If any person devoted his time to the correction of popular errors,
there is no probability that he would have any spare moments for eating
or sleeping. The serious aspect of the present condition of popular
knowledge, however, is the apparent absence of desire upon the part of
many young people to grasp the principles of natural science. I am not
exaggerating when I say that there are plenty of fairly educated persons
in every large city who deny that man is an animal, and who insist that
a whale must be a fish, because it lives in the sea.
Everybody professes to be aware in a sort of unconscious way that the
theory of Evolution was invented by Mr. Darwin, and patented by Mr.
Spencer, the most important points in the doctrine being that all men
are descended from monkeys which had lost their tails, that the fittest
survived, and that there is a “missing link” between man and his
ancestors.
These ideas have little foundation in fact. Darwin no more discovered
Evolution than Edison discovered electricity; we are not descended from
any existing ape, with or without a tail, and no competent person ever
asserted that we were; and there are good reasons for saying that such
palaeontological “links” as are missing are not of the greatest possible
importance. In short, whatever is evolutionary in the popular mind, is a
burlesque upon the evolutionist’s true opinions.
Charles Darwin was born in 1809, on the same day as Lincoln, but, long
before Darwin’s time, evolution had become a recognized force in
science. Kant, who lived from 1724 to 1804, and Laplace (1749-1827) had
worked out the development of the sun and the planets from white-hot
gas. Lyell (1797-1875) had worked out the evolution of the earth’s
surface to its present condition; and Lamarck (1744-1829) had shown that
there is evidence of the descent of all animals, as well as all plants,
from a few ancestors by gradual modification. Again, Herbert Spencer,
during Darwin’s lifetime, began to work out the growth of mind from the
most simple beginnings to the highest development of human thought.
The philosophies of the ancients were all of them founded upon limited
observation; they were merely speculative fancy-pictures evolved from
the author’s own consciousness. Modern science, however, is of quite a
different character. It has relegated certain fundamental propositions
to a region called “the Unknowable” (this means at present unknowable),
and it permits everybody to explain these propositions by means of any
hypotheses which may occur to him. In other words, modern science does
not deal with such phenomena as are at the present day outside the range
of the human intellect; and I venture to warn the reader that
speculation concerning matters upon which we have as yet no scientific
data is waste of time. Modern science is founded upon investigation and
observation, and the evidence is always weighed as carefully and as
impartially as are the statements of witnesses in a law court.
One naturally asks: “What is Evolution?” “Continuous change according to
certain fixed laws,” is a reply which may have some value, although it
is quite insufficient. A technical definition, given by Mr. Spencer, is
as follows:
“An integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during
which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent heterogeneity, to
a definite, coherent homogeneity, and during which the retained motion
undergoes a parallel transformation.” Anybody who will think about this
definition will be able to appreciate its meaning, provided a good
dictionary is at hand.
Evolution is not another word for Development, and Mr. Spencer has
carefully distinguished the one from the other; but the details are too
technical for notice in this paper. Evolution may be regarded as “a
general term for the history of the steps by which any living being has
acquired the morphological and physiological characters which
distinguish it.” Development is “the process of differentiation by which
the primitively similar parts of a living body become more and more
unlike one another.” Both definitions are Huxley’s.
The evolution of organic matter now claims attention in detail. Of the
origin of first life, we know absolutely nothing. The doctrine of
Evolution does not deal with that. There are, however, many hypotheses
upon the subject. Lord Kelvin, the eminent physicist, has suggested that
unicellular life may have been transferred to this globe from a wrecked
planet. This hypothesis obviously aids us very little, for it merely
transfers the original scene of action to some other world. Personally,
I prefer the idea that the first protoplasm was produced by the action
of the sun upon inorganic matter not unlike the colloids, and that it
“fed upon the previous steps in its own evolution.” In this connection,
I may say that two points are certain—viz., that vegetable life preceded
animal life, and that the first forms of life were mere specks of jelly,
without organs. Can these primitive specks be created at the present
time? Or, in other words, can protoplasm be manufactured by artificial
processes? The answer must be No; not by any process now known, although
a great number of experiments have been made with the object of
manufacturing unicellular vegetable life. During the years between 1870
and 1880, this question was thoroughly thrashed out, and at first the
balance seemed to be very evenly held between the supporters and the
opponents of spontaneous generation. The investigations of the late
Professor Tyndall, however, conclusively proved that biogenesis, that
is, all life from previous life, is the condition at the present day.
But I must add Huxley’s words of warning, viz., “that with organic
chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and
every day making prodigious strides, it would be the height of
presumption for any man to say that the conditions under which matter
assumes the qualities called vital, may not some day be artificially
brought together.” And further, “that as a matter not of proof but of
probability, if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of
geologically recorded time, to the still more remote period when the
earth was passing through chemical and physical conditions which it can
never see again, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of
living protoplasm from nonliving matter.”
The first protoplasm must be extremely ancient, for the remains of
sea-weeds are found in the oldest strata, and vegetation implies the
manufacture of protoplasm from inorganic matter.
When the earth was in the condition to which Huxley referred, the
constantly decreasing heat, and the recurrence of the seasons produced,
by slow degrees, changes in the congenital character of the forms of
life. Every individual varied somewhat from its predecessors, and those
forms which possessed variations most suitable to the environment were
the ones which eventually survived. The transition from the protophyta,
the lowest class of vegetable life, to the protozoa, the lowest class of
animal life, must have been a very simple matter in the condition in
which the earth then was. Indeed, today the difference between the
lowest microscopic animals and the lowest microscopic plants is by no
means clearly defined.
Innumerable hosts of life made their appearance upon our planet while
the surface was going through the cooling process, and they were, at
first, of course, of the most primitive kind. But the same laws were
always at work, viz., no two living things were exactly alike when they
made their appearance upon this earth, although the differences between
several forms might be very slight. Variation was, and is, the order of
the day.
The individuals which possessed variations in accordance with the
environment persisted, while those having injurious variations had a
tendency to disappear. Congenital variations were (and are) transmitted
with great certainty. This is Mr. Darwin’s “Process of Natural
Selection,” called by Mr. Spencer “The Survival of the Fittest.”
The other Darwinian factor in evolution is Sexual Selection. It is that
department of Natural Selection in which sex is especially concerned.
Anything which exhibits the prowess or beauty of the one sex attracts
the other, and decides the preference for one individual over another,
with the result that those individuals which are unattractive to the
opposite sex are unable to reproduce their kind. The importance of this
factor will be appreciated if I give an extract from Darwin’s “Descent
of Man” (Vol. II., p. 367). “For my own part,” wrote our great master,
“I conclude that of all the causes which have led to the differences in
external appearance between the races of men, and to a great extent
between man and the lower animals, sexual selection must have been by
far the most efficient.”
As I have already said, Darwin neither invented nor discovered the
doctrine of Evolution. But he placed it upon a firm foundation by the
discovery of the two great factors to which I have referred, and, by
incessant observation and indomitable energy, he demonstrated the truth
of them beyond any reasonable doubt.
The proofs of the truth of Evolution are of two kinds—palaeontological
and embryological. The palaeontological evidence has found its way into
popular books, and even into some of the literary newspapers. The
history of the horses, of the crocodiles, of the rhinoceros is known in
detail. All the stages have been found which intervene between the
four-toed Eohippos of the Lower Eocene and the zebra and horse of the
present day. Thanks to the late Professor Marsh, of Yale, not only are
the successive steps in the evolution of the foot-structure preserved,
but so also are the various stages in the evolution of the teeth. The
occasional appearance of a three-toed horse points very plainly to a
three-toed progenitor, a striking example of atavism, that is, the
reappearance of a characteristic which has “skipped” one or more
generations.
If the principle of heredity be true, one would expect to find in the
development of animals and plants, traces of the line of descent. “If
Evolution be true, one ought to find, following back the development of
the egg, that specific details would vanish and give rise to more
generalized features; that the earlier the stages, the more the embryos
of related forms would resemble each other.” This is exactly what is
found, there being, in a vast number of instances, a remarkable parallel
between the palaeontological record and the embryological evidence. A
detailed examination of the facts would not be intelligible to anybody
who is not a practical biologist; but I am fully warranted in asserting
that every organism in the course of its life-history (technically
called ontogeny) is a recapitulation of the history of the
race—technically known as phylogeny.
There is other evidence in abundance. The phenomena named atavism is a
part of that evidence. Almost everybody has seen well-defined and
regular stripes upon horses, and nobody doubts that they indicate a
zebra-like ancestor. Again, in the inner side of the human eye is a
little red fold, known as the plica semilunaris, the remnant of an
ancestor which possessed a third eyelid, similar to that possessed by
some reptiles and birds of to-day.
Who are the supporters of the doctrine of Evolution? Practically the
whole scientific world. The late Professor Marsh, the distinguished
palaeontologist, when president of the American Association for the
Advance of Science in 1878, said:
“I need offer no argument for Evolution, since to doubt evolution is to
doubt science, and science is only another name for the truth.”
Professor Marsh meant, of course, not that evolution is to be taken “on
trust,” but that it has been so thoroughly proved that new arguments in
support of it are unnecessary.
Concerning Natural Selection, sometimes called Darwinism, the late
Professor Huxley said (quotation from Darwin’s “Life”): “I venture to
affirm that so far as all my knowledge goes, all the ingenuity and all
the learning of the hostile critics have not enabled them to adduce a
single fact of which it can be said this is irreconcilable with the
Darwinian theory.”
I occasionally hear the old argument that species are immutable—that a
species is something which never changes. It seems a little late in the
day to revive this contention, but it is necessary to be prepared with a
reply. The critics of Darwin’s theory of “the Origin of Species by
Natural Selection” have always refused to give a tangible definition of
the word “species,” and, as a result, the real difficulty turns upon
that point. What is a species? Linnaeus said: “There are as many species
as an infinite Being created at the beginning,” a statement which is a
confession of faith, and not a scientific definition. We must remember,
of course, that Linnaeus died as long ago as 1778. The truth is that all
the various tests for species have proved faulty, that of the fertility
of hybrids having little more value than many of the other so-called
“tests.” In classification, the word “species” means the lowest
subdivision to which a name is usually applied, and to aid the
zoologist’s or botanist’s memory, some system of classification is, I
need not say, an absolute necessity.
According to the view of the anti-evolutionists, most of whom are not
scientific men, descendants of a common ancestor must belong to the same
species. Nevertheless, the late Mr. Romanes has shown that the rabbits
of Porto Santo, an island in the Atlantic, about twenty-five miles from
Madeira, descended from the European stock of nearly 500 years ago, will
no longer breed with their continental cousins.
When we remember that some wild animals will not breed in captivity, the
idea of sterility as a test of species seems utterly unscientific. I
venture to say that there can be no accurate definition of species in
terms of physiology, for every individual has its peculiarities,
chemical as well as physical, and the real difficulty is to decide when
these peculiarities are important enough to make it useful to give a
precise name to their possessors. Assume for a moment that a species is
a group of individuals agreeing in essential characters which remain
constant from one generation to another. But what are essential
characters and how much constancy is demonstrated? Upon these points no
two biologists are likely to agree. For example, taking the birds of
Germany, Bechstein says there are 367 species; Brehm says there are 900.
According to Reichenbach there are 379, and Meyer and Wolf tell us there
are 406.
The idea of a species is based upon structural resemblances between
individuals, and the degree of importance attached to these depends upon
the mind of the particular observer.
There are two reasons why nobody has seen one species turn into another.
The first is that until the word “species” is satisfactorily defined,
instances of the evolution of new forms cannot be supplied. Secondly, as
nobody lives much beyond a hundred years at the most—a mere moment in
Nature—our ability to witness marked changes in animals or plants is
extremely limited. Minor changes, of course, are frequently noticed. I
ask the reader to remember, however, that the flower-garden and the
farm-yard are in an artificial condition, Natural Selection having
ceased. For instance, the duck which has defective wings when hatched
has as good a chance of surviving as the duck with powerful wings.
Who are the opponents of the doctrine of Evolution? In the scientific
world they are difficult to find. Professor Virchow, of Berlin, the
distinguished pathologist must, I think, be classed as one, although his
verdict is really “not proven.” Professor Haeckel, however, has pointed
out that the opinion of a pathologist, no matter how eminent, upon the
subject of evolution cannot carry much weight.
Until recently we had with us two men of science whose opposition to
some portion of the doctrine of evolution was of importance. These men
were Sir William Dawson, the Canadian geologist, and Mr. Mivart, the
English anatomist. Both of these gentlemen have died within the past two
years.
Having now written a brief outline of the doctrine of Evolution, I
believe that I cannot do better than conclude this very imperfect sketch
with a quotation from the immortal Shakespeare:
“The truth can never be confirmed enough,
Though doubts did ever sleep.”
Lawrence Irwell.
[Illustration: ]
THE SURF SCOTER.
(_Oidemia perspicillata._)
The Surf Scoter is also known by several other popular names, such as
the Surf Duck, the Surf or Sea Coot and, not infrequently, the Booby.
The name Velvet Duck, though more commonly applied to the white-winged
scoter, is also sometimes used to designate this species.
This Scoter is an American species and is only an accidental visitor to
European coasts. Its range includes the “coasts and larger inland waters
of northern North America; in winter, south to Florida, to the Ohio
River and to San Quentin Bay, Lower California.”
Our illustration is that of a male bird. The female is a sooty brown,
silvery gray below and with much white on the sides of the head.
Immense flocks of the young of this species winter on San Diego Bay,
California. Here the adult birds are of rather rare occurrence for they
are able to withstand the rigors of an arctic winter and stay far to the
northward where they are a common resident. In the vicinity of San Diego
there was about one adult to every seventy-five or one hundred juvenile
birds. The former may be easily distinguished by their very striking
velvety black plumage, the white markings on the nape and forehead
standing out in bold contrast. These white markings remind one of the
white bull’s eye on a target. Because of this striking color
characteristic the Surf Scoter is frequently called the Target Head, by
the California hunters.
They are wary birds and it is often necessary to make a long detour in
order to reach a spot near to a flock, without attracting their
attention, as they ride the crest of the waves in a heavy surf. The
younger birds will remain in the surf so close to the shore that
frequently they are cast high and dry upon the beach. When this happens
it is very amusing to watch them awkwardly scramble back and enter the
water again. The older birds are usually much more shy, remaining far
out on the water where they congregate in pairs, though sometimes there
may be six or eight together.
As the tides enter San Diego Bay they carry in the loose seaweeds in
which are entangled numerous dead starfish and other forms of marine
life. These form the principal food not only of the Scoters but also of
all the water fowls, such as other species of ducks, the cormorant, the
pelican and the beautiful California gull.
The note of the Surf Scoter is to me the most pleasing of all the ducks.
It is a soft, mellow whistle ending in a cluck! cluck!
Mr. Nelson states that the Surf Scoter appears in the vicinity of St.
Michaels, Alaska, about the middle of May and nests commonly in the
marshes of the delta of the Yukon river. It also nests in large numbers
on the Atlantic coast from Labrador northward.
Dr. Coues, speaking of these birds as he observed them in Labrador,
says, “They are tough birds and remarkably tenacious of life and require
a heavy charge to kill them. They are known as Bottle-nosed Coots, a
name given in allusion to the very peculiar shape and color of the
bill.”
Its nest, usually placed on grassy knolls, in fresh-water marshes near
the sea, is made of dried weeds and grasses and lined with the down of
the bird. It is evident that the female performs all the duties of
incubating the eggs and carrying for the young, for during the nesting
period large flocks are observable that consist entirely of males,
constantly feeding in their accustomed haunts.
This ocean duck feeds “on small mollusks and fishes, for which it dives
almost constantly, both in the sandy bays and amidst the tumbling surf,
sometimes fishing at the depth of several fathoms and floating buoyantly
among the surf of the raging billows, where it seems as unconcerned as
if it were on the most tranquil waters.”
Frank M. Woodruff.