Part 8 (1/2)
The actual geographical distribution of species--any species--does not depend solely on lines of ancestry, however great their persistence of specific characters; nor on any principle of natural selection, nor on the possibility of fertile monstrosities, but on the simple incidence of conditions; and M. De Candolle, in his ”Geographie Botanique,” virtually concedes this, while treating of geographical considerations in connection with distribution. He in fact says, in so many words, that the actual distribution of species in the past ”seems to have been a consequence of preceding conditions.” [21] And he is forced to this conclusion by his virtual abandonment of plant-migration, and the alleged means of seed-distribution.
The question after all, says Professor Gray, is not ”how plants and animals originated, but how they came to exist where they are, and what they are.” On only one of these points--that of favoring conditions--can any satisfactory answer be given, except as we defer to the Bible genesis, which explains all. And the reason is, that we can never determine what forms are specific without tracing them back to their origin, and this is impossible. Orders, genera, species, etc., are only so many lines of thought on which we arrange our cla.s.sifications, just as the parallel wires of an abacus, with their sliding b.a.l.l.s, are the lines on which we make our mathematical computations. Aga.s.siz would not allow that varieties existed in nature, except as man's agency effected them, that is, as they were brought about by artificial processes.
These artificial processes are quite numerous, and many of them have been practised from remote antiquity. But they seem to have no counterpart in nature, except as insects may contribute to modifications by the distribution of pollen. But all modifications of this character tend towards infertility, while few plants accept any fertilizing aid from other and different species. Any break in their hereditary tendencies, resulting in a metamorphosis that involves the integrity of their stamens and pistils, is stoutly resisted by nature. In considering the question of species, therefore, we should confine our observations to those produced by natural, not artificial, methods; to plants as propagated by the loving tendencies of nature, not by the arbitrary and exacting methods of man--those looking to his gratification only. All these fall into the category, of ”nature's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,” as Shakespeare happily defines them. In view of these considerations, and the new methods of cla.s.sification, such as grouping genera into families or orders, and these into sub-orders, tribes, sub-tribes, etc., we can readily understand why the great Harvard Professor should have wholly eliminated community of descent from his idea of ”species,” or hesitated to regard varieties otherwise than as the result of man's agency.
Indeed, the whole question of species, as well as varieties, is likely to undergo material modifications in the future. On some points the botanists and zoologists differ widely already, many making likeness among individuals a secondary consideration, and genealogical succession the absolute test of species. Others, on the contrary, make resemblance the fundamental rule, and look upon habitual fecundity within hereditary limits as provisional, or answering to temporary needs only. These differences of opinion would seem to be the more tenaciously held as the question of new varieties presses for solution at the hands of nature, rather than by the agency of man. All these varieties tend less to new races than to cl.u.s.ter about type-centres, and can go no further than certain fixed limits of variation, beyond which all oscillations cease.
But none of these questions touch the real marrow of the controversy as to origin, or aid us in determining the duration of species.
The presence of the two great families of trees--the sequoias and the oaks--as far back as the Miocene period, if not extending through the Eocene into the Cretacious, is conclusive of the point we would make, that no great evolutional changes have taken place in the last two or three million years, and none are likely to take place in the next million years, except that the _Sequoia gigantea_ may drop out, from the vandalism of man or the next glacial drift.
M. Ch. Martins, in his ”Voyage Botanique A(C)n Norwege,” says ”that each species of the vegetable kingdom is a kind of thermometer which has its own zero.” It may also be said to have its hygrometric and telluric gauges, or instruments to determine the necessary conditions of moisture and soil-const.i.tuents. When the temperature is below zero, the physiological functions of the plant are suspended, either in temporary hybernation or death. And so when the hygrometric gauge falls below the point of actual sustentation, the plant shrinks and dies; while, without the necessary conditions, it would never have made its appearance. There was nothing more imperative in the command for the earth to bring forth than the necessary conditions on which plant-life depended in the first instance, and still depends, as we have endeavored to show.
Dr. J.G. Cooper, in an interesting article prepared by him at the expense of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute, on the distribution of the forests and trees of North America, with notes and observations on the physical geography, climate, etc., of the country, after cla.s.sifying, arranging, and tabulating the results of the various observations forwarded to that inst.i.tution, indulges in the following general observations: ”We have with a tropical summer a tropical variety of trees, but chiefly of northern forms. Again, with our arctic winters, we have a group of trees, which, though of tropical forms, are so adapted to the climate as to lose their leaves, like the northern forms, in winter. But, here, it must be distinctly understood, is no alteration _produced_ by climate. Trees are made for and not _by_ climate, and they keep their characteristics throughout their whole range, which with some extends through a great variety of climate.” The italics are the authors, and we suppose he means by ”tropical” and ”arctic,” the sub-tropical and sub-arctic.
