MR. PATRICK MATTHEW, MM. ETIENNE AND ISIDORE GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE, AND
MR. HERBERT SPENCER.
The same complaint must be made against Mr. Matthew's excellent survey
of the theory of evolution, as against Dr. Erasmus Darwin's original
exposition of the same theory, namely, that it is too short. It may be
very true that brevity is the soul of wit, but the leaders of science
will generally succeed in burking new-born wit, unless the brevity of
its soul is found compatible with a body of some bulk.
Mr. Darwin writes thus concerning Mr. Matthew in the historical sketch
to which I have already more than once referred.
"In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on 'Naval Timber and
Arboriculture,' in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin
of species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr.
Wallace and myself in the 'Linnean Journal,' and as that enlarged in the
present volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew very
briefly, in scattered passages in an appendix to a work on a different
subject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew
attention to it in the 'Gardener's Chronicle' for April 7, 1860. The
differences of Mr. Matthew's view from mine are not of much importance;
he seems to consider that the world was nearly depopulated at successive
periods, and then re-stocked, and he gives as an alternative, that new
forms may be generated 'without the presence of any mould or germ of
former aggregates.' I am not sure that I understand some passages; but
it seems that he attributes much influence to the direct action of the
conditions of life. He clearly saw, however, the full force of the
principle of natural selection."[321]
Nothing could well be more misleading. If Mr. Matthew's view of the
origin of species is "precisely the same as that" propounded by Mr.
Darwin, it is hard to see how Mr. Darwin can call those of Lamarck and
Dr. Erasmus Darwin "erroneous"; for Mr. Matthew's is nothing but an
excellent and well-digested summary of the conclusions arrived at by
these two writers and by Buffon. If, again, Mr. Darwin is correct in
saying that Mr. Matthew "clearly saw the full force of the principle of
natural selection," he condemns the view he has himself taken of it in
his 'Origin of Species,' for Mr. Darwin has assigned a far more
important and very different effect to the fact that the fittest
commonly survive in the struggle for existence, than Mr. Matthew has
done. Mr. Matthew sees a cause underlying all variations; he takes the
most teleological or purposive view of organism that has been taken by
any writer (not a theologian) except myself, while Mr. Darwin's view, if
not the least teleological, is certainly nearly so, and his confession
of inability to detect any general cause underlying variations, leaves,
as will appear presently, less than common room for ambiguity. Here are
Mr. Matthew's own words:--
"There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every
reproductive being the best possibly suited to the condition that its
kind, or that organized matter is susceptible of, and which appears
intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive, powers to
their highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains the
lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his
wiles. As nature in all her modifications of life has a power of
increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by
Time's decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength,
swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without
reproducing--either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under
disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being
occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the
means of existence.
"Throughout this volume, we have felt considerable inconvenience from
the adopted dogmatical classification of plants, and have all along been
floundering between species and variety, which certainly under culture
soften into each other. A particular conformity, each after its own
kind, when in a state of nature, termed species, no doubt exists to a
considerable degree. This conformity has existed during the last forty
centuries; geologists discover a like particular conformity--fossil
species--through the deep deposition of each great epoch; but they also
discover an almost complete difference to exist between the species or
stamp of life of one epoch from that of every other. We are therefore
led to admit either a repeated miraculous conception, or _a power of
change under change of circumstances_ to belong to living organized
matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life which appears to
form superior." (By this I suppose Mr. Matthew to imply his assent to
the theory, that our personality or individuality is but as it were "the
consensus, or full flowing river of a vast number of subordinate
individualities or personalities, each one of which is a living being
with thoughts and wishes of its own.") "The derangements and changes in
organized existence, induced by a change of circumstances from the
interference of man, afford us proof of the plastic quality of superior
life; and the likelihood that circumstances have been very different in
the different epochs, though steady in each, tend strongly to heighten
the probability of the latter theory.
