, and we may ask whether it is more logical to prefer a system
which assumes a multitude of unknown elements to a system which assumes
only a single one?”
Mr. Darwin appears, by “Natural Selection,” to destroy the reality of
species, and by Pangenesis that of the individual. Mr. Lewes observes[227] of the individual that
“This whole is only a subjective conception which summarizes the parts,
and that in [217]point of fact it is the parts which are
reproduced.” But the parts are also, from the same point of view, merely
subjective until we come to the absolute organic atoms. These atoms, on
the other hand, are utterly invisible, intangible; indeed, in the words
of Mr. Darwin, inconceivable. Thus, then, it results from the theories in
question, that the organic world is reduced to utter unreality as regards
all that can be perceived by the senses or distinctly imagined by the
mind; while the only reality consists of the invisible, the insensible,
the inconceivable; in other words, nothing is known that really is, and
only the nonexistent can be known. A somewhat paradoxical outcome of the
speculations of those who profess to rely exclusively on the testimony of
sense. “Les extrêmes se touchent,” and extreme sensationalism
shakes hands with the “das seyn ist das nichts” of Hegel.
Altogether the hypothesis of Pangenesis seems to be little, if at all,
superior to anterior hypotheses of a more or less similar nature.
Apart from the atoms of Democritus, and apart also from the
speculations of mediæval writers, the molecules of Bonnet and of Buffon
almost anticipated the hypothesis of Pangenesis. According to the
last-named author,[228]
organic particles from every part of the body assemble in the sexual
secretions, and by their union build up the embryo, each particle taking
its due place, and occupying in the offspring a similar position to that
which it occupied in the parents. In 1849 Professor Owen, in his treatise
on “Parthenogenesis,” put forward another conception. According to this,
the cells resulting from the subdivision of the germ-cell preserve their
developmental force, unless employed in building up definite organic
structures. In certain creatures, and in certain parts of other
creatures, germ-cells unused are stored [218]up, and by their agency
lost limbs and other mutilations are repaired. Such unused products of
the germ-cell are also supposed to become located in the generative
products.
According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his “Principles of Biology,” each
living organism consists of certain so-called “physiological units.” Each
of these units has an innate power and capacity, by which it tends to
build up and reproduce the entire organism of which it forms a part,
unless in the meantime its force is exhausted by its taking part in the
production of some distinct and definite tissue—a condition
somewhat similar to that conceived by Professor Owen.
Now, at first sight, Mr. Darwin’s atomic theory appears to be more
simple than any of the others. It has been objected that while Mr.
Spencer’s theory requires the assumption of an innate power and tendency
in each physiological unit, Mr. Darwin’s, on the other hand, requires
nothing of the kind, but explains the evolution of each individual by
purely mechanical conceptions. In fact, however, it is not so. Each
gemmule, according to Mr. Darwin, is really the seat of powers, elective
affinities, and special tendencies as marked and mysterious as those
possessed by the physiological unit of Mr. Spencer, with the single
exception that the former has no tendency to build up the whole living,
complex organism of which it forms a part. Some may think this an
important distinction, but it can hardly be so, for Mr. Darwin considers
that his gemmule has the innate power and tendency to build up and
transform itself into the whole living, complex cell of which it forms a
part; and the one tendency is, in principle, fully as difficult to
understand, fully as mysterious, as is the other. The difference is but
one of degree, not of kind. Moreover, the one mystery in the case of the
“physiological unit” explains all, while with regard to the gemmule, as
we have seen, it has to be supplemented by other powers and tendencies,
each distinct, and each in itself inexplicable and profoundly mysterious.
[219]
That there should be physiological units possessed of the power
attributed to them, harmonizes with what has recently been put forward by
Dr. H. Charlton Bastian; who maintains that under fit conditions the
simplest organisms develop themselves into relatively large and complex
ones. This is not supposed by him to be due to any inheritance of
ancestral gemmules, but to direct growth and transformation of the most
minute and the simplest organisms, which themselves, by all reason and
analogy, owe their existence to immediate transformation from the
inorganic world.
Thus, then, there are grave difficulties in the way of the reception
of the hypothesis of Pangenesis, which moreover, if established, would
leave the evolution of individual organisms, when thoroughly analysed,
little if at all less mysterious or really explicable than it is at
present.
As was said at the beginning of this chapter, “Pangenesis” and
“Natural Selection” are quite separable and distinct hypotheses. The fall
of one of these by no means necessarily includes that of the other.
Nevertheless, Mr. Darwin has associated them closely together, and,
therefore, the refutation of Pangenesis may render it advisable for those
who have hitherto accepted “Natural Selection” to reconsider that theory.
[220]
CHAPTER XI.
SPECIFIC GENESIS.
Review of the statements and arguments of preceding
chapters.—Cumulative argument against predominant action of
“Natural Selection.”—Whether anything positive as well as negative
can be enunciated.—Constancy of laws of nature does not necessarily
imply constancy of specific evolution.—Possible exceptional
stability of existing epoch.—Probability that an internal cause of
change exists.—Innate powers must be conceived as existing
somewhere or other.—Symbolism of molecular action under vibrating
impulses.—Professor Owen’s statement.—Statement of the
Author’s view.—It avoids the difficulties which oppose “Natural
Selection.”—It harmonizes apparently conflicting
conceptions.—Summary and conclusion.
Having now severally reviewed the principal biological facts which
bear upon specific manifestation, it remains to sum up the results, and
to endeavour to ascertain what, if anything, can be said
positively, as well as negatively, on this deeply interesting
question.
In the preceding chapters it has been contended, in the first place,
that no mere survival of the fittest accidental and minute variations can
account for the incipient stages of useful structures, such as,
e.g., the heads of flat-fishes, the baleen of whales, vertebrate
limbs, the laryngeal structures of the newborn kangaroo, the pedicellariæ
of Echinoderms, or for many of the facts of mimicry, and especially those
last touches of mimetic perfection, where an insect not only mimics a
leaf, but one worm-eaten and attacked by fungi. [221]
Also, that structures like the hood of the cobra and the rattle of the
rattlesnake seem to require another explanation.
Again, it has been contended that instances of colour, as in some
apes; of beauty, as in some shell-fish; and of utility, as in many
orchids, are examples of conditions which are quite beyond the power of
Natural Selection to originate and develop.
Next, the peculiar mode of origin of the eye (by the simultaneous and
concurrent modification of distinct parts), with the wonderful refinement
of the human ear and voice, have been insisted on; as also, that the
importance of all these facts is intensified through the necessity
(admitted by Mr. Darwin) that many individuals should be similarly and
simultaneously modified in order that slightly favourable variations may
hold their own in the struggle for life, against the overwhelming force
and influence of mere number.
Again, we have considered, in the third chapter, the great
improbability that from minute variations in all directions alone and
unaided, save by the survival of the fittest, closely similar structures
should independently arise; though, on a non-Darwinian evolutionary
hypothesis, their development might be expected a priori. We have
seen, however, that there are many instances of wonderfully close
similarity which are not due to genetic affinity; the most notable
instance, perhaps, being that brought forward by Mr. Murphy, namely, the
appearance of the same eye-structure in the vertebrate and molluscous
sub-kingdoms. A curious resemblance, though less in degree, has also been
seen to exist between the auditory organs of fishes and of Cephalopods.
Remarkable similarities between certain placental and implacental
mammals, between the bird’s-head processes of Polyzoa and the
pedicellariæ of Echinoderms, between Ichthyosauria and Cetacea, with very
many other similar coincidences, have also been pointed out.
Evidence has also been brought forward to show that similarity is
sometimes directly induced by very obscure conditions, [222]at present
quite inexplicable, e.g. by causes immediately connected with
geographical distribution; as in the loss of the tail in certain forms of
Lepidoptera and in simultaneous modifications of colour in others, and in
the direct modification of young English oysters, when transported to the
shore of the Mediterranean.
Again, it has been asserted that certain groups of organic forms seem
to have an innate tendency to remarkable developments of some particular
kind, as beauty and singularity of plumage in the group of birds of
paradise.
It has also been contended that there is something to be said in
favour of sudden, as opposed to exceedingly minute and gradual,
modifications, even if the latter are not fortuitous. Cases were brought
forward, in Chapter IV., such as the bivalve just mentioned, twenty-seven
kinds of American trees simultaneously and similarly modified, also the
independent production of pony breeds, and the case of the English
greyhounds in Mexico, the offspring of which produced directly acclimated
progeny. Besides these, the case of the Normandy pigs, of Datura
tatula, and also of the black-shouldered peacock, have been spoken
of. The teeth of the labyrinthodon, the hand of the potto, the whalebone
of whales, the wings of birds, the climbing tendrils of some plants,
&c. have also been adduced as instances of structures, the origin and
production of which are probably due rather to considerable modifications
than to minute increments.
It has also been shown that certain forms which were once supposed to
be especially transitional and intermediate (as, e.g., the
aye-aye) are really by no means so; while the general rule, that the
progress of forms has been “from the more general to the more special,”
has been shown to present remarkable exceptions, as, e.g.,
Macrauchenia, the Glyptodon, and the sabre-toothed tiger
(Machairodus).
Next, as to specific stability, it has been seen that there may [223]be a
certain limit to normal variability, and that if changes take place they
may be expected a priori to be marked and considerable ones, from
the facts of the inorganic world, and perhaps also of the lowest forms of
the organic world. It has also been seen that with regard to minute
spontaneous variations in races, there is a rapidly increasing difficulty
in intensifying them, in any one direction, by ever such careful
breeding. Moreover, it has appeared that different species show a
tendency to variability in special directions, and probably in different
degrees, and that at any rate Mr. Darwin himself concedes the existence
of an internal barrier to change when he credits the goose with “a
singularly inflexible organization;” also, that he admits the presence of
an internal proclivity to change when he speaks of “a whole
organization seeming to have become plastic, and tending to depart from
the parental type.”
We have seen also that a marked tendency to reversion does exist,
inasmuch as it sometimes takes place in a striking manner, as exemplified
in the white silk fowl in England, in spite of careful selection
in breeding.
Again, we have seen that a tendency exists in nature to eliminate
hybrid races, by whatever means that elimination is effected, while no
similar tendency bars the way to an indefinite blending of varieties.
This has also been enforced by statements as to the prepotency of certain
pollen of identical species, but of distinct races.
To all the preceding considerations have been added others derived
from the relations of species to past time. It has been contended that we
have as yet no evidence of minutely intermediate forms connecting
uninterruptedly together undoubtedly distinct species. That while even
“horse ancestry” fails to supply such a desideratum, in very strongly
marked and exceptional kinds (such as the Ichthyosauria, Chelonia, and
Anoura), the absence of links is very important and significant. For if
[224]every species, without exception, has
arisen by minute modifications, it seems incredible that a small
percentage of such transitional forms should not have been preserved.
This, of course, is especially the case as regards the marine
Ichthyosauria and Plesiosauria, of which such numbers of remains have
been discovered.
Sir William Thomson’s great authority has been seen to oppose itself
to “Natural Selection,” by limiting, on astronomical and physical
grounds, the duration of life on this planet to about one hundred million
years. This period, it has been contended, is not nearly enough on the
one hand for the evolution of all organic forms by the exclusive action
of mere minute, fortuitous variations; on the other hand, for the
deposition of all the strata which must have been deposited, if minute
fortuitous variation was the manner of successive specific
manifestation.
Again, the geographical distribution of existing animals has been seen
to present difficulties which, though not themselves insurmountable, yet
have a certain weight when taken in conjunction with all the other
objections.
The facts of homology, serial, bilateral and vertical, have also been
passed in review. Such facts, it has been contended, are not explicable
without admitting the action of what may most conveniently be spoken of
as an internal power, the existence of which is supported by facts
not only of comparative anatomy but of teratology and pathology also.
“Natural Selection” also has been shown to be impotent to explain these
phenomena, while the existence of such an internal power of homologous
evolution diminishes the a priori improbability of an analogous
law of specific origination.
All these various considerations have been supplemented by an
endeavour to show the utter inadequacy of Mr. Darwin’s theory with regard
to the higher psychical phenomena of man (especially the evolution of
moral conceptions), and with regard to the evolution of individual
organisms by the action of [225]Pangenesis. And it was implied that if Mr.
Darwin’s latter hypothesis can be shown to be untenable, an antecedent
doubt is thus thrown upon his other conception, namely, the theory of
“Natural Selection.”
A cumulative argument thus arises against the prevalent action of
“Natural Selection,” which, to the mind of the Author, is conclusive. As
before observed, he was not originally disposed to reject Mr. Darwin’s
fascinating theory. Reiterate endeavours to solve its difficulties have,
however, had the effect of convincing him that that theory as the one or
as the leading explanation of the successive evolution and manifestation
of specific forms, is untenable. At the same time he admits fully that
“Natural Selection” acts and must act, and that it plays in the organic
world a certain though a secondary and subordinate part.
The one modus operandi yet suggested having been found
insufficient, the question arises, Can another be substituted in its
place? If not, can anything that is positive, and if anything, what, be
said as to the question of specific origination?
Now, in the first place, it is of course axiomatic that the laws which
conditioned the evolution of extinct and of existing species are of as
much efficacy at this moment as at any preceding period, that they
tend to the manifestation of new forms as much now as ever before.
It by no means necessarily follows, however, that this tendency is
actually being carried into effect, and that new species of the higher
animals and plants are actually now produced. They may be so or they may
not, according as existing circumstances favour, or conflict with, the
action of those laws. It is possible that lowly organized creatures may
be continually evolved at the present day, the requisite conditions being
more or less easily supplied. There is, however, no similar evidence at
present as to higher forms; while, as we have seen in Chapter VII., there
are a priori considerations which militate against their being
similarly evolved. [226]
The presence of wild varieties and the difficulty which often exists
in the determination of species are sometimes adduced as arguments that
high forms are now in process of evolution. These facts, however, do not
necessarily prove more than that some species possess a greater
variability than others, and (what is indeed unquestionable) that species
have often been unduly multiplied by geologists and botanists. It may be,
for example, that Wagner was right, and that all the American monkeys of
the genus cebus may be reduced to a single species or to two.
With regard to the lower organisms, and supposing views recently
advanced to become fully established, there is no reason to think that
the forms said to be evolved were new species, but rather reappearances
of definite kinds which had appeared before and will appear again under
the same conditions. In the same way, with higher forms similar
conditions must educe similar results, but here practically similar
conditions can rarely obtain because of the large part which “descent”
and “inheritance” always play in such highly organized forms.
Still it is conceivable that different combinations at different times
may have occasionally the same outcome just as the multiplications of
different numbers may have severally the same result.
There are reasons, however, for thinking it possible that the human
race is a witness of an exceptionally unchanging and stable condition of
things, if the calculations of Mr. Croll are valid as to how far
variations in the eccentricity in the earth’s orbit together with the
precession of the equinoxes have produced changes in climate. Mr. Wallace
has pointed out[229] that
the last 60,000 years having been exceptionally unchanging as [227]regards
these conditions, specific evolution may have been exceptionally rare. It
becomes then possible to suppose that for a similar period stimuli to
change in the manifestation of animal forms may have been exceptionally
few and feeble,—that is, if the conditions of the earth’s orbit
have been as exceptional as stated. However, even if new species are
actually now being evolved as actively as ever, or if they have been so
quite recently, no conflict thence necessarily arises with the view here
advocated. For it by no means follows that if some examples of new
species have recently been suddenly produced from individuals of
antecedent species, we ought to be able to put our fingers on such cases;
as Mr. Murphy well observes[230] in a passage before quoted, “If a
species were to come suddenly into being in the wild state, as the Ancon
sheep did under domestication, how could we ascertain the fact? If the
first of a newly-born species were found, the fact of its discovery would
tell nothing about its origin. Naturalists would register it as a very
rare species, having been only once met with, but they would have no
means of knowing whether it were the first or the last of its race.”
But are there any grounds for thinking that in the genesis of species
an internal force or tendency interferes, co-operates with and
controls the action of external conditions?
It is here contended that there are such grounds, and that though
inheritance, reversion, atavism, Natural Selection, &c., play a part
not unimportant, yet that such an internal power is a great, perhaps the
main, determining agent.
It will, however, be replied that such an entity is no vera
causa; that if the conception is accepted, it is no real explanation;
and that it is merely a roundabout way of saying that the facts are as
they are, while the cause remains unknown. To this it may be rejoined
that for all who believe in the existence of the [228]abstraction “force” at
all, other than will, this conception of an internal force must be
accepted and located somewhere—cannot be eliminated altogether; and
that therefore it may as reasonably be accepted in this mode as in any
other.
It was urged at the end of the third chapter that it is congruous to
credit mineral species with an internal power or force. By such a power
it may be conceived that crystals not only assume their external
symmetry, but even repair it when injured. Ultimate chemical elements
must also be conceived as possessing an innate tendency to form certain
unions, and to cohere in stable aggregations. This was considered towards
the end of Chapter VIII.
Turning to the organic world, even on the hypothesis of Mr. Herbert
Spencer or that of Mr. Darwin, it is impossible to escape the conception
of innate internal forces. With regard to the physiological units of the
former, Mr. Spencer himself, as we have seen, distinctly attributes to
them “an innate tendency” to evolve the parent form from which
they sprang. With regard to the gemmules of Mr. Darwin, we have seen, in
Chapter X., with how many innate powers, tendencies, and capabilities
they must each be severally endowed, to reproduce their kind, to evolve
complex organisms or cells, to exercise germinative affinity, &c.
If then (as was before said at the end of Chapter VIII.) such innate
powers must be attributed to chemical atoms, to mineral species, to
gemmules, and to physiological units, it is only reasonable to attribute
such to each individual organism.
The conception of such internal and latent capabilities is somewhat
like that of Mr. Galton, before mentioned, according to which the organic
world consists of entities, each of which is, as it were, a spheroid with
many facets on its surface, upon one of which it reposes in stable
equilibrium. When by the accumulated action of incident forces this
equilibrium is [229]disturbed, the spheroid is supposed to
turn over until it settles on an adjacent facet once more in stable
equilibrium.
The internal tendency of an organism to certain considerable and
definite changes would correspond to the facets on the surface of the
spheroid.
It may be objected that we have no knowledge as to how terrestrial,
cosmical and other forces can affect organisms so as to stimulate and
evolve these latent, merely potential forms. But we have had evidence
that such mysterious agencies do affect organisms in ways as yet
inexplicable, in the very remarkable effects of geographical conditions
which were detailed in the third chapter.
It is quite conceivable that the material organic world may be so
constituted that the simultaneous action upon it of all known forces,
mechanical, physical, chemical, magnetic, terrestrial, and cosmical,
together with other as yet unknown forces which probably exist, may
result in changes which are harmonious and symmetrical, just as the
internal nature of vibrating plates causes particles of sand scattered
over them to assume definite and symmetrical figures when made to
oscillate in different ways by the bow of a violin being drawn along
their edges. The results of these combined internal powers and external
influences might be represented under the symbol of complex series of
vibrations (analogous to those of sound or light) forming a most complex
harmony or a display of most varied colours. In such a way the reparation
of local injuries might be symbolized as a filling up and completion of
an interrupted rhythm. Thus also monstrous aberrations from typical
structure might correspond to a discord, and sterility from crossing be
compared with the darkness resulting from the interference of waves of
light.
Such symbolism will harmonize with the peculiar reproduction, before
mentioned, of heads in the body of certain annelids, with the facts of
serial homology, as well as those of bilateral and [230]vertical symmetry.
