science, which up to this time was completely convinced of the heredity
of acquired qualities. Popular experience, as well as that of physicians,
universally speaks of inherited disease-germs, and in certain cases,
particularly in mental diseases, physicians are so thoroughly convinced
of their inheritability that the first question put to the relatives of
such sufferers usually is whether the disease has ever appeared in the
parents or family of the patient. This fact is so deeply grounded in the
general belief, that the modern naturalistic school of novelists, the
school of Zola, Ibsen, and their associates, are wont to devote their
main efforts to the problem of inherited evils. Now the inheritability
of certain evil conditions, even though proved, would not by any means
be an absolute disproof of Weismann’s theory; for, inclined as much as
we may be to derive diseases from mistakes and sins against a natural
mode of life, such as colds, drunkenness, dissipation, mental and
bodily over-exertion, we yet cannot deny _a priori_ that blastogenic
diseases, or diseases originating in the germ-plasm, may exist, which
without any doubt would then be transmissible. It also does not lie
beyond the realms of possibility that congenital malformations, such as
hare-lips, supernumerary fingers, and the defects which show a remarkable
disposition to heredity, fall into this category. These blastogenic germs
of disease would then, of course, have to be distinguished from the
somatogenic diseases (or the diseases produced in the body by external
causes), which never could be inherited.
From this point of view the question as to the hereditary consequences of
external injuries has given rise to great efforts to prove experimentally
the truth of this belief, which has existed for centuries. In almost
every part of the globe we meet with the assertion that hornless cattle,
such, for example, as are bred in South America, or the tailless cats of
the Isle of Man, or other domestic animals with similar deficiencies,
are descended from a progenitor which lost its horns or its tail through
disease or other mishap. Since now, recently, similar assertions have
again been put forward to the effect that tailless cats are found
among the descendants of feline progenitors who have been robbed of
their posterior ornaments by an act of violence, and these cases have
been discussed in connection with the pangenesis theory of Darwin,
according to which each part of the body is believed to supply material
contributions to the germ-plasm, Weismann determined to institute
experiments on this point. He started the breeding of white mice whose
tails were regularly cut off, without finding as a result, from among 840
young ones derived from such mutilated progenitors, a single one having
a malformation or missing tail. However, even this experiment cannot
be regarded as an absolute proof, as it at first view might seem, and
the negative result was foreseen by the writer of these lines. It is a
clear conclusion that if in the case of many vertebrates, for example,
salamanders and lizards, as well as in the case of most invertebrates,
missing limbs and tails are renewed in the course of their lifetime, it
would indeed be very remarkable if their renewal should not take place,
at least in the case of the complete rejuvenation of new birth.
Darwin himself had concluded, from his own experience and that of
others, that injuries and similar inflicted acts of violence are the
cause of hereditary consequences only in cases where they bring about
some long-continued and wasting disease, and thus produce some permanent
effect on the bodily constitution. For this reason, especially injuries
to main nerve-tracts in parts near the centres are readily accompanied
by hereditary consequences, because they interfere with the nutrition
of the members supplied by them. Brown-Séquard has observed in a great
number of cases of guinea pigs whose nerve-roots he had severed, that the
offspring of the animals operated upon developed diseases of the eyes,
ears, and other organs which conformed regularly to the character of the
operation, and could therefore be predicted; and also noted malformations
and deficiencies, amounting even to the complete disappearance of the
eye-balls, such as never arise or have been observed in these animals
without violent interference. His positive results regarding the
hereditability of the evil consequences of disturbing operations have
a decided advantage in numbers and scope over the negative results of
Weismann; and it is not clear how the belief in the non-hereditability of
somatic conditions will accommodate itself to them.
But if conditions of the body produced by such sudden interferences
have under certain circumstances entailed hereditary consequences,
how much more should we expect this same result from slowly
effected constitutional changes, which external influences, working
uninterruptedly for hundreds of years, bring about in an organism which
has been transported into a new element, into new surroundings, or into
a different climate. Not at all infrequently does the coming together
and union of two new organisms beget hereditary changes which can be
explained only through the direct influence of the one upon the other.
Thus, for example, in the case of plants in hot countries which are
protected against the assaults of leaf-devouring ants by body-guards
of smaller ants, and also in species of quite different families, as,
for example, in _Cecropia_ of the order _Euphorbiaceæ_, and in some
_Triplaris_ species among the _Polygonaceæ_, we find little chambers,
approachable through small openings in the stems, which serve the
ants protecting the plants as dwelling and breeding places. Are we to
believe now, in regard to this fact, that these plants, so different
in their nature, have produced through voluntary variations the stems
which contain these openings, or are we to believe we have to deal here
with openings acquired through inheritance which originally were bored
in the stems by the ants at the most appropriate points? Surely the
first conclusion, which would uphold Weismann’s theory, has but a very
slight degree of probability in its favor, whilst the latter, which would
overthrow his view, is very highly probable. And such examples could be
cited in great numbers.