In making his general observations, he had before him large collections of the leaves, fruits, bark, and wood of trees from all parts of the United States, including portions of Mexico, the Canadas and Alaska, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But one of the most important elements--in fact, the _most_ important--is wanting in the tables before us, and that is, the elevation at which these thousands of specimens were obtained. So great an oversight as this should not have occurred, although it may not have been entirely Dr. Cooper's fault. He had his materials to work upon, and may have done the best that any one could with them. And yet it is just as important to know at what _elevation_ a particular tree grows in its own plant zone, as to know whether it comes from a sub-arctic or sub-tropical region.
But this was not the comment we designed to make. Dr. Cooper labors, with most professional botanists, under the delusion that all our plants and trees originated in some one ”centre of creation,” at some period or other in time and place, and have been steadily spreading themselves outward from that centre until they occupy their present areas of distribution. We have no objection to his clinging to this superannuated faith and belief, if he derives any pleasure in flus.h.i.+ng up these ”traditional gra.s.shoppers.” But we have a right to insist that he shall be logical. He wants it distinctly understood that trees are made _for_, and not _by_, climate. Then his ”centre of creation” should be everywhere, not a localized one. For he insists that no alteration can be produced by climate, but that the characteristics of each specific form are preserved throughout its entire range of distribution. But if these nomadic and migratory forms have wandered thus far from their centres of creation, it would seem that the trees had either adapted themselves to the climate, or the climate to the trees. But our Smithsonian systematizer will allow us neither horn of this dilemma. He insists that the trees were made for the climate, and that they have preserved their characteristic features during their entire ambulation upon the earth's surface.
With the change of a single monosyllabic predicate, this proposition is undoubtedly true. We have never heard that plants or trees were ”made.”
They were ordered ”to grow,” or rather the earth was commanded to bring them forth, which is an equivalent induction. And the fact that they grow now, renders it absolutely certain that they grew at first, when ”out of the ground made the Lord G.o.d _to grow_” every plant of the field, and every tree that is pleasant to the sight. We accept this genesis for the want of a better. And if Dr. Cooper will add to his climatic conditions, the hygrometric and other conditions necessary for the development and growth of his plants and trees, we will agree with him to the fullest extent of his novel position--that trees neither adapt themselves to the climate, nor the climate to the trees; although it is true that trees modify climate quite as much as they are modified by it. The true physiological formula is undoubtedly this:--Trees make their appearance _in_ climatic and other environing conditions, and flourish, without material change in characteristics, so long as these conditions favor.
_Why_ they make their appearance is not a debatable question, except as we a.s.sume a preA”xisting vital principle, and apply to its elucidation our subtlest dialectical methods. We are told that G.o.d commanded the earth to bring them forth, after _his_ spirit (the animating soul of life) had moved upon the face of the depths--the chaotic and formless ma.s.s of the earth in the beginning. Plato has uttered no profounder or more comprehensive truth than this, with all his conceptions of Deity and the perfect archetypal world after which he conceived our own to be modeled.
Our preference for the Bible genesis over the Platonic conception is, that it is vastly simpler and const.i.tutes a more objective reality to the human soul. Besides, we find _it true in fact_, since the earth is constantly teeming with life, as if in obedience to some great primal law impressed upon matter by an infinitely superior intelligence to our own.--
”If this faith fail, The pillar'd firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble.”
Chapter VII.
What Is Life? Its Various Theories.
The question, ”What is life?” does not lie within the province of human reason, the science of logic, or the intuitions of consciousness, to determine. It furnishes no objective _datum_ on which to predicate attributes that are either congruent or diverse. It can only be defined as the coordination of the _vis vitae_ in nature, which is an undisguised form of reasoning in a circle. We can ascribe to it only such attributes as are utterly inconceivable in any other concept or object of thought. It admits of but one attribution, and that embracing an identical proposition. To say of life that it is ”a coArdination of action,” might be true as a partial judgment, but not as a comprehensive one; otherwise, crystallization would fall under its category, which is manifestly an illicit induction. It allows, therefore, of no possible explication, a.n.a.lysis, or separate logical predicament. It stands absolutely alone and apart by itself--a positive, self-subsistent vital principle, or process of action, which all physiologists agree, for the sake of convenience and uniformity of expression, in designating as a _power, property, force_, etc., in nature. Whenever questioned as to its origin the subtlest and profoundest intellects, in all ages of the world, have returned but one answer: ”I know no possible origin but G.o.d”--the great primal source of all life in the universe.