Also, as the atoms of a resonant body may be made to give out sound by
the juxtaposition of a vibrating tuning-fork, so it is conceivable that
the physiological units of a living organism may be so influenced by
surrounding conditions (organic and other) that the accumulation of these
conditions may upset the previous rhythm of such units, producing
modifications in them—a fresh chord in the harmony of
nature—a new species!
But it may be again objected that to say that species arise by the
help of an innate power possessed by organisms is no explanation, but is
a reproduction of the absurdity, l’opium endormit parcequ’il a une
vertu soporifique. It is contended, however, that this objection does
not apply, even if it be conceded that there is that force in Molière’s
ridicule which is generally attributed to it.[231] Much, however, might be said in
opposition to more than one of that brilliant dramatist’s smart
philosophical epigrams, just as to the theological ones of Voltaire, or
to the biological one of that other Frenchman who for a time discredited
a cranial skeletal theory by the phrase “Vertèbre pensante.”[232]
In fact, however, it is a real explanation of how a man lives to say
that he lives independently, on his own income, instead of being
supported by his relatives and friends. In the same way, there is fully
as real a distinction between the production of new specific
manifestations entirely ab externo, and by the production of the
same through an innate force and tendency, [231]the determination of
which into action is occasioned by external circumstances.
To say that organisms possess this innate power, and that by it new
species are from time to time produced, is by no means a mere assertion
that they are produced, and in an unknown mode. It is the negation
of that view which deems external forces alone sufficient, and at the
same time the assertion of something positive, to be arrived at by the
process of reductio ad absurdum.
All physical explanations result ultimately in such conceptions of
innate power, or else in that of will force. The far-famed explanation of
the celestial motions ends in the conception that every particle of
matter has the innate power of attracting every other particle directly
as the mass, and inversely as the square of the distance.
We are logically driven to this positive conception if we do not
accept the view that there is no force but volition, and that all
phenomena whatever are the immediate results of the action of intelligent
and self-conscious will.
We have seen that the notion of sudden changes—saltatory actions
in nature—has received countenance from Professor Huxley.[233] We must conceive that
these jumps are orderly, and according to law, inasmuch as the whole
cosmos is such. Such orderly evolution harmonizes with a teleology
derived, not indeed from external nature directly, but from the mind of
man. On this point, however, more will be said in the next chapter. But,
once more, if new species are not manifested by the action of external
conditions upon minute indefinite individual differences, in what precise
way may we conceive that manifestation to have taken place?
Are new species now evolving, as they have been from time to time
evolved? If so, in what way and by what conceivable means?
In the first place, they must be produced by natural action in
pre-existing material, or by supernatural action.
For reasons to be given in the next chapter, the second hypothesis
need not be considered.
If, then, new species are and have been evolved from pre-existing
material, must that material have been organic or inorganic?
As before said, additional arguments have lately been brought forward
to show that individual organisms do arise from a basis of
in-organic material only. As, however, this at the most appears to
be the case, if at all, only with the lowest and most minute organisms
exclusively, the process cannot be observed, though it may perhaps be
fairly inferred.
We may therefore, if for no other reason, dismiss the notion that
highly organized animals and plants can be suddenly or gradually built up
by any combination of physical forces and natural powers acting
externally and internally upon and in merely inorganic material as a
base.
But the question is, how have the highest kinds of animals and plants
arisen? It seems impossible that they can have appeared otherwise than by
the agency of antecedent organisms not greatly different from them.
A multitude of facts, ever increasing in number and importance, all
point to such a mode of specific manifestation.
One very good example has been adduced by Professor Flower in the
introductory lecture of his first Hunterian Course.[234] It is the reduction in size, to a
greater or less degree, of the second and third digits of the foot in
Australian marsupials, and this, in spite of the very different form and
function of the foot in different groups of those animals.
A similarly significant evidence of relationship is afforded by
processes of the zygomatic region of the skull in certain edentates
existing and extinct.
Again, the relation between existing and recent faunas of the
different regions of the world, and the predominating (though by no means
exclusive) march of organization, from the more general to the more
special, point in the same direction.
Almost all the facts brought forward by the patient industry of Mr.
Darwin in support of his theory of “Natural Selection,” are of course
available as evidence in favour of the agency of pre-existing and similar
animals in specific evolution.
Now the new forms must be produced by changes taking place in
organisms in, after or before their birth, either in their embryonic, or
towards or in their adult, condition.
Examples of strange births are sufficiently common, and they may arise
either from direct embryonic modifications or apparently from some
obscure change in the parental action. To the former category belong the
hosts of instances of malformation through arrest of development, and
perhaps generally monstrosities of some sort are the result of such
affections of the embryo. To the second category belong all cases of
hybridism, of cross breed, and in all probability the new varieties and
forms, such as the memorable one of the black-shouldered peacock. In all
these cases we do not have abortions or monstrosities, but more or less
harmonious forms often of great functional activity, endowed with marked
viability and generative prepotency, except in the case of hybrids, when
we often find even a more marked generative impotency.
It seems probable therefore that new species may arise from some
constitutional affection of parental forms—an affection mainly, if
not exclusively, of their generative system. Mr. Darwin has carefully
collected[235] numerous
instances to show how excessively sensitive to various influences this
system is. He says:[236]
“Sterility is independent of general health, and is often [234]accompanied by
excess of size, or great luxuriance,” and, “No one can tell, till he
tries; whether any particular animal will breed under confinement, or any
exotic plant seed freely under culture.” Again, “When a new character
arises, whatever its nature may be, it generally tends to be inherited,
at least in a temporary and sometimes in a most persistent manner.”[237] Yet the obscure action
of conditions will alter characters long inherited, as the grandchildren
of Aylesbury ducks, removed to a distant part of England, completely lost
their early habit of incubation, and hatched their eggs at the same time
with the common ducks of the same place.[238]
Mr. Darwin quotes Mr. Bartlett as saying: “It is remarkable that lions
breed more freely in travelling collections than in the zoological
gardens; probably the constant excitement and irritation produced by
moving from place to place, or change of air, may have considerable
influence in the matter.”[239]
Mr. Darwin also says: “There is reason to believe that insects are
affected by confinement like the higher animals,” and he gives
examples.[240]
Again, he gives examples of change of plumage in the linnet, bunting,
oriole, and other birds, and of the temporary modification of the horns
of a male deer during a voyage.[241]
Finally, he adds that these changes cannot be attributed to loss of
health or vigour, “when we reflect how healthy, long-lived, and vigorous
many animals are under captivity, such as parrots, and hawks when used
for hawking, chetahs when used for hunting, and elephants. The
reproductive organs themselves are not diseased; and the diseases from
which animals in menageries usually perish, are not those which in any
way affect their fertility. No domestic animal is more subject to disease
than the sheep, yet it is remarkably prolific…. It would appear [235]that
any change in the habits of life, whatever these habits may be, if great
enough, tends to affect in an inexplicable manner the powers of
reproduction.”
Such, then, is the singular sensitiveness of the generative
system.
As to the means by which that system is affected, we see that a
variety of conditions affect it; but as to the modes in which they act
upon it, we have as yet little if any clue.
We have also seen the singular effects (in tailed Lepidoptera,
&c.) of causes connected with geographical distribution, the mode of
action of which is as yet quite inexplicable; and we have also seen the
innate tendency which there appears to be in certain groups (birds of
paradise, &c.) to develop peculiarities of a special kind.
It is, to say the least, probable that other influences exist,
terrestrial and cosmical, as yet un-noted. The gradually accumulating or
diversely combining actions of all these on highly sensitive structures,
which are themselves possessed of internal responsive powers and
tendencies, may well result in occasional repeated productions of forms
harmonious and vigorous, and differing from the parental forms in
proportion to the result of the combining or conflicting action of all
external and internal influences.
If, in the past history of this planet, more causes ever intervened,
or intervened more energetically than at present, we might a
priori expect a richer and more various evolution of forms more
radically differing than any which could be produced under conditions of
more perfect equilibrium. At the same time, if it be true that the last
few thousand years have been a period of remarkable and exceptional
uniformity as regards this planet’s astronomical relations, there are
then some grounds for thinking that organic evolution may have been
exceptionally depressed during the same epoch.
Now, as to the fact that sudden changes and sudden [236]developments
have occurred, and as to the probability that such changes are likely to
occur, evidence was given in Chapter IV.
In Chapter V. we also saw that minerals become modified suddenly and
considerably by the action of incident forces—as, e.g., the
production of hexagonal tabular crystals of carbonate of copper by
sulphuric acid, and of long rectangular prisms by ammonia, &c.
We have thus a certain antecedent probability that if changes are
produced in specific manifestation through incident forces, these changes
will be sensible and considerable, not minute and infinitesimal.
Consequently, it is probable that new species have appeared from time
to time with comparative suddenness, and that they still continue so to
arise if all the conditions necessary for specific evolution now
obtain.
This probability will be increased if the observations of Dr. Bastian
are confirmed by future investigation. According to his report, when the
requisite conditions were supplied, the transformations which appeared to
take place (from very low to higher organisms) were sudden, definite, and
complete.
Therefore, if this is so, there must probably exist in higher forms a
similar tendency to such change. That tendency may indeed be long
suppressed, and ultimately modified by the action of heredity—an
action which would increase in force with the increase in the perfection
and complexity of the organism affected. Still we might expect that such
changes as do take place would be also sudden, definite, and
complete.
Moreover, as the same causes produce the same effects, several
individual parent forms must often have been similarly and simultaneously
affected. That they should be so affected—at least that several
similarly modified individuals should simultaneously arise—has been
seen to be a generally necessary circumstance for the permanent duration
of such new modifications.
It is also conceivable that such new forms may be endowed [237]with
excessive constitutional strength and viability, and with generative
prepotency, as was the case with the black-shouldered peacock in Sir J.
Trevelyan’s flock. This flock was entirely composed of the common kind,
and yet the new form rapidly developed itself “to the extinction of
the previously existing breed.”[242]
Indeed, the notion accepted by both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert
Spencer, and which is plainly the fact (namely, that changes of
conditions and incident forces, within limits, augment the viability and
fertility of individuals), harmonizes well with the suggested possibility
as to an augmented viability and prepotency in new organic forms evolved
by peculiar consentaneous actions of conditions and forces, both external
and internal.
The remarkable series of changes noted by Dr. Bastian were certainly
not produced by external incident forces only, but by these acting
on a peculiar materia, having special properties and powers.
Therefore, the changes were induced by the consentaneous action of
internal and external forces.[243] In the same way then, we may expect
changes in higher forms to be evolved by similar united action of
internal and external forces.
One other point may here be alluded to. When the remarkable way in
which structure and function simultaneously change, is borne in mind;
when those numerous instances in which nature has supplied similar wants
by similar means, as detailed in Chapter III., are remembered; when also
all the wonderful contrivances of orchids, of mimicry, and the strange
complexity of certain instinctive actions are considered: then the
conviction forces itself on many minds that the organic world is the
expression of an intelligence of some kind. This view has been well
advocated by Mr. Joseph John Murphy, in his recent work so often here
referred to.
This intelligence, however, is evidently not altogether such as ours,
or else has other ends in view than those most obvious to us. For the end
is often attained in singularly roundabout ways, or with a prodigality of
means which seems out of all proportion with the result: not with the
simple action directed to one end which generally marks human
activity.
Organic nature then speaks clearly to many minds of the action of an
intelligence resulting, on the whole and in the main, in order, harmony,
and beauty, yet of an intelligence the ways of which are not such as
ours.
This view of evolution harmonizes well with Theistic conceptions; not,
of course, that this harmony is brought forward as an argument in its
favour generally, but it will have weight with those who are convinced
that Theism reposes upon solid grounds of reason as the rational
view of the universe. To such it may be observed that, thus conceived,
the Divine action has that slight amount of resemblance to, and that wide
amount of divergence from what human action would be, which might be
expected a priori—might be expected, that is, from a Being
whose nature and aims are utterly beyond our power to imagine, however
faintly, but whose truth and goodness are the fountain and source of our
own perceptions of such qualities.
The view of evolution maintained in this work, though arrived at in
complete independence, yet seems to agree in many respects with the views
advocated by Professor Owen in the last volume of his “Anatomy of
Vertebrates,” under the term “derivation.” He says:[244] “Derivation holds that every species
changes in time, by virtue of inherent tendencies thereto. ‘Natural
Selection’ holds that no such change can take place without the influence
of altered external circumstances.[245] [239]‘Derivation’ sees among
the effects of the innate tendency to change irrespective of altered
circumstances, a manifestation of creative power in the variety and
beauty of the results; and, in the ultimate forthcoming of a being
susceptible of appreciating such beauty, evidence of the pre-ordaining of
such relation of power to the appreciation. ‘Natural Selection’
acknowledges that if ornament or beauty, in itself, should be a purpose
in creation, it would be absolutely fatal to it as a hypothesis.”
“‘Natural Selection’ sees grandeur in the view of life, with its
several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few
forms or into one. ‘Derivation’ sees therein a narrow invocation of a
special miracle and an unworthy limitation of creative power, the
grandeur of which is manifested daily, hourly, in calling into life many
forms, by conversion of physical and chemical into vital modes of force,
under as many diversified conditions of the requisite elements to be so
combined.”
The view propounded in this work allows, however, a greater and more
important part to the share of external influences, it being believed by
the Author, however, that these external influences equally with the
internal ones are the results of one harmonious action underlying the
whole of nature, organic and inorganic, cosmical, physical, chemical,
terrestrial, vital, and social.
According to this view, an internal law presides over the actions of
every part of every individual, and of every organism as a unit, and of
the entire organic world as a whole. It is believed that this conception
of an internal innate force will ever remain necessary, however much its
subordinate processes and actions may become explicable:
That by such a force, from time to time, new species are manifested by
ordinary generation just as Pavo nigripennis appeared suddenly,
these new forms not being monstrosities but harmonious self-consistent
wholes. That thus, as specific distinctness [240]is manifested by
obscure sexual conditions, so in obscure sexual modifications specific
distinctions arise.
That these “jumps” are considerable in comparison with the minute
variations of “Natural Selection”—are in fact sensible steps, such
as discriminate species from species.
That the latent tendency which exists to these sudden evolutions is
determined to action by the stimulus of external conditions.
That “Natural Selection” rigorously destroys monstrosities, and
abortive and feeble attempts at the performance of the evolutionary
process.
That “Natural Selection” removes the antecedent species rapidly when
the new one evolved is more in harmony with surrounding conditions.
That “Natural Selection” favours and develops useful variations,
though it is impotent to originate them or to erect the physiological
barrier which seems to exist between species.
By some such conception as this, the difficulties here enumerated,
which beset the theory of “Natural Selection” pure and simple, are to be
got over.
Thus, for example, the difficulties discussed in the first
chapter—namely, those as to the origins and first beginnings of
certain structures—are completely evaded.
Again, as to the independent origin of closely similar structures,
such as the eyes of the Vertebrata and cuttle-fishes, the difficulty is
removed if we may adopt the conception of an innate force similarly
directed in each case, and assisted by favourable external
conditions.
Specific stability, limitation to variability, and the facts of
reversion, all harmonize with the view here put forward. The same may be
said with regard to the significant facts of homology, and of organic
symmetry; and our consideration of the hypothesis of Pangenesis in
Chapter X., has seemed to result in a view as to innate powers which
accords well with what is here advocated. [241]
The evolutionary hypothesis here advocated also serves to explain all
those remarkable facts which were stated in the first chapter to be
explicable by the theory of Natural Selection, namely, the relation of
existing to recent faunas and floras; the phenomena of homology and of
rudimentary structures; also the processes gone through in development;
and lastly, the wonderful facts of mimicry.
Finally, the view adopted is the synthesis of many distinct and, at
first sight, conflicting conceptions, each of which contains elements of
truth, and all of which it appears to be able more or less to
harmonize.
Thus it has been seen that “Natural Selection” is accepted. It acts
and must act, though alone it does not appear capable of fulfilling the
task assigned to it by Mr. Darwin.
Pangenesis has probably also much truth in it, and has certainly
afforded valuable and pregnant suggestions, but unaided and alone it
seems inadequate to explain the evolution of the individual organism.
Those three conceptions of the organic world which may be spoken of as
the teleological, the typical, and the transmutationist, have often been
regarded as mutually antagonistic and conflicting.
The genesis of species as here conceived, however, accepts, locates,
and harmonizes all the three.
Teleology concerns the ends for which organisms were designed. The
recognition, therefore, that their formation took place by an evolution
not fortuitous, in no way invalidates the acknowledgment of their final
causes if on other grounds there are reasons for believing that such
final causes exist.
Conformity to type, or the creation of species according to certain
“divine ideas,” is in no way interfered with by such a process of
evolution as is here advocated. Such “divine ideas” must be accepted or
declined upon quite other grounds than the mode of their realization, and
of their manifestation in the world of sensible phenomena. [242]
Transmutationism (an old name for the evolutionary hypothesis), which
was conceived at one time to be the very antithesis to the two preceding
conceptions, harmonizes well with them if the evolution be conceived to
be orderly and designed. It will in the next chapter be shown to be
completely in harmony with conceptions, upon the acceptance of which
“final causes” and “divine ideal archetypes” alike depend.
Thus then, if the cumulative argument put forward in this book is
valid, we must admit the insufficiency of Natural Selection both on
account of the residuary phenomena it fails to explain, and on account of
certain other phenomena which seem actually to conflict with that theory.
We have seen that though the laws of nature are constant, yet some of the
conditions which determine specific change may be exceptionally absent at
the present epoch of the world’s history; also that it is not only
possible, but highly probable, that an internal power or tendency is an
important if not the main agent in evoking the manifestation of new
species on the scene of realized existence, and that in any case, from
the facts of homology, innate internal powers to the full as mysterious
must anyhow be accepted, whether they act in specific origination or not.
Besides all this, we have seen that it is probable that the action of
this innate power is stimulated, evoked, and determined by external
conditions, and also that the same external conditions, in the shape of
“Natural Selection,” play an important part in the evolutionary process:
and finally, it has been affirmed that the view here advocated, while it
is supported by the facts on which Darwinism rests, is not open to the
objections and difficulties which oppose themselves to the reception of
“Natural Selection,” as the exclusive or even as the main agent in the
successive and orderly evolution of organic forms in the genesis of
species. [243]
CHAPTER XII.
THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION.
Prejudiced opinions on the subject.—”Creation” sometimes denied
from prejudice.—-The unknowable.—Mr. Herbert Spencer’s
objections to theism; to creation.—Meanings of term
“creation.”—Confusion from not distinguishing between “primary” and
“derivative” creation.—Mr. Darwin’s objections.—Bearing of
Christianity on the theory of evolution.—Supposed opposition, the
result of a misconception.—Theological authority not opposed to
evolution.—St. Augustin.—St. Thomas Aquinas.—Certain
consequences of want of flexibility of mind.—Reason and
imagination.—The first cause and demonstration.—Parallel
between Christianity and natural theology.—What evolution of
species is.—Professor Agassiz.—Innate powers must be
recognized.—Bearing of evolution on religious
belief.—Professor Huxley.—Professor Owen.—Mr.
Wallace.—Mr. Darwin.—A priori conception of Divine
action.—Origin of man.—Absolute creation and dogma.—Mr.
Wallace’s view.—A supernatural origin for man’s body not
necessary.—Two orders of being in man.—Two modes of
origin.—Harmony of the physical, hyperphysical, and
supernatural.—Reconciliation of science and religion as regards
evolution.—Conclusion.
The special “Darwinian Theory” and that of an evolutionary process
neither excessively minute nor fortuitous, having now been considered, it
is time to turn to the important question, whether both or either of
these conceptions may have any bearing, and if any, what, upon Christian
belief?
Some readers will consider such an inquiry to be a work of
supererogation. Seeing clearly themselves the absurdity of prevalent
popular views, and the shallowness of popular objections, they may be
impatient of any discussion, on the [244]subject. But it is
submitted that there are many minds worthy of the highest esteem and of
every consideration, which have regarded the subject hitherto almost
exclusively from one point of view; that there are some persons who are
opposed to the progress (in their own minds or in that of their children
or dependents) of physical scientific truth—the natural
revelation—through a mistaken estimate of its religious bearings,
while there are others who are zealous in its promotion from a precisely
similar error. For the sake of both these then the Author may perhaps be
pardoned for entering slightly on very elementary matters relating to the
question, whether evolution or Darwinism have any, and if any, what,
bearing on theology?
There are at least two classes of men who will certainly assert that
they have a very important and highly significant bearing upon it.
One of these classes consists of persons zealous for religion indeed,
but who identify orthodoxy with their own private interpretation of
Scripture or with narrow opinions in which they have been brought
up—opinions doubtless widely spread, but at the same time destitute
of any distinct and authoritative sanction on the part of the Christian
Church.
The other class is made up of men hostile to religion, and who are
glad to make use of any and every argument which they think may possibly
be available against it.
Some individuals within this latter class may not believe in the
existence of God, but may yet abstain from publicly avowing this absence
of belief, contenting themselves with denials of “creation” and “design,”
though these denials are really consequences of their attitude of mind
respecting the most important and fundamental of all beliefs.
Without a distinct belief in a personal God it is impossible to have
any religion worthy of the name, and no one can at the same time accept
the Christian religion and deny the dogma of creation. [245]
“I believe in God,” “the Creator of Heaven and Earth,” the very first
clauses of the Apostles’ Creed, formally commit those who accept them to
the assertion of this belief. If, therefore, any theory of physical
science really conflicts with such an authoritative statement, its
importance to Christians is unquestionable.
As, however, “creation” forms a part of “revelation,” and as
“revelation” appeals for its acceptance to “reason” which has to prepare
a basis for it by an intelligent acceptance of theism on purely
rational grounds, it is necessary to start with a few words as to the
reasonableness of belief in God, which indeed are less superfluous than
some readers may perhaps imagine; “a few words,” because this is not the
place where the argument can be drawn out, but only one or two hints
given in reply to certain modern objections.
No better example perhaps can be taken, as a type of these objections,
than a passage in Mr. Herbert Spencer’s First Principles.[246] This author constantly
speaks of the “ultimate cause of things” as “the Unknowable,” a term
singularly unfortunate, and as Mr. James Martineau has pointed out,[247] even [246]self-contradictory: for that entity, the
knowledge of the existence of which presses itself ever more and more
upon the cultivated intellect, cannot be the unknown, still less the
unknowable, because we certainly know it, in that we know for certain
that it exists. Nay more, to predicate incognoscibility of it, is even a
certain knowledge of the mode of its existence. Mr. H. Spencer says:[248] “The consciousness of
an Inscrutable Power manifested to us through all phenomena has been
growing ever clearer; and must eventually be freed from its
imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such a Power exists,
while on the other hand its nature transcends intuition, and is beyond
imagination, is the certainty towards which intelligence has from the
first been progressing.” One would think then that the familiar and
accepted word “the Inscrutable” (which is in this passage actually
employed, and to which no theologian would object) would be an
indefinitely better term than “the unknowable.” The above extract has,
however, such a theistic aspect that some readers may think the
opposition here offered superfluous; it may be well, therefore, to quote
two other sentences. In another place he observes,[249] “Passing over the consideration of
credibility, and confining ourselves to that of conceivability, we see
that atheism, pantheism, and theism, when rigorously analysed, severally
prove to be absolutely unthinkable;” and speaking of “every form of
religion,” he adds,[250]
“The analysis of every possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no
hypothesis is sufficient but that no hypothesis is even thinkable.” The
unknowable is admitted to be a power which cannot be regarded as having
sympathy with us, but as one to which no emotion whatever [247]can be
ascribed, and we are expressly forbidden “by duty,” to affirm
personality of God as much as to deny it of Him. How such a being can be
presented as an object on which to exercise religious emotion it is
difficult indeed to understand.[251] Aspiration, love, devotion to be
poured forth upon what we can never know, upon what we can never affirm
to know, or care for, us, our thoughts or actions, or to possess the
attributes of wisdom and goodness! The worship offered in such a religion
must be, as Professor Huxley says,[252] “for the most part of the silent
sort”—silent not only as to the spoken word, but silent as to the
mental conception also. It will be difficult to distinguish the follower
of this religion from the follower of none, and the man who declines
either to assert or to deny the existence of God, is practically in the
position of an atheist. For theism enjoins the cultivation of sentiments
of love and devotion to God, and the practice of their external
expression. Atheism forbids both, while the simply non-theist abstains in
conformity with the prohibition of the atheist and thus practically sides
with him. Moreover, since man cannot imagine that of which he has no
experience in any way whatever, and since he has experience only of
human perfections and of the powers and properties of
inferior existences; if he be required to deny human perfections
and to abstain from making use of such conceptions, he is thereby
necessarily reduced to others of an inferior order. [248]Mr. H. Spencer
says,[253] “Those who
espouse this alternative position, make the erroneous assumption that the
choice is between personality and something lower than personality;
whereas the choice is rather between personality and something higher. Is
it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending
intelligence and will, as these transcend mechanical motion?”
“It is true we are totally unable to conceive any such higher mode of
being. But this is not a reason for questioning its existence; it is
rather the reverse.” “May we not therefore rightly refrain from assigning
to the ‘ultimate cause’ any attributes whatever, on the ground that such
attributes, derived as they must be from our own natures, are not
elevations but degradations?” The way however to arrive at the object
aimed at (i.e. to obtain the best attainable conception of the
First Cause) is not to refrain from the only conceptions possible to
us, but to seek the very highest of these, and then declare their
utter inadequacy; and this is precisely the course which has been pursued
by theologians. It is to be regretted that before writing on this matter
Mr. Spencer did not more thoroughly acquaint himself with the ordinary
doctrine on the subject. It is always taught in the Church schools of
divinity, that nothing, not even existence, is to be predicated
univocally of “God” and “creatures;” that after exhausting
ingenuity to arrive at the loftiest possible conceptions, we must declare
them to be utterly inadequate; that, after all, they are but
accommodations to human infirmity; that they are in a sense objectively
false (because of their inadequacy), though subjectively and very
practically true. But the difference between this mode of treatment and
that adopted by Mr. Spencer is wide indeed; for the practical result of
the mode inculcated by the Church is that each one may freely affirm and
act upon [249]the highest human conceptions he can
attain of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, His watchful care, His
loving providence for every man, at every moment and in every need; for
the Christian knows that the falseness of his conceptions lies only in
their inadequacy; he may therefore strengthen and refresh himself,
may rejoice and revel in conceptions of the goodness of God, drawn from
the tenderest human images of fatherly care and love, or he may chasten
and abase himself by consideration of the awful holiness and
unapproachable majesty of the Divinity derived from analogous sources,
knowing that no thought of man can ever be true enough, can ever
attain the incomprehensible reality, which nevertheless really is
all that can be conceived, plus an inconceivable infinity
beyond.
A good illustration of what is here meant, and of the difference
between the theistic position and Mr. Spencer’s, may be supplied by an
example he has himself proposed. Thus,[254] he imagines an intelligent watch
speculating as to its maker, and conceiving of him in terms of
watch-being, and figuring him as furnished with springs, escapements,
cogged wheels, &c., his motions facilitated by oil—in a word,
like himself. It is assumed by Mr. Spencer that this necessary watch
conception would be completely false, and the illustration is made use of
to show “the presumption of theologians”—the absurdity and
unreasonableness of those men who figure the incomprehensible cause of
all phenomena as a Being in some way comparable with man. Now, putting
aside for the moment all other considerations, and accepting the
illustration, surely the example demonstrates rather the unreasonableness
of the objector himself! It is true, indeed, that a man is an
organism indefinitely more complex and perfect than any watch; but if the
watch could only conceive of its maker in watch terms, or else in terms
altogether inferior, the watch would plainly be right in speaking of [250]its
maker as a, to it, inconceivably perfect kind of watch, acknowledging at
the same time, that this, its conception of him, was utterly
inadequate, although the best its inferior nature allowed it to form.
For if, instead of so conceiving of its maker, it refused to make use of
these relative perfections as a makeshift, and so necessarily thought of
him as amorphous metal, or mere oil, or by the help of any other inferior
conception which a watch might be imagined capable of entertaining, that
watch would he wrong indeed. For man can much more properly be compared
with, and has much more affinity to, a perfect watch in full activity
than to a mere piece of metal, or drop of oil. But the watch is even more
in the right still, for its maker, man, virtually has the cogged
wheels, springs, escapements, oil, &c., which the watch’s conception
has been supposed to attribute to him; inasmuch as all these parts must
have existed as distinct ideas in the human watchmaker’s mind before he
could actually construct the clock formed by him. Nor is even this all,
for, by the hypothesis, the watch thinks. It must, therefore,
think of its maker as “a thinking being,” and in this it is absolutely
and completely right.[255] Either, therefore, the hypothesis is
absurd or it actually demonstrates the very position it was
chosen to refute. Unquestionably, then, on the mere ground taken by
Mr. Herbert Spencer himself, if we are compelled to think of the First
Cause either in human terms (but with human imperfections abstracted and
human perfections carried to the highest conceivable degree), or, on the
other hand, in terms decidedly inferior, such as those are driven to who
think of Him, but decline to accept as a help the term “personality;”
there can be no question but that the first conception is immeasurably
nearer the truth than the second. Yet the latter is the one put forward
and advocated by that author in spite of its unreasonableness, and in
spite also [251]of its conflicting with the whole moral
nature of man and all his noblest aspirations.
Again, Mr. Herbert Spencer objects to the conception of God as “first
cause,” on the ground that “when our symbolic conceptions are such that
no cumulative or indirect processes of thought can enable us to ascertain
that there are corresponding actualities, nor any predictions be made
whose fulfilment can prove this, then they are altogether vicious and
illusive, and in no way distinguishable from pure fictions.”[256]
Now, it is quite true that “symbolic conceptions,” which are not to be
justified either (1) by presentations of sense, or (2) by intuitions, are
invalid as representations of real truth. Yet the conception of God
referred to is justified by our primary intuitions, and we can
assure ourselves that it does stand for an actuality by comparing
it with (1) our intuitions of free-will and causation, and (2) our
intuitions of morality and responsibility. That we have these
intuitions is a point on which the Author joins issue with Mr. Spencer,
and confidently affirms that they cannot logically be denied without at
the same time complete and absolute scepticism resulting from such
denial—scepticism wherein vanishes any certainty as to the
existence both of Mr. Spencer and his critic, and by which it is equally
impossible to have a thought free from doubt, or to go so far as to
affirm the existence of that very doubt or of the doubter who doubts
it.
It may not be amiss here to protest against the intolerable assumption
of a certain school, who are continually talking in lofty terms of
“science,” but who actually speak of primary religious conceptions as
“unscientific,” and habitually employ the word “science,” when they
should limit it by the prefix “physical.” This is the more amazing as not
a few of this school adopt the idealist philosophy, and affirm that
“matter and force” are but names for certain “modes of consciousness.” It
might be expected of them at least to admit that opinions which repose
[252]on primary and fundamental intuitions, are
especially and par excellence scientific.
Such are some of the objections to the Christian conception of God. We
may now turn to those which are directed against God as the Creator,
i.e. as the absolute originator of the universe, without the
employment of any pre-existing means or material. This is again
considered by Mr. Spencer as a thoroughly illegitimate symbolic
conception, as much so as the atheistic one—the difficulty as to a
self-existent Creator being in his opinion equal to that of a
self-existent universe. To this it may be replied that both are of
course equally unimaginable, but that it is not a question of
facility of conception—not which is easiest to conceive, but which
best accounts for, and accords with, psychological facts; namely, with
the above-mentioned intuitions. It is contended that we have these
primary intuitions, and that with these the conception of a self-existent
Creator is perfectly harmonious. On the other hand, the notion of a
self-existent universe—that there is no real distinction between
the finite and the infinite—that the universe and ourselves are one
and the same things with the infinite and the self-existent; these
assertions, in addition to being unimaginable, contradict
our primary intuitions.
Mr. Darwin’s objections to “Creation” are of quite a different kind,
and, before entering upon them, it will be well to endeavour clearly to
understand what we mean by “Creation,” in the various senses in which the
term may be used.
In the strictest and highest sense “Creation” is the absolute
origination of anything by God without pre-existing means or material,
and is a supernatural act.[257]
In the secondary and lower sense, “Creation” is the formation of
anything by God derivatively; that is, that the preceding matter
has been created with the potentiality to evolve from it, [253]under suitable
conditions, all the various forms it subsequently assumes. And this power
having been conferred by God in the first instance, and those laws and
powers having been instituted by Him, through the action of which the
suitable conditions are supplied, He is said in this lower sense to
create such various subsequent forms. This is the natural action
of God in the physical world, as distinguished from His direct, or, as it
may be here called, supernatural action.
In yet a third sense, the word “Creation” may be more or less
improperly applied to the construction of any complex formation or state
by a voluntary self-conscious being who makes use of the powers and laws
which God has imposed, as when a man is spoken of as the creator of a
museum, or of “his own fortune,” &c. Such action of a created
conscious intelligence is purely natural, but more than physical, and may
be conveniently spoken of as hyperphysical.
We have thus (1) direct or supernatural action; (2) physical action;
and (3) hyperphysical action—-the two latter both belonging to the
order of nature.[258]
Neither the physical nor the hyperphysical actions, however, exclude the
idea of the Divine concurrence, and with every consistent theist that
idea is necessarily included. Dr. Asa Gray has given expression to
this.[259] He says,
“Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat, does
not exclude the idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes.
The record of the fiat—’Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed,’ &c., ‘let the earth bring forth the living creature
after his kind’—seems even to imply them,” and leads to the
conclusion that the various kinds were produced through natural
agencies.
Now, much confusion has arisen from not keeping clearly in view this
distinction between absolute creation and derivative
creation. With the first, physical science has plainly nothing whatever
to do, and is impotent to prove or to refute it. The second is also safe
from any attack on the part of physical science, for it is primarily
derived from psychical not physical phenomena. The greater part of the
apparent force possessed by objectors to creation, like Mr. Darwin, lies
in their treating the assertion of derivative creation as if it was an
assertion of absolute creation, or at least of supernatural action. Thus,
he asks whether some of his opponents believe “that at innumerable
periods in the earth’s history, certain elemental atoms have been
commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues.”[260] Certain of Mr. Darwin’s objections,
however, are not physical, but metaphysical, and really attack the
dogma of secondary or derivative creation, though to some perhaps they
may appear to be directed against absolute creation only.
Thus he uses, as an illustration, the conception of a man who builds
an edifice from fragments of rock at the base of a precipice, by
selecting for the construction of the various parts of the building the
pieces which are the most suitable owing to the shape they happen to have
broken into. Afterwards, alluding to this illustration, he says,[261] “The shape of the
fragments of stone at the base of our precipice may be called accidental,
but this is not strictly correct, for the shape of each depends on a long
sequence of events, all obeying natural laws, on the nature of the rock,
on the lines of stratification or cleavage, on the form of the mountain
which depends on its upheaval and subsequent denudation, and lastly, on
the storm and earthquake which threw down the fragments. But in regard to
the use to which the fragments may be put, their shape may strictly be
[255]said to be accidental. And here we are led
to face a great difficulty, in alluding to which I am aware that I am
travelling beyond my proper province.”
“An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every consequence which
results from the laws imposed by Him; but can it be reasonably maintained
that the Creator intentionally ordered, if we use the words in any
ordinary sense, that certain fragments of rock should assume certain
shapes, so that the builder might erect his edifice? If the various laws
which have determined the shape of each fragment were not predetermined
for the builder’s sake, can it with any greater probability be maintained
that He specially ordained, for the sake of the breeder, each of the
innumerable variations in our domestic animals and plants—many of
these variations being of no service to man, and not beneficial, far more
often injurious, to the creatures themselves? Did He ordain that the crop
and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary, in order that the fancier
might make his grotesque pouter and fantail breeds? Did He cause the
frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary, in order that a breed
might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the
bull for man’s brutal sport? But, if we give up the principle in one
case—-if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog
were intentionally guided, in order that the greyhound, for instance,
that perfect image of symmetry and vigour, might be formed,—no
shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that the variations,
alike in nature, and the result of the same general laws, which have been
the groundwork through Natural Selection of the formation of the most
perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally
and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow
Professor Asa Gray in his belief that ‘variation has been led along
certain beneficial lines,’ like a stream ‘along definite and useful lines
of irrigation.'”
“If we assume that each particular variation was from the [256]beginning
of all time pre-ordained, the plasticity of the organization, which leads
to many injurious deviations of structure, as well as that redundant
power of reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence,
and, as a consequence, to the Natural Selection and survival of the
fittest, must appear to us superfluous laws of nature. On the other hand,
an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees
everything. Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as
insoluble as is that of freewill and predestination.”
Before proceeding to reply to this remarkable passage, it may be well
to remind some readers that belief in the existence of God, in His
primary creation of the universe, and in His derivative creation of all
kinds of being, inorganic and organic, do not repose upon physical
phenomena, but, as has been said, on primary intuitions. To deny or
ridicule any of these beliefs on physical grounds is to commit the
fallacy of ignoratio elenchi. It is to commit an absurdity
analogous to that of saying a blind child could not recognize his father
because he could not see him, forgetting that he could hear
and feel him. Yet there are some who appear to find it
unreasonable and absurd that men should regard phenomena in a light not
furnished by or deducible from the very phenomena themselves, although
the men so regarding them avow that the light in which they do view them
comes from quite another source. It is as if a man, A, coming into B’s
room and finding there a butterfly, should insist that B had no right to
believe that the butterfly had not flown in at the open window, inasmuch
as there was nothing about the room or insect to lead to any other
belief; while B can well sustain his right so to believe, he having met
C, who told him he brought in the chrysalis and, having seen the insect
emerge, took away the skin.
By a similarly narrow and incomplete view the assertion that human
conceptions, such as “the vertebrate idea,” &c., are ideas in the
mind of God, is sometimes ridiculed; as if the assertors [257]either on the
one hand pretended to some prodigious acuteness of mind—a
far-reaching genius not possessed by most naturalists—or, on the
other hand, as if they detected in the very phenomena furnishing such
special conception evidences of Divine imaginings. But let the idea of
God, according to the highest conceptions of Christianity, be once
accepted, and then it becomes simply a truism to say that the mind of the
Deity contains all that is good and positive in the mind of
man, plus, of course, an absolutely inconceivable infinity beyond.
That thus such human conceptions may, nay must, be asserted to be at the
same time ideas in the Divine mind also, as every real and separate
individual that has been, is, or shall be, is present to the same mind.
Nay, more, that such human conceptions are but faint and obscure
adumbrations of corresponding ideas which exist in the mind of God in
perfection and fulness.[262]
The theist, having arrived at his theistic convictions from quite
other sources than a consideration of zoological or botanical [258]phenomena,
returns to the consideration of such phenomena and views them in a
theistic light without of course asserting or implying that such light
has been derived from them, or that there is an obligation of
reason so to view them on the part of others who refuse to enter upon or
to accept those other sources whence have been derived the theistic
convictions of the theist.
But Mr. Darwin is not guilty of arguing against metaphysical ideas on
physical grounds only, for he employs very distinctly metaphysical ones;
namely, his conceptions of the nature and attributes of the First Cause.