"When we view the immense calcareous and bituminous formations,
principally from the waters and atmosphere, and consider the oxidations
and depositions which have taken place, either gradually or during some
of the great convulsions, it appears at least probable that the liquid
elements containing life have varied considerably at different times in
composition and weight; that our atmosphere has contained a much greater
proportion of carbonic acid or oxygen; and our waters, aided by excess
of carbonic acid, and greater heat resulting from greater density of
atmosphere, have contained a greater quantity of lime, and other mineral
solutions. Is the inference, then, unphilosophic that living things
which are proved to have _a circumstance-suiting power_ (a very slight
change of circumstance by culture inducing a corresponding change of
character), may have gradually accommodated themselves to the variations
of the elements containing them, and without new creation, have
presented the diverging changeable phenomena of past and present
organized existence?
"The destructive liquid currents before which the hardest mountains have
been swept and comminuted into gravel, sand, and mud, which intervened
between and divided these epochs, probably extending over the whole
surface of the globe and destroying nearly all living things, must have
reduced existence so much that an unoccupied field would be formed for
new diverging ramifications of life, which from the connected sexual
system of vegetables, and the natural instinct of animals to herd and
combine with their own kind, would fall into specific groups--these
remnants in the course of time moulding and accommodating their being
anew to the change of circumstances, and to every possible means of
subsistence--and the millions of ages of regularity which appear to have
followed between the epochs, probably after this accommodation was
completed, affording fossil deposit of regular specific character.
. . . . . .
"In endeavouring to trace ... the principle of these changes of fashion
which have taken place in the domiciles of life the following questions
occur: Do they arise from admixture of species nearly allied producing
intermediate species? Are they the diverging ramifications of the
living principle under modification of circumstance? or have they
resulted from the combined agency of both?
"_Is there only one living principle? Does organized existence, and
perhaps all material existence, consist of one Proteus principle of
life_ capable of gradual circumstance-suited modifications and
aggregations without bound, under the solvent or motion-giving principle
of heat or light? There is more beauty and unity of design in this
continual balancing of life to circumstance, and greater conformity to
those dispositions of nature that are manifest to us, than in total
destruction and new creation. It is improbable that much of this
diversification is owing to commixture of species nearly allied; all
change by this appears very limited and confined within the bounds of
what is called species; the progeny of the same parents under great
difference of circumstance, might in several generations even become
distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction.
"The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organized life may, in
part, be traced to the extreme fecundity of nature, who, as before
stated, has in all the varieties of her offspring a prolific power much
beyond (in many cases a thousand fold) what is necessary to fill up the
vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existence is limited
and preoccupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to
circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity,
these inhabiting only the situations to which they have _superior
adaptation and greater power of occupancy than any other kind; the
weaker and less circumstance-suited being prematurely destroyed_. This
principle is in constant action; it regulates the colour, the figure,
the capacities, and instincts; those individuals in each species whose
colour and covering are best suited to concealment or protection from
enemies, or defence from inclemencies and vicissitudes of climate, whose
figure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence, and support;
whose capacities and instincts can best regulate the physical energies
to self-advantage according to circumstances--in such immense waste of
primary and youthful life those only come forward to maturity from the
strict ordeal by which nature tests their adaptation to her standard of
perfection and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction.
"From the unremitting operation of this law acting in concert with the
tendency which the progeny have to take the more particular qualities of
the parents, together with the connected sexual system in vegetables and
instinctive limitation to its own kind in animals, a considerable
uniformity of figure, colour, and character is induced constituting
species; the breed gradually acquiring the very best possible adaptation
of these to its condition which it is susceptible of, and when
alteration of circumstance occurs, thus changing in character to suit
these, as far as its nature is susceptible of change.
"This circumstance-adaptive law operating upon the slight but continued
natural disposition to sport in the progeny (seedling variety) _does not
preclude the supposed influence which volition or sensation may have had
over the configuration of the body_. To examine into the disposition to
sport in the progeny, even when there is only one parent as in many
vegetables, and to investigate how much variation is modified by the
mind or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itself
during its progress to maturity; how far it depends upon external
circumstance, and how far on the will, irritability, and muscular
exertion, is open to examination and experiment. In the first place, we
ought to examine its dependency upon the preceding links of the
particular chain of life, variety being often merely types or
approximations of former parentage; thence the variation of the family
as well as of the individual must be embraced by our experiments.
