Part 12 (2/2)

Nor do I gather that Lamarck insisted on continued personality and memory so as to account for heredity at all, and so as to see life as a single, or as at any rate, only a few, vast compound animals, but without the connecting organism between each component item in the whole creature, which is found in animals that are strictly called compound. Until continued personality and memory are connected with the idea of heredity, heredity of any kind is little more than a term for something which one does not understand. But there seems little a priori difficulty as regards Lamarck's main idea, now that Mr.

Darwin has familiarised us with evolution, and made us feel what a vast array of facts can be brought forward in support of it.

Mr. Darwin tells us, in the preface to his last edition of the ”Origin of Species,” that Lamarck was partly led to his conclusions by the a.n.a.logy of domestic productions. It is rather hard to say what these words imply; they may mean anything from a baby to an apple dumpling, but if they imply that Lamarck drew inspirations from the gradual development of the mechanical inventions of man, and from the progress of man's ideas, I would say that of all sources this would seem to be the safest and most fertile from which to draw.

Plants and animals under domestication are indeed a suggestive field for study, but machines are the manner in which man is varying at this moment. We know how our own minds work, and how our mechanical organisations--for, in all sober seriousness, this is what it comes to--have progressed hand in hand with our desires; sometimes the power a little ahead, and sometimes the desire; sometimes both combining to form an organ with almost infinite capacity for variation, and sometimes comparatively early reaching the limit of utmost development in respect of any new conception, and accordingly coming to a full stop; sometimes making leaps and bounds, and sometimes advancing sluggishly. Here we are behind the scenes, and can see how the whole thing works. We have man, the very animal which we can best understand, caught in the very act of variation, through his own needs, and not through the needs of others; the whole process is a natural one; the varying of a creature as much in a wild state as the ants and b.u.t.terflies are wild. There is less occasion here for the continual ”might be” and ”may be,” which we are compelled to put up with when dealing with plants and animals, of the workings of whose minds we can only obscurely judge. Also, there is more prospect of pecuniary profit attaching to the careful study of machinery than can be generally hoped for from the study of the lower animals; and though I admit that this consideration should not be carried too far, a great deal of very unnecessary suffering will be spared to the lower animals; for much that pa.s.ses for natural history is little better than prying into other people's business, from no other motive than curiosity. I would, therefore, strongly advise the reader to use man, and the present races of man, and the growing inventions and conceptions of man, as his guide, if he would seek to form an independent judgement on the development of organic life.

For all growth is only somebody making something.

Lamarck's theories fell into disrepute, partly because they were too startling to be capable of ready fusion with existing ideas; they were, in fact, too wide a cross for fertility; partly because they fell upon evil times, during the reaction that followed the French Revolution; partly because, unless I am mistaken, he did not sufficiently link on the experience of the race to that of the individual, nor perceive the importance of the principle that consciousness, memory, volition, intelligence, &c., vanish, or become latent, on becoming intense. He also appears to have mixed up matter with his system, which was either plainly wrong, or so incapable of proof as to enable people to laugh at him, and pooh-pooh him; but I believe it will come to be perceived, that he has received somewhat scant justice at the hands of his successors, and that his ”crude theories,” as they have been somewhat cheaply called, are far from having had their last say.

Returning to Mr. Darwin, we find, as we have already seen, that it is hard to say exactly how much Mr. Darwin differs from Lamarck, and how much he agrees with him. Mr. Darwin has always maintained that use and disuse are highly important, and this implies that the effect produced on the parent should be remembered by the offspring, in the same way as the memory of a wound is transmitted by one set of cells to succeeding ones, who long repeat the scar, though it may fade finally away. Also, after dealing with the manner in which one eye of a young flat-fish travels round the head till both eyes are on the same side of the fish, he gives (”Natural Selection,” p. 188, ed.