Among the ancients we find an almost equivalent induction in the phrases, borrowed by them from the highest antiquity, ”_Jupiter est genitor_,”
”_Jupiter est quodcunque vivit_,” etc., which, although uninspired utterances, strike their roots deeply into the _terra incognita_ of consciousness, wherein we ascribe to G.o.d the ”issues of life” as a paramount theological conception. When the ingenious and learned Frenchman defined life as ”the sum of all the functions by which death is resisted,”
he was as conclusively indulging in the _argumentum in circulo_ as if he had said, ”Life is the ant.i.thesis of what is not life.” This would be as luminous a definition as that which should make Theism the opposite of Anti-theism, or the Algebraic statement _x-y_ the ant.i.thesis of _x+y_--one of no definitional value so long as there is no known quant.i.ty expressed in the formula.
To begin with begging the question, and then adroitly whipping the argument about a pivotal point, as a boy would whip a top, may be amusing enough to the childish mind, but is manifestly making no more progress in logic than to subst.i.tute an ingenious paraphrase of a term for its real definition. It is a mere verbal feat at best, without the possibility of reaching any determinate judgment. It is like some of the half-circular phrases we are likely to meet with in the categories of modern materialistic science, such as the ”correlated correlates of motion,” the ”potentiated potentialities of sky-mist,” the ”undifferentiated differentialities of life-stuff,” called, by special condescension on the part of the materialists, ”life.” All of which is an easy logic, but a whimsical enough way of putting it.
According to Leibnitz, everything that exists is replete with life, full of vital activity, if not an actual ma.s.s of living individualities. But this daring hypothesis has ceased to attract the attention it once received. There are states and conditions of matter in respect to which it is idle to predicate the _vis vitae_. For the great bulk of our globe is made up of the highly crystallized and non-fossiliferous rocks, which neither contain any elementary principle of life, nor exhibit the slightest trace of vital organism, even to the minutest living speck or plastid. During all those vast periods of uncomputed time, covering the world's primeval history, there was an utter absence of life until the chief upheavals of the outer strata of our globe, now const.i.tuting the princ.i.p.al mountain chains of its well-defined continents, occurred. In whatever atomic or molecular theories, therefore, we may indulge, in respect to the original formation of the earth, the utmost stretch of empirical science can go no further, in the solution of vital problems, than to touch the threshold of inorganic matter, where, in our backward survey of nature, vegetable life begins and animal life ends. All beyond this point must be given up to other ”correlates of motion” than those to which the materialists specifically a.s.sign the beginnings of life.
The theory of ”panspermism,” originating with the AbbA(C) Spallanzani in modern times, and still stoutly advocated by M. Pasteur and some few others, is manifestly defective in this,--that it goes beyond the inorganic limit in a.s.signing vital units to all matter, even to its elemental principles. It is true that they speak of ”pre-existing germs”--”primordial forms of life”--that are ”many million times smaller than the smallest visible insect.” But their a.s.sumptions go far beyond the construction we give to the Bible genesis, which merely a.s.serts that the germinal principle of life--that of every living thing--is in the earth, or in ”the waters and the earth,” which were alone commanded ”to bring forth.”
Some of the panspermists have gone so far as to a.s.sert that everything which exists is referable to the _vis vitA
_--to non-corporeal, yet extended vital units, mere metaphysical points--like Professor Beale's bioplasts in the finer nerve-reticulations--or living things endowed with a greater or less degree of perceptive power. This was the a.s.sumption of the great German philosopher, Leibnitz, who carried the panspermic theory so far as to accept the more fanciful one of ”monads”--those invisible, ideal, and purely speculative units of Plato, which go to make up the entire universe, extending even to the ultimate elements, or elements of elements. Leibnitz says: ”As it is with the human soul, which sympathizes with all the varying states of nature--which mirrors the universe--so it is with the monads universally. Each--and they are infinitely numerous--is also a mirror, a centre of the universe, a microcosm: everything that is, or happens, is reflected in each, but by its own spontaneous power, through which it holds ideally in itself, as in a germ, the totality of things.”