It is also to be remembered that the power of variation is not exhibited
solely in sexually created individuals, as it should be according to
Weismann’s theory, but frequently also in non-sexual multiplication,
where no amphimixis (mingling) occurs. It is well known that the majority
of the sporting varieties of our trees, for example, _Fagus sanguinea_,
and the so-called weeping varieties, that is, abnormal varieties with
pendent twigs, forms with split, spotted, or white leaves, are wont first
to appear on single branches of old trees, in which the continuity of
the protoplasm unquestionably existed, but no amphimixis or extrusion of
the polar bodies took place. It is also the generally received opinion
of naturalists that the lowest classes of animal and plant life are
universally multiplied by non-sexual means. And if this is so, it is
not clear how higher forms which sexually propagate can be derived from
them, if the latter have originally to furnish the fundamental conditions
of variation. The adherents of Neo-Darwinism will, accordingly, have to
furnish many additional facts if they wish to invest their theory with
any degree of probability.
CARUS STERNE.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] _Cenogenesis_, from κενός, empty, fruitless (and γένεσις, birth);
not from κοινός, common, the derivatives of which are sometimes written
“c_e_no.”—ED.
II.
FRANCE.
The study of personality, from the point of view of pathological
psychology, has already supplied us with numerous books. M. ALFRED BINET,
in his fine work, _Les Altérations de la Personnalité_, has undertaken to
present systematically to us these alterations in their entirety, while
restricting himself to ascertained results, and avoiding disputed points.
He exhibits to us the “dismemberment of the ego” in diseased states, the
frequent rupture of that “unity of consciousness” which is the principal
attribute of the normal individual.
Clinical observation has established the existence in certain subjects
of successive personalities, and in others that of co-existing
personalities; the experiences of suggestion have at last allowed of
analogous morbid phenomena being provoked, in such a manner that cases
may be varied and rendered still more instructive. The simple movements
provoked in normal persons in states of distraction, of which many very
curious examples may be found in M. Binet’s book, are the recognised
mark of a subconsciousness; but it is often possible, under the same
conditions and with the same processes, to provoke in a hypnotisable
hysteric individual an actual sub-personality, that is to say, to augment
the phenomena which attentive observers have long since remarked in
every-day life.
It cannot be doubted that, on the one hand, it is possible to produce
in an insensible limb a great variety of subconscious actions, and all
sorts of reactions; and when they are recorded by the graphic method, it
is perceived that with the fingers of his insensible hand, the subject
has made movements the form of which varies according to the receiving
apparatus (the dynamograph, drum, pencil, etc.). These movements thus
exhibit the truly psychological marks of adaptation, and seem to reveal
the existence of an intelligence which is other than that of the ego of
the subject, and which acts without his assistance and even unknown to
him.
On the other hand, numerous experiences of very different kinds show
that the subject whose anæsthetic arm, for example, is pricked, can
have an idea of the stimulation, although he does not perceive it. He
does not feel the prickings, but the excitation calls forth the idea of
their number: he counts them as a normal individual would do; “only,
in hysterical individuals, the first part of the process occurs in one
consciousness, and the second in another.”[17]
It can hardly be denied that these different consciousnesses are
distinct; since experience proves that each can have its own perceptions,
its own memory, and even a moral character. However, their relative
value with respect to each other matters little. We are compelled to
consider, with M. Ribot, the ego as a “coördination” of states of
consciousness, admitting of infinitely variable groupings. According to
the old conception of the ego, the personality, with respect to secondary
consciousnesses, was compared to a coachman who had ceased to have
control over his horses. This comparison is now insufficient, since it
may happen that the coachman falls asleep on the box, and that one of
the horses then governs the set, regulating, more or less perfectly, the
pace of the others by its own gait. Spiritualists, however, will never
consent to put the ego in the place of the coachman. “A stone detached
from the complex structure of the personality,” M. Binet now tells us,
“can become the starting point of a new structure, which rises rapidly
by the side of the old. Whereupon a disaggregation of the psychological
elements is produced.” This comparison is certainly more precise and more
in accordance with facts.
Moreover, there remains to be explained how the mental compound which
constitutes the ego has been constructed from its elements. M. Binet
shows, _à propos_ of this question, that the association of ideas is
powerless to explain the genesis of personality; associations alone,
as proved by the experiences of suggestion, are not sufficient to
restore forgotten memories. Neither is memory the sole factor in
personality; since, in certain conditions a person may, while preserving
the consciousness and the memory of certain of his mental states,
nevertheless repudiate these mental states and consider them as foreign
to himself.
