an analogous feat of inventive genius. As the problem is representative
of many others it is worth consideration. The study of these teeth is a
specialty of Professor Henry F. Osborn's, and though to the layman this
may seem a very small matter it is really big enough to concern not
only science but philosophy.
Anyone who will look into the glass at his back teeth, the molars or
grinders, will perceive that their tops are not flat but raised into
little promontories, tubercles, or "cusps." An eye-tooth, on the other
hand, is a single sharp peg or fang.
Were the molars, then, far back in evolution, made by fusing together
two or three original peg-shaped teeth, each component being now
represented by a cusp? Or were they always single, each growing its own
several cusps for grinding purposes?
Professor Osborn has shown that the latter was the case.
We used the words "for grinding purposes." That was raising the window.
It has been raised before. Once in a long while a biologist gets out.
As a rule however they will not even see it, or, seeing it, they deny
that it is a window. If these words, implying something possessed of
the purposes, conscious and capable, will not do, how came the cusps to
grow? How came the original sharp peg tooth, a _cutter_ and _piercer_,
to broaden and tuberculate its top so as to form, with its opposing
fellow in the other jaw, a pair of convenient _grinders_?
According to the Darwinian theory all sorts of small chance variations,
useful and useless, are constantly appearing among the progeny of all
species. The useful ones, conferring an advantage in the struggle for
existence, persist. The others do not. The usefulness is the cause of
the persistence. In scarce seasons an animal that had, for example,
developed opposing grinders among its teeth would be able to utilize
food not available for the mere cutters. It would tend to live--and
therefore produce offspring--while they died. The grinders being handed
on by heredity, their usefulness would in time secure the whole field
for their owners. A new and predominant species would have arisen, to
live until ousted by a stronger.
But this would only apply to variations useful from the moment of
their appearance. If at first--as they often are--so small as to be
useless, a mere tendency or suggestion, they would not persist. Having,
according to the theory, no special purposive force behind them, and
being the products of mere accident, they would quickly be diluted out
of existence.
The chance theory would therefore be able to account for the
persistence of such few variations only as were useful from their
first appearance. Are there any such variations? _According to the
theory itself, no!_ For it does not admit sudden jumps; merely fine
shadings from the common type. And these fine shadings confer no
advantage. Since, moreover, they occur only by some chance confluence
of conditions, they must depend for their force of heredity upon the
continuance of this confluence. And to account for the next, and the
next, degree in the progression, the theory must require that the
conditions become more and more effective--and so on, till the degrees
sum up to a _useful_ degree.
What a lot of wriggling to escape the conclusion that there is a
purposive force at work! Even Professor Osborn does not see it in his
studies of teeth, though he walks straight up to it. Mr. Gruenberg,
summarizing the Professor's work in _The Scientific American_ says:
The cusps of the molar teeth do not appear "fortuitously" and then
survive in accordance with their relative fitness, as would be
required by the Darwinian theory, nor do they appear fully formed in a
discontinuous manner, in the sense of De Vries' theory; they appear at
definite points, at first too small to have any adaptive or selective
value, and become with succeeding ages larger and larger until they
are of adaptive value. In other words they are _determinate_ in
their origins; they develop _gradually_; and they are _adaptive_
in the direction of their development from the very start.... They
arise because of some inherent tendency or potentiality to vary in a
determinate direction. What this internal determining factor is we do
not know.
The same problem presents itself in the origin of horns, at first and
for ages too small to be of any value.
Science has recently discovered the "subconscious," finding that it
possesses powers over the body, fashioning, healing, or deforming,
which are quite beyond the reach of the conscious mind.
Suppose that the _sub_conscious is part of the _conscious_ of nature.
Grant to nature the purposiveness which we find in the subconscious,
and the difficulties respecting the appearance of variations vanish.
Heredity is an aspect of the persistence of the purpose, a persistence
shown likewise by the relatively wide area of a species in which a
variations occurs, and by the steady progression of the variation,
despite its primary uselessness, on to the stage where first it becomes
helpful in the struggle for life.
A DUTCH HOUSE COURT BY PIETER DE HOOCH
Practically nothing is known of the life of Pieter de Hooch, but the
fifty or sixty examples of his exquisite _genre_ painting are now
almost priceless. He was a native of Rotterdam, and it is supposed
he died in 1681 at Haarlem at the age of fifty. There are three
of his pictures in the London National Gallery, from one of which
the illustration herewith reproduced is taken. This is an out-door
subject--a rather unusual choice for the master, who preferred
interiors as a rule. He is noted for an extraordinary skill in
depicting the atmosphere of rooms lighted by various doors and windows,
and for his marvelous perfection in detail, which however, is never
obtrusive nor does it interfere with the broad effect. There is an
air of the greatest serenity in all his pictures, and the simple,
homely subjects he preferred are transfigured into classics by the
discrimination of his choice and the perfection of his mastery of
the most difficult problems of light and shade and tone values. No
reproduction can give the least idea of the delicate handling of tone
in his works. His drawing is absolutely true to nature; the perspective
of his buildings is more than photographically accurate, but it never
obtrudes itself or interferes with the general effect of repose.