But the specific germ theory advanced in the Bible genesis, is capable of being taken out of the purely speculative region in which ”panspermism”
landed the great German philosopher. It is a simple averment that the animating principle of life is in the earth; that the germs of all living things, vegetal and animal alike, are implanted therein, and that they make their appearance, in obedience to the divine command, whenever and wherever the necessary environing conditions occur. The fact that nature still obeys this command is proof that she has the power to do so--that this indestructible vital principle still animates her breast. Innumerable experiments, as well as phenomenal facts, attest the truth of this genesis of life, while the researches of Professor Bastian and other eminent materialists, made in infusorial and cryptogamic directions, confirm rather than discredit it. The fact that it appears for the first time in this ancient Hebrew text can detract nothing from its value as a scientific statement. Granting that panspermism may rest upon a purely fanciful and unsubstantial basis, it is but fair to concede that its great advocates have honestly attempted to explain by it all the vital phenomena occurring in nature, as M. Pasteur is conclusively attempting to do now.
It is certain that the materialists, who are resolutely antagonizing the panspermic, as well as all other ”vital” theories, have not yet gone so deeply into elementary substance as to shut off all further investigation in these directions.[22] Neither the lowest primordial cell, nor the least conceivable molecule, has yet been reached by the aid of the microscope, any more than the outermost circle of the heavens has been penetrated by the aid of the telescope. We must stop somewhere, and when we find a scientifically formulated statement which embraces all vital phenomena, and satisfactorily accounts for them all, whether it originally came from Aristotle, from Plato, or from Moses, is a matter of comparatively slight moment, so far as the scientific world is concerned. At least, it would seem so to us. But to talk of the _de novo_ origin of ”living matter” as the result of the dynamic force of molecules--themselves concessively ”dead matter”--is to indulge in quite as fanciful a speculation as the advocates of the panspermic hypothesis have ever ventured to suggest.
Professor Bastian is forced to go back of his infusorial forms and fungus-germs to a microscopical ”pellicle,” from which he admits they are ”evolved.” But why evolved? Does not the principle of vitality lie back of the pellicle, as well as the fungus-germ? How absolutely certain is he that the extremest verge of microscopic investigation has been attained, in what he is pleased to designate ”primary organic forms?” ”Evolution” is a very potential word, and no one may yet know what boundless stores of absurd theory and metaphysical nonsense are locked up in it![23] He admits that ”evolution,” as embracing the idea of ”natural selection,” can have nothing to do with the vast a.s.semblage of infusorial and cryptogamic organisms, until they a.s.sume definitely recurring forms, that is, rise into species and breed true to nature. Then, he agrees with Mr. Darwin, that the law of vital polarity or ”heredity,” as he calls it, may come in and play its part towards effecting evolution, or variability, in both animal and vegetal organisms, but not before. Why then should he lug in, or attempt to lug in, the diverse potentialities of this word ”evolution,”
for the purpose of demonstrating the dynamic law governing the developmental stages of his microscopic pellicle? This, he will agree, lies far below the point, in primary organism, where specific ident.i.ty, or the law of heredity, a.s.serts its full recognition. All below this developmental point is inconstancy of specific forms, with no line of ancestry to be traced anywhere.
This, Professor Bastian readily concedes, notwithstanding it cuts the Darwinian _plexus_ squarely in the middle. He says: ”Both Gruithuisen and TrA(C)vira.n.u.s agree that the infusoria met with have never presented similar characters when they have been encountered in different infusions; nor have they been uniform in the same infusion, when different portions of it have been _exposed to the incidence of different conditions_. The slightest variations in the quality or quant.i.ty of the materials employed, are invariably accompanied by the appearance of different organisms--these being oftentimes strange and peculiar, and unaccompanied by any of the familiar forms.” Other writers of equal eminence in this field of investigation have not only observed the same characteristics, but encountered the same difficulties in cla.s.sification, from the very great diversity obtaining even in the nearest allied forms. So great is this diversity, and so mult.i.tudinous the different forms, that little certainty or value can be attached to the cla.s.sifications already made. Even Professor O.F. MA1/4ller, after he had convinced himself that he had discovered not less than twelve different species belonging to a single genus, was subjected to the mortification of seeing Ehrenberg cut them all down to mere modifications of one and the same species.