"This continuation of family type, not broken by casual particular
aberration, is mental as well as corporeal, and is exemplified in many
of the dispositions or instincts of particular races of men. _These
innate or continuous ideas or habits seem proportionally greater in the
insect tribes, and in those especially of shorter revolution; and
forming an abiding memory, may resolve much of the enigma of instinct,
and the foreknowledge which these tribes have of what is necessary to
completing their round of life, reducing this to knowledge or
impressions and habits acquired by a long experience._
"This greater continuity of existence, or rather continuity of
perceptions and impressions in insects, is highly probable; _it is even
difficult in some to ascertain the particular steps when each individual
commences_, under the different phases of egg, larva, pupa, or if much
consciousness of individuality exists. The continuation of reproduction
for several generations by the females alone in some of these tribes,
_tends to the probability of the greater continuity of existence; and
the subdivisions of life by cuttings (even in animal life), at any rate,
must stagger the advocate of individuality_.
"Among the millions of specific varieties of living things which occupy
the humid portions of the surface of our planet, as far back as can be
traced, there does not appear, with the exception of man, to have been
any particular engrossing race, but a pretty fair balance of power of
occupancy--or rather most wonderful variation of circumstance parallel
to the nature of every species, _as if circumstance and species had
grown up together_. There are, indeed, several races which have
threatened ascendancy in some particular regions; but it is man alone
from whom any general imminent danger to the existence of his brethren
is to be dreaded.
"As far back as history reaches, man had already had considerable
influence, and had made encroachments upon his fellow denizens, probably
occasioning the destruction of many species, and the production and
continuation of a number of varieties, and even species, which he found
more suited to supply his wants, but which from the infirmity of their
condition--_not having undergone selection by the law of nature_, of
which we have spoken--cannot maintain their ground without culture and
protection.
"It is only however in the present age that man has begun to reap the
fruits of his tedious education, and has proven how much 'knowledge is
power.' He has now acquired a dominion over the material world, and a
consequent power of increase, so as to render it probable that the whole
surface of the earth may soon be overrun by this engrossing anomaly, to
the annihilation of every wonderful and beautiful variety of animal
existence which does not administer to his wants, principally as
laboratories of preparation to befit cruder elemental matter for
assimilation by his organs.
. . . . . .
"The consequences are being now developed of our deplorable ignorance
of, or inattention to, one of the most evident traits of natural
history--that vegetables, as well as animals, are generally liable to an
almost unlimited diversification, regulated by climate, soil,
nourishment, and new commixture of already-formed varieties. In those
with which man is most intimate, and where his agency in throwing them
from their natural locality and disposition has brought out this power
of diversification in stronger shades, it has been forced upon his
notice, as in man himself, in the dog, horse, cow, sheep, poultry,--in
the apple, pear, plum, gooseberry, potato, pea, which sport in infinite
varieties, differing considerably in size, colour, taste, firmness of
texture, period of growth, almost in every recognizable quality. In all
these kinds man is influential in preventing deterioration, by careful
selection of the largest or most valuable as breeders."[322]
_Etienne and Isidore Geoffroy._
"Both Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy," says Isidore Geoffroy, "had early
perceived the philosophical importance of a question (evolution) which
must be admitted as--with that of unity of composition--the greatest in
natural history. We find them laying it down in the year 1795 in one of
their joint 'Memoirs' (on the Orangs), in the very plainest terms, in
the following question, 'Must we see,' they inquire, 'what we commonly
call species, as the modified descendants of the same original form?'
