Transcriber’s Note:
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Those in bold are surrounded by tildes, ~like this~. Footnotes
were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of the
book. Obsolete and alternative spellings were not unchanged. Seven
misspelled words were corrected.
TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 321
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
A History of
Evolution
Carroll Lane Fenton
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1922
Haldeman-Julius Company
_There is but thing greater than to search after the natural laws
which govern our universe--that is to discover them._
FOREWORD
Nothing can be more nearly a truism than the statement that
everything in the known universe is the product of some sort of
evolution. At the same time, there is hardly a doctrine in the
civilized world that has aroused more enthusiasm, interest, and
enmity, than the doctrine of organic evolution. And yet I have found,
to my great surprise, that few of us are accustomed to thinking of
that doctrine itself as a product of a long process of evolution,
covering more than twenty-six centuries. We are all too apt to think
of the doctrine of organic evolution as beginning with Darwin and
ending with Huxley and Haeckel; as a matter of fact, it began (so
far as we can tell) with Thales, and shall not end so long as human
beings inhabit this planet.
It is with the idea of presenting, in a condensed form, the
essentials of this “evolution of evolution” that I have prepared
this book. It is neither detailed nor technical; it does not assume
to be a complete history of the subject under consideration. But
it does give a convenient, readable account of the most important
stages in that history, and at the same time a slight glimpse of the
major characters who made it possible. This latter, unfortunately, is
difficult for two reasons. The space of this booklet is limited, and
only brief sketches can be given, where they can be given at all.
But more important than that is the lack of material. No scientist
has been a Shakespeare, to be written about by Goethe and Frank
Harris, nor yet a Cromwell, to receive the attention of Carlyle.
And yet the personality and fortunes of a scientist are just as
important in judging his place in the world as are those of a poet
or statesman. Without knowing that Lamarck was poor and blind we
cannot properly view his efforts; without realizing that Cuvier was
spoiled, wealthy, and of a “ruling class,” we cannot understand his
bitter contempt for an honest, capable worker who was founding one
of the greatest conceptions of all human thought. And so, while we
are considering the ideas that go to make up this evolution, let us
remember that those ideas were worked out by _men_, not by erratic,
thinking machines which popular magazines proclaim to the world as
representations of its scientists.
C. L. F.
CHAPTER I.
EVOLUTION AMONG THE GREEKS.
The earliest known books on natural history, and particularly on
zoology, the science of animals, were those written by the ancient
Greeks. We are certain that still more ancient volumes once existed,
for the Greek writers commonly referred to “the ancients,” very much
as authors of today refer to the Greeks. But who these ancients were,
where they lived, and what they wrote, we have no means of knowing;
for all practical purposes the study of animal life may be considered
to have originated in Greece during the seventh century before the
Christian era.
Never, perhaps, has a talented people been so advantageously situated
with relation to a stimulating environment as were the Greeks.
All about them was a sea teeming with low and primitive forms of
life, stimulating them to the observation of nature. Their earliest
philosophies were philosophies of nature, of the beginnings and
causes of the universe and its inhabitants. Of course, as has been
pointed out by various students of philosophy, the Greeks did not
follow truly scientific methods of thought; they aimed directly at
a theory without stopping to search for a mass of facts to suggest
and support it. Neither, for that matter, can they justly be called
scientists or naturalists; rather, they were poets and philosophers,
and their evident failures to understand the problems which they
attacked are quite to be expected. As has been said, they sought the
theory before they searched for the fact, and having attained it they
interpreted all facts in the light of the theory. And if that was
wrong--as it very often was--the whole thing was wrong, because only
the theory was studied and no one knew anything about the mistake.
But with all their superstitions and erroneous ideas, the Greeks
possessed an overpowering curiosity regarding the multitudinous
natural objects which they saw about them. Thales, an Ionian
astronomer who lived from 624-548 B. C. was the first, so far as
we know, to substitute a natural explanation of “creation” for
the prehistoric myths. He believed that water was the fundamental
substance from which all things come, and because of which they
exist. Thus the idea of the marine origin of life, held today by many
prominent biologists, is found to be extremely ancient. Of course,
had Thales lived in a land-locked country instead of one surrounded
by a warm, highly populated sea, his ideas might well have been
different. Thus we must, at the very outset, attribute to environment
as well as to intellect the reliability of an important Greek idea.
Anaximander (611-547), another astronomer, was the first important
Greek evolutionist. He believed that the earth first existed in
a fluid state. From its slow drying up were produced all living
creatures, the first being man. These water-dwelling humans appeared
as fishes in the sea, and came out upon the land only when they
had so far developed that they were able to live in the air. The
capsule-like case which enclosed their bodies then burst, freeing
them and allowing them to reproduce their kind upon the continents.
In his ideas of the origin of life Anaximander was the pioneer of
“Abiogenesis,” teaching that eels, frogs, and other aquatic creatures
were directly produced from lifeless matter.
Anaximander’s pupil, Anaximenes, departed radically from the
teachings of Thales. He thought that air, not water, was the cause
of all things, yet he held that in the beginning all creatures were
formed from a primordial slime of earth and water. Another pupil of
Anaximander, Xenophanes (576-480), made himself famous by discovering
the true nature of fossils. Before his time, and indeed, for
thousands of years afterward, fossils were held to be accidents, or
natural growths, or creations of a devil, or of a god who delighted
in puzzling his earthly children. Xenophanes rightly interpreted
them to be the remains of animals, and from this concluded that seas
formerly covered what is now dry land.
Empedocles, (495-435) taught what is probably the first clearly
formulated theory of evolution. He supposed that many parts of
animals, such as heads, legs, necks, eyes, ears, and so on, were
formed separately, and were kept apart by the mysterious forces
of hate. But love of part for part finally overcame the baser
passion, and the various sections came together to form bodies. The
combinations, unfortunately, were entirely accidental, and did not
always result in satisfactory creatures. One body, for example, might
possess several heads and no legs; another might have an abundance
of arms and legs, but be without a head. These monstrosities were
unable to keep themselves alive, and so perished, leaving the world
to the bodies that had come together in proper combinations. Thus
Empedocles, more than two thousand years before the first zoologist
framed and taught a theory of organic evolution that seemed to
offer anything worth while, conceived one of the most important of
evolutionary principles--that of natural selection.
But by far the most striking figure among the early Greek
philosophers who gave their attention to natural history was
Aristotle, (384-322). He lived more than three hundred years
before the Christian era, and was a pupil of Plato and a
teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote upon a wide variety of
subjects--politics, rhetoric, metaphysics, psychology, philosophy,
and natural history--and published several hundred works, most of
which have been lost. It is true that Aristotle’s books are full of
errors, and if the philosopher were to be judged by the standards of
twentieth century science he would not appear very important. But it
must be remembered that he was a pioneer who, by the force of his own
ability created the serious study of natural history. The workers who
had preceded him had discovered relatively little; their works were
mostly speculations and vague hypotheses. As Aristotle himself says,
“I found no basis prepared; no models to copy.... Mine is the first
step, and therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought
and hard labor. It must be looked at as a first step and judged with
indulgence. You, my readers, or hearers of my lectures, if you think
I have done as much as can be fairly required for an initiatory
start, as compared with more advanced departments of theory, will
acknowledge what I have achieved and pardon what I have left for
others to accomplish.”
In his two books, “Physics” and “Natural History of Animals” are
set forth Aristotle’s views on nature, and his remarkably accurate
observations of both plants and animals. He distinguished about five
hundred species of mammals, birds, and fishes, besides showing an
extensive knowledge of corals and their allies, sponges, squids, and
other marine animals. He understood the adaptation of animals and
their parts to the needs placed upon them, and was familiar with the
commoner principles of heredity. He considered life to be a function
of the animal or plant exhibiting it, and not a separate entity,
given out by some divine power, or mysterious force. Aristotle
devised a hereditary chain, extending from the simplest animals of
which he had knowledge to the highest, man. This chain was a very
direct affair, not at all resembling the modern “evolutionary tree”
in its various ramifications and irregularities. And yet, despite
its deficiencies, this chain was the best conception of animal
development and descent to be produced in more than twenty centuries.