This question is still an open one. But there exist certainly some
grounds for our seeking in the division of consciousness the key to
certain psychological facts, like unconscious cerebration. Such a key
would be the action of detached consciousnesses and detached memories,
that afterwards immediately enter the current of general consciousness.
Finally, “it is possible,” as M. Binet says in conclusion, “that
consciousness may be the privilege of certain of our psychic acts; it is
possible also that it exists everywhere in our organism, and it may be
even that it accompanies every manifestation of life.”
* * * * *
In his new work, _Agnosticisme_, M. DE ROBERTY studies with special
care the position of modern doctrines with regard to the unknown, the
great _x_ of philosophic speculations—God, Idea, Matter, Noumenon or
Unknowable. Although perhaps a little hastily written, and somewhat
obscure, his book nevertheless enforces conviction. “Our conception of
the world,” says M. de Roberty, “embraces solely the things that we
_know_ (feel, perceive, imagine, analyse, compare, etc.), and does not
comprise the least jot or tittle of what we _do not know_. _For us_,
therefore, there can be no question of any relations except between
two classes of _known_ elements: that which constitutes the object of
scientific research, and that which is outside of science. The latter
class represents _our_ unknown, which is always _relative and purely
human_.” Here, indeed, we have the true point of view, that which we
shall all reach, though perhaps at first unknown to ourselves; and I
shall be much surprised if the philosophers do not at last decide to wipe
out the formidable _Unknowable_ set up by Spencer as the ultimate entity.
We shall speak no more of the fathomless universe, but of the still
unexplored universe; of the unknown, not of the unknowable.
There is, however, another aspect of the question. Let us suppose the
unknown got rid of; or to be more precise,—and if we regard with M. de
Roberty the psychic centres as special receivers in which the cosmical
energy empties itself, resolving itself into sensation and idea, and
from whence it spreads itself anew as motion,—let us suppose that we
have summed up all the energies received and emitted, and verified the
law which reduces memory to the conservation of energy; let us suppose
in fine that philosophy shall have found in the ego the synthesis of the
non-ego, expressed “in symbolic abbreviations and in signs,” and shall
have realised the “logical monism” which reduces things to their ideas:
would the intellect—and would the sensibility—even then be completely
satisfied? Can we conceive a state in which the curiosity of man as to
all that concerns himself will be at rest, and when he will cease to
be disquieted about the cause of suffering and of life? Kant long ago
propounded this question. But, according to M. de Roberty, the thinker
who is “a prey to the afflux of emotion referred to by Kant,” the man
“given over to the desire for another kind of knowledge than that of
experience,” are, in the category of intellectual emotions, diseased
and “perverted” persons. “The sentiments, so varied in aspect and in
strength, which inspire us,” writes he, “the contemplation of the
unknown, determine the mental illusion which materialises, so to say, our
ignorance and transforms the unknown into the unknowable.”
Would it be inconsistent, however, to preserve the emotion of the unknown
without “materialising” it, without pronouncing any dangerous scientific
_ignorabimus_? M. de Roberty does not accept this situation,—which
was that of Littré. I do not know whether any one will discover the
“vaccine,” as he calls it, “of the pessimist emotion which has produced
agnosticism or latent religiosity.” If this constitutes a mental malady,
I fear much that it will be incurable. As long as there is unhappiness in
life, there will also be unsatisfied curiosity, and for a very long time
to come, inquietude.
* * * * *
The last publication of LOMBROSO and LASCHI, _Le Crime politique et les
Revolutions, par rapport au droit, à l’anthropologie criminelle et à
la science du gouvernement_ (Political Crime and Revolutions, in their
Relation to Law, Criminal Anthropology, and the Science of Government)
of which we here have a French translation, is, I will not say, the
worst written, but the most confused work imaginable. Its arrangement is
clear, but its examples are given without any order whatever. The facts
presented are abundant, but they are taken rather too much at haphazard,
and often too uncritically. The worst is that its very thesis is weak,
badly formulated or elusive in places. What a pity it is that so much
erudition should be expended, and so many valuable data be brought
together without better success in displaying to the best advantage
these riches, and also, let me say, without so many times having had
occasion to appear so clearly in the wrong! M. Lombroso remains unmoved,
unfortunately, in his high sounding and unqualified hypothesis of
“diseased genius.” He continues to develop it and to defend it in this
latest book of his, which is replete with instructive details, and
which is undoubtedly the first considerable attempt at an etiology of
revolutions and of political crime.