"Both were at that time doubtful. Some years afterwards Cuvier not only
answered this question in the negative, but declared, and pretended to
prove, that the same forms have been perpetuated from the beginning of
things. Lamarck, his antagonist _par excellence_ on this point,
maintained the contrary position with no less distinctness, showing that
living beings are unceasingly variable with change of their
surroundings, and giving with some boldness a zoological genesis in
conformity with this doctrine.
"Geoffroy St. Hilaire had long pondered over this difficult subject. The
doctrine which in his old age he so firmly defended, does not seem to
have been conceived by him till after he had completed his 'Philosophie
Anatomique,' and except through lectures delivered orally to the museum
and the faculty, it was not published till 1828; nor again in the work
then published do we find his theory in its neatest expression and
fullest development."
Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire tells us in a note that the work referred
to as first putting his father's views before the public in a printed
form, was a report to the Academy of Sciences on a memoir by M. Roulin;
but that before this report some indications of them are to be found in
a paper on the Gavials, published in 1825. Their best rendering,
however, and fullest development is in several memoirs, published in
succession, between the years 1828 and 1837.
"This doctrine," he continues, "is diametrically opposed to that of
Cuvier, and is not entirely the same as Lamarck's. Geoffroy St. Hilaire
refutes the one, he restrains and corrects the other. Cuvier, according
to him, sums up against the facts, while Lamarck goes further than they
will bear him out. Essentially however on questions of this nature he is
a follower of Lamarck, and took pleasure on several occasions in
describing himself as the disciple of his illustrious _confrere_."[323]
I have been unable to detect any substantial difference of opinion
between Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Lamarck, except that the first
maintained that a line must be drawn somewhere--and did not draw
it--while the latter said that no line could be drawn, and therefore
drew none. Mr. Darwin is quite correct in saying that Geoffroy St.
Hilaire "relied chiefly on the conditions of life, or the 'monde
ambiant,' as the cause of change." But this is only Lamarck over again,
for though Lamarck attributes variation directly to change of habits in
the creature, he is almost wearisome in his insistence on the fact that
the habit will not change, unless the conditions of life also do so.
With both writers then it is change in the relative positions of the
exterior circumstances, and of the organism, which results in variation,
and finally in specific modification.
Here is another sketch of Etienne Geoffroy, also by his son Isidore.
In 1795, while Lamarck was still a believer in immutability, Etienne
Geoffroy St. Hilaire "had ventured to say that species might well be
'degenerations from a single type,'" but, though he never lost sight of
the question, he waited more than a quarter of a century before passing
from meditation to action. "He at length put forward his opinion in
1825, he returned to it, but still briefly, in 1828 and 1829, and did
not set himself to develop and establish it till the year 1831--the year
following the memorable discussion in the Academy, on the unity of
organic composition."[324]
"If," says his son, "he began by paying homage to his illustrious
precursor, and by laying it down as a general axiom, that there is no
such thing as fixity in nature, and especially in animated nature, he
follows this adhesion to the general doctrine of variability by a
dissent which goes to the very heart of the matter. And this dissent
becomes deeper and deeper in his later works. Not only is Geoffroy St.
Hilaire at pains to deny the unlimited extension of variability which
is the foundation of the Lamarckian system, but he moreover and
particularly declines to explain those degenerations which he admits as
possible, by changes of action and habit on the part of the creature
varying--Lamarck's favourite hypothesis, which he laboured to
demonstrate without even succeeding in making it appear probable."[325]
Isidore Geoffroy then declares that his father, "though chronologically
a follower of Lamarck, should be ranked philosophically as having
continued the work of Buffon, to whom all his differences of opinion
with Lamarck serve to bring him nearer."[326] If he had understood
Buffon he would not have said so.