But what conceptions does he offer us? Nothing but that low
anthropomorphism which, unfortunately, he so often seems to treat as the
necessary result of Theism. It is again the dummy, helpless and deformed,
set up merely for the purpose of being knocked down.
It must once more be insisted on, that though man is indeed compelled
to conceive of God in human terms, and to speak of Him by epithets
objectively false, from their hopeless inadequacy, yet nevertheless the
Christian thinker declares that inadequacy in the strongest manner, and
vehemently rejects from his idea of God all terms distinctly implying
infirmity or limitation.
Now, Mr. Darwin speaks as if all who believe in the Almighty were
compelled to accept as really applicable to the Deity conceptions which
affirm limits and imperfections. Thus he says: “Can it be reasonably
maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered” “that certain
fragments of rock should assume certain shapes, so that the builder might
erect his edifice?”
Why, surely every theist must maintain that in the first foundation of
the universe—the primary and absolute creation—God saw and
knew every purpose which every atom and particle of matter should ever
subserve in all suns and systems, and throughout all coming æons of time.
It is almost incredible, but nevertheless it seems necessary to think
that the difficulty thus proposed rests on a sort of notion that amidst
the boundless profusion of nature there is too much for God to
superintend; that the number [259]of objects is too great for an infinite
and omnipresent being to attend singly to each and all in their
due proportions and needs! In the same way Mr. Darwin asks whether God
can have ordered the race variations referred to in the passage last
quoted, for the considerations therein mentioned. To this it may be at
once replied that even man often has several distinct intentions
and motives for a single action, and the theist has no difficulty
in supposing that, out of an infinite number of motives, the motive
mentioned in each case may have been an exceedingly subordinate one. The
theist, though properly attributing to God what, for want of a better
term, he calls “purpose” and “design,” yet affirms that the limitations
of human purposes and motives are by no means applicable to the Divine
“purposes.” Out of many, say a thousand million, reasons for the
institution of the laws of the physical universe, some few are to a
certain extent conceivable by us; and amongst these the benefits,
material and moral, accruing from them to men, and to each individual man
in every circumstance of his life, play a certain, perhaps a very
subordinate, part.[263]
As Baden Powell observes, “How can we [260]undertake to affirm,
amid all the possibilities of things of which we confessedly know so
little, that a thousand ends and purposes may not be answered, because we
can trace none, or even imagine none, which seem to our short-sighted
faculties to be answered in these particular arrangements?”[264]
The objection to the bull-dog’s ferocity in connexion with “man’s
brutal sport” opens up the familiar but vast question of the existence of
evil, a problem the discussion of which would be out of place here.
Considering, however, the very great stress which is laid in the present
day on the subject of animal suffering by so many amiable and excellent
people, one or two remarks on that matter may not be superfluous. To
those who accept the belief in God, the soul and moral responsibility;
and recognize the full results of that acceptance—to such, physical
suffering and moral evil are simply incommensurable. To them the placing
of non-moral beings in the same scale with moral agents will be utterly
unendurable. But even considering physical pain only, all must admit that
this depends greatly on the mental condition of the sufferer. Only during
consciousness does it exist, and only in the most highly-organized men
does it reach its acme. The Author has been assured that lower races of
men appear less keenly sensitive to physical pain than do more cultivated
and refined human beings. Thus only in man can there really be any
intense degree of suffering, because only in him is there that
intellectual recollection of past moments and that anticipation of future
ones, which constitute in great part the bitterness of suffering.[265] The momentary pang,
the present pain, which beasts endure, though real enough, is yet, [261]doubtless, not to be compared as to its
intensity with the suffering which is produced in man through his high
prerogative of self-consciousness.[266]
As to the “beneficial lines” (of Dr. Asa Gray, before referred to),
some of the facts noticed in the preceding chapters seem to point very
decidedly in that direction, but all must admit that the actual existing
outcome is far more “beneficial” than the reverse. The natural universe
has resulted in the development of an unmistakable harmony and beauty,
and in a decided preponderance of good and of happiness over their
opposites.
Even if “laws of nature” did appear, on the theistic hypothesis, to be
“superfluous” (which it is by no means intended here to admit), it would
be nothing less than puerile to prefer rejecting the hypothesis to
conceiving that the appearance of superfluity was probably due to human
ignorance; and this especially might be expected from naturalists to whom
the interdependence of nature and the harmony and utility of obscure
phenomena are becoming continually more clear, as, e.g., the
structure of orchids to their illustrious expositor.
Having now cleared the ground somewhat, we may turn to the question
what bearing Christian dogma has upon evolution, and whether Christians,
as such, need take up any definite attitude concerning it.
As has been said, it is plain that physical science and “evolution”
can have nothing whatever to do with absolute or primary creation.
The Rev. Baden Powell well expresses this, saying: “Science demonstrates
incessant past changes, and dimly points to yet earlier links in a more
vast series of development of material existence; but the idea of a
beginning, or of creation, in the sense of the original
operation of the Divine volition to [262]constitute nature and
matter, is beyond the province of physical philosophy.”[267]
With secondary or derivative creation, physical science is also
incapable of conflict; for the objections drawn by some writers seemingly
from physical science, are, as has been already argued, rather
metaphysical than physical.
Derivative creation is not a supernatural act, but is simply the
Divine action by and through natural laws. To recognize such action in
such laws is a religious mode of regarding phenomena, which a consistent
theist must necessarily accept, and which an atheistic believer must
similarly reject. But this conception, if deemed superfluous by any
naturalist, can never be shown to be false by any investigations
concerning natural laws, the constant action of which it presupposes.
The conflict has arisen through a misunderstanding. Some have supposed
that by “creation” was necessarily meant either primary, that is,
absolute creation, or, at least, some supernatural action; they have
therefore opposed the dogma of “creation” in the imagined interest of
physical science.
Others have supposed that by “evolution” was necessarily meant a
denial of Divine action, a negation of the providence of God. They have
therefore combated the theory of “evolution” in the imagined interest of
religion.
It appears plain then that Christian thinkers are perfectly free to
accept the general evolution theory. But are there any theological
authorities to justify this view of the matter?
Now, considering how extremely recent are these biological
speculations, it might hardly be expected a priori that writers of
earlier ages should have given expression to doctrines harmonizing in any
degree with such very modern views,[268] nevertheless [263]such most certainly is
the case, and it would be easy to give numerous examples. It will be
better, however, only to cite [264]one or two authorities of weight. Now,
perhaps no writer of the earlier Christian ages could be quoted whose
authority is more generally recognized than that of St. Augustin. The
same may be said of the mediæval period, for St. Thomas Aquinas; and,
since the movement of Luther, Suarez may be taken as a writer widely
venerated as an authority and one whose orthodoxy has never been
questioned.
It must be borne in mind that for a considerable time after even the
last of these writers no one had disputed the generally received view as
to the small age of the world or at least of the kinds of animals and
plants inhabiting it. It becomes therefore much more striking if views
formed under such a condition of opinion are found to harmonize with
modern ideas regarding “Creation” and organic life.
Now St. Augustin insists in a very remarkable manner on the merely
derivative sense in which God’s creation of organic forms is to be
understood; that is, that God created them by conferring on the material
world the power to evolve them under suitable conditions. He says in his
book on Genesis:[269]
“Terrestria animalia, tanquam ex ultimo elemento mundi ultima;
nihilominus potentialiter, quorum numeros tempus postea
visibiliter explicaret.”
Again he says:—
“Sicut autem in ipso grano invisibiliter erant omnia simul, quæ per
tempora in arborem surgerent; ita ipse mundus cogitandus est, cum Deus
simul omnia creavit, habuisse simul omnia quæ in illo et cum illo
facta sunt quando factus est dies; non solum cœlum cum sole et lunâ
et sideribus … ; sed etiam illa quæ aqua et terra produxit
potentialiter atque causaliter, priusquam per temporum moras ita
exorirentur, quomodo nobis jam nota sunt in eis operibus, quæ Deus usque
nunc operatur.”[270]
“Omnium quippe rerum quæ corporaliter visibiliterque [265]nascuntur,
occulta quædam semina in istis corporeis mundi hujus elementis latent.”[271]
And again: “Ista quippe originaliter ac primordialiter in quadam
textura elementorum cuncta jam creata sunt; sed acceptis opportunitatibus
prodeunt.”[272]
St. Thomas Aquinas, as was said in the first chapter, quotes with
approval the saying of St. Augustin that in the first institution of
nature we do not look for Miracles, but for the laws of
Nature: “In prima institutione naturæ non quæritur miraculum, sed
quid natura rerum habeat, ut Augustinus dicit.”[273]
Again, he quotes with approval St. Augustin’s assertion that the kinds
were created only derivatively, “potentialiter tantum.”[274]
Also he says, “In prima autem rerum institutione fuit principium
activum verbum Dei, quod de materia elementari produxit animalia, vel in
actu vel virtute, secundum Aug. lib. 5 de Gen. ad lit. c. 5.”[275]
Speaking of “kinds” (in scholastic phraseology “substantial forms”)
latent in matter, he says: “Quas quidam posuerunt non incipere per
actionem naturæ sed prius in materia exstitisse, ponentes latitationem
formarum. Et hoc accidit eis ex ignorantia materiæ, quia nesciebant
distinguere inter potentiam et actum. Quia enim formæ præexistunt eas
simpliciter præexistere.”[276]
Also Cornelius à Lapide[277] contends that at least certain
animals were not absolutely, but only derivatively created, saying of
them, “Non fuerunt creata formaliter, sed potentialiter.”
As to Suarez, it will be enough to refer to Disp. xv., 2, n. 9, p.
508, t. i. Edition Vives, Paris; also Nos. 13—15, and many
[266]other references to the same effect could
easily be given, but these may suffice.
It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological
authorities distinctly assert derivative creation, and thus
harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require.
It may indeed truly be said with Roger Bacon, “The saints never
condemned many an opinion which the moderns think ought to be
condemned.”[278]
The various extracts given show clearly how far “evolution” is from
any necessary opposition to the most orthodox theology. The same may be
said of spontaneous generation. The most recent form of it, lately
advocated by Dr. H. Charlton Bastian,[279] teaches that matter exists in two
different forms, the crystalline (or statical) and the colloidal (or
dynamical) conditions. It also teaches that colloidal matter, when
exposed to certain conditions, presents the phenomena of life, and that
it can be formed from crystalline matter, and thus that the prima
materia of which these are diverse forms contains potentially all the
multitudinous kinds of animal and vegetable existence. This theory
moreover harmonizes well with the views here advocated, for just as
crystalline matter builds itself, under suitable conditions, along
certain definite lines, so analogously colloidal matter has its
definite lines and directions of development. It is not collected in
haphazard, accidental aggregations, but evolves according to its proper
laws and special properties.
The perfect orthodoxy of these views is unquestionable. Nothing is
plainer from the venerable writers quoted, as well as [267]from a mass of
other authorities, than that “the supernatural” is not to be looked for
or expected in the sphere of mere nature. For this statement there is a
general consensus of theological authority.
The teaching which the Author has received is, that God is indeed
inscrutable and incomprehensible to us from the infinity of His
attributes, so that our minds can, as it were, only take in, in a most
fragmentary and indistinct manner (as through a glass darkly), dim
conceptions of infinitesimal portions of His inconceivable perfection. In
this way the partial glimpses obtained by us in different modes differ
from each other; not that God is anything but the most perfect unity, but
that apparently conflicting views arise from our inability to apprehend
Him, except in this imperfect manner, i.e. by successive slight
approximations along different lines of approach. Sir William Hamilton
has said,[280] “Nature
conceals God, and man reveals Him.” It is not, according to the teaching
spoken of, exactly thus; but rather that physical nature reveals to us
one side, one aspect of the Deity, while the moral and religious worlds
bring us in contact with another, and at first, to our apprehension, a
very different one. The difference and discrepancy, however, which is at
first felt, is soon seen to proceed not from the reason but from a want
of flexibility in the imagination. This want is far from surprising. Not
only may a man naturally be expected to be an adept in his own art, but
at the same time to show an incapacity for a very different mode of
activity.[281] We rarely
find an artist who takes much interest [268]in jurisprudence, or a
prizefighter who is an acute metaphysician. Nay, more than this, a
positive distaste may grow up, which, in the intellectual order, may
amount to a spontaneous and unreasoning disbelief in that which appears
to be in opposition to the more familiar concept, and this at all times.
It is often and truly said, “that past ages were pre-eminently credulous
as compared with our own, yet the difference is not so much in the amount
of the credulity, as in the direction which it takes.”[282]
Dr. Newman observes: “Any one study, of whatever kind, exclusively
pursued, deadens in the mind the interest, nay the perception of any
other. Thus Cicero says, that Plato and Demosthenes, Aristotle and
Isocrates, might have respectively excelled in each other’s province, but
that each was absorbed in his own. Specimens of this peculiarity occur
every day. You can hardly persuade some men to talk about anything but
their own pursuit; they refer the whole world to their own centre, and
measure all matters by their own rule, like the fisherman in the drama,
whose eulogy on his deceased lord was ‘he was so fond of fish.'”[283]
The same author further says:[284] “When anything, which comes before
us, is very unlike what we commonly experience, we consider it on that
account untrue; not because it really shocks our reason as improbable,
but because it startles our imagination as strange. Now, revelation
presents to us a perfectly different aspect of the universe from that
presented by the sciences. The two informations are like the distinct
subjects represented by the lines of the same drawing, which, accordingly
[269]as they are read on their concave or
convex side, exhibit to us now a group of trees with branches and leaves,
and now human faces.” … “While then reason and revelation are
consistent in fact, they often are inconsistent in appearance; and this
seeming discordance acts most keenly on the imagination, and may suddenly
expose a man to the temptation, and even hurry him on to the commission
of definite acts of unbelief, in which reason itself really does not come
into exercise at all.”[285]
Thus we find in fact just that distinctness between the ideas derived
from physical science on the one hand and from religion on the other,
which we might a priori expect if there exists that distinctness
between the natural and the miraculous which theological authorities lay
down.
Assuming, for argument’s sake, the truth of Christianity, it evidently
has not been the intention of its Author to make the evidence for it so
plain that its rejection would be the mark of intellectual incapacity.
Conviction is not forced upon men in the way that the knowledge that the
government of England is constitutional, or that Paris is the capital of
France, is forced upon all who choose to inquire into those subjects. The
Christian system is one which puts on the strain, as it were,
every faculty of man’s nature, and the intellect is not (any more
than we should a priori expect it to be) exempted from taking part
in the probationary trial. A moral element enters into the acceptance of
that system.
And so with natural religion—with those ideas of the
supernatural, viz. God, Creation, and Morality, which are anterior to
revelation and repose upon reason. Here again it evidently has not been
the intention of the Creator to make the evidence of His existence so
plain that its non-recognition would be [270]the mark of
intellectual incapacity. Conviction, as to theism, is not forced upon men
as is the conviction of the existence of the sun at noon-day.[286] A moral element enters
also here, and the analogy there is in this respect between Christianity
and theism speaks eloquently of their primary derivation from one common
author.
Thus we might expect that it would be a vain task to seek anywhere in
nature for evidence of Divine action, such that no one could sanely deny
it. God will not allow Himself to be caught at the bottom of any man’s
crucible, or yield Himself to the experiments of gross-minded and
irreverent inquirers. The natural, like the supernatural, revelation
appeals to the whole of man’s mental nature and not to the
reason alone.[287]
None, therefore, need feel disappointed that evidence of the direct
action of the first cause in merely natural phenomena ever eludes our
grasp; for assuredly those same phenomena will ever remain fundamentally
inexplicable by physical science alone.
There being then nothing in either authority or reason which makes
“evolution” repugnant to Christianity, is there anything in the Christian
doctrine of “Creation” which is repugnant to the theory of
“evolution”?
Enough has been said as to the distinction between absolute and
derivative “creation.” It remains to consider the successive “evolution”
(Darwinian and other) of “specific forms,” in a theological light.
As to what “evolution” is, we cannot of course hope to explain it
completely, but it may be enough to define it as the manifestation to the
intellect, by means of sensible impressions, of some ideal entity (power,
principle, nature, or activity) [271]which before that manifestation was in a
latent, unrealized, and merely “potential” state—a state that is
capable of becoming realized, actual, or manifest, the requisite
conditions being supplied.
“Specific forms,” kinds or species, are (as was said in the
introductory chapter) “peculiar congeries of characters or attributes,
innate powers and qualities, and a certain nature realized in
individuals.”
Thus, then, the “evolution of specific forms” means the actual
manifestation of special powers, or natures, which before were latent, in
such a successive manner that there is in some way a genetic relation
between posterior manifestations and those which preceded them.
On the special Darwinian hypothesis the manifestation of these forms
is determined simply by the survival of the fittest of many indefinite
variations.
On the hypothesis here advocated the manifestation is controlled and
helped by such survival, but depends on some unknown internal law or laws
which determine variation at special times and in special directions.
Professor Agassiz objects to the evolution theory, on the ground that
“species, genera, families, &c., exist as thoughts, individuals as
facts,”[288] and he
offers the dilemma, “If species do not exist at all, as the supporters of
the transmutation theory maintain, how can they vary? and if individuals
alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them
prove the variability of species?”
But the supporter of “evolution” need only maintain that the several
“kinds” become manifested gradually by slight differences among the
various individual embodiments of one specific idea. He might reply to
the dilemma by saying, species do not exist as species in the
sense in which they are said to vary (variation applying only to the
concrete embodiments of [272]the specific idea), and the evolution of
species is demonstrated not by individuals as individuals, but as
embodiments of different specific ideas.
Some persons seem to object to the term “creation” being applied to
evolution, because evolution is an “exceedingly slow and gradual
process.” Now even if it were demonstrated that such is really the case,
it may be asked, what is “slow and gradual”? The terms are simply
relative, and the evolution of a specific form in ten thousand years
would be instantaneous to a being whose days were as hundreds of millions
of years.
There are others again who are inclined absolutely to deny the
existence of species altogether, on the ground that their evolution is so
gradual that if we could see all the stages it would be impossible to say
when the manifestation of the old specific form ceased and that of
the new one began. But surely it is no approach to a reason against the
existence of a thing that we cannot determine the exact moment of its
first manifestation. When watching “dissolving views,” who can tell,
whilst closely observing the gradual changes, exactly at what moment a
new picture, say St. Mark’s, Venice, can be said to have commenced its
manifestation, or have begun to dominate a preceding representation of
“Dotheboys’ Hall”? That, however, is no reason for denying the complete
difference between the two pictures and the ideas they respectively
embody.
The notion of a special nature, a peculiar innate power and
activity—what the scholastics called a “substantial
form”—will be distasteful to many. The objection to the notion
seems, however, to be a futile one, for it is absolutely impossible to
altogether avoid such a conception and such an assumption. If we refuse
it to the individuals which embody the species, we must admit it as
regards their component parts—nay, even if we accept the hypothesis
of pangenesis, we are nevertheless compelled to attribute to each gemmule
that peculiar power of reproducing its own nature (its own “substantial
form”), with its [273]special activity, and that remarkable
power of annexing itself to certain other well-defined gemmules whose
nature it is also to plant themselves in a certain definite vicinity. So
that in each individual, instead of one such peculiar power and activity
dominating and controlling all the parts, you have an infinity of
separate powers and activities limited to the several minute component
gemmules.
It is possible that in some minds, the notion may lurk that such
powers are simpler and easier to understand, because the bodies they
affect are so minute! This absurdity hardly bears stating. We can easily
conceive a being so small, that a gemmule would be to it as large as St.
Paul’s would be to us.
Admitting then the existence of species, and of their successive
evolution, is there anything in these ideas hostile to Christian
belief?
Writers such as Vogt and Buchner will of course contend that there is;
but naturalists, generally, assume that God acts in and by the various
laws of nature. And this is equivalent to admitting the doctrine of
“derivative creation.” With very few exceptions, none deny such Divine
concurrence. Even “design” and “purpose” are recognized as quite
compatible with evolution, and even with the special “nebular” and
Darwinian forms of it. Professor Huxley well says,[289] “It is necessary to remark that there
is a wider teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution,
but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution.” …
“The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not necessarily
mutually exclusive; on the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the
speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular
arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the
consequences; and the more completely thereby is he at the mercy of the
teleologist, who can always defy him to [274]disprove that this
primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena
of the universe.”[290]
Professor Owen says, that natural evolution, through secondary causes,
“by means of slow physical and organic operations through long ages, is
not the less clearly recognizable as the act of all adaptive mind,
because we have abandoned the old error of supposing it to be the
result[291] of a primary,
direct, and sudden act of creational construction.” … “The succession
of species by continuously operating law, is not necessarily a ‘blind
operation.’ Such law, however discerned in the properties and successions
of natural objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress.
Organisms may be evolved in orderly succession, stage after stage,
towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the course may still
show the unmistakable impress of Divine volition.”
Mr. Wallace[292]
declares that the opponents of evolution present a less elevated view of
the Almighty. He says: “Why should we suppose the machine too complicated
to have been designed by the Creator so complete that it would
necessarily work out harmonious results? The theory of ‘continual
interference’ is a limitation of the Creator’s power. It assumes that He
could not work by pure law in the organic, as He has done in the
inorganic world.” Thus, then, there is not only no necessary antagonism
between the general theory of “evolution” and a Divine action, but the
compatibility between the two is recognized by naturalists who cannot be
suspected of any strong theological bias.
The very same may be said as to the special Darwinian form of the
theory of evolution.
It is true Mr. Darwin writes sometimes as if he thought that his
theory militated against even derivative creation.[293] This, however, there
is no doubt, was not really meant; and indeed, in the passage before
quoted and criticised, the possibility of the Divine ordination of each
variation is spoken of as a tenable view. He says (“Origin of Species,”
p. 569), “I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should
shock the religious feelings of anyone;” and he speaks of life “having
been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one,”
which is more than the dogma of creation actually requires. We
find then that no incompatibility is asserted (by any scientific
writers worthy of mention) between “evolution” and the co-operation of
the Divine will; while the same “evolution” has been shown to be
thoroughly acceptable to the most orthodox theologians who repudiate the
intrusion of the supernatural into the domain of nature. A more complete
harmony could scarcely be desired.
But if we may never hope to find, in physical nature, evidence of
supernatural action, what sort of action might we expect to find there,
looking at it from a theistic point of view? Surely an action the results
of which harmonize with man’s reason,[294] which [276]is orderly, which
disaccords with the action of blind chance and with the “fortuitous
concourse of atoms” of Democritus; but at the same time an action which,
as to its modes, ever, in parts, and in ultimate analysis, eludes our
grasp, and the modes of which are different from those by which we should
have attempted to accomplish such ends.
Now, this is just what we do find. The harmony, the beauty, and
the order of the physical universe are the themes of continual panegyrics
on the part of naturalists, and Mr. Darwin, as the Duke of Argyll
remarks,[295] “exhausts
every form of words and of illustration by which intention or mental
purpose can be described”[296] when speaking of the wonderfully
complex adjustments to secure the fertilization of orchids. Also, we find
co-existing with this harmony a mode of proceeding so different from that
of man as (the direct supernatural action eluding us) to form a
stumbling-block to many in the way of their recognition of Divine action
at all: although nothing can be more inconsistent than to speak of the
first cause as utterly inscrutable and incomprehensible, and at the same
time to expect to find traces of a mode of action exactly similar to our
own. It is surely enough if the results harmonize on the whole and
preponderatingly with the rational, moral, and æsthetic instincts of
man.
Mr. J. J. Murphy[297]
has brought strongly forward the evidence of “intelligence” throughout
organic nature. He believes “that there is something in organic progress
which mere Natural Selection among spontaneous variations will not
account for,” and that “this something is that organizing intelligence
which guides the action of the inorganic forces, and forms structures
which neither Natural Selection nor any other unintelligent agency could
form.”
This intelligence, however, Mr. Murphy considers may be unconscious, a
conception which it is exceedingly difficult to understand, and which to
many minds appears to be little less than a contradiction in terms; the
very first condition of an intelligence being that, if it knows anything,
it should at least know its own existence.
Surely the evidence from physical facts agrees well with the
overruling, concurrent action of God in the order of nature; which is no
miraculous action, but the operation of laws which owe their foundation,
institution, and maintenance to an omniscient Creator of whose
intelligence our own is a feeble adumbration, inasmuch as it is created
in the “image and likeness” of its Maker.
This leads to the final consideration, a difficulty by no means to be
passed over in silence, namely the Origin of Man.
To the general theory of Evolution, and to the special Darwinian form of
it, no exception, it has been shown, need be taken on the ground of
orthodoxy. But in saying this, it has not been meant to include the soul
of man.
It is a generally received doctrine that the soul of every individual
man is absolutely created in the strict and primary sense of the word,
that it is produced by a direct or supernatural[298] act, and, of course, that by such an
act the soul of the first man was similarly created. It is therefore
important to inquire whether “evolution” conflicts with this
doctrine.
Now the two beliefs are in fact perfectly compatible, and that either
on the hypothesis—1. That man’s body was created in a manner
different in kind from that by which the bodies of other animals were
created; or 2. That it was created in a similar manner to theirs.
One of the authors of the Darwinian theory, indeed, contends [278]that even
as regards man’s body, an action took place different from that by which
brute forms were evolved. Mr. Wallace[299] considers that “Natural Selection”
alone could not have produced so large a brain in the savage, in
possessing which he is furnished with an organ beyond his needs. Also
that it could not have produced that peculiar distribution of hair,
especially the nakedness of the back, which is common to all races of
men, nor the peculiar construction of the feet and hands. He says,[300] after speaking of the
prehensile foot, common without a single exception to all the apes and
lemurs, “It is difficult to see why the prehensile power should have been
taken away” by the mere operation of Natural Selection. “It must
certainly have been useful in climbing, and the case of the baboons shows
that it is quite compatible with terrestrial locomotion. It may not be
compatible with perfectly easy erect locomotion; but, then, how can we
conceive that early man, as an animal, gained anything by purely
erect locomotion? Again, the hand of man contains latent capacities and
powers which are unused by savages, and must have been even less used by
palæolithic man and his still ruder predecessors. It has all the
appearance of an organ prepared for the use of civilized man, and one
which was required to render civilization possible.” Again speaking of
the “wonderful power, range, flexibility, and sweetness of the musical
sounds producible by the human larynx,” he adds, “The habits of savages
give no indication of how this faculty could have been developed by
Natural Selection; because it is never required or used by them. The
singing of savages is a more or less monotonous howling, and the females
seldom sing at all. Savages certainly never choose their wives for fine
voices, but for rude health, and strength and physical beauty. Sexual
selection could not therefore have developed this wonderful power, which
only comes into play among civilized people. It seems as if the organ had
been prepared in anticipation of the future [279]progress of man, since
it contains latent capacities which are useless to him in his earlier
condition. The delicate correlations of structure that give it such
marvellous powers, could not therefore have been acquired by means of
Natural Selection.”
FIBRES OF CORTI.
To this may be added the no less wonderful faculty in the ear of
appreciating delicate musical tones, and the harmony of chords.
It matters not what part of the organ subserves this function, but it
has been supposed that it is ministered to by the fibres of
Corti.[301] Now it
can hardly be contended that the preservation of any race of men in the
struggle for life could have depended on such an extreme delicacy and
refinement of the internal ear,[302]—a perfection only fully
exercised in the enjoyment and appreciation of the most exquisite musical
performances. Here, surely, we have an instance of an organ preformed,
ready beforehand for such action as could never by itself have been the
cause of its development,—the action having only been subsequent,
not anterior. The Author is not aware what may be the minute structure of
the internal ear in the highest apes, but if (as from analogy is
probable) it is much as in man, then a fortiori we have an
instance of anticipatory development of a most [280]marked and
unmistakable kind. And this is not all. There is no reason to suppose
that any animal besides man appreciates musical harmony. It is
certain that no other one produces it.
Mr. Wallace also urges objections drawn from the origin of some of
man’s mental faculties, such as “the capacity to form ideal conceptions
of space and time, of eternity and infinity—the capacity for
intense artistic feelings of pleasure, in form, colour and
composition—and for those abstract notions of form and number which
render geometry and arithmetic possible,” also from the origin of the
moral sense.[303]
The validity of these objections is fully conceded by the Author of
this book, but he would push it much further, and contend (as has been
now repeatedly said), that another law, or other laws, than “Natural
Selection” have determined the evolution of all organic forms, and
of inorganic forms also. And it must be contended that Mr. Wallace, in
order to be quite self-consistent, should arrive at the very same
conclusion, inasmuch as he is inclined to trace all phenomena to the
action of superhuman WILL. He says:[304] “If therefore we have
traced one force, however minute, to an origin in our own WILL, while we have no knowledge of any other primary
cause of force, it does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force
may be will-force; and thus, that the whole universe is not merely
dependent on, but actually is, the WILL
of higher intelligences, or of one Supreme Intelligence.”
If there is really evidence, as Mr. Wallace believes, of the action of
an overruling intelligence in the evolution of the “human form divine;”
if we may go so far as this, then surely an analogous action may well be
traced in the production of the horse, the camel, or the dog, so largely
identified with human wants and requirements. And if from other than
physical considerations we may believe that such action, though
undemonstrable, has been and is; then (reflecting on sensible phenomena
[281]the theistic light derived from psychical
facts) we may, in the language of Mr. Wallace, “see indications of that
power in facts which, by themselves, would not serve to prove its
existence.”[305]
Mr. Murphy, as has been said before, finds it necessary to accept the
wide-spread action of “intelligence” as the agent by which all
organic forms have been called forth from the inorganic. But all science
tends to unity, and this tendency makes it reasonable to extend to all
physical existences a mode of formation which we may have evidence for in
any one of them. It therefore makes it reasonable to extend, if
possible, the very same agency which we find operating in the field of
biology, also to the inorganic world. If on the grounds brought forward
the action of intelligence may be affirmed in the production of man’s
bodily structure, it becomes probable a priori that it may also be
predicated of the formative action by which has been produced the animals
which minister to him, and all organic life whatsoever. Nay more, it is
then congruous to expect analogous action in the development of
crystalline and colloidal structures, and in that of all chemical
compositions, in geological evolutions, and the formation not only of
this earth, but of the solar system and whole sidereal universe.
If such really be the direction in which physical science,
philosophically considered, points; if intelligence may thus be seen to
preside over the evolution of each system of worlds and the unfolding of
every blade of grass—this grand result harmonizes indeed with the
teachings of faith that God acts and concurs, in the natural order, with
those laws of the material universe which were not only instituted by His
will, but are sustained by His concurrence; and we are thus enabled to
discern in the natural order, however darkly, the Divine Author of
nature—Him in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.”
But if this view is accepted, then it is no longer absolutely [282]necessary to suppose that any action
different in kind took place in the production of man’s body, from that
which took place in the production of the bodies of other animals, and of
the whole material universe.
Of course, if it can be demonstrated that that difference which
Mr. Wallace asserts really exists, it is plain that we then have to do
with facts not only harmonizing with religion, but, as it were, preaching
and proclaiming it.
It is not, however, necessary for Christianity that any such view
should prevail. Man, according to the old scholastic definition, is “a
rational animal” (animal rationale), and his animality is distinct
in nature from his rationality, though inseparably joined, during life,
in one common personality. This animal body must have had a different
source from that of the spiritual soul which informs it, from the
distinctness of the two orders to which those two existences severally
belong.
Scripture seems plainly to indicate this when it says that “God made
man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life.” This is a plain and direct statement that man’s body was
not created in the primary and absolute sense of the word, but was
evolved from pre-existing material (symbolized by the term “dust of the
earth”), and was therefore only derivatively created, i.e. by the
operation of secondary laws. His soul, on the other hand, was
created in quite a different way, not by any pre-existing means, external
to God himself, but by the direct action of the Almighty, symbolized by
the term “breathing:” the very form adopted by Christ, when conferring
the supernatural powers and graces of the Christian dispensation,
and a form still daily used in the rites and ceremonies of the
Church.
That the first man should have had this double origin agrees with what
we now experience. For supposing each human soul to be directly and
immediately created, yet each human body is evolved by the ordinary
operation of natural physical laws. [283]
Professor Flower in his Introductory Lecture[306] (p. 20) to his course of Hunterian
Lectures for 1870 well observes: “Whatever man’s place may be, either
in or out of nature, whatever hopes, or fears or feelings
about himself or his race he may have, we all of us admit that these are
quite uninfluenced by our knowledge of the fact that each individual man
comes into the world by the ordinary processes of generation, according
to the same laws which apply to the development of all organic beings
whatever, that every part of him which can come under the scrutiny of the
anatomist or naturalist, has been evolved according to these regular laws
from a simple minute ovum, indistinguishable to our senses from that of
any of the inferior animals. If this be so—if man is what he is,
notwithstanding the corporeal mode of origin of the individual man, so he
will assuredly be neither less nor more than man, whatever may be shown
regarding the corporeal origin of the whole race, whether this was from
the dust of the earth, or by the modification of some pre-existing animal
form.”
Man is indeed compound, in him two distinct orders of being impinge
and mingle; and with this an origin from two concurrent modes of action
is congruous, and might be expected a priori. At the same time as
the “soul” is “the form of the body,” the former might be expected to
modify the latter into a structure of harmony and beauty standing alone
in the organic world of nature. Also that, with the full perfection and
beauty of that soul, attained by the concurrent action of “Nature” and
“Grace,” a character would be formed like nothing else which is visible
in this world, and having a mode of action different, inasmuch as
complementary to all inferior modes of action.
Something of this is evident even to those who approach the subject
from the point of view of physical science only. Thus Mr. Wallace
observes,[307] that on
his view man is to be placed [284]“apart, as not only the head and
culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as in some
degree a new and distinct order of being.[308] From those infinitely remote ages
when the first rudiments of organic life appeared upon the earth, every
plant and every animal has been subject to one great law of physical
change. As the earth has gone through its grand cycles of geological,
climatal, and organic progress, every form of life has been subject to
its irresistible action, and has been continually but imperceptibly
moulded into such new shapes as would preserve their harmony with the
ever-changing universe. No living thing could escape this law of its
being; none (except, perhaps, the simplest and most rudimentary
organisms) could remain unchanged and live amid the universal change
around it.”
“At length, however, there came into existence a being in whom that
subtle force we term mind, became of greater importance than his
mere bodily structure. Though with a naked and unprotected body,
this gave him clothing against the varying inclemencies of the
seasons. Though unable to compete with the deer in swiftness, or with the
wild bull in strength, this gave him weapons with which to capture
or overcome both. Though less capable than most other animals of living
on the herbs and the fruits that unaided nature supplies, this wonderful
faculty taught him to govern and direct nature to his own benefit, and
make her produce food for him when and where he pleased. From the moment
when the first skin was used as a covering; when the first rude spear was
formed to assist in the chase; when fire was first used to cook his food;
when the first seed was sown or shoot planted, a grand revolution was
effected in nature, a revolution which in all the previous ages of the
earth’s history had had no parallel, for a being had arisen who was no
longer necessarily subject to change with the changing universe, a being
who was in some degree superior to nature, inasmuch as he knew how to
control and regulate her action, and could keep [285]himself in harmony with
her, not by a change in body, but by an advance in mind.”
“On this view of his special attributes, we may admit ‘that he is
indeed a being apart.’ Man has not only escaped ‘Natural Selection’
himself, but he is actually able to take away some of that power from
nature which before his appearance she universally exercised. We can
anticipate the time when the earth will produce only cultivated plants
and domestic animals; when man’s selection shall have supplanted ‘Natural
Selection;’ and when the ocean will be the only domain in which that
power can be exerted.”
Baden Powell[309]
observes on this subject: “The relation of the animal man to the
intellectual, moral, and spiritual man, resembles that of a crystal
slumbering in its native quarry to the same crystal mounted in the
polarizing apparatus of the philosopher. The difference is not in
physical nature, but in investing that nature with a new and higher
application. Its continuity with the material world remains the same, but
a new relation is developed in it, and it claims kindred with ethereal
matter and with celestial light.”
This well expresses the distinction between the merely physical and
the hyperphysical natures of man, and the subsumption of the former into
the latter which dominates it.
The same author in speaking of man’s moral and spiritual nature
says,[310] “The assertion
in its very nature and essence refers wholly to a DIFFERENT ORDER OF THINGS, apart from and
transcending any material ideas whatsoever.” Again[311] he adds, “In proportion as man’s
moral superiority is held to consist in attributes not of a
material or corporeal kind or origin, it can signify little how
his physical nature may have originated.”
Now physical science, as such, has nothing to do with the soul of man
which is hyperphysical. That such an entity exists, [286]that the
correlated physical forces go through their Protean transformations, have
their persistent ebb and flow outside of the world of WILL and SELF-CONSCIOUS MORAL
BEING, are propositions the proofs of which have no place in this
work. This at least may however be confidently affirmed, that no reach of
physical science in any coming century will ever approach to a
demonstration that countless modes of being, as different from each other
as are the force of gravitation and conscious maternal love, may not
co-exist. Two such modes are made known to us by our natural faculties
only: the physical, which includes the first of these examples; the
hyperphysical, which embraces the other. For those who accept revelation,
a third and a distinct mode of being and of action is also made known,
namely, the direct and immediate or, in the sense here given to the term,
the supernatural. An analogous relationship runs through and connects all
these modes of being and of action. The higher mode in each case employs
and makes use of the lower, the action of which it occasionally suspends
or alters, as gravity is suspended by electro-magnetic action, or the
living energy of an organic being restrains the inter-actions of the
chemical affinities belonging to its various constituents.
Thus conscious will controls and directs the exercise of the vital
functions according to desire, and moral consciousness tends to control
desire in obedience to higher dictates.[312] The action of [287]living organisms
depends upon and subsumes the laws of inorganic matter. Similarly the
actions of animal life depend upon and subsume the laws of organic
matter. In the same way the actions of a self-conscious moral agent, such
as man, depend upon and subsume the laws of animal life. When a part or
the whole series of these natural actions is altered or suspended by the
intervention of action of a still higher order, we have then a
“miracle.”
In this way we find a perfect harmony in the double nature of man, his
rationality making use of and subsuming his animality; his soul arising
from direct and immediate creation, and his body being formed at first
(as now in each separate individual) by derivative or secondary creation,
through natural laws. By such secondary creation, i.e. by natural
laws, for the most part as yet unknown but controlled by “Natural
Selection,” all the various kinds of animals and plants have been
manifested on this planet. That Divine action has concurred and concurs
in these laws we know by deductions from our primary intuitions; and
physical science, if unable to demonstrate such action, is at least as
impotent to disprove it. Disjoined from these deductions, the phenomena
of the universe present an aspect devoid of all that appeals to the
loftiest aspirations of man, that which stimulates his efforts after
goodness, and presents consolations for unavoidable shortcomings.
Conjoined with these same deductions, all the harmony of physical nature
and the constancy of its laws are preserved unimpaired, while the reason,
the conscience, and the æsthetic instincts are alike gratified. We have
thus a true reconciliation of science and religion, in which each gains
and neither loses, one being complementary to the other.