1875) an instance of a structure ”which apparently owes its origin exclusively to use or habit.” He refers to the tail of some American monkeys ”which has been converted into a wonderfully perfect prehensile organ, and serves as a fifth hand. A reviewer,” he continues, . . . ”remarks on this structure--'It is impossible to believe that in any number of ages the first slight incipient tendency to grasp, could preserve the lives of the individuals possessing it, or favour their chance of having and of rearing offspring.' But there is no necessity for any such belief. Habit, and this almost implies that some benefit, great or small, is thus derived, would in all probability suffice for the work.” If, then, habit can do this--and it is no small thing to develop a wonderfully perfect prehensile organ which can serve as a fifth hand--how much more may not habit do, even though unaided, as Mr. Darwin supposes to have been the case in this instance, by ”natural selection”? After attributing many of the structural and instinctive differences of plants and animals to the effects of use--as we may plainly do with Mr. Darwin's own consent--after attributing a good deal more to unknown causes, and a good deal to changed conditions, which are bound, if at all important, to result either in sterility or variation--how much of the work of originating species is left for natural selection?--which, as Mr. Darwin admits (”Natural Selection,”

p. 63, ed. 1876), does not INDUCE VARIABILITY, but ”implies only the preservation of SUCH VARIATIONS AS ARISE, and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life?” An important part a.s.suredly, and one which we can never sufficiently thank Mr. Darwin for having put so forcibly before us, but an indirect part only, like the part played by time and s.p.a.ce, and not, I think, the one which Mr. Darwin would a.s.sign to it.

Mr. Darwin himself has admitted that in the earlier editions of his ”Origin of Species” he ”underrated, as it now seems probable, the frequency and importance of modifications due to spontaneous variability.” And this involves the having over-rated the action of ”natural selection” as an agent in the evolution of species. But one gathers that he still believes the acc.u.mulation of small and fortuitous variations through the agency of ”natural selection” to be the main cause of the present divergencies of structure and instinct.

I do not, however, think that Mr. Darwin is clear about his own meaning. I think the prominence given to ”natural selection” in connection with the ”origin of species” has led him, in spite of himself, and in spite of his being on his guard (as is clearly shown by the paragraph on page 63 ”Natural Selection,” above referred to), to regard ”natural selection” as in some way accounting for variation, just as the use of the dangerous word ”spontaneous,”-- though he is so often on his guard against it, and so frequently prefaces it with the words ”so-called,”--would seem to have led him into very serious confusion of thought in the pa.s.sage quoted at the beginning of this paragraph.

For after saying that he had underrated ”the frequency and importance of modifications due to spontaneous variability,” he continues, ”but it is impossible to attribute to this cause the innumerable structures which are so well adapted to the habits of life of each species.” That is to say, it is impossible to attribute these innumerable structures to spontaneous variability.

What IS spontaneous variability?

Clearly, from his preceding paragraph, Mr. Darwin means only ”so- called spontaneous variations,” such as ”the appearance of a moss- rose on a common rose, or of a nectarine on a peach-tree,” which he gives as good examples of so-called spontaneous variation.

And these variations are, after all, due to causes, but to unknown causes; spontaneous variation being, in fact, but another name for variation due to causes which we know nothing about, but in no possible sense a CAUSE OF VARIATION. So that when we come to put clearly before our minds exactly what the sentence we are considering amounts to, it comes to this: that it is impossible to attribute the innumerable structures which are so well adapted to the habits of life of each species to UNKNOWN CAUSES.

”I can no more believe in THIS,” continues Mr. Darwin, ”than that the well-adapted form of a race-horse or greyhound, which, before the principle of selection by man was well understood, excited so much surprise in the minds of the older naturalists, can THUS be explained” (”Natural Selection,” p. 171, ed. 1876).

Or, in other words, ”I can no more believe that the well-adapted structures of species are due to unknown causes, than I can believe that the well-adapted form of a race-horse can be explained by being attributed to unknown causes.

I have puzzled over this paragraph for several hours with the sincerest desire to get at the precise idea which underlies it, but the more I have studied it the more convinced I am that it does not contain, or at any rate convey, any clear or definite idea at all.

If I thought it was a mere slip, I should not call attention to it; this book will probably have slips enough of its own without introducing those of a great man unnecessarily; but I submit that it is necessary to call attention to it here, inasmuch as it is impossible to believe that after years of reflection upon his subject, Mr. Darwin should have written as above, especially in such a place, if his mind was really clear about his own position.

Immediately after the admission of a certain amount of miscalculation, there comes a more or less exculpatory sentence which sounds so right that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would walk through it, unless led by some exigency of their own position to examine it closely but which yet upon examination proves to be as nearly meaningless as a sentence can be.