His conclusions are thus summed up:--"Geoffroy St. Hilaire maintains
that species are variable if the environment varies in character;
differences, then, more or less considerable according to the power of
the modifying causes _may have_ been produced in the course of time, and
the living forms of to-day _may be_ the descendants of more ancient
forms."[327]
It is not easy to see that much weight should be attached to Geoffroy
St. Hilaire's opinion. He seems to have been a person of hesitating
temperament, under an impression that there was an opening just then
through which a judicious trimmer might pass himself in among men of
greater power. If his son has described his teaching correctly, it
amounts practically to a _bona fide_ endorsement of what Buffon can only
be considered to have pretended to believe. The same objection that must
be fatal to the view pretended by Buffon, is so in like manner to those
put forward seriously of both the Geoffroys--for Isidore Geoffroy
followed his father, but leant a little more openly towards Lamarck. He
writes:--
"The characters of species are neither absolutely fixed, as has been
maintained by some; nor yet, still more, indefinitely variable as
according to others. They are fixed for each species as long as that
species continues to reproduce itself in an unchanged environment; but
they become modified if the environment changes."[328]
This is all that Lamarck himself would expect, as no one could be more
fully aware than M. Geoffroy, who, however, admits that degeneration may
extend to generic differences.[329]
I have been unable to find in M. Isidore Geoffroy's work anything like a
refutation of Lamarck's contention that the modifications in animals and
plants are due to the needs and wishes of the animals and plants
themselves; on the contrary, to some extent he countenances this view
himself, for he says, "hence arise notable differences of habitation and
climate, and these in their turn induce secondary differences in diet
_and even in habits_."[330] From which it must follow, though I cannot
find it said expressly, that the author attributes modification in some
measure to changed habits, and therefore to the changed desires from
which the change of habits has arisen; but in the main he appears to
refer modification to the direct action of a changed environment.
_Mr. Herbert Spencer._
"Those who cavalierly reject the theory of Lamarck and his followers as
not adequately supported by facts," wrote Mr. Herbert Spencer,[331]
"seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at
all"--inasmuch as no one pretends to have seen an act of direct
creation. Mr. Spencer points out that, according to the best
authorities, there are some 320,000 species of plants now existing, and
about 2,000,000 species of animals, including insects, and that if the
extinct forms which have successively appeared and disappeared be added
to these, there cannot have existed in all less than some ten million
species. "Which," asks Mr. Spencer, "is the most rational theory about
these ten millions of species? Is it most likely that there have been
ten millions of special creations? or, is it most likely that by
continual modification _due to change of circumstances_, ten millions of
varieties may have been produced as varieties are being produced still?"
. . . . . .
"Even could the supporters of the development hypothesis merely show
that the production of species by the process of modification is
conceivable, they would be in a better position than their opponents.
But they can do much more than this; they can show that the process of
modification has effected and is effecting great changes in all
organisms, subject to modifying influences ... they can show that any
existing species--animal or vegetable--when placed under conditions
different from its previous ones, _immediately begins to undergo certain
changes of structure_ fitting it for the new conditions. They can show
that in successive generations these changes continue until ultimately
the new conditions become the natural ones. They can show that in
cultivated plants and domesticated animals, and in the several races of
men, these changes have uniformly taken place. They can show that the
degrees of difference, so produced, are often, as in dogs, greater than
those on which distinctions of species are in other cases founded. They
can show that it is a matter of dispute whether some of these modified
forms _are_ varieties or modified species. They can show too that the
changes daily taking place in ourselves; the facility that attends long
practice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice ceases; the
strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the weakening of
those habitually curbed; the development of every faculty, bodily, moral
or intellectual, according to the use made of it, are all explicable on
this same principle. And thus they can show that throughout all organic
nature there _is_ at work a modifying influence of the kind they assign
as the cause of these specific differences, an influence which, though
slow in its action, does in time, if the circumstances demand it,
produce marked changes; an influence which, to all appearance, would
produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of
condition which geological records imply, any amount of change."
This leaves nothing to be desired. It is Buffon, Dr. Darwin, and
Lamarck, well expressed. Those were the days before "Natural Selection"
had been discharged into the waters of the evolution controversy, like
the secretion of a cuttle fish. Changed circumstances immediately induce
changed habits, and hence a changed use of some organs, and disuse of
others: as a consequence of this, organs and instincts become changed,
"and these changes continue in successive generations, until ultimately
the new conditions become the natural ones." This is the whole theory of
"development," "evolution," or "descent with modification." Volumes may
be written to adduce the details which warrant us in accepting it, and
to explain the causes which have brought it about, but I fail to see how
anything essential can be added to the theory itself, which is here so
well supported by Mr. Spencer, and which is exactly as Lamarck left it.
