Part 16 (1/2)

The same fact holds good with flowering plants, of which the two main divisions have been founded on characters derived from the embryo,--on the number and position of the embryonic leaves or cotyledons, and on the mode of development of the plumule and radicle. In our discussion on embryology, we shall see why such characters are so valuable, on the view of cla.s.sification tacitly including the idea of descent.

Our cla.s.sifications are often plainly influenced by chains of affinities. Nothing can be easier than to define a number of characters common to all birds; but in the case of crustaceans, such definition has. .h.i.therto been found impossible. There are crustaceans at the opposite ends of the series, which have hardly a character in common; yet the species at both ends, from being plainly allied to others, and these to others, and so onwards, can be recognised as unequivocally belonging to this, and to no other cla.s.s of the Articulata.

Geographical distribution has often been used, though perhaps not quite logically, in cla.s.sification, more especially in very large groups of closely allied forms. Temminck insists on the utility or even necessity of this practice in certain groups of birds; and it has been followed by several entomologists and botanists.

Finally, with respect to the comparative value of the various groups of species, such as orders, sub-orders, families, sub-families, and genera, they seem to be, at least at present, almost arbitrary. Several of the best botanists, such as Mr. Bentham and others, have strongly insisted on their arbitrary value. Instances could be given amongst plants and insects, of a group of forms, first ranked by practised naturalists as only a genus, and then raised to the rank of a sub-family or family; and this has been done, not because further research has detected important structural differences, at first overlooked, but because numerous allied species, with slightly different grades of difference, have been subsequently discovered.

All the foregoing rules and aids and difficulties in cla.s.sification are explained, if I do not greatly deceive myself, on the view that the natural system is founded on descent with modification; that the characters which naturalists consider as showing true affinity between any two or more species, are those which have been inherited from a common parent, and, in so far, all true cla.s.sification is genealogical; that community of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, and not some unknown plan of creation, or the enunciation of general propositions, and the mere putting together and separating objects more or less alike.

But I must explain my meaning more fully. I believe that the ARRANGEMENT of the groups within each cla.s.s, in due subordination and relation to the other groups, must be strictly genealogical in order to be natural; but that the AMOUNT of difference in the several branches or groups, though allied in the same degree in blood to their common progenitor, may differ greatly, being due to the different degrees of modification which they have undergone; and this is expressed by the forms being ranked under different genera, families, sections, or orders. The reader will best understand what is meant, if he will take the trouble of referring to the diagram in the fourth chapter. We will suppose the letters A to L to represent allied genera, which lived during the Silurian epoch, and these have descended from a species which existed at an unknown anterior period. Species of three of these genera (A, F, and I) have transmitted modified descendants to the present day, represented by the fifteen genera (a14 to z14) on the uppermost horizontal line. Now all these modified descendants from a single species, are represented as related in blood or descent to the same degree; they may metaphorically be called cousins to the same millionth degree; yet they differ widely and in different degrees from each other. The forms descended from A, now broken up into two or three families, const.i.tute a distinct order from those descended from I, also broken up into two families. Nor can the existing species, descended from A, be ranked in the same genus with the parent A; or those from I, with the parent I. But the existing genus F14 may be supposed to have been but slightly modified; and it will then rank with the parent-genus F; just as some few still living organic beings belong to Silurian genera. So that the amount or value of the differences between organic beings all related to each other in the same degree in blood, has come to be widely different. Nevertheless their genealogical ARRANGEMENT remains strictly true, not only at the present time, but at each successive period of descent. All the modified descendants from A will have inherited something in common from their common parent, as will all the descendants from I; so will it be with each subordinate branch of descendants, at each successive period. If, however, we choose to suppose that any of the descendants of A or of I have been so much modified as to have more or less completely lost traces of their parentage, in this case, their places in a natural cla.s.sification will have been more or less completely lost,--as sometimes seems to have occurred with existing organisms. All the descendants of the genus F, along its whole line of descent, are supposed to have been but little modified, and they yet form a single genus. But this genus, though much isolated, will still occupy its proper intermediate position; for F originally was intermediate in character between A and I, and the several genera descended from these two genera will have inherited to a certain extent their characters.

