ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION
In all ages, and in all parts of the world, we find that primitive man
has delighted in speculating on the birth of the world in which he
lives, on the origin of the living things that surround him, and
especially on the beginnings of the race of beings to which he himself
belongs. In a recent very interesting essay[2], the author of _The
Golden Bough_ has collected, from the records of tradition, history and
travel, a valuable mass of evidence concerning the legends which have
grown out of these speculations. Myths of this kind would appear to fall
into two categories, each of which may not improbably be associated with
the different pursuits followed by the uncivilised races of mankind.
Tillers of the soil, impressed as they must have been by the great
annual miracle of the outburst of vegetable life as spring returns,
naturally adopted one of these lines of speculation. From the dead,
bare ground they witnessed the upspringing of all the wondrous beauty of
the plant-world, and, in their ignorance of the chemistry of vegetable
life, they imagined that the herbs, shrubs and trees are all alike built
up out of the materials contained in the soil from which they grow. The
recognition of the fact that animals feed on plants, or on one another,
led to the obvious conclusion that the _ultimate_ materials of animal,
as well as of vegetable, structures were to be sought for in the soil.
And this view was confirmed by the fact that, when life ceases in plants
or animals, all alike are reduced to 'dust' and again become a part of
the soil--returning 'earth to earth.' In groping therefore for an
explanation of the origin of living things, what could be more natural
than the supposition that the first plants and animals--like those now
surrounding us--were made and fashioned from the soil, dust or
earth--all had been 'clay in the hands of a potter.' The widely diffused
notion that man himself must have been moulded out of _red_ clay is
probably accounted for by the colour of our internal organs.
Thus originated a large class of legendary stories, many of them of a
very grotesque character. Even in many mediaeval sculptures, in this
country and on the continent, the Deity is represented as moulding with
his hands the semblance of a human figure out of a shapeless lump of
clay.
But among the primitive hunters and herdsmen a very different line of
speculation appears to have originated, for by their occupations they
were continually brought into contact with an entirely different class
of phenomena. They could not but notice that the creatures which they
hunted or tended, and slew, presented marked resemblances to
themselves--in their structures, their functions, their diseases, their
dispositions, and their habits. When dogs and horses became the servants
and companions of men, and when various beasts and birds came to be kept
as pets, the mental and even the moral processes characterising the
intelligence of these animals must have been seen by their masters to be
identical in kind with those of their own minds. Do we not even at the
present day compare human characteristics with those of animals, the
courage of the lion, the cunning of the fox, the fidelity of the dog,
and the parental affection of the bird? And the men, who depended for
their very existence on studying the ways of various animals, could not
have been less impressed by these qualities than are we.
Mr Frazer has shown how, from such considerations, the legends
concerning the relations of certain tribes of men with particular
species of animals have arisen, and thus the cults of 'sacred animals'
and of 'totemism' have been gradually developed. From comparisons of
human courage, sagacity, swiftness, strength or perseverance, with
similar qualities displayed by certain animals, it was an easy
transition to the idea that such characteristics were derived by
inheritance.
In the absence of any exact knowledge of anatomy and physiology, the
resemblances of animals to themselves would quite outbulk the
differences in the eyes of primitive men, and the idea of close
relationship in blood does not appear to have been regarded with
distaste. In their origin and in their destiny, no distinction was drawn
between man and what we now designate as the 'lower' animals. Primitive
man not only feels no repugnance to such kinship:--
'But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall hear him company[3].'
It should perhaps be remembered, too, that, in the breeding of domestic
animals, the great facts of heredity and variation could not fail to
have been noticed, and must have given rise to reflection and
speculation. The selection of the best animals for breeding purposes,
and the consequent improvement of their stock, may well have suggested
the transmutation of one kind of animal into a different kind, just as
the crossing of different kinds of animals seems to have suggested the
possible existence of centaurs, griffins and other monstrous forms.
How early the principles of variation and heredity, and even the
possibility of improving breeds by selection, must have been appreciated
by early men is illustrated by the old story of the way in which the
wily Jacob made an attempt--however futile were the means he adopted--to
cheat his employer Laban[4].
Yet, in spite of observed tendencies to variation among animals and
plants, early man must have been convinced of the existence of distinct
kinds ('species') in both the vegetable and animal worlds; he recognised
that plants of definite kinds yielded particular fruits, and that
different kinds of animals did not breed promiscuously with one another,
but that, pairing each with its own kind, all gave rise to like
offspring, and thus arose the idea of distinct 'species' of plants and
animals.