De Hooch painted very few large pictures; unfortunately the only one
which came down to our time perished in a fire in 1864. He was little
appreciated in his own lifetime--indeed it was not until the eighteenth
century that he was recognized in his own country. He was a disciple
of the school of Rembrandt, but his taste did not lie in the direction
of life-size portraits or of the classical or scriptural stories which
were the greater master's favorite subjects.
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. A DUTCH HOUSE COURT,
BY P. DE HOOCH: B. 1630, D. 1677 (NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON)]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. POINT LOMA HILLS AT
EVENTIDE]
THE INCARNATION OF GENIUSES: by Henry Travers
Enthusiasts for "eugenics" imagine a time when vice and disease shall
have been eliminated from the race. Their critics reply by suggesting
that not only vice and disease, but also genius, would then have been
eliminated from the race, and humanity be reduced to a dead uniformity.
But the power which makes geniuses may be stronger than the eugenists,
thus preventing them from succeeding in their utopian plan. What is
genius? It is often defined as a "sport"--a natural phenomenon which
defies calculations and makes light of theories of heredity. We cannot
breed a race of geniuses.
As to the cause of the appearance of geniuses, some theorists appear
to find sufficient explanation in a _fortuitous_ combination of
parental qualities. One son in one family _happens_ to extract from
his parents all their best qualities. To other thinkers, however,
this "explanation" will seem more like a restatement of the problem
to be solved than like a solution of it. For what is fortuity? If a
scientific principle, let it be explained; if a god, perhaps we may not
be willing to worship it.
The appearance of geniuses finds easy explanation in accordance
with the teachings as to reincarnation, _karma_, and the sevenfold
constitution of man. A human being is like a seed in a soil, drawing
some of its traits from its surroundings, others from its internal
nature. A lifetime is like a day, whose deeds are determined partly
by present conditions and partly by the deeds of preceding days. In
some people the present conditions--their parentage, upbringing, and
circumstances--have the paramount influence, and their innate character
evinces but little effect. In others the innate character is strong
enough to mold and alter the other conditions considerably. In a genius
the innate character may altogether predominate over the acquired
character.
Besides our physical heredity we have a spiritual heredity--character
built up in previous existences. The usual trend of upbringing is to
smother this, to destroy originality.
Parenthetically one must introduce a caution here, to the effect
that there are certain well-meaning attempts to preserve the
originality of children, which, however, do not accomplish the right
object. The parent or guardian, while shielding the child from some
influences, lays it open to the assault of other influences. These
other influences are the passional nature of the child. This way of
preserving or stimulating originality is by no means that intended
above.
To give freedom for the child's higher nature to express itself, we
must protect the child from all influences that proceed from the lower
nature. Then we would get geniuses; innate character would be enabled
to manifest itself.
The ideas of eugenists are worthy, but, we feel sure, too narrow.
In many a satire they have been ridiculed. Owing to the prevalent
ignorance of man's nature, many disastrous mistakes would be made. What
authority is there in sight, to which we should be willing to intrust
the regulation of marriage and parentage? Great as the existing evils
are, might not the remedies be worse? Might not we indeed provide
conditions that would preclude any useful or aspiring soul from
incarnating at all?
The remedy lies in educating the people to a better understanding of
the laws of life. Till then, there will be nobody competent to devise
or apply any methods of eugenics. In short, before we can treat the
young properly we must educate the old. The work of the Universal
Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, in its Râja Yoga Schools at Point
Loma gives illustrations of what can be done by the proper upbringing
of children; and here we escape from the weary desert of schemes and
theories to a fertile land of produce. Here we have a _result_; the
problem has been solved as an ancient sage solved the problem of
motion--_solvitur ambulando_. This is one of Theosophy's _practical_
answers to one of the questionings of today.
THE PLIGHT OF THE VIVISECTOR: by H. Coryn, M. D., M. R. C. S.
It is very well worth while to work out on Theosophical principles the
plight of the vivisector himself. He is creating causes whose effects
will take him a long time to be done with, more than one lifetime,
effects connected with some very interesting and very little known
laws of nature. His plight may presently appear worse than that of his
animals.
By way of text we will take some non-vivisectional work recently
carried out at the biological station of the Prater in Vienna, by Paul
Kammerer. He has proved, says _Cosmos_,
that the maintenance of the lizard _Lacerta Vivipara_ in an
unaccustomedly warm temperature for several generations, transforms
it from a live-young-bearing animal to an egg layer. This acquired
property is retained even when the subsequent generations are
returned to their normal conditions. We must remember that
the live-young-bearing lizard ... may be characterized as an
arctic-alpine animal. Its status as a glacial creature explains its
live-young-bearing habit; the development of the young is evidently
better assured in the mother's body than when the eggs are exposed to
the vicissitudes of exterior cold.