Some apology is due to the reader for certain observations and
arguments which have been here advanced, and which have little in the
shape of novelty to recommend them. But after all, novelty can hardly be
predicated of the views here criticised [288]and opposed. Some of
these seem almost a return to the “fortuitous concourse of atoms” of
Democritus, and even the very theory of “Natural Selection”
itself—a “survival of the fittest”—was in part thought out
not hundreds but thousands of years ago. Opponents of Aristotle
maintained that by the accidental occurrence of combinations, organisms
have been preserved and perpetuated such as final causes, did they exist,
would have brought about, disadvantageous combinations or variations
being speedily exterminated. “For when the very same combinations
happened to be produced which the law of final causes would have called
into being, those combinations which proved to be advantageous to the
organism were preserved; while those which were not advantageous
perished, and still perished like the minotaurs and sphinxes of
Empedocles.”[313]
In conclusion, the Author ventures to hope that this treatise may not
be deemed useless, but have contributed, however slightly, towards
clearing the way for peace and conciliation and for a more ready
perception, of the harmony which exists between those deductions from our
primary intuitions before alluded to, and the teachings of physical
science, as far, that is, as concerns the evolution of organic
forms—the genesis of species.
The aim has been to support the doctrine that these species have been
evolved by ordinary natural laws (for the most part unknown)
controlled by the subordinate action of “Natural Selection,” and
at the same time to remind some that there is and can be absolutely
nothing in physical science which forbids them to regard those natural
laws as acting with the Divine concurrence and in obedience to a creative
fiat originally imposed on the primeval Cosmos, “in the beginning,” by
its Creator, its Upholder, and its Lord.
INDEX.
A.
Aard-Vark, 174.
Absolute creation, 252.
Acanthometræ, 186.
Acrodont teeth, 148.
Acts formally moral, 195.
Acts materially moral, 195.
Adductor muscles, 79.
Agassiz, Professor, 271.
Aged, care of, 192.
Aggregational theory, 163.
Algoa Bay, cat of, 98.
Allantois, 82.
Amazons, butterflies of, 85.
Amazons, cholera in the, 192.
American butterflies, 29.
American maize, 100.
American monkeys, 226.
Amiurus, 147.
Amphibia, 109.
Analogical relations, 157.
Andrew Murray, Mr., 83.
Angora cats, 175.
Animal’s sufferings, 260.
Ankle bones, 158.
Annelids undergoing fission, 169, 211.
Annulosa, eye of, 76.
Anoplotherium, 109.
Anteater, 83.
Antechinus, 82.
Antenna, of orchid, 56.
Anthropomorphism, 258.
Ape’s sexual characters, 49.
Apostles’ Creed, 245.
Appendages of lobster, 161.
Appendages of Normandy pigs, 99.
Appendages of turkey, 100.
Appendix, vermiform, 83.
Appreciation of Mr. Darwin, 10.
Aqueous humour, 76.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 17, 263, 265.
Archegosaurus, 135.
Archeopteryx, 73.
Arcturus, 193.
Aristotle, 288.
Armadillo, extinct kind, 110.
Arthritis, rheumatic, 183.
Artiodactyle foot, 109.
Asceticism, 193.
Ascidians, placental structure, 81.
Assumptions of Mr. Darwin, 16.
Astronomical objections, 136.
Auditory organ, 74.
Aurelius, Marcus, 206.
Avian limb, 106.
Avicularia, 80.
Axolotl, 165.
Aye-Aye, 107.
Aylesbury ducks, 234.
B.
Bacon, Roger, 266.
Baleen, 40.
Bamboo insect, 33.
Bandicoot, 67.
Bartlett, Mr. A. D., 126, 234.
Bartlett, Mr. E., 192.
Basil, St., 17.
Bastian, Dr. H. Charlton, 115, 219, 237, 266.
Bat, wing of, 64.
Bats, 108.
Beaks, 83.
Beasts, sufferings of, 260.
Beauty of shell-fish, 54.
Bee orchid, 55.
Bird, wings of, 64.
Birds compared with reptiles, 70.
Bird’s-head processes, 80.
Birds of Paradise, 90.
Birth of individual and species, 2.
Bivalves, 79.
Black sheep, 122.
Black-shouldered peacock, 100.
Bladebone, 70.
Blood-vessels, 182.
Bones of skull, 153.
Bonnet, M., 217.
Borwick, Mr., 198.
“Boots” of pigeons, 181.
Breathing, modified power of, 99.
Breeding of lions, 234.
Brill, 37.
Broccoli, variety of, 100.
Bryozoa, 81.
Buchner, Dr., 273.
Budd, Dr. W., 183.
Buffon, 217.
Bull-dog’s instinct, 260.
Butterflies, 29.
Butterflies, Amazonian, 85.
Butterflies, American, 29.
Butterflies of Indian region, 83.
Butterflies, tails of, 85.
Butterfly, Leaf, 31.
C.
Cacotus, 149.
Cæcum, 83.
Calamaries, 77.
Cambrian deposits, 137.
Cape ant-eater, 174.
Care of aged, 192.
Carinate birds, 70.
Carnivora, 68.
Carnivorous dentition, 110.
Carp fishes, 146.
Carpenter, Dr., 115.
Cases of conscience, 201.
Cassowary, 70.
Catasetum, 56.
Causes of spread of Darwinism, 10.
Cebus, 226.
Celebes, butterflies of, 85.
Centetes, 148.
Cephalopoda, 74.
Ceroxylus laceratus, 36.
Cetacea, 42, 83, 105, 108, 174.
Chances against few individuals, 57.
Characinidæ, 146.
Cheirogaleus, 158.
Chetahs, 234.
Chickens, mortality of hybrids, 124.
Chioglossa, 165.
Chiromys, 107.
Cholera, 192.
Choroid, 76.
Chronic rheumatism, 183.
Circumcision, 212.
Clarias, 146.
Climate, effects of, 98.
Climbing plants, 107.
Clock-thinking illustration, 249.
Cobra, 50.
Cockle, 79.
Cod, 39.
Colloidal matter, 266.
Conceptions, symbolic, 251.
Connecticut footsteps, 131.
Connecting links, supposed, 107.
Conscience, cases of, 201.
Conscientious Papuan, 197.
Coracoid, of birds and reptiles, 70.
Cornea, 77.
Cornelius à Lapide, 265.
Correlation, laws of, 173.
Coryanthes, 56.
Costa, M., 88.
Cranial segments, 172.
Creed, Apostles’, 245.
Crocodile, 43.
Croll, Mr., 137.
Cryptacanthus, 146.
Crystalline matter, 266.
Crystals of snow, 186.
Cuvier, 109.
Cyprinoids, 146.
Cytheridea, 79.
D.
Dana, Professor, 149.
Darwin, Mr. Charles, 2, 10, 12, 14–21, 23, 27, 34, 35, 43, 45, 47, 48, 55–57, 59, 65, 88, 94, 98–100, 107, 118–126, 129, 138, 142, 145, 149, 150, 181, 188–190, 196, 208, 209, 214–216, 218, 223, 233, 234, 252, 254, 258, 259, 275, 276.
Datura tatula, 101.
Delhi, days at, 98.
Delpino, Signor, 212, 213, 215.
Density of air for breathing, 99.
Dentition, carnivorous, 110.
Derivation, 238.
Derivative creation, 252, 282.
Design, 259.
Devotion, 193.
Dibranchiata, 74.
Difficulties of problem of specific origin, 1.
Digits, supernumerary, 122, 181.
Digits, turtle’s, 106.
Dimorphodon, 71.
Dinornis, 70.
Dinosauria, 71.
Diseased pelvis, 182.
Dissemination of seeds, 65.
Doris, 170.
Dotheboys’ Hall, 272.
Dragon-fly, 77.
Droughts, 25.
Duck-billed platypus, 175.
Dyspepsia, 201.
E.
Ear, 74.
Ear, formation of, 51.
Early specialization, 111.
Echinodermata, 44.
Echinoidea, 44.
Echinops, 148.
Echinorhinus, 172.
Echinus, 43.
Economy, Fuegian political, 192.
Eczema, 183.
Edentata, 174.
Egyptian monuments, 138.
Elasmobranchs, 140.
Elbow and knee affections, 183.
Empedocles, 288.
Eocene ungulata, 110.
Eolis, 170.
Equus, 97.
Ericulus, 148.
Ethics, 188.
Eudes Deslongchamps, 99.
Eutropius, 147.
Everett, Rev. R., 98.
Evolution requires geometrical increase of time, 139.
Eye, 76.
Eye, formation of, 51.
Eye of trilobites, 135.
F.
Fabre, M., 46.
Feather-legged breeds, 181.
Feejeans, 199.
Fertilization of orchids, 55.
“Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum,” 195.
Final misery, 194.
Finger of Potto, 105.
Fish, flying, 64.
Fishes, fresh-water, 145.
Fishes, thoracic and jugular, 39, 140.
Fixity of position of limbs, 39.
Flexibility of bodily organization, degrees of, 119.
Flexibility of mind, 267.
Flies, horned, 93.
Flight of spiders, 65.
Flounder, 37.
Flower, Professor, 163, 232, 283.
Fly, orchid, 55.
Flying fish, 64.
Fœtal teeth of whales, 7.
Food, effects on pigs, 99.
Footsteps of Connecticut, 131.
Foraminifera, 186.
Formally moral acts, 195.
Formation of eye and ear, 51.
Four-gilled Cephalopods, 76.
Fowls, white silk, 122.
French theatrical audience, 198.
Fresh-water fishes, 145.
Frogs, Chilian and European, 149.
Fuego, Terra del, 192.
G.
Galago, 158.
Galaxias, 147.
Galeus vulgaris, 172.
Gascoyen, Mr., 182.
Gavials, 43.
Gemmules, 208.
Generative system, its sensitiveness, 235.
Genesis of morals, 201.
Geographical distribution, 144.
Geographical distribution explained by Natural Selection, 6.
Geometrical increments of time, 139.
Geotria, 147.
Giraffe, neck of, 24.
Gizzard-like stomach, 83.
Glacial epoch, 150.
Glyptodon, 110.
Godron, Dr., 101.
Goose, its inflexibility, 119.
Göppert, Mr., 101.
Gould, Mr., 88.
Grasshopper, Great Shielded, 89.
Great Ant-eater, 83.
Great Salamander, 172.
Great Shielded Grasshopper, 89.
Greyhounds in Mexico, 99.
Greyhounds, time for evolution of, 138.
Guinea-fowl, 120.
Guinea-pig, 126.
H.
Hamilton, Sir Wm., 267.
Heart in birds and reptiles, 158.
Hegel, 217.
Heliconidæ, 29.
Hell, 194.
Heptanchus, 172.
Herbert Spencer, Mr., 20, 28, 67, 72, 163–166, 168, 170–172, 184, 187, 202, 203, 205, 218, 228, 245, 246, 248, 251.
Hessian flies, 170.
Heterobranchus, 146.
Hexanchus, 172.
Homogeny, 158.
Homology, bilateral or lateral, 156, 164.
Homology, meaning of term, 7, 156.
Homology, serial, 159.
Homology, vertical, 165.
Homoplasy, 159.
Honey-suckers, 90.
Hood of cobra, 50.
Hook-billed ducks, 100.
Hooker, Dr., 150.
Horned flies, 93.
Horny stomach, 83.
Humphry, Professor, 163.
Hutton, Mr. R. Holt, 202, 203.
Huxley, Professor, 67–69, 71, 72, 95, 103, 109, 130, 131, 137, 141, 163, 172, 173, 231, 247, 273.
Hybrids, mortality of, 124.
Hydrocyonina, 146.
Hyperphysical action, 253.
Hyrax, 179.
I.
Ichthyopsida, 109.
Ichthyosaurus, 78, 106, 132, 177.
Ichthyosis, 183.
Iguanodon, 71.
Illegitimate symbolic conceptions, 251.
Illustration by clock-thinking, 249.
Independent origins, 152.
Indian butterfly, 30.
Indian region’s butterflies, 83.
Indians and cholera, 192.
Individual, meaning of word, 2.
Infirm, care of, 192.
Influence, local, 83.
Insect, walking-leaf, 35.
Insects, walking-stick and bamboo, 33.
Insectivora, 68.
Insectivorous mammals, 148.
Insectivorous teeth, 68.
Instinct of bull-dog, 260.
Intermediate forms, 128.
Intuitions, primary, 251.
Irregularities in blood-vessels, 182.
Isaria felina, 115.
K.
Kallima inachis, 31.
Kallima paralekta, 31.
Kowalewsky, 81.
Knee and elbow affections, 183.
Kölliker, Professor, 104.
L.
Labyrinthici, 146.
Lamarck, 3.
Larynx of kangaroo, 42.
Lateral homology, 164.
Laws of correlation, 173.
Leaf butterfly, 31.
Legitimate symbolic conceptions, 251.
Lens, 76.
Lepidosteus, 172.
Lepra, 183.
Lewes, Mr. G. H., 94, 212, 214, 216.
Lewis, St., 206.
Lewis XV., 206.
Lewis XVI., 206.
Limb genesis, 176.
Limb muscles, 180.
Limbs, fixity of position of, 39.
Limbs of lobster, 161.
Links, supposed connecting, 107.
Lions, breeding, 234.
Lions, diseased pelvis, 182.
Llama, 109.
Local influences, 83.
Lobster, 160.
Long-tailed bird of Paradise, 91.
M.
Machairodus, 110.
Macrauchenia, 109.
Macropodidæ, 69.
Macroscelides, 68.
Magnificent Bird of Paradise, 93.
Maize, American, 100.
Mammals, 67.
Mammary gland of kangaroo, 42.
Mammary gland, origin of, 47.
Man, origin of, 277.
Man reveals God, 267.
Man, voice of, 54.
Manchamp breed of sheep, 100.
Manis, 175.
Man’s larynx, 54.
Many simultaneous modifications, 57.
Marcus Aurelius, 206.
Martineau, Mr. James, 200, 245.
Mastacembelus, 145.
Materially moral acts, 195.
Matter, crystalline and colloidal, 266.
Meaning of word “individual,” 2.
Meaning of word “species,” 2.
Mechanical theory of spine, 164.
Meehan, Mr., 88.
Mexico, dogs in, 99.
Mill, John Stuart, 15, 189, 193, 194.
Miracle, 287.
Molars, 111.
Mole, 176.
Molière, 230.
Mombas, cats at, 98.
Monkeys, American, 226.
Monster proboscis, 123.
Moral acts, 195.
Mordacia, 147.
Murphy, Mr. J. J., 52, 53, 76, 103, 114, 115, 137, 185, 221, 276, 281.
Murray, Mr. Andrew, 83.
Mus delicatulus, 82.
Muscles of limbs, 180.
Mussel, 79.
Myrmecophaga, 83.
N.
Nasalis, Semnopithecus, 139.
Nathusius, 99.
Natural Selection, shortly stated, 5.
Naudin, M. C., 101.
Nautilus, 76.
Nebular evolution, 273.
Neck of giraffe, 24.
Newman, the Rev. Dr., 260, 268, 270, 286.
New Zealand crustacea, 149.
New Zealand fishes, 147.
Niata cattle, 100.
Nile fishes, 146.
Normandy pig, 99.
North American fish, 147
Nycticebus, 179.
O.
Object of book, 5.
Objections from astronomy, 136.
Octopods, 77.
Offensive remarks of Prof. Vogt, 13.
Old, care of the, 192.
Old Fuegian women, 192.
Omygena exigua, 115.
Ophiocephalus, 146.
Optic lobes of pterodactyls, 71.
Orchids, 92.
Orchids, Bee, &c., 55.
Organ of hearing, 74.
Organ of sight, 76.
Organic polarities, 185.
Origin of man, 277.
Orioles, 90.
Ornithoptera, 84.
Ornithorhynchus, 175.
Orthoceratidæ, 170.
Orycteropus, 174.
Ostracods, 79.
Ostrich, 70.
Otoliths, 74.
Outlines of butterflies’ wings, 86.
Owen, Professor, 74, 102, 123, 217, 238, 274.
Oyster of Mediterranean, 88, 98.
Oysters, 79.
P.
Paget, Mr. J., 182.
Palæotherium, 109.
Pallas, 125.
Pangolin, 175.
Papilio Hospiton, 85.
Papilio Machaon, 85.
Papilio Ulysses, 84.
Papilionidæ, 83.
Parthenogenesis, 217.
Passiflora gracilis, 107.
Pastrana, Julia, 174.
Pathological polarities, 184.
Pavo nigripennis, 100.
Peacock, black shouldered, 100.
Peacock, inflexibility of, 119.
Pedicellariæ, 44.
Pelvis, diseased, 182.
Pendulous appendages of turkey, 100.
Perameles, 68.
Periophthalmus, 146.
Perissodactyle ungulates, 109.
Permian, jugular fish, 141.
Phalangers, 67.
Phasmidæ, 89.
Phyllopods, 79.
Physical actions, 253.
“Physiological units,” 168, 218.
Pigeons’ “boots,” 181.
Placental mammals, 67.
Placental reproduction, 81.
Plants, tendrils of, 107.
Plates of baleen, 40.
Platypus, 175.
Pleiades, 193.
Pleurodont dentition, 148.
Plotosus, 147.
Poisoning apparatus, 66.
Poisonous serpents, 50.
Polarities, organic, 184, 185.
Political economy, Fuegian, 192.
Pompadour, Madame de, 206.
Poppy, variety of, 101.
Porcupine, 175.
Pouched beasts, 67.
Powell, the Rev. Baden, 259, 261, 285.
Premolars, 111.
Prepotency, 124.
Primary intuitions, 251.
Primitive man, 204.
Problem of origin of kinds, 1.
Proboscis monkey, 139.
Proboscis of ungulates, 123.
Processes, bird’s-head, 80.
Psettus, 146.
Psoriasis, 183.
Pterodactyles, compared with birds, 70.
Pterodactyles, wing of, 64.
Puccinia, 115.
Purpose, 259.
Q.
Quasi-vertebral theory of skull, 172.
R.
Rabbit of Porto Santo, 100, 122.
Radial ossicle, 176.
Rarefied air, effect on dogs, 99.
Red bird of Paradise, 92.
Relations, analogical, 157.
Relations, homological, 156.
Reptiles compared with birds, 70.
Retina, 76.
Retrieving, virtue a kind of, 189, 205.
Reversion, cases of, 122.
Rhea, 70.
Ribs of Cetacea and Sirenia, 41.
Ribs of flying-dragon, 64, 158.
Richardson’s figures of pigs, 99.
Roger Bacon, 266.
S.
Sabre-toothed tiger, 110.
St. Basil, 17.
St. Hilaire, M., 179.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 17, 263, 265.
Salamander, great, 172.
Salter, Mr., 124.
Salvia officinalis, 213.
Salvia verticillata, 213.
Scapula of birds and reptiles, 70.
Schreber, 13.
Sclerotic, 76.
Scorpion, sting of, 66.
Seals, 83.
Sea squirts, 81.
Seeds, dissemination of, 65.
Seeley, Mr., on pterodactyles, 71.
Segmentation of skull, 172.
Segmentation of spine, 171.
Segments, similar, 160.
Self-existence, 252.
Semnopithecus, 139.
Sense, organ of, 51, 69, 74, 76.
Sensitiveness of generative system, 235.
Sepia, 77.
Serpents, poisonous, 50.
Sexual characters of apes, 49.
Sexual selection, 48.
Sharks, 83.
Shell-fish, beauty of, 54.