It must be remembered, however, that for a long time 'the world' was
believed to be limited to a few districts surrounding the Eastern
Mediterranean, and the kinds or 'species' of animals and plants were
supposed to number a few scores or at most hundreds. This being the
case, the sudden stocking of 'the world' with its complement of animals
and plants would be thought a comparatively simple operation, and the
violent destruction of the whole a scarcely serious result. Even the
possibility of the preservation of pairs of all the different species,
in a ship of moderate dimensions, was one that was easily entertained
and was not calculated to awaken either surprise or incredulity.
But how different is the problem as it now presents itself to us! In the
year 1900 Professor S. H. Vines of Oxford estimated that the number of
'species' of plants that have been described could be little short of
200,000, and that future studies, especially of the lower microscopic
forms, would probably bring that number up to 300,000[5]. Last year, Mr
A. E. Shipley of Cambridge, basing his estimate on the earlier one of Dr
Guenther, came to the conclusion that the number of described animals
must also exceed 300,000[6]. On the lowest estimate then we must place
the number of known species of plants and animals, living on the globe,
as 600,000! And if we consider the numbers of new forms of plants and
animals that every year are being described by naturalists--about 1500
plants and 1200 animals--if we take into account the inaccessible or as
yet unvisited portions of the earth's surface, the very imperfectly
known depths of the sea, and, in addition to these, the almost infinite
varieties of minute and microscopic forms, I think every competent judge
would consider _a million_ as being probably an estimate below, rather
than above, the number of 'species' now existing on the earth!
While some of these species are very widely distributed over the earth's
surface, or in the waters of the oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, there
are others which are as strikingly limited in their range. Many of the
myriad forms of insect-life pass their whole existence, and are
dependent for food, on a particular species of plant. Not a few animals
and plants are parasitical, and can only live in the interior or on the
outside of other plants and animals.
It will be seen from these considerations that in attempting to decide
between the two hypotheses of the _origin_ of species--the only ones
ever suggested--namely the fashioning of them out of dead matter, or
their descent with modification from pre-existing forms, we are dealing
with a problem of much greater complexity than could possibly have been
imagined by the early speculators on the subject.
The two strongly contrasted hypotheses to which we have referred are
often spoken of as 'creation' and 'evolution.' But this is an altogether
illegitimate use of these terms. By _whatever method_ species of plants
or animals come into existence, they may be rightly said to be
'created.' We speak of the existing plants and animals as having been
created, although we well know them to have been 'evolved' from seeds,
eggs and other 'germs'--and indeed from those excessively minute and
simple structures known as 'cells.' Lyell and Darwin, as we shall
presently see, though they were firmly convinced that species of plants
and animals were slowly developed and not suddenly manufactured, wrote
constantly and correctly of the 'creation' of new forms of life.
The idea of 'descent with modification,' derived from the early
speculations of hunters and herdsmen, is really a much nobler and more
beautiful conception of 'creation' than that of the 'fashioning out of
clay,' which commended itself to the primitive agriculturalists.
Lyell writing to his friend John Herschel, who like himself believed in
the derivation of new species from pre-existing ones by the action of
secondary causes, wrote in 1836:--
When I first came to the notion, ... of a succession of
extinction of species, and creation of new ones, going on
perpetually now, and through an indefinite period of the past,
and to continue for ages to come, all in accommodation to the
changes which must continue in the inanimate and habitable
earth, the idea struck me as the grandest which I had ever
conceived, so far as regards the attributes of the Presiding
Mind[7].'
And Darwin concludes his presentment of the doctrine of evolution in the
_Origin of Species_ in 1859 with the following sentence:--
'There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a
few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone
cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple
a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have
been, and are being, evolved[8].'
Compare with these suggestions the ideas embodied in the following
lines--ideas of which the crudeness cannot be concealed by all the
witchery of Milton's immortal verse:--
'The Earth obey'd, and straight,
Op'ning her fertile womb, teem'd at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limb'd and full grown. Out of the ground up rose
As from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den;
Among the trees they rose, they walk'd;
The cattle in the fields and meadows green:
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The grassy clods now calv'd; now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs, as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane[9].'
Can anyone doubt for a moment which is the grander view of
'Creation'--that embodied in Darwin's prose, or the one so strikingly
pictured in Milton's poetry?
We see then that the two ideas of the method of creation, dimly
perceived by early man, have at last found clear and definite expression
from these two authors--Milton and Darwin. It is a singular coincidence
that these two great exponents of the rival hypotheses were both
students in the same University of Cambridge and indeed resided in the
same foundation--and that not one of the largest of that
University--namely Christ's College.