This natural arrangement is shown, as far as is possible on paper, in the diagram, but in much too simple a manner. If a branching diagram had not been used, and only the names of the groups had been written in a linear series, it would have been still less possible to have given a natural arrangement; and it is notoriously not possible to represent in a series, on a flat surface, the affinities which we discover in nature amongst the beings of the same group. Thus, on the view which I hold, the natural system is genealogical in its arrangement, like a pedigree; but the degrees of modification which the different groups have undergone, have to be expressed by ranking them under different so-called genera, sub-families, families, sections, orders, and cla.s.ses.

It may be worth while to ill.u.s.trate this view of cla.s.sification, by taking the case of languages. If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford the best cla.s.sification of the various languages now spoken throughout the world; and if all extinct languages, and all intermediate and slowly changing dialects, had to be included, such an arrangement would, I think, be the only possible one. Yet it might be that some very ancient language had altered little, and had given rise to few new languages, whilst others (owing to the spreading and subsequent isolation and states of civilisation of the several races, descended from a common race) had altered much, and had given rise to many new languages and dialects. The various degrees of difference in the languages from the same stock, would have to be expressed by groups subordinate to groups; but the proper or even only possible arrangement would still be genealogical; and this would be strictly natural, as it would connect together all languages, extinct and modern, by the closest affinities, and would give the filiation and origin of each tongue.

In confirmation of this view, let us glance at the cla.s.sification of varieties, which are believed or known to have descended from one species. These are grouped under species, with sub-varieties under varieties; and with our domestic productions, several other grades of difference are requisite, as we have seen with pigeons. The origin of the existence of groups subordinate to groups, is the same with varieties as with species, namely, closeness of descent with various degrees of modification. Nearly the same rules are followed in cla.s.sifying varieties, as with species. Authors have insisted on the necessity of cla.s.sing varieties on a natural instead of an artificial system; we are cautioned, for instance, not to cla.s.s two varieties of the pine-apple together, merely because their fruit, though the most important part, happens to be nearly identical; no one puts the swedish and common turnips together, though the esculent and thickened stems are so similar. Whatever part is found to be most constant, is used in cla.s.sing varieties: thus the great agriculturist Marshall says the horns are very useful for this purpose with cattle, because they are less variable than the shape or colour of the body, etc.; whereas with sheep the horns are much less serviceable, because less constant. In cla.s.sing varieties, I apprehend if we had a real pedigree, a genealogical cla.s.sification would be universally preferred; and it has been attempted by some authors. For we might feel sure, whether there had been more or less modification, the principle of inheritance would keep the forms together which were allied in the greatest number of points. In tumbler pigeons, though some sub-varieties differ from the others in the important character of having a longer beak, yet all are kept together from having the common habit of tumbling; but the short-faced breed has nearly or quite lost this habit; nevertheless, without any reasoning or thinking on the subject, these tumblers are kept in the same group, because allied in blood and alike in some other respects. If it could be proved that the Hottentot had descended from the Negro, I think he would be cla.s.sed under the Negro group, however much he might differ in colour and other important characters from negroes.

With species in a state of nature, every naturalist has in fact brought descent into his cla.s.sification; for he includes in his lowest grade, or that of a species, the two s.e.xes; and how enormously these sometimes differ in the most important characters, is known to every naturalist: scarcely a single fact can be predicated in common of the males and hermaphrodites of certain cirripedes, when adult, and yet no one dreams of separating them. The naturalist includes as one species the several larval stages of the same individual, however much they may differ from each other and from the adult; as he likewise includes the so-called alternate generations of Steenstrup, which can only in a technical sense be considered as the same individual. He includes monsters; he includes varieties, not solely because they closely resemble the parent-form, but because they are descended from it. He who believes that the cowslip is descended from the primrose, or conversely, ranks them together as a single species, and gives a single definition. As soon as three Orchidean forms (Monochanthus, Myanthus, and Catasetum), which had previously been ranked as three distinct genera, were known to be sometimes produced on the same spike, they were immediately included as a single species. But it may be asked, what ought we to do, if it could be proved that one species of kangaroo had been produced, by a long course of modification, from a bear? Ought we to rank this one species with bears, and what should we do with the other species?