Unfortunately, Aristotle saw nothing of value in the crude survival
suggestion of Empedocles. He believed that there was a purpose, a
continued striving after beauty, in all the variations of plants
and animals, and allowed nothing whatever to what we, for lack of
better knowledge, call “chance variation.” He did, however, restate
Empedocles’ position in modern, scientific language in order that he
might refute it the more ably. He argues strongly for his conception
of purpose in evolution, saying, “It is argued that where all things
happened as if they were made for some purpose, being aptly united
by chance, these were preserved, but such as were not aptly made,
these were lost and still perish.” He then makes reference to the way
which Empedocles used this conception to explain the non-existence
of the mythical monsters of olden time, states again that nothing
is produced by chance, and closes with the statement, “There is,
therefore, a purpose in things which are produced by, and exist from,
Nature.”
Aristotle was far and away ahead of any other evolutionist of ancient
times; indeed, had he turned his genius to the clarification and
support of the survival hypothesis, instead of combating it, he might
have been properly considered as the “Greek prophet of Darwinism.”
His teachings were opposed by the philosopher Epicurus, who lived
from 341 to 270 and was one of the most prominent figures of ancient
rationalism. Epicurus did not believe in anything supernatural; he
maintained that everything could be explained on a purely natural
and mechanical basis. He excluded teleology, the doctrine of a
conscious plan or purpose in evolution and nature from any place in
true philosophy, thus taking an important stand in a struggle not yet
settled. Unfortunately, Epicurus did not take the trouble to explain
what his postulated natural causes were, or how they behaved. The
agnostic may well say, with Elliot, that the organic world _seems_
to be teleologically organized merely because it cannot be organized
otherwise, but he must stand ready to show grounds for his statement.
After Epicurus we must pass from Greece to Rome. T. Lucretius Carus
(99-55), more commonly known as Lucretius, revived the teachings of
ancient Greek philosophers and united them with those of Epicurus,
whose doctrines he made famous in the long poem, “De Rerum Natura.”
Lucretius maintained a purely mechanical, rationalistic view of
nature, but ignored the valuable work of Aristotle. He revived
Empedocles’ hypothesis of survival, but confined its application
to the mythical monsters of past ages--centaurs, chimeras, and so
on. He believed in the spontaneous generation of life, speaking of
mounds arising, “from which people sprang forth, for they had been
nourished within.” “In an analogous manner,” says he, “these young
earth-children were nourished by springs of milk.”
Thus we see that Lucretius, although an excellent poet, was neither a
good evolutionist nor a first-rate philosopher. In his abandonment of
Aristotle he discarded the only phase of Greek thought which had come
near to true conceptions of evolution, and in expounding the doctrine
of spontaneous generation, he fostered an idea that was to prove of
almost infinite harm to the evolution idea.
There was no one to carry on the work. Greece was no longer a great
nation; her “philosophers” were mostly second-rate tutors. Rome
produced no naturalists of note, Pliny, the greatest, being of
small capacity for reliable observation. The Greeks had done much;
they had asked questions and insofar as they were able, had given
answers. They left the world face to face with the problem of natural
causation, and their ideas endured as a basis for the work of future
scientists and philosophers.
THE GREEK PERIODS[1]
GENERAL CONCEPTION DIVISIONS OF THE SCHOOLS
OF NATURE:
~Mythological~ The prehistoric traditions.
I. ~The Three Earliest Schools.~
The Ionians: Thales (624-548),
FIRST PERIOD: Anaximander (611-547), Anaximenes
(588-524), Diogenes (440- ).
~Naturalistic~ The Pythagoreans (580-430).
The Eleatics. Xenophanes (576-480),
Parmenides (544- ).
II. ~The Physicists.~
~Materialistic~ Heraclitus (535-475), Empedocles
(Early) (495-435), Democritus (450- ),
Anaxagoras (500-428).
SECOND PERIOD: Socrates (470-399), Plato (427-347).
~Teleological~ Aristotle (384-322).
The Post-Aristotelians, (so-called
Peripatetics), including Theophrastus,
Preaxagoras, Herophilus, and others.
THIRD PERIOD: A. I. ~The Stoics.~
II. ~The Epicureans.~
Epicurus (341-270).
~Materialistic~ III. ~The Sceptics.~
(Late) B. I. ~Eclecticism.~
Galen (131-201 A. D.).