Volume I Part 1 (1/2)

Darwin, and After Darwin.

Vol. 1.

by George John Romanes.

PREFACE

Several years ago Lord Rosebery founded, in the University of Edinburgh, a lectures.h.i.+p on ”The Philosophy of Natural History,” and I was invited by the Senatus to deliver the lectures. This invitation I accepted, and subsequently const.i.tuted the material of my lectures the foundation of another course, which was given in the Royal Inst.i.tution, under the t.i.tle ”Before and after Darwin.” Here the course extended over three years--namely from 1888 to 1890. The lectures for 1888 were devoted to the history of biology from the earliest recorded times till the publication of the ”Origin of Species” in 1859; the lectures for 1889 dealt with the theory of organic evolution up to the date of Mr.

Darwin's death, in 1882; while those of the third year discussed the further developments of this theory from that date till the close of the course in 1890.

It is from these two courses--which resembled each other in comprising between thirty and forty lectures, but differed largely in other respects--that the present treatise has grown. Seeing, however, that it has grown much beyond the bulk of the original lectures, I have thought it desirable to publish the whole in the form of three separate works.

Of these the first--or that which deals with the purely historical side of biological science--may be allowed to stand over for an indefinite time. The second is the one which is now brought out and which, as its sub-t.i.tle signifies, is devoted to the general theory of organic evolution as this was left by the stupendous labours of Darwin. As soon as the translations shall have been completed, the third portion will follow (probably in the Autumn season), under the sub-t.i.tle, ”Post-Darwinian Questions.”

As the present volume is thus intended to be merely a systematic exposition of what may be termed the Darwinism of Darwin, and as on this account it is likely to prove of more service to general readers than to professed naturalists, I have been everywhere careful to avoid a.s.suming even the most elementary knowledge of natural science on the part of those to whom the exposition is addressed. The case, however, will be different as regards the next volume, where I shall have to deal with the important questions touching Heredity, Utility, Isolation, &c., which have been raised since the death of Mr. Darwin, and which are now being debated with such salutary vehemence by the best naturalists of our time.

My obligations to the Senatus of the University of Edinburgh, and to the Board of Management of the Royal Inst.i.tution, have already been virtually expressed; but I should like to take this opportunity of also expressing my obligations to the students who attended the lectures in the University of Edinburgh. For alike in respect of their large numbers, their keen intelligence, and their generous sympathy, the members of that voluntary cla.s.s yielded a degree of stimulating encouragement, without which the labour of preparing the original lectures could not have been attended with the interest and the satisfaction that I found in it. My thanks are also due to Mr. R. E.

Holding for the painstaking manner in which he has a.s.sisted me in executing most of the original drawings with which this volume is ill.u.s.trated; and likewise to Messrs. Macmillan and Co. for kindly allowing me to reprint--without special acknowledgment in every case--certain pa.s.sages from an essay which they published for me many years ago, under the t.i.tle ”Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution.”

Lastly, I must mention that I am indebted to the same firm for permission to reproduce an excellent portrait of Mr. Darwin, which const.i.tutes the frontispiece.

G. J. R.

CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, _April 19th, 1892._

SECTION I

_EVOLUTION_

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Among the many and unprecedented changes that have been wrought by Mr.

Darwin's work on the _Origin of Species_, there is one which, although second in importance to no other, has not received the attention which it deserves. I allude to the profound modification which that work has produced on the ideas of naturalists with regard to method.

Having had occasion of late years somewhat closely to follow the history of biological science, I have everywhere observed that progress is not so much marked by the march of discovery _per se_, as by the altered views of method which the march has involved. If we except what Aristotle called ”the first start” in himself, I think one may fairly say that from the rejuvenescence of biology in the sixteenth century to the stage of growth which it has now reached in the nineteenth, there is a direct proportion to be found between the value of work done and the degree in which the worker has thereby advanced the true conception of scientific working. Of course, up to a certain point, it is notorious that the revolt against the purely ”subjective methods” in the sixteenth century revived the spirit of _inductive_ research as this had been left by the Greeks; but even with regard to this revolt there are two things which I should like to observe.

In the first place, it seems to me, an altogether disproportionate value has been a.s.signed to Bacon's share in the movement. At most, I think, he deserves to be regarded but as a literary exponent of the _Zeitgeist_ of his century. Himself a philosopher, as distinguished from a man of science, whatever influence his preaching may have had upon the general public, it seems little short of absurd to suppose that it could have produced any considerable effect upon men who were engaged in the practical work of research. And those who read the _Novum Organon_ with a first-hand knowledge of what is required for such research can scarcely fail to agree with his great contemporary Harvey, that he wrote upon science like a Lord Chancellor.

The second thing I should like to observe is, that as the revolt against the purely subjective methods grew in extent and influence it pa.s.sed to the opposite extreme, which eventually became only less deleterious to the interests of science than was the bondage of authority, and addiction to _a priori_ methods, from which the revolt had set her free.

For, without here waiting to trace the history of this matter in detail, I think it ought now to be manifest to everyone who studies it, that up to the commencement of the present century the progress of science in general, and of natural history in particular, was seriously r.e.t.a.r.ded by what may be termed the Bugbear of Speculation. Fully awakened to the dangers of web-spinning from the ever-fertile resources of their own inner consciousness, naturalists became more and more abandoned to the idea that their science ought to consist in a mere observation of facts, or tabulation of phenomena, without attempt at theorizing upon their philosophical import. If the facts and phenomena presented any such import, that was an affair for men of letters to deal with; but, as men of science, it was _their_ duty to avoid the seductive temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, in the form of speculation, deduction, and generalization.

I do not allege that this ideal of natural history was either absolute or universal; but there can be no question that it was both orthodox and general. Even Linnaeus was express in his limitations of true scientific work in natural history to the collecting and arranging of species of plants and animals. In accordance with this view, the _status_ of a botanist or a zoologist was estimated by the number of specific names, natural habitats, &c., which he could retain in his memory, rather than by any evidences which he might give of intellectual powers in the way of constructive thought. At the most these powers might legitimately exercise themselves only in the direction of taxonomic work; and if a Hales, a Haller, or a Hunter obtained any brilliant results in the way of observation and experiment, their merit was taken to consist in the discovery of facts _per se_: not in any endeavours they might make in the way of combining their facts under general principles. Even as late in the day as Cuvier this ideal was upheld as the strictly legitimate one for a naturalist to follow; and although Cuvier himself was far from being always loyal to it, he leaves no doubt regarding the estimate in which he held the still greater deviations of his colleagues, St.