All that remains is to have a clear conception of the oneness of
personality between parents and offspring, of the eternity, and latency,
of memory, and of the unconsciousness with which habitual actions are
repeated, which last point, indeed, Mr. Spencer has himself touched
upon.
Mr. Spencer continues--"That by any series of changes a zoophyte should
ever become a mammal, seems to those who are not familiar with zoology,
and who have not seen how clear becomes the relationship between the
simplest and the most complex forms, when all intermediate forms are
examined, a very grotesque notion ... they never realize the fact that
by small increments of modification, any amount of modification may in
time be generated. That surprise which they feel on finding one whom
they last saw as a boy, grown into a man, becomes incredulity when the
degree of change is greater. Nevertheless, abundant instances are at
hand of the mode in which we may pass to the most diverse forms by
insensible gradations."
Nothing can be more satisfactory and straightforward. I will make one
more quotation from this excellent article:--
"But the blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex
organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple
ones, becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms
are daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed immeasurably
in every respect--in bulk, in structure, in colour, in form, in specific
gravity, in chemical composition--differs so greatly that no visible
resemblance of any kind can be pointed out between them. Yet is the one
changed in the course of a few years into the other--changed so
gradually that at no moment can it be said, 'Now the seed ceases to be,
and the tree exists.' What can be more widely contrasted than a
newly-born child, and the small, semi-transparent gelatinous spherule
constituting the human ovum? The infant is so complex in structure that
a cyclopaedia is needed to describe its constituent parts. The germinal
vesicle is so simple, that a line will contain all that can be said of
it. Nevertheless, a few months suffices to develop the one out of the
other, and that too by a series of modifications so small, that were
the embryo examined at successive minutes, not even a microscope would
disclose any sensible changes. That the uneducated and ill-educated
should think the hypothesis that all races of beings, man inclusive, may
in process of time have been evolved from the simplest monad a ludicrous
one is not to be wondered at. But for the physiologist, who knows that
every individual being _is_ so evolved--who knows further that in their
earliest condition the germs of all plants and animals whatsoever are so
similar, 'that there is no appreciable distinction among them which
would enable it to be determined whether a particular molecule is the
germ of a conferva or of an oak, of a zoophyte or of a man'[332]--for
him to make a difficulty of the matter is inexcusable. Surely, if a
single structureless cell may, when subjected to certain influences,
become a man in the space of twenty years, there is nothing absurd in
the hypothesis that under certain other influences a cell may, in the
course of millions of years, give origin to the human race. The two
processes are generically the same, and differ only in length and
complexity."
* * * * *
The very important extract from Professor Hering's lecture should
perhaps have been placed here. The reader will, however, find it on page
199.
FOOTNOTES:
[321] 'Origin of Species,' Hist. Sketch, p. xvi.
[322] See 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture,' by Patrick Matthew,
published by Adam and C. Black, Edinburgh, and Longmans and Co., London,
1831, pp. 364, 365, 381-388, and also 106-108, 'Gardeners' Chronicle,'
April 7, 1860.
[323] 'Vie et Doctrine Scientifique de Geoffroy Etienne St. Hilaire,'
Paris, Strasbourg, 1847, pp. 344-346.
[324] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' tom. ii. 413.
[325] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' tom. ii. p. 415.
[326] Ibid.
[327] Ibid. p. 421.
[328] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' vol. ii. p. 431, 1859.
[329] 'Origin of Species,' Hist. Sketch, p. xix.
[330] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' vol. ii. p. 432.
[331] See 'The Leader,' March 20, 1852, "The Haythorne Papers."
[332] Carpenter's 'Principles of Physiology', 3rd ed., p. 867.