The complex doctrine of Lombroso could be sufficiently summed up, if I
am not mistaken, by uniting word to word—by the mathematical sign of
equality—philoneism (or the love of novelties) with the revolutionary
spirit, the revolutionary spirit with genius, genius with insanity,
insanity with criminality, and criminality, finally, with progress. But
what a detestable thing progress would then be! We should have to protect
ourselves against it as we do against a pestilence. The evolution of
societies does not take place without great waste and loss, as we all
know. It should be carefully shown what these losses are. The study of
the conditions of social progress ought to be made in greater detail
than is here found. The terms of the imagined equation, which here
hovers before our eyes, should in fine, if any comparison is to be
effected between them, be subjected to a much more exact quantitative and
qualitative analysis.
For example, let us take genius. Of what kinds of genius does Lombroso
speak? It seems to be sufficient for him that a man has attracted
attention, and made himself talked about, to entitle him to be called
great, while perhaps he is only a blusterer, a braggart, a servile
imitator, a mere _homunculus_. In this way the quantity of geniuses and
talented individuals he has unearthed is something extraordinary. The
result of this is a radical error in his tables of the distribution of
geniuses. The superiority that he attributes, in this respect, to certain
of our southern departments, as compared with the Norman departments,
for example, would have to be reversed if we considered the relative
quality and kind of the genius involved. For the same reason, the
relation established between genius and republican modes of government is
undoubtedly not so precise and simple as is stated. But the worst of it
is that in thus augmenting the number of men of genius, it is found that
we have, in consequence of the above mentioned equation, also increased
the number of the demented and the degenerate!
If, moreover, it is true that the conservative mind, with less genius,
insanity, and criminality, is evidence of the senility of the race, how
can we accept the thesis that genius and the spirit of innovation are
also absolute evidence of a neurasthenic condition? Shall we deny sound
nerves to robust and vigorous youth? This, indeed, is not what Lombroso
wished to assert. Yet the famous thesis always confronts us: _Latet
anguis in herba_. The least sign of degeneracy is enough for him to brand
a man, and not only are all geniuses in his eyes unbalanced, but even
the insane are without any ado baptised geniuses; with the result that
all is heaped together in one great mass—genius, insanity, and spirit of
revolution.
I shall not dwell any longer on these criticisms. They are simply
intended as an admonition to the learned M. Lombroso against the
allurements of a badly founded theory, and against the dangers arising
from a too hasty preparation of his books. Whatever may be its defects,
he has at least brought together in his present book many ideas. I advise
all to read with care what he says about women (and how many will find
him misoneistic on this point!), concerning their great influence in
_rebellions_, which are always barren of results, and their impotence in
_revolutions_, which are always productive of good. In the second part
of his work, namely, in the section entitled _Juridical and Political
Applications_, nearly all he says is to be commended. I agree with the
authors—or I do not wish to forget M. Laschi—as to what they tell us
in relation particularly to pettifogging parlementarianism and public
instruction. Their conclusions are perhaps not connected with the thesis
in any very intimate manner. But this is not of much consequence, as they
possess an independent value of their own.
* * * * *
In a previous communication I referred to the work of Savvas-Pacha on
Musulman jurisprudence. I have now to announce a work entitled _Souvenirs
du Monde musulman_, by M. CH. MISMER, (published by Hachette,) the
fourth and last volume of a valuable series which is greatly deserving
of attention. M. Mismer, who has lived a long time in the East—at
Constantinople, in Crete, and in Egypt—and was acquainted with the
leading personages of the Empire, does not hesitate to return here to
the theory which he set forth more than twenty years ago in his _Soirées
de Constantinople_, his theory, namely, of the social advantages, and
even the superiority, of Islamism over Christianity; subject however to
the special worth of the races which belong to either of these two forms
of religion. This opinion is not lightly uttered, and it will appear
the more striking in view of the present crisis of social and moral
decomposition which is now spreading throughout the western nations.
In the work of M. Mismer will be found some of the great and striking
qualities of the observing and thoughtful mind. In connection with a
special problem of great importance in public instruction, that of
heredity, I shall call to the attention of my readers the following
statement, made with reference to the young men of the “Egyptian Mission”
in France, directed by M. Mismer for ten years. “The capacity of a
pupil,” says he, “was always found to be intimately connected with the
cerebral culture of his ancestors and the faculties constituting the
superiorities of his race.” “It was the same,” adds he, “from the moral
standpoint.” Undoubtedly, if M. Mismer had taken the pains to make a note
of the facts summed up in his statement, and to present the full case of
the numerous pupil’s that he has had under his care, he would have been
able to furnish science with data of the greatest value. Let us at least
receive his lessons as he offers them to us. They are the fruit of the
experience of a “man of action,” and it speaks well for an observation
that it has rendered good service in practice.
LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The hypothesis of the division of consciousness explains,
consequently, much better than that of the motive force of mental images,
the facts of automatic writing (spiritism). [The works of Binet, Roberty,
and Lombroso are published by Alcan.]
CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.
COMTE AND TURGOT.
_To the Editor of The Monist_: