Volume Ii Part 2 (1/2)

[19] The late Prof. Moseley informed me that, during his voyage on the _Challenger_, he had seen many men whose backs were well covered with hair.--For an excellent discussion of the whole question, chiefly in the light of embryology, see the paper by Buckman already alluded to, pp. 280-289. Also, for an account of an extraordinary hairy race of men, see _Alone with the Hairy Ainu_, by A. H. Savage Landor, 1893.

Lastly, touching his statement that the brain of savage man is both quant.i.tatively and qualitatively in advance of his requirements, it is here also sufficient to refer to Darwin's answer, as given in the _Descent of Man_. Mr. Wallace, indeed, ignores this answer in his recent re-publication of the argument; but it is impossible to understand why he should have done so. To me, at all events, it seems that one out of several considerations which Darwin advances is alone sufficient to show the futility of this argument. I allude to the consideration that the power of forming abstract ideas with the complex machinery of language as the vehicle of their expression, is probably of itself enough to account for both the ma.s.s and the structure of a savage's brain. But this leads us to the second division of Mr. Wallace's argument, or that derived from the mental endowments of mankind.

Here the peculiarities called into evidence are, ”the Mathematical Faculty,” ”the Artistic Faculties,” and ”the Moral Sense.” With regard to the latter, he avows himself a member of the intuitional school of ethics; but does not prove a very powerful advocate as against the utilitarian[20].

[20] E.g. ”The special faculties we have been discussing clearly point to the existence in man of something which he has not derived from his animal progenitors--something which we may best refer to as being of a spiritual essence or nature, capable of progressive development under favourable conditions.

On the hypothesis of this spiritual nature, superadded to the animal nature of man, we are able to understand much that is otherwise mysterious or unintelligible in regard to him, especially the enormous influence of ideas, principles, and beliefs over his whole life and action. Thus alone can we understand the constancy of the martyr, the unselfishness of the philanthropist, the devotion of the patriot, the enthusiasm of the artist, and the resolute and persevering search of the scientific worker after nature's secrets. Thus we may perceive that the love of truth, the delight in beauty, the pa.s.sion for justice, and the thrill of exultation with which we hear of any act of courageous self-sacrifice, are the workings within us of a higher nature which has not been developed by means of the struggle for material existence.” (_Darwinism_, p. 474.) I have quoted this whole paragraph, because it is so inconsistent with the rest of Mr. Wallace's system that a mere epitome of it might well have been suspected of error. Given an intellectual being, howsoever produced, and what is there ”mysterious or unintelligible” in ”the enormous influence of ideas, principles, and beliefs over his whole life and action”? Or again, if he be also a social being, what is the relevancy of adducing ”the constancy of the martyr,” ”the unselfishness of the philanthropist,” ”the devotion of the patriot,” ”the love of truth,” ”the pa.s.sion for justice,” ”the thrill of exultation when we hear of any act of courageous self-sacrifice,” in evidence _against_ the law of _utility_, or in order to prove that a ”nature” thus endowed has ”_not_ been developed by means of the struggle for existence,” when once this struggle has been transferred from individuals to communities? The whole pa.s.sage reads like an ironical satire in favour of ”Darwinism,”

rather than a serious argument against it.

It comes, then, to this. According to Mr. Wallace's eventual conclusion, man is to be separated from the rest of organic nature, and the steady progress of evolution by natural causes is to be regarded as stopped at its final stage, because the human mind presents the faculties of mathematical calculation and aesthetic perception. Surely, on antecedent grounds alone, it must be apparent that there is here no kind of proportion between the conclusion and the _data_ from which it is drawn. That we are not confined to any such grounds, I will now try to show.

Let it be remembered, however, that in the following brief criticism I am not concerned with the issue as to whether, or how far, the ”faculties” in question have owed their origin or their development to _natural selection_. I am concerned only with the doctrine that in order to account for such and such particular ”faculty” of the human mind, some order of causation must be supposed other than what we call natural. I am not a Neo-Darwinist, and so have no desire to make ”natural selection” synonymous with ”natural causation” throughout the whole domain of life and of mind. And I quite agree with Mr. Wallace that, at any rate, the ”aesthetic faculty” cannot conceivably have been produced by natural selection--seeing that it is of no conceivable life-serving value in any of the stages of its growth. Moreover, it appears to me that the same thing has to be said of the play instincts, sense of the ludicrous, and sundry other ”faculties” of mind among the lower animals. It being thus understood that I am not differing from Mr.

Wallace where he imposes ”limits” on the powers of natural selection, but only where he seems to take for granted that this is the same thing as imposing limits on the powers of natural causation, my criticism is as follows.