Shielded grasshopper, 89.
Simultaneous modifications, 57.
Sirenia, 42
Sir William Thomson, 136.
Sitaris, 46.
Six-shafted bird of Paradise, 90.
Skull bones, 153.
Skull segments, 172.
Sloth, windpipe of, 82.
Smithfield, wife-selling in, 198.
Snow, crystals of, 186.
Sole, 37.
Solenodon, 148.
Species, meaning of word, 2.
Spelerpes, 165.
Spencer, see Herbert Spencer.
Spider orchid, 55.
Spiders, flight of, 65.
Spine of Glyptodon, 110.
Spine, segmentation of, 172.
Squalidæ, 38.
Squilla, 160.
Sterility of hybrids, 125.
Stings, 66.
Straining action of baleen, 41.
Sturgeon, 171.
Sufferings of beasts, 260.
Supernatural action, 252.
Supernatural action not to be looked for in nature, 15.
Supernumerary digits, 122, 181.
Symbolic conceptions, 251.
Symmetrical diseases, 182.
Syphilitic deposits, 183.
T.
Tadpole’s beak, 83.
Tails of butterflies, 85.
Teeth of Cetacea, 83.
Teeth of Insectivora, 68.
Teeth of kangaroo and Macroscelides, 69.
Teeth of seals, 83.
Teeth of sharks, 83.
Teleology and evolution compatible, 273.
Tendrils of climbing plants, 107.
Tenia echinococcus, 170.
Teratology, 173.
Tetragonopterina, 146.
Thomson, Sir William, 136.
Thoracic fishes, 39.
Thorax of crustaceans, 79.
Thylacine, 67.
Tierra del Fuego, 192.
Tiger, sabre-toothed, 110.
Time required for evolution, 128.
Tope, 172.
Trabeculæ cranii, 172.
Transitional forms, 128.
Transmutationism, 242.
Trevelyan, Sir J. Peacock, 100.
Tunicaries, 81.
Turbot, 37.
Turkey, effects of climate on, 100.
Turkish dog, 45.
Two-gilled cephalopods, 76.
Type, conformity to, 241.
U.
Umbilical vesicle, 82.
Ungulata eocene, 110.
Units, physiological, 168, 218.
Unknowable, the, 245.
Upper Silurian strata, 140, 142.
Urotrichus, 68.
V.
Variability, different degrees of, 119.
Vermiform appendix, 83.
Vertebræ of skull, 172.
Vertical homology, 165.
Vesicle, umbilical, 82.
“Vestiges of Creation,” 3.
View here advocated, 5.
Vitreous humour, 76.
Voice of man, 54.
Voltaire, 230.
W.
Wagner, J. A., 13.
Wagner, Nicholas, 170.
Walking leaf, 35.
Walking-stick insect, 33.
Wallace, Mr. Alfred, 2, 10, 26, 29, 30, 32, 35, 36, 54, 83, 84, 87, 89, 90, 103, 117, 191, 197, 226, 274, 281–283.
Weaver fishes, 39.
Weitbrecht, 179.
Whale, fœtal teeth of, 7.
Whale, mouth of, 40.
Whalebone, 40.
Whales, 78.
White silk fowls, 122.
Wife selling, 198.
Wild animals, their variability, 120.
Wilder, Professor Burt, 180, 184.
Windpipe, 82.
Wings of bats, birds, and pterodactyles, 64, 130.
Wings of birds, origin of, 106.
Wings of butterflies, outline of, 86.
Wings of flying-dragon, 64, 158.
Wings of humming-bird, 157.
Wings of humming-bird hawk moth, 157.
Wings of insects, 65.
Wombat, 83.
Women, old Fuegian, 192.
Worms undergoing fission, 169, 211.
Wyman, Dr. Jeffries, 185.
Y.
York Minster, a Fuegian, 197.
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, LONDON.
Notes
[1] In the last edition of the
“Origin of Species” (1869) Mr. Darwin himself admits that “Natural
Selection” has not been the exclusive means of modification, though he
still contends it has been the most important one.
[2] See Mr. Wallace’s recent work,
entitled “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,” where, at p.
302, it is very well and shortly stated.
[3] “Natural Selection” is happily so
termed by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his “Principles of Biology.”
[4] Biology is the science of life.
It contains zoology, or the science of animals, and botany, or that of
plants.
[5] For very interesting examples,
see Mr. Wallace’s “Malay Archipelago.”
[6] See Müller’s work, “Für Darwin,”
lately translated into English by Mr. Dallas. Mr. Wallace also predicts
the discovery, in Madagascar, of a hawk-moth with an enormously long
proboscis, and he does this on account of the discovery there of an
orchid with a nectary from ten to fourteen inches in length. See
Quarterly Journal of Science, October 1867, and “Natural
Selection,” p. 275.
[7] “Lectures on Man,” translated by
the Anthropological Society, 1864, p. 229.
[8] Ibid. p. 378.
[9] See Fifth Edition, 1869, p.
579.
[10] The Rambler, March
1860, vol. xii. p. 372.
[11] “In primâ institutione naturæ
non quæritur miraculum, sed quid natura rerum habeat, ut Augustinus
dicit, lib. ii. sup. Gen. ad lit. c. l.” (St. Thomas, Sum. Iæ.
lxvii. 4, ad 3.)
[12] “Hexaem.” Hom. ix. p. 81.
[13] Suarez, Metaphysica. Edition
Vivés. Paris, 1868. Vol. I. Disputatio xv. § 2.
[14] “Pangenesis” is the name of
the new theory proposed by Mr. Darwin, in order to account for various
obscure physiological facts, such, e.g., as the occasional
reproduction, by individuals, of parts which they have lost; the
appearance in offspring of parental, and sometimes of remote ancestral,
characters, &c. It accounts for these phenomena by supposing that
every creature possesses countless indefinitely-minute organic atoms,
termed “gemmules,” which atoms are supposed to be generated in every part
of every organ, to be in constant circulation about the body, and to have
the power of reproduction. Moreover, atoms from every part are supposed
to be stored in the generative products.
[15] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 192.
[16] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 414.
[17] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edit., 1869, p. 110.
[18] Ibid. p. 111.
[19] Ibid. p. 227.
[20] The order Ungulata
contains the hoofed beasts; that is, all oxen, deer, antelopes, sheep,
goats, camels, hogs, the hippopotamus, the different kinds of rhinoceros,
the tapirs, horses, asses, zebras, quaggas, &c.
[21] The elephants of Africa and
India, with their extinct allies, constitute the order
Proboscidea, and do not belong to the Ungulata.
[22] See “Natural Selection,” pp.
60-75.
[23] “Principles of Biology,” vol.
i. p. 122.
[24] See “Natural Selection,” chap.
iii. p. 45.
[25] Loc. cit. p. 80.
[26] Ibid. p. 59.
[27] Loc. cit. p. 64.
[28] “Origin of Species,” 5th edit.
p. 104.
[29] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 351.
[30] Loc. cit. pp. 109, 110.
[31] Heredity is the term used to
denote the tendency which there is in offspring to reproduce parental
features.
[32] Loc. cit. p. 64.
[33] Loc. cit. p. 60.
[34] The term “Vertebrata” denotes
that large group of animals which are characterized by the possession of
a spinal column, commonly known as the “backbone.” Such animals are
ourselves, together with all beasts, birds, reptiles, frogs, toads, and
efts, and also fishes.
[35] It is hardly necessary to
observe that these “sea-snakes” have no relation to the often-talked-of
“sea-serpent.” They are small, venomous reptiles, which abound in the
Indian seas.
[36] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edit., 1869, p. 179.
[37] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edit., p. 532.
[38] Mr. A. D. Bartlett, of the
Zoological Society, informs me that at these periods female apes admit
with perfect readiness the access of any males of different species. To
be sure this is in confinement; but the fact is, I think, quite
conclusive against any such sexual selection in a state of nature as
would account for the local coloration referred to.
[39] Mr. Darwin, in the last
(fifth) edition of “Natural Selection,” 1869, p. 102, admits that all
sexual differences are not to be attributed to the agency of sexual
selection, mentioning the wattle of carrier pigeons, tuft of turkey-cock,
&c. These characters, however, seem less inexplicable by sexual
selection than those given in the text.
[40] I am again indebted to the
kindness of Mr. A. D. Bartlett, amongst others. That gentleman informs me
that, so far from any mental emotion being produced in rabbits by the
presence and movements of snakes, that he has actually seen a male and
female rabbit satisfy the sexual instinct in that presence, a rabbit
being seized by a snake when in coitu.
[41] “Habit and Intelligence,” vol.
i. p. 319.
[42] The reader may consult
Huxley’s “Lessons in Elementary Physiology,” p. 204.
[43] “Natural Selection,” p.
350.
[44] Bivalve shell-fish are
creatures belonging to the oyster, scallop, and cockle group, i.e.
to the class Lamellibranchiata.
[45] The attempt has been made to
explain these facts as owing to “manner and symmetry of growth, and to
colour being incidental on the chemical nature of the constituents of the
shell.” But surely beauty depends on some such matters in all
cases!
[46] It has been suggested in
opposition to what is here said, that there is no real resemblance, but
that the likeness is “fanciful!” The denial, however, of the fact
of a resemblance which has struck so many observers, reminds one of the
French philosopher’s estimate of facts hostile to his theory—”Tant
pis pour les faits!”
[47] Fifth Edition, p. 236.
[48] Mr. Smith, of the
Entomological department of the British Museum, has kindly informed me
that the individuals intermediate in structure are very few in
number—not more than five per cent.—compared with the number
of distinctly differentiated individuals. Besides, in the Brazilian kinds
these intermediate forms are wanting.
[49] By accidental variations Mr.
Darwin does not, of course, mean to imply variations really due to
“chance,” but to utterly indeterminate antecedents.
[50] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, p. 235.
[51] I.e. warm-blooded
animals which suckle their young, such as apes, bats, hoofed beasts,
lions, dogs, bears, weasels, rats, squirrels, armadillos, sloths, whales,
porpoises, kangaroos, opossums, &c.
[52] “Journal of Anatomy and
Physiology” (1868), vol. ii. p. 139.
[53] See “Ann. and Mag. of Nat.
Hist.” for August 1870, p. 140.
[54] See “Proceedings of the Royal
Institution,” vol. v. part iv. p. 278: Report of a Lecture delivered
February 7, 1868. Also “Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,”
February 1870: “Contributions to the Anatomy and Taxonomy of the
Dinosauria.”
[55] “Proceedings of Geological
Society,” November 1869, p. 38.
[56] The archeopteryx of the oolite
has the true carinate shoulder structure.
[57] “Proceedings of the Royal
Institution,” vol. v. p. 279.
[58] This remark is made without
prejudice to possible affinities in the direction of the
Ascidians,—an affinity which, if real, would be irrelevant to the
question here discussed.
[59] “Lectures on the Comp. Anat.
of the Invertebrate Animals,” 2nd edit. 1855, p. 619; and Todd’s
“Cyclopædia of Anatomy,” vol. i. p. 554.
[60] See “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 321.
[61] A view recently propounded by
Kowalewsky.
[62] “Natural Selection,” p.
167.
[63] “Natural Selection,” p.
173.
[64] Ibid. p. 177.
[65] “Malay Archipelago,” vol. i.
p. 439.
[66] “Natural Selection,” p.
177.
[67] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, p. 166.
[68] Vol. ii. p. 280.
[69] See “Natural Selection,” p.
64.
[70] The italics are not Mr.
Wallace’s.
[71] “Malay Archipelago,” vol. ii.
p. 150; and “Natural Selection,” p. 104.
[72] See “Malay Archipelago,” vol.
ii. chap. xxxviii.
[73] Loc. cit. p. 314.
[74] Fortnightly Review, New
Series, vol. iii (April 1868), p. 372.
[75] “Lay Sermons,” p. 339.
[76] “Hereditary Genius, an Inquiry
into its Laws,” &c. By Francis Galton, F.R.S. (London:
Macmillan.)
[77] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. p. 37.
[78] Ibid. p. 47.
[79] Ibid. p. 52.
[80] Carpenter’s “Comparative
Physiology,” p. 987, quoted by Mr. J. J. Murphy, “Habit and
Intelligence,” vol. i. p. 171.
[81] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. p. 72.
[82] Ibid. p. 76.
[83] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. p. 71.
[84] Ibid. p. 114.
[85] Quoted, Ibid. p. 274.
[86] Ibid. p. 324.
[87] Ibid. p. 322.
[88] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 414.
[89] Proc. Zool. Soc. of London,
April 24, 1860.
[90] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. p. 291.
[91] Extracted by J. J. Murphy,
vol. i. p. 197, from the Quarterly Journal of Science, of October
1867, p. 527.
[92] “Anatomy of Vertebrates,” vol.
iii. p. 795.
[93] Ibid. p. 807.
[94] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 318.
[95] “Habit and Intelligence,” vol.
i. p. 344.
[96] See Dec. 2, 1869, vol. i. p.
132.
[97] “Über die Darwin’sche
Schöpfungstheorie:” ein Vortrag, von Kölliker; Leipzig, 1864.
[98] See “Lay Sermons,” p. 342.
[99] “Anatomy of the Lemuroidea.”
By James Murie, M.D., and St. George Mivart. Trans. Zool. Soc., March
1866, p. 91.
[100] “Principles of Geology,”
last edition, vol. i. p. 163.
[101] Quarterly Journal of
Science, April 1866, pp. 257-8.
[102] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 178.
[103] This animal belongs to the
order Primates, which includes man, the apes, and the lemurs. The lemurs
are the lower kinds of the order, and differ much from the apes. They
have their head-quarters in the Island of Madagascar. The aye-aye is a
lemur, but it differs singularly from all its congeners, and still more
from all apes. In its dentition it strongly approximates to the rodent
(rat, squirrel, and guinea-pig) order, as it has two cutting teeth above,
and two below, growing from permanent pulps, and in the adult condition
has no canines.
[104] North British
Review, New Series, vol. vii., March 1867, p. 282.
[105] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 75.
[106] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 202.
[107] “Comparative Physiology,”
p. 214, note.
[108] See Nature, June and
July 1870, Nos. 35, 36, and 37, pp. 170, 193, and 219.
[109] “Natural Selection,” p.
293.
[110] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. pp. 289-295.
[111] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, 1869, p. 45.
[112] Ibid. p. 13.
[113] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. p. 115.
[114] Ibid. vol. i. p. 114.
[115] Ibid. vol. i. p. 243.
[116] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 361.
[117] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 16.
[118] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 57.
[119] This has been shown by my
late friend, Mr. H. N. Turner, jun., in an excellent paper by him in the
“Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1849,” p. 147. The untimely
death, through a dissecting wound, of this most promising young
naturalist, was a very great loss to zoological science.
[120] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 189.
[121] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, 1839, p. 115.
[122] Ibid. p. 322.
[123] Ibid. p. 314.
[124] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 104.
[125] North British
Review, New Series, vol. vii., March 1867, p. 317.
[126] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, 1869, p. 212.
[127] See also the Popular
Science Review for July 1868.
[128] A bird with a keeled
breast-bone, such as almost all existing birds possess.
[129] “Anatomy of Vertebrates,”
vol. iii. p. 792.
[130] Ibid. p. 793.
[131] As a tadpole is the
larval form of a frog.
[132] As Professor Huxley, with
his characteristic candour, fully admitted in his lecture on the
Dinosauria before referred to.
[133] “Transactions of the
Geological Society of Glasgow,” vol. iii.
[134] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, p. 354.
[135] See his address to the
Geological Society, on February 19, 1869.
[136] See Nature, vol. i.
p. 399, February 17, 1870.
[137] Ibid. vol. i. p. 454.
[138] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 344.
[139] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 345.
[140] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, p. 353.
[141] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, p. 381.
[142] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, 1869, p. 463.
[143] See his Catalogue of
Acanthopterygian Fishes in the British Museum, vol. iii. p. 540.
[144] Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, p.
102, and Ann. Mag. of Nat. Hist. vol. xx. p. 110.
[145] See Catalogue, vol. iii. p.
469.
[146] Ibid. vol. v. p. 311.
[147] Ibid. p. 345.
[148] Ibid. p. 13.
[149] Ibid. p. 21.
[150] See Catalogue, vol. v. p.
24.
[151] Ibid. p. 52.
[152] Ibid. p. 109.
[153] Ibid. vol. vi. 208.
[154] Ibid. vol. viii. p.
507.
[155] Ibid. p. 509.
[156] Proc. Zool. Soc. 1868, p.
482
[157] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, 1869, p. 454.
[158] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, p. 459.
[159] See Ann. and Mag. of Nat.
Hist., July 1870, p. 37.
[160] Professor Huxley’s Lectures
on the Elements of Comp. Anat. p. 184.
[161] For an enumeration of the
more obvious homological relationships see Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist.
for August 1870, p. 118.
[162] See Ann. and Mag, of Nat.
Hist., July 1870.
[163] Treatise on the Human
Skeleton, 1858.
[164] Hunterian Lectures for
1864.
[165] Linnæan Transactions, vol.
xxv. p. 395, 1866.
[166] Hunterian Lectures for
1870, and Journal of Anat. for May 1870.
[167] See a Paper on the “Axial
Skeleton of the Urodela,” in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, p. 266.
[168] Just as Button’s
superfluous lament over the unfortunate organization of the sloth has
been shown, by the increase of our knowledge, to have been uncalled for
and absurd, so other supposed instances of non-adaptation will, no doubt,
similarly disappear. Mr. Darwin, in his “Origin of Species,” 5th edition,
p. 220, speaks of a woodpecker (Colaptes campestris) as having an
organization quite at variance with its habits, and as never climbing a
tree, though possessed of the special arboreal structure of other
woodpeckers. It now appears, however, from the observations of Mr. W. H.
Hudson, C.M.Z.S., that its habits are in harmony with its structure. See
Mr. Hudson’s third letter to the Zoological Society, published in the
Proceedings of that Society for March 24, 1870, p. 159.
[169] Dr. Cobbold has informed
the Author that he has never observed a planaria divide spontaneously,
and he is sceptical as to that process taking place at all. Dr. H.
Charlton Bastian has also stated that, in spite of much observation, he
has never seen the process in vorticella.
[170] Professor Huxley’s
Hunterian Lecture, March 16, 1868.
[171] Ibid. March 18.
[172] “Principles of Biology,”
vol. ii. p. 105.
[173] “Principles of Biology,”
vol. ii. p. 203.
[174] Quoted by H. Stannius in
his “Handbuch der Anatomie der Wirbelthiere,” Zweite Auflage, Erstes
Buch, § 7, p. 17.
[175] In his last Hunterian
Course of Lectures, 1869.
[176] “The Science of Abnormal
Forms.”
[177] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 322; and “Origin of Species,” 5th edition,
1869, p. 178.
[178] A remarkable woman
exhibited in London a few years ago.
[179] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 328.
[180] “Ueber das
Gliedmaassenskelet der Enaliosaurier, Jenaischen Zeitschrift,” Bd. v.
Heft 3, Taf. xiii.
[181] In his work on the Carpus
and Tarsus.
[182] An excellent specimen
displaying this resemblance is preserved in the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons.
[183] Phil. Trans. 1867, p.
353.
[184] Proc. Zool. Soc. 1865, p.
255.
[185] Ibid. p. 351.
[186] “Hist. Générale des
Anomalies,” t. i. p. 228. Bruxelles, 1837.
[187] Nov. Comment. Petrop. t.
ix. p. 269.
[188] Read on June 2, 1868,
before the Massachusetts Medical Society. See vol. ii. No. 3.
[189] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 322.
[190] “Lectures on Surgical
Pathology,” 1853, vol. i. p. 18.