The supposition is of course preposterous; and I might answer by the argumentum ad hominem, and ask what should be done if a perfect kangaroo were seen to come out of the womb of a bear? According to all a.n.a.logy, it would be ranked with bears; but then a.s.suredly all the other species of the kangaroo family would have to be cla.s.sed under the bear genus.

The whole case is preposterous; for where there has been close descent in common, there will certainly be close resemblance or affinity.

As descent has universally been used in cla.s.sing together the individuals of the same species, though the males and females and larvae are sometimes extremely different; and as it has been used in cla.s.sing varieties which have undergone a certain, and sometimes a considerable amount of modification, may not this same element of descent have been unconsciously used in grouping species under genera, and genera under higher groups, though in these cases the modification has been greater in degree, and has taken a longer time to complete? I believe it has thus been unconsciously used; and only thus can I understand the several rules and guides which have been followed by our best systematists. We have no written pedigrees; we have to make out community of descent by resemblances of any kind. Therefore we choose those characters which, as far as we can judge, are the least likely to have been modified in relation to the conditions of life to which each species has been recently exposed. Rudimentary structures on this view are as good as, or even sometimes better than, other parts of the organisation. We care not how trifling a character may be--let it be the mere inflection of the angle of the jaw, the manner in which an insect's wing is folded, whether the skin be covered by hair or feathers--if it prevail throughout many and different species, especially those having very different habits of life, it a.s.sumes high value; for we can account for its presence in so many forms with such different habits, only by its inheritance from a common parent. We may err in this respect in regard to single points of structure, but when several characters, let them be ever so trifling, occur together throughout a large group of beings having different habits, we may feel almost sure, on the theory of descent, that these characters have been inherited from a common ancestor. And we know that such correlated or aggregated characters have especial value in cla.s.sification.

We can understand why a species or a group of species may depart, in several of its most important characteristics, from its allies, and yet be safely cla.s.sed with them. This may be safely done, and is often done, as long as a sufficient number of characters, let them be ever so unimportant, betrays the hidden bond of community of descent. Let two forms have not a single character in common, yet if these extreme forms are connected together by a chain of intermediate groups, we may at once infer their community of descent, and we put them all into the same cla.s.s. As we find organs of high physiological importance--those which serve to preserve life under the most diverse conditions of existence--are generally the most constant, we attach especial value to them; but if these same organs, in another group or section of a group, are found to differ much, we at once value them less in our cla.s.sification. We shall hereafter, I think, clearly see why embryological characters are of such high cla.s.sificatory importance.

Geographical distribution may sometimes be brought usefully into play in cla.s.sing large and widely-distributed genera, because all the species of the same genus, inhabiting any distinct and isolated region, have in all probability descended from the same parents.

We can understand, on these views, the very important distinction between real affinities and a.n.a.logical or adaptive resemblances.

Lamarck first called attention to this distinction, and he has been ably followed by Macleay and others. The resemblance, in the shape of the body and in the fin-like anterior limbs, between the dugong, which is a pachydermatous animal, and the whale, and between both these mammals and fishes, is a.n.a.logical. Amongst insects there are innumerable instances: thus Linnaeus, misled by external appearances, actually cla.s.sed an h.o.m.opterous insect as a moth. We see something of the same kind even in our domestic varieties, as in the thickened stems of the common and swedish turnip. The resemblance of the greyhound and racehorse is hardly more fanciful than the a.n.a.logies which have been drawn by some authors between very distinct animals. On my view of characters being of real importance for cla.s.sification, only in so far as they reveal descent, we can clearly understand why a.n.a.logical or adaptive character, although of the utmost importance to the welfare of the being, are almost valueless to the systematist. For animals, belonging to two most distinct lines of descent, may readily become adapted to similar conditions, and thus a.s.sume a close external resemblance; but such resemblances will not reveal--will rather tend to conceal their blood-relations.h.i.+p to their proper lines of descent. We can also understand the apparent paradox, that the very same characters are a.n.a.logical when one cla.s.s or order is compared with another, but give true affinities when the members of the same cla.s.s or order are compared one with another: thus the shape of the body and fin-like limbs are only a.n.a.logical when whales are compared with fishes, being adaptations in both cla.s.ses for swimming through the water; but the shape of the body and fin-like limbs serve as characters exhibiting true affinity between the several members of the whale family; for these cetaceans agree in so many characters, great and small, that we cannot doubt that they have inherited their general shape of body and structure of limbs from a common ancestor. So it is with fishes.