The weak point in Mr. Darwin's theory would seem to be a deficiency, so to speak, of motive power to originate and direct the variations which time is to acc.u.mulate. It deals admirably with the acc.u.mulation of variations in creatures already varying, but it does not provide a sufficient number of sufficiently important variations to be acc.u.mulated. Given the motive power which Lamarck suggested, and Mr. Darwin's mechanism would appear (with the help of memory, as bearing upon reproduction, of continued personality, and hence of inherited habit, and of the vanis.h.i.+ng tendency of consciousness) to work with perfect ease. Mr. Darwin has made us all feel that in some way or other variations ARE ACc.u.mULATED, and that evolution is the true solution of the present widely different structures around us, whereas, before he wrote, hardly any one believed this. However we may differ from him in detail, the present general acceptance of evolution must remain as his work, and a more valuable work can hardly be imagined. Nevertheless, I cannot think that ”natural selection,” working upon small, fortuitous, indefinite, unintelligent variations, would produce the results we see around us. One wants something that will give a more definite aim to variations, and hence, at times, cause bolder leaps in advance. One cannot but doubt whether so many plants and animals would be being so continually saved ”by the skin of their teeth,” as must be so saved if the variations from which genera ultimately arise are as small in their commencement and at each successive stage as Mr. Darwin seems to believe. G.o.d--to use the language of the Bible--is not extreme to mark what is done amiss, whether with plant or beast or man; on the other hand, when towers of Siloam fall, they fall on the just as well as the unjust.

One feels, on considering Mr. Darwin's position, that if it be admitted that there is in the lowest creature a power to vary, no matter how small, one has got in this power as near the ”origin of species” as one can ever hope to get. For no one professes to account for the origin of life; but if a creature with a power to vary reproduces itself at all, it must reproduce another creature WHICH SHALL ALSO HAVE THE POWER TO VARY; so that, given time and s.p.a.ce enough, there is no knowing where such a creature could or would stop.

If the primordial cell had been only capable of reproducing itself once, there would have followed a single line of descendants, the chain of which might at any moment have been broken by casualty.

Doubtless the millionth repet.i.tion would have differed very materially from the original--as widely, perhaps, as we differ from the primordial cell; but it would only have differed by addition, and could no more in any generation resume its latest development without having pa.s.sed through the initial stage of being what its first forefather was, and doing what its first forefather did, and without going through all or a sufficient number of the steps whereby it had reached its latest differentiation, than water can rise above its own level.

The very idea, then, of reproduction involves, unless I am mistaken, that, no matter how much the creature reproducing itself may gain in power and versatility, it must still always begin WITH ITSELF AGAIN in each generation. The primordial cell being capable of reproducing itself not only once, but many times over, each of the creatures which it produces must be similarly gifted; hence the geometrical ratio of increase and the existing divergence of type. In each generation it will pa.s.s rapidly and unconsciously through all the earlier stages of which there has been infinite experience, and for which the conditions are reproduced with sufficient similarity to cause no failure of memory or hesitation; but in each generation, when it comes to the part in which the course is not so clear, it will become conscious; still, however, where the course is plain, as in breathing, digesting, &c., retaining unconsciousness. Thus organs which present all the appearance of being designed--as, for example, the tip for its beak prepared by the embryo chicken--would be prepared in the end, as it were, by rote, and without sense of design, though none the less owing their origin to design.

The question is not concerning evolution, but as to the main cause which has led to evolution in such and such shapes. To me it seems that the ”Origin of Variation,” whatever it is, is the only true ”Origin of Species,” and that this must, as Lamarck insisted, be looked for in the needs and experiences of the creatures varying.

Unless we can explain the origin of variations, we are met by the unexplained AT EVERY STEP in the progress of a creature from its original h.o.m.ogeneous condition to its differentiation, we will say, as an elephant; so that to say that an elephant has become an elephant through the acc.u.mulation of a vast number of small, fortuitous, but unexplained, variations in some lower creatures, is really to say that it has become an elephant owing to a series of causes about which we know nothing whatever, or, in other words, that one does not know how it came to be an elephant. But to say that an elephant has become an elephant owing to a series of variations, nine-tenths of which were caused by the wishes of the creature or creatures from which the elephant is descended--this is to offer a reason, and definitely put the insoluble one step further back. The question will then turn upon the sufficiency of the reason--that is to say, whether the hypothesis is borne out by facts.

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