In the first place, it is a psychological fallacy to regard the so-called ”faculties” of mind as a.n.a.logous to ”organs” of the body. To cla.s.sify the latter with reference to the functions which they severally perform is to follow a natural method of cla.s.sification. But it is an artificial method which seeks to part.i.tion mental _faculty_ into this, that, and the other mental _faculties_. Like all other purely artificial cla.s.sifications, this one has its practical uses; but, also like them, it is dest.i.tute of philosophical meaning. This statement is so well recognized by psychologists, that there is no occasion to justify it.

But I must remark that any cogency which Mr. Wallace's argument may appear to present, arises from his not having recognized the fact which the statement conveys. For, had he considered the mind as a whole, instead of having contemplated it under the artificial categories of const.i.tuent ”faculties,” he would probably not have laid any such special stress upon some of the latter. In other words, he would have seen that the general development of the human mind as a whole has presumably involved the growth of those conventionally abstracted parts, which he regards as really separate endowments. Or, if he should find it easier to retain the terms of his metaphor, we may answer him by saying that the ”faculties” of mind are ”correlated,” like ”organs” of the body; and, therefore, that any general development of the various other ”faculties” have presumably entailed a collateral development of the two in question.

Again, in the second place, it would seem that Mr. Wallace has not sufficiently considered the co-operation of either well-known natural causes, which must have materially a.s.sisted the survival of the fittest where these two ”faculties” are concerned. For, even if we disregard the inherited effects of use--which, however, if entertained as possible in any degree at all, must have here const.i.tuted an important factor,--there remain on the one hand, the unquestionable influences of individual education and, on the other hand, of the selection principle operating in the mind itself.

Taking these two points separately, it is surely sufficiently well known that individual education--or special training, whether of mind or body--usually raises congenital powers of any kind to a more or less considerable level above those of the normal type. In other words, whatever doubt there may be touching the _inherited_ effects of use, there can be no question touching the immense _developmental_ effects thereof in the individual life-time. Now, the conditions of savage life are not such as lead to any deliberate cultivation of the ”faculties”

either of the mathematical or aesthetic order. Consequently, as might be expected, we find both of them in what Mr. Wallace regards as but a ”latent” stage of development. But in just the same way do we find that the marvellous powers of an acrobat when specially trained from childhood--say to curve his spine backwards until his teeth can bite his heels--are ”latent” in all men. Or, more correctly, they are _potential in every child_. So it is with the prodigious muscular development of a trained athlete, and with any number of other cases where either the body or the mind is concerned. Why then should Mr. Wallace select the particular instances of the mathematical and aesthetic powers in savages as in any special sense ”prophetic” of future development in trained members of civilized races? Although it is true that these ”latent capacities and powers are unused by savages,” is it not equally true that savages fail to use their latent capacities and powers as tumblers and athletes? Moreover, is it not likewise true that _as_ used by savages, or as occurring normally in man, such capacities and powers are no less poorly developed than are those of the ”faculties” on which Mr.

Wallace lays so much stress? In other words, are not ”latent capacities and powers” of all kinds more or less equally in excess of anything that is ever required of them by man in a state of nature? Therefore, if we say that where mathematics and the fine arts are concerned the potential capacities of savage man are in some mystical sense ”prophetic” of a Newton or a Beethoven, so in consistency ought we to say that in these same capacities we discern a similar prophecy of those other uses of civilized life which we have in a rope-dancer or a clown.

Again, and in addition to this, it should be remembered that, even if we do suppose any prophecy of this kind where the particular capacities in question are concerned, we must clearly extend the reference to the lower animals. Not a few birds display aesthetic feelings in a measure fairly comparable with those of savages; while we know that some animals present the germs of a ”faculty” of computation[21]. But, it is needless to add, this fact is fatal to Mr. Wallace's argument as I understand it--viz. that the ”faculties” in question have been in some special manner communicated by some superior intelligence to _man_.

[21] See _Proc. Zool. Soc._ June 4, 1889, for an account of the performances in this respect of the Chimpanzee ”Sally.” Also, for some remarks on the psychology of the subject, in _Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 215. I should like to take this opportunity of stating that, after the two publications above referred to, this animal's instruction was continued, and that, before her death, her ”counting” extended as far as ten. That is to say, any number of straws asked for from one to ten would always be correctly given.

Once more, it is obviously unfair to select such men as a ”Newton, a La Place, a Gauss, or a Cayley” for the purpose of estimating the difference between savages and civilized man in regard to the latter ”faculty.” These men are the picked mathematicians of centuries.

Therefore they are men who not only enjoyed all the highest possible benefits of individual culture, but likewise those who have been most endowed with mathematical power congenitally. So to speak, they are the best variations in this particular direction which our race is known to have produced. But had such variations arisen among savages it is sufficiently obvious that they could have come to nothing. Therefore, it is the _normal average_ of ”mathematical faculty” in civilized man that should be contrasted with that of savage man; and, when due regard is paid to the all-important consideration which immediately follows, I cannot feel that the contrast presents any difficulty to the theory of human evolution by natural causation.

Lastly, the consideration just alluded to is, that civilized man enjoys an advantage over savage man far in advance even of those which arise from a settled state of society, incentives to intellectual training, and so on. This inestimable advantage consists in the art of writing, _and the consequent transmission of the effects of culture from generation to generation_. Quite apart from any question as to the hereditary transmission of acquired characters, we have in this _intellectual_ transmission of acquired _experience_ a means of acc.u.mulative cultivation quite beyond our powers to estimate. For, unlike all other cases where we recognize the great influence of individual use or practice in augmenting congenital ”faculties” (such as in the athlete, pianist, &c.), in this case the effects of special cultivation do not end with the individual life, but are carried on and on through successive generations _ad infinitum_. Hence, a civilized man inherits mentally, if not physically, the effects of culture for ages past, and this in whatever direction he may choose to profit therefrom.

Moreover--and I deem this an immensely important addition--in this unique department of purely intellectual transmission, a kind of non-physical natural selection is perpetually engaged in producing the best results. For here a struggle for existence is constantly taking place among ”ideas,” ”methods,” and so forth, in what may be termed a psychological environment. The less fit are superseded by the more fit, and this not only in the mind of the individual, but, through language and literature, still more in the mind of the race. ”A Newton, a La Place, a Gauss, or a Cayley,” would all alike have been impossible, but for a previously prolonged course of mental evolution due to the selection principle operating in the region of mathematics, by means of continuous survivals of the best products in successive generations.

And, of course, the same remark applies to art in all its branches[22].

[22] In Prof. Lloyd Morgan's _Animal Life and Intelligence_ there is an admirable discussion on this subject, which has been published since the above was written. The same has to be said of Weismann's Essay on Music, where much that I have here said is antic.i.p.ated. With the views and arguments which Mr. Mivart has forcibly set forth I have already dealt to the best of my ability in a work on _Mental Evolution in Man_.

Quitting then the last, and in my opinion the weakest chapter of _Darwinism_, the most important points presented by other portions of this work are--to quote its author's own enumeration of them--an attempted ”proof that all specific characters are (or once have been) either useful in themselves or correlated with useful characters”: an attempted ”proof that natural selection can, in certain cases, increase the sterility of crosses”: an attempted ”proof that the effects of use and disuse, even if inherited, must be overpowered by natural selection”: an attempted proof that the facts of variation in nature are in themselves sufficient to meet the difficulty which arises against the theory of natural selection, as held by him, from the swamping effects of free intercrossing: and, lastly, ”a fuller discussion on the colour relations of animals, with additional facts and arguments on the origin of s.e.xual differences of colour.” As I intend to deal with all these points hereafter, excepting the last, it will be sufficient in this opening chapter to remark, that in as far as I disagree with Mr. Wallace (and agree with Darwin), on the subject of ”s.e.xual differences of colour,” my reasons for doing so have been already sufficiently stated in Part I. But there is much else in his treatment of this subject which appears to me highly valuable, and therefore presenting an admirable contribution to the literature of Darwinism. In particular, it appears to me that the most important of his views in this connexion probably represents the truth--namely, that, among the higher animals, more or less conspicuous peculiarities of colour have often been acquired for the purpose of enabling members of the same species quickly and certainly to recognize one another. This theory was first published by Mr. J. E. Todd, in 1888, and therefore but a short time before its re-publication by Mr. Wallace. As his part in the matter has not been sufficiently recognized, I should like to conclude this introductory chapter by drawing prominent attention to the merits of Mr. Todd's paper. For not only has it the merit of priority, but it deals with the whole subject of ”recognition colours”--or, as he calls them, ”directive colours”--in a more comprehensive manner than has been done by any of his successors. In particular, he shows that the principle of recognition-marking is not restricted to facilitating s.e.xual intercourse, but extends also to several other matters of importance in the economy of animal life[23].

[23] _American Naturalist_, xxii. pp. 201-207.

Having thus briefly sketched the doctrines of the sundry Post-Darwinian Schools from a general point of view, I shall endeavour throughout the rest of this treatise to discuss in appropriate detail the questions which have more specially come to the front in the post-Darwinian period. It can scarcely be said that any one of these questions has arisen altogether _de novo_ during this period; for glimmerings, more or less conspicuous, of all are to be met with in the writings of Darwin himself. Nevertheless it is no less true that only after his death have they been lighted up to the full blaze of active discussion[24]. By far the most important of them are those to which the rest of this treatise will be confined. They are four in number, and it is noteworthy that they are all intimately connected with the great question which Darwin spent the best years of his life in contemplating, and which has therefore, in one form or another, occupied the whole of the present chapter--the question as to whether natural selection has been the sole cause, or but the chief cause of modification.

[24] It is almost needless to say that besides the works mentioned in this chapter, many others have been added to the literature of Darwinism since Darwin's death. But as none of these profess to contain much that is original, I have not thought it necessary to consider any of them in this merely general review of the period in question. In subsequent chapters, however, allusions will be made to those among them which I deem of most importance.