As members of distinct cla.s.ses have often been adapted by successive slight modifications to live under nearly similar circ.u.mstances,--to inhabit for instance the three elements of land, air, and water,--we can perhaps understand how it is that a numerical parallelism has sometimes been observed between the sub-groups in distinct cla.s.ses. A naturalist, struck by a parallelism of this nature in any one cla.s.s, by arbitrarily raising or sinking the value of the groups in other cla.s.ses (and all our experience shows that this valuation has. .h.i.therto been arbitrary), could easily extend the parallelism over a wide range; and thus the septenary, quinary, quaternary, and ternary cla.s.sifications have probably arisen.

As the modified descendants of dominant species, belonging to the larger genera, tend to inherit the advantages, which made the groups to which they belong large and their parents dominant, they are almost sure to spread widely, and to seize on more and more places in the economy of nature. The larger and more dominant groups thus tend to go on increasing in size; and they consequently supplant many smaller and feebler groups. Thus we can account for the fact that all organisms, recent and extinct, are included under a few great orders, under still fewer cla.s.ses, and all in one great natural system. As showing how few the higher groups are in number, and how widely spread they are throughout the world, the fact is striking, that the discovery of Australia has not added a single insect belonging to a new order; and that in the vegetable kingdom, as I learn from Dr. Hooker, it has added only two or three orders of small size.

In the chapter on geological succession I attempted to show, on the principle of each group having generally diverged much in character during the long-continued process of modification, how it is that the more ancient forms of life often present characters in some slight degree intermediate between existing groups. A few old and intermediate parent-forms having occasionally transmitted to the present day descendants but little modified, will give to us our so-called osculant or aberrant groups. The more aberrant any form is, the greater must be the number of connecting forms which on my theory have been exterminated and utterly lost. And we have some evidence of aberrant forms having suffered severely from extinction, for they are generally represented by extremely few species; and such species as do occur are generally very distinct from each other, which again implies extinction. The genera Ornithorhynchus and Lepidosiren, for example, would not have been less aberrant had each been represented by a dozen species instead of by a single one; but such richness in species, as I find after some investigation, does not commonly fall to the lot of aberrant genera. We can, I think, account for this fact only by looking at aberrant forms as failing groups conquered by more successful compet.i.tors, with a few members preserved by some unusual coincidence of favourable circ.u.mstances.

Mr. Waterhouse has remarked that, when a member belonging to one group of animals exhibits an affinity to a quite distinct group, this affinity in most cases is general and not special: thus, according to Mr.

Waterhouse, of all Rodents, the bizcacha is most nearly related to Marsupials; but in the points in which it approaches this order, its relations are general, and not to any one marsupial species more than to another. As the points of affinity of the bizcacha to Marsupials are believed to be real and not merely adaptive, they are due on my theory to inheritance in common. Therefore we must suppose either that all Rodents, including the bizcacha, branched off from some very ancient Marsupial, which will have had a character in some degree intermediate with respect to all existing Marsupials; or that both Rodents and Marsupials branched off from a common progenitor, and that both groups have since undergone much modification in divergent directions.

On either view we may suppose that the bizcacha has retained, by inheritance, more of the character of its ancient progenitor than have other Rodents; and therefore it will not be specially related to any one existing Marsupial, but indirectly to all or nearly all Marsupials, from having partially retained the character of their common progenitor, or of an early member of the group. On the other hand, of all Marsupials, as Mr. Waterhouse has remarked, the phascolomys resembles most nearly, not any one species, but the general order of Rodents. In this case, however, it may be strongly suspected that the resemblance is only a.n.a.logical, owing to the phascolomys having become adapted to habits like those of a Rodent. The elder De Candolle has made nearly similar observations on the general nature of the affinities of distinct orders of plants.

On the principle of the multiplication and gradual divergence in character of the species descended from a common parent, together with their retention by inheritance of some characters in common, we can understand the excessively complex and radiating affinities by which all the members of the same family or higher group are connected together.