[191] “Lectures on Surgical
Pathology,” 1853, vol. i. p. 22.
[192] See “Medico-Chirurgical
Transactions,” vol. xxv. (or vii. of 2nd series), 1842, p. 100, Pl.
III.
[193] Med.-Chirurg. Trans, vol.
xxv. (or vii. of 2nd series), 1842, p. 122.
[194] See Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal for April 5, 1866, vol. lxxiv. p. 189.
[195] “Principles of Biology,”
vol. i. p. 180.
[196] See the “Proceedings of the
Boston Society of Natural History,” vol. xi. June 5, 1867.
[197] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 75.
[198] Ibid. p. 112.
[199] Ibid. p. 170.
[200] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 229.
[201] It is hardly necessary to
say that the Author does not mean that there is, in addition to a real
objective crystal, another real, objective separate thing beside it,
namely the “force” directing it. All that is meant is that the action of
the crystal in crystallizing must be ideally separated from the
crystal itself, not that it is really separate.
[202] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, 1869, p. 577.
[203] Vol. ii. p. 122.
[204] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i p. 295.
[205] “Natural Selection,” p.
350.
[206] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii.
[207] See 2nd edition, vol. i. p.
214.
[208] Page 103.
[209] I have not the merit of
having noticed this inconsistency; it was pointed out to me by my friend
the Rev. W. W. Roberts.
[210] Vol. i. p. 215.
[211] “Malay Archipelago,” vol.
ii. p. 365.
[212] “The Origin of Civilization
and the Primitive Condition of Man,” p. 261. Longmans, 1870.
[213] “Primitive Man,” p.
248.
[214] “Fiji and the Fijians,”
vol. i. p. 183.
[215] “Essays,” Second Series,
vol. ii. p. 13.
[216] See No. 117, July 1869, p.
272.
[217] Macmillan’s
Magazine, No. 117, July 1869.
[218] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 403.
[219] Ibid. p. 366.
[220] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 402.
[221] See Fortnightly
Review, New Series, vol. iii. April 1868, p. 352.
[222] This appeared in the
Rivista Contemporanea Nazionale Italiana, and was translated and
given to the English public in Scientific Opinion for September
29, October 6, and October 13, 1869, pp. 365, 391, and 407.
[223] See Scientific
Opinion, of October 13, 1869, p. 407.
[224] See Scientific
Opinion of September 29, 1869, p. 366.
[225] Fortnightly Review,
New Series, vol. iii. April 1868, p. 508.
[226] Scientific Opinion,
of October 13, 1869, p. 408.
[227] Fortnightly Review,
New Series, vol. iii. April 1868, p. 509.
[228] “Histoire Naturelle,
générale et particulière,” tome ii. 1749, p. 327. “Ces liqueurs séminales
sont toutes deux un extrait de toutes les parties du corps,” &c.
[229] See Nature, March 3,
1870, p. 454. Mr. Wallace says (referring to Mr. Croll’s paper in the
Phil. Mag.), “As we are now, and have been for 60,000 years, in a
period of low eccentricity, the rate of change of species during that
time may be no measure of the rate that has generally obtained in past
geological epochs.”
[230] “Habit and Intelligence,”
vol. i. p. 344.
[231] If anyone were to contend
that beside the opium there existed a real distinct objective entity,
“its soporific virtue,” he would be open to ridicule indeed. But the
constitution of our minds is such that we cannot but distinguish ideally
a thing from its even essential attributes and qualities. The joke is
sufficiently amusing, however, regarded as the solemn enunciation of a
mere truism.
[232] Noticed by Professor Owen
in his “Archetype,” p. 76. Recently it has been attempted to discredit
Darwinism in France by speaking of it as “de la science
mousseuse!“
[233] “Lay Sermons,” p. 342.
[234] Introductory Lecture of
February 14, 1870, pp. 24-30, Figs. 1-4. (Churchill and Sons.)
[235] See especially “Animals and
Plants under Domestication,” vol. ii. chap. xviii.
[236] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, pp. 323, 324.
[237] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 2.
[238] Ibid. p. 25.
[239] Ibid. p. 151.
[240] Ibid. p. 157.
[241] Ibid. p. 158.
[242] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. p. 291.
[243] Though hardly necessary, it
may be well to remark that the views here advocated in no way depend upon
the truth of the doctrine of Spontaneous Generation.
[244] Vol. iii. p. 808.
[245] This is hardly an exact
representation of Mr. Darwin’s view. On his theory, if a favourable
variation happens to arise (the external circumstances remaining the
same), it will yet be preserved.
[246] See 2nd edition, p.
113.
[247] “Essays, Philosophical and
Theological,” Trübner and Co., First Series, 1866, p. 190. “Every
relative disability may be read two ways. A disqualification in the
nature of thought for knowing x is, from the other side, a
disqualification in the nature of x from being known. To say then
that the First Cause is wholly removed from our apprehension is not
simply a disclaimer of faculty on our part: it is a charge of inability
against the First Cause too. The dictum about it is this: ‘It is a Being
that may exist out of knowledge, but that is precluded from entering
within the sphere of knowledge.’ We are told in one breath that this
Being must be in every sense ‘perfect, complete, total—including in
itself all power, and transcending all law’ (p. 38); and in another that
this perfect and omnipotent One is totally incapable of revealing any one
of an infinite store of attributes. Need we point out the contradictions
which this position involves? If you abide by it, you deny the Absolute
and Infinite in the very act of affirming it, for, in debarring the First
Cause from self-revelation, you impose a limit on its nature. And in the
very act of declaring the First Cause incognizable, you do not permit it
to remain unknown. For that only is unknown, of which you can neither
affirm nor deny any predicate; here you deny the power of self-disclosure
to the ‘Absolute,’ of which therefore something is known;—viz.,
that nothing can be known!”
[248] Loc. cit. p. 108.
[249] Loc. cit. p. 43.
[250] Loc. cit. p. 46.
[251] Mr. J. Martineau, in his
“Essays,” vol. i. p. 211, observes, “Mr. Spencer’s conditions of pious
worship are hard to satisfy; there must be between the Divine and human
no communion of thought, relations of conscience, or approach of
affection.” … “But you cannot constitute a religion out of mystery
alone, any more than out of knowledge alone; nor can you measure the
relation of doctrines to humility and piety by the mere amount of
conscious darkness which they leave. All worship, being directed to what
is above us and transcends our comprehension, stands in presence
of a mystery. But not all that stands before a mystery is worship.”
[252] “Lay Sermons,” p. 20.
[253] Loc. cit. p. 109.
[254] Loc. cit. p. 111.
[255] In this criticism on Mr.
Herbert Spencer, the Author finds he has been anticipated by Mr. James
Martineau. (See “Essays,” vol. i. p. 208.)
[256] Loc. cit. p. 29.
[257] The Author means by this,
that it is directly and immediately the act of God, the
word “supernatural” being used in a sense convenient for the purposes of
this work, and not in its ordinary theological sense.
[258] The phrase “order of
nature” is not here used in its theological sense as distinguished from
the “order of grace,” but as a term, here convenient, to denote actions
not due to direct and immediate Divine intervention.
[259] “A Free Examination of
Darwin’s Treatise,” p. 29, reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly for
July, August, and October, 1860.
[260] “Origin of Species,” 5th
edition, p. 571.
[261] “Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 431.
[262] The Rev. Baden Powell says,
“All sciences approach perfection as they approach to a unity of first
principles,—in all cases recurring to or tending towards certain
high elementary conceptions which are the representatives of the unity of
the great archetypal ideas according to which the whole system is
arranged. Inductive conceptions, very partially and imperfectly realized
and apprehended by human intellect, are the exponents in our minds of
these great principles in nature.”
“All science is but the partial reflexion in the reason of man,
of the great all-pervading reason of the universe. And thus the
unity of science is the reflexion of the unity of nature,
and of the unity of that supreme reason and intelligence which
pervades and rules over nature, and from whence all reason and all
science is derived.” (Unity of Worlds, Essay i., § ii.; Unity of
Sciences, pp. 79 and 81.) Also he quotes from Oersted’s “Soul in Nature”
(pp. 12, 16, 18, 87, 92, and 377). “If the laws of reason did not exist
in nature, we should vainly attempt to force them upon her: if the laws
of nature did not exist in our reason, we should not be able to
comprehend them.” … “We find an agreement between our reason and works
which our reason did not produce.” … “All existence is a dominion of
reason.” “The laws of nature are laws of reason, and altogether form an
endless unity of reason; … one and the same throughout the
universe.”
[263] In the same way Mr. Lewes,
in criticising the Duke of Argyll’s “Reign of Law” (Fortnightly
Review, July 1867, p. 100), asks whether we should consider that man
wise who spilt a gallon of wine in order to fill a wineglass? But,
because we should not do so, it by no means follows that we can argue
from such an action to the action of God in the visible universe. For the
man’s object, in the case supposed, is simply to fill the wine-glass, and
the wine spilt is so much loss. With God it may be entirely different in
both respects. All these objections are fully met by the principle thus
laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas: “Quod si aliqua causa particularis
deficiat a suo effectu, hoc est propter aliquam causam particularem
impediantem quæ continetur sub ordine causæ universalis. Unde effectus
ordinem causæ universalis nullo modo potest exire.” … “Sicut indigestio
contingit præter ordinem virtutis nutritivæ ex aliquo impedimento, puta
ex grossitie cibi, quam necesse est reducere in aliam causam, et sic
usque ad causam primam universalem. Cum igitur Deus sit prima causa
universalis non unius generi tantum, sed universaliter totius entis,
impossibile est quod aliquid contingat præter ordinem divinæ
gubernationis; sed ex hoc ipso quod aliquid ex unâ parte videtur exire ab
ordine divinæ providentiæ, quo consideratur secundam aliquam particularem
causam, necesse est quod in eundem ordinem relabatur secundum aliam
causam.”—Sum. Theol. p. i. q. 19, a. 6, and q. 103, a.
7.
[264] “Unity of Worlds,” Essay
ii., § ii., p. 260.
[265] See the exceedingly good
passage on this subject by the Rev. Dr. Newman, in his “Discourses for
Mixed Congregations,” 1850, p. 345.
[266] See Mr. G. H. Lewes’s
“Sea-Side Studies,” for some excellent remarks, beginning at p. 329, as
to the small susceptibility of certain animals to pain.
[267] “Philosophy of Creation,”
Essay iii., § iv., p. 480.
[268] It seems almost strange
that modern English thought should so long hold aloof from familiar
communion with Christian writers of other ages and countries. It is
rarely indeed that acquaintance is shown with such authors, though a
bright example to the contrary was set by Sir William Hamilton. Sir
Charles Lyell (in his “Principles of Geology,” 7th edition, p. 35) speaks
with approval of the early Italian geologists. Of Vallisneri he says, “I
return with pleasure to the geologists of Italy who preceded, as has been
already shown, the naturalists of other countries in their investigations
into the ancient history of the earth, and who still maintained a decided
pre-eminence. They refuted and ridiculed the physico-theological systems
of Burnet, Whiston, and Woodward; while Vallisneri, in his comments on
the Woodwardian theory, remarked how much the interests of religion, as
well as of those of sound philosophy, had suffered by perpetually mixing
up the sacred writings with questions of physical science.” Again, he
quotes the Carmelite friar Generelli, who, illustrating Moro before the
Academy of Cremona in 1749, strongly opposed those who would introduce
the supernatural into the domain of nature. “I hold in utter abomination,
most learned Academicians! those systems which are built with their
foundations in the air, and cannot be propped up without a miracle, and I
undertake, with the assistance of Moro, to explain to you how these
marine monsters were transported into the mountains by natural
causes.”
Sir Charles Lyell notices with exemplary impartiality the spirit of
intolerance on both sides. How in France, Buffon, on the one hand, was
influenced by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne to recant his
theory of the earth, and how Voltaire, on the other, allowed his
prejudices to get the better, if not of his judgment, certainly of his
expression of it. Thinking that fossil remains of shells, &c., were
evidence in favour of orthodox views, Voltaire, Sir Charles Lyell
(Principles, p. 56) tells us, “endeavoured to inculcate scepticism as to
the real nature of such shells, and to recall from contempt the exploded
dogma of the sixteenth century, that they were sports of nature. He also
pretended that vegetable impressions were not those of real plants.” …
“He would sometimes, in defiance of all consistency, shift his ground
when addressing the vulgar; and, admitting the true nature of the shells
collected in the Alps and other places, pretend that they were Eastern
species, which had fallen from the hats of pilgrims coming from Syria.
The numerous essays written by him on geological subjects were all
calculated to strengthen prejudices, partly because he was ignorant of
the real state of the science, and partly from his bad faith.” As to the
harmony between many early Church writers of great authority and modern
views as regards certain matters of geology, see “Geology and
Revelation,” by the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D., London, 1870.
[269] “De Genesi ad Litt.,” lib.
v., cap. v., No. 14 in Ben. Edition, voi. iii. p. 186.
[270] Lib. cit., cap. xxii., No.
44.
[271] Lib. cit., “De Trinitate,”
lib. iii., cap. viii, No. 14.
[272] Lib. cit., cap. ix., No.
16.
[273] St. Thomas, Summa, i.,
quest. 67, art. 4, ad 3.
[274] Primæ Partis, vol. ii.,
quest. 74, art. 2.
[275] Lib. cit., quest. 71, art.
1.
[276] Lib. cit., quest. 45, art.
8.
[277] Vide In Genesim
Comment, cap. i.
[278] Roger Bacon, Opus tertium,
c. ix. p. 27, quoted in the Rambler for 1859, vol. xii. p.
375.
[279] See Nature, June and
July, 1870. Those who, like Professors Huxley and Tyndall, do not accept
his conclusions, none the less agree with him in principle, though they
limit the evolution of the organic world from the inorganic to a very
remote period of the world’s history. (See Professor Huxley’s address to
the British Association at Liverpool, 1870, p. 17.)
[280] “Lectures on Metaphysics
and Logic,” vol. i. Lecture ii., p. 40.
[281] In the same way that an
undue cultivation of any one kind of knowledge is prejudicial to
philosophy. Mr. James Martineau well observes, “Nothing is more common
than to see maxims, which are unexceptionable as the assumptions of
particular sciences, coerced into the service of a universal philosophy,
and so turned into instruments of mischief and distortion. That “we can
know nothing but phenomena,”—that “causation is simply constant
priority,”—that “men are governed invariably by their interests,”
are examples of rules allowable as dominant hypotheses in physics or
political economy, but exercising a desolating tyranny when thrust on to
the throne of universal empire. He who seizes upon these and similar
maxims, and carries them in triumph on his banner, may boast of his
escape from the uncertainties of metaphysics, but is himself all the
while the unconscious victim of their very vulgarest deception.”
(“Essays,” Second Series, A Plea for Philosophical Studies, p.
421.)
[282] Lecky’s “History of
Rationalism,” vol. i. p. 73.
[283] “Lectures on University
Subjects,” by J. H. Newman, D.D., p. 322.
[284] Loc. cit. p. 324.
[285] Thus Professor Tyndall, in
the Pall Mall Gazette of June 15, 1868, speaking of physical
science, observes, “The logical feebleness of science is not
sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition, not
by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its
cultivation.”
[286] By this it is not, of
course, meant to deny that the existence of God can be demonstrated so as
to demand the assent of the intellect taken, so to speak, by itself.
[287] See some excellent remarks
in the Rev. Dr. Newman’s Parochial Sermons—the new edition (1869),
vol. i. p. 211.
[288] American Journal of
Science, July 1860, p. 143, quoted in Dr. Asa Gray’s pamphlet, p.
47.
[289] See The Academy for
October 1869, No. 1, p. 13.
[290] Professor Huxley goes on to
say that the mechanist may, in turn, demand of the teleologist how the
latter knows it was so intended. To this it may be replied he knows it as
a necessary truth of reason deduced from his own primary intuitions,
which intuitions cannot be questioned without absolute
scepticism.
[291] The Professor doubtless
means the direct and immediate result. (See Trans. Zool.
Soc. vol. v. p. 90.)
[292] “Natural Selection,” p.
280.
[293] Dr. Asa Gray, e.g.,
has thus understood Mr. Darwin. The Doctor says in his pamphlet, p. 38,
“Mr. Darwin uses expressions which imply that the natural forms which
surround us, because they have a history or natural sequence, could have
been only generally, but not particularly designed,—a view at once
superficial and contradictory; whereas his true line should be, that his
hypothesis concerns the order and not the cause, the
how and not the why of the phenomena, and so leaves the
question of design just where it was before.”
[294] “All science is but the
partial reflexion in the reason of man, of the great all-pervading
reason of the universe. And the unity of science is the
reflexion of the unity of nature and of the unity of that
supreme reason and intelligence which pervades and rules over nature, and
from whence all reason and all science is derived.” (Rev. Baden Powell,
“Unity of the Sciences,” Essay i. § ii. p. 81.)
[295] “The Reign of Law,” p.
40.
[296] Though Mr. Darwin’s
epithets denoting design are metaphorical, his admiration of the result
is unequivocal, nay, enthusiastic!
[297] See “Habit and
Intelligence,” vol. i. p. 348.
[298] The term, as before said,
not being used in its ordinary theological sense, but to denote an
immediate Divine action as distinguished from God’s action through the
powers conferred on the physical universe.
[299] See “Natural Selection,”
pp. 332 to 360.
[300] Loc. cit., p. 349.
[301] See Professor Huxley’s
“Lessons in Elementary Physiology,” p. 218.
[302] It may be objected,
perhaps, that excessive delicacy of the ear might have been produced by
having to guard against the approach of enemies, some savages being
remarkable for their keenness of hearing at great distances. But the
perceptions of intensity and quality of sound are very
different. Some persons who have an extremely acute ear for delicate
sounds, and who are fond of music, have yet an incapacity for detecting
whether an instrument is slightly out of tune.
[303] Loc. cit., pp. 351,
352.
[304] Loc. cit., p. 368.
[305] Loc. cit., p. 350.
[306] Published by John
Churchill.
[307] Natural Selection, p.
324.
[308] The italics are not Mr.
Wallace’s.
[309] “Unity of Worlds,” Essay
ii. § ii. p. 247.
[310] Ibid. Essay i. § ii. p.
76.
[311] Ibid. Essay iii. § iv. p.
466.
[312] A good exposition of how an
inferior action has to yield to one higher is given by Dr. Newman in his
“Lectures on University Subjects,” p. 372. “What is true in one science,
is dictated to us indeed according to that science, but not according to
another science, or in another department.
“What is certain in the military art, has force in the military art,
but not in statesmanship; and if statesmanship be a higher department of
action than war, and enjoins the contrary, it has no force on our
reception and obedience at all. And so what is true in medical science,
might in all cases be carried out, were man a mere animal or brute
without a soul; but since he is a rational, responsible being, a thing
may be ever so true in medicine, yet may be unlawful in fact, in
consequence of the higher law of morals and religion coming to
some different conclusion.”
[313] Quoted from the
Rambler of March 1860, p. 364: “Ὅπου μὲν οὖν
ἅπαντα
συνέβη,
ὥσπερ κᾲν εἰ
ἕνεκα του
ἐγίνετο,
ταῦτα μὲν
ἐσώθη ἀπὸ
τοῦ
αὐτομάτου
συστάντα
ἐπιτηδείως
ὅσα δὲ μὴ
οὕτως
ἀπώλετο
καὶ
ἀπόλλυται,
καθάπεο
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς
λέγει τὰ
βουγενῆ
καὶ
ἀνδρόπρωρα.“—Arist. Phys. ii. c. 8.