For the common parent of a whole family of species, now broken up by extinction into distinct groups and sub-groups, will have transmitted some of its characters, modified in various ways and degrees, to all; and the several species will consequently be related to each other by circuitous lines of affinity of various lengths (as may be seen in the diagram so often referred to), mounting up through many predecessors.

As it is difficult to show the blood-relations.h.i.+p between the numerous kindred of any ancient and n.o.ble family, even by the aid of a genealogical tree, and almost impossible to do this without this aid, we can understand the extraordinary difficulty which naturalists have experienced in describing, without the aid of a diagram, the various affinities which they perceive between the many living and extinct members of the same great natural cla.s.s.

Extinction, as we have seen in the fourth chapter, has played an important part in defining and widening the intervals between the several groups in each cla.s.s. We may thus account even for the distinctness of whole cla.s.ses from each other--for instance, of birds from all other vertebrate animals--by the belief that many ancient forms of life have been utterly lost, through which the early progenitors of birds were formerly connected with the early progenitors of the other vertebrate cla.s.ses. There has been less entire extinction of the forms of life which once connected fishes with batrachians. There has been still less in some other cla.s.ses, as in that of the Crustacea, for here the most wonderfully diverse forms are still tied together by a long, but broken, chain of affinities. Extinction has only separated groups: it has by no means made them; for if every form which has ever lived on this earth were suddenly to reappear, though it would be quite impossible to give definitions by which each group could be distinguished from other groups, as all would blend together by steps as fine as those between the finest existing varieties, nevertheless a natural cla.s.sification, or at least a natural arrangement, would be possible. We shall see this by turning to the diagram: the letters, A to L, may represent eleven Silurian genera, some of which have produced large groups of modified descendants. Every intermediate link between these eleven genera and their primordial parent, and every intermediate link in each branch and sub-branch of their descendants, may be supposed to be still alive; and the links to be as fine as those between the finest varieties. In this case it would be quite impossible to give any definition by which the several members of the several groups could be distinguished from their more immediate parents; or these parents from their ancient and unknown progenitor. Yet the natural arrangement in the diagram would still hold good; and, on the principle of inheritance, all the forms descended from A, or from I, would have something in common.

In a tree we can specify this or that branch, though at the actual fork the two unite and blend together. We could not, as I have said, define the several groups; but we could pick out types, or forms, representing most of the characters of each group, whether large or small, and thus give a general idea of the value of the differences between them. This is what we should be driven to, if we were ever to succeed in collecting all the forms in any cla.s.s which have lived throughout all time and s.p.a.ce. We shall certainly never succeed in making so perfect a collection: nevertheless, in certain cla.s.ses, we are tending in this direction; and Milne Edwards has lately insisted, in an able paper, on the high importance of looking to types, whether or not we can separate and define the groups to which such types belong.

Finally, we have seen that natural selection, which results from the struggle for existence, and which almost inevitably induces extinction and divergence of character in the many descendants from one dominant parent-species, explains that great and universal feature in the affinities of all organic beings, namely, their subordination in group under group. We use the element of descent in cla.s.sing the individuals of both s.e.xes and of all ages, although having few characters in common, under one species; we use descent in cla.s.sing acknowledged varieties, however different they may be from their parent; and I believe this element of descent is the hidden bond of connexion which naturalists have sought under the term of the Natural System. On this idea of the natural system being, in so far as it has been perfected, genealogical in its arrangement, with the grades of difference between the descendants from a common parent, expressed by the terms genera, families, orders, etc., we can understand the rules which we are compelled to follow in our cla.s.sification. We can understand why we value certain resemblances far more than others; why we are permitted to use rudimentary and useless organs, or others of trifling physiological importance; why, in comparing one group with a distinct group, we summarily reject a.n.a.logical or adaptive characters, and yet use these same characters within the limits of the same group. We can clearly see how it is that all living and extinct forms can be grouped together in one great system; and how the several members of each cla.s.s are connected together by the most complex and radiating lines of affinities. We shall never, probably, disentangle the inextricable web of affinities between the members of any one cla.s.s; but when we have a distinct object in view, and do not look to some unknown plan of creation, we may hope to make sure but slow progress.

MORPHOLOGY.