Some other lizards, and the field cricket, have been made to vary by
similar methods, the new characteristics being likewise transmitted.
What was that intelligence which, working within the body of the
lizard, noted the warmer temperature without and knew at once that
the hatching of the eggs _within the protecting body of the mother_,
and the further development of the young there, were no longer
necessary? We do not propose to admit that we are prejudging a dispute
in using the word "intelligence." If it seem so now, it will not
in ten years. No one will suggest the intelligence of the lizard
itself. The ancients--not _very_ ancient ancients, either--believed
in the existence of certain classes of lesser "gods" constantly at
work behind the visible veil of nature. When in a few years this
belief reincarnates among the scientists as a necessary hypothesis
(a reincarnation already beginning), some new name will have to be
found for the collective intelligence of these beings. "Gods" is not
a good word, neither for them nor for their directive superiors,
the absolutely spiritual powers on the same plane of being as that
spiritual soul of man whereof he knows so little.
The "gods" then, to use that word, have charge of the centers of life,
the living beings, in all departments of nature, mineral, vegetable,
and animal; contain and work in accordance with the principle of
evolution both of form and intelligence; and guide the appearance of
variations--not without occasional mistakes needing rectification.
Kammerer unwittingly made an indirect appeal to them, and they
responded by producing an interior physiological change corresponding
with the change of exterior temperature which he maintained.
We come here upon specifically Theosophical criticisms of vivisection.
The man who vivisects has made himself the enemy of conscious
nature--at work in his own body as much as in that of the animal he
injures.
To make the matter clearer, let us think of the One Supreme
Intelligence of the universe as manifesting in two ways or directions:
in the first, as the spiritual souls of _men_, and, lower down, as
their minds; in the second, as the spiritual directive intelligences of
_nature_ and, lower down, as the lesser "gods" whom these direct. In
time, when men's minds are sufficiently spiritualized and potentized,
sufficiently at one with the omnipresent spirit of evolution and intent
upon co-operating with it, they will themselves be able to direct the
lesser gods, helping and guiding them in their work upon animal, plant,
and mineral--the power of immense prolongation of their own lives then
coming within their reach. There is already--as the abnormal success
of men like Burbank shows--_some_ interplay between man's mind and
the working "gods"; whilst the relation between man's _soul_ and the
_greater_ nature-powers, the directive, is very much closer. He who
serves and studies nature in the right way, begins at once to stand
nearer to her consciousness, and is at once the better for it on one
or more planes of his being. The partnership begins. And a first way
to serve her is to make her children, the animals, feel man as friend,
a feeling which enables their minds to come into some measure of inner
contact with his and thus be suddenly and immensely stimulated in their
evolution.
There is vivisection attended with much immediate pain connected in
the animal's mind with man as its cause; and other with little, say
a hypodermic injection, the pain following later in the form of the
disease sown by the syringe and often not connected by the animal with
man at all.
Either way the operator is a disease-producer and has the mental
attitude of one. To say that he is recognized by nature as such may
seem absurd. But as he who really wills and pictures health, whether
his own or that of some other, finally affects the nature-mind in his
own body and--other things being co-ordinate--begins to move toward it:
so likewise the constant willing and picture-making of disease and pain
at last affects the same mind but in the contrary direction. The man
moves and is moved _away_ from health.
There are states of ill-health unattended, at any rate for a long time,
by a single definite symptom. The activities of the bodily machine may
maintain their _relations_, their general balance, yet drop as a whole
to very low levels. If there is no radiance, no responsiveness to the
finer forces of nature, no vital spring, there may yet be no point of
actual friction, and to its human tenant the body may seem in average
working order.
We say then that the preoccupations of the vivisector's mind have taken
his body outside the conscious life-stream of nature, have stopped
her constructive and vitalizing work. The body is not simply a living
thing; it is an organized complex of living things, conscious centers,
life-charged monads, far finer than any of the bacteria which the
microscope has shown us or can show us. Drawn in from nature, they
dwell with us a while and then return to her somewhat as the blood
cells go to the lungs for aeration. _It is the quality of our mental
states which determines the quality of the elemental coming in_ and
determines also the intervening history of those which leave. The
circulation is constant, and if we lived ideal mental lives we could,
as already said, achieve something like physical immortality. The
monads would come back to us refreshed and recharged with electric
vitality.
Death liberates them _all_. They take their ways into the nature-stream
and are regenerated in nature's thought and life. The process continues
during all the time between death and rebirth. Whilst the man, the
soul, rests, his body (the subtler elements of it) is being refashioned
and reinvigorated for him. At his rebirth _his own_ monads, blended
with those he receives from hereditary sources, are animating the
infant form with which he connects himself and in which he will
ultimately incarnate. So far as the thought and habit of his last
life permitted--for, as said, they are absolutely sensitive to the
thought-color of their owner's mind and feeling--they have been renewed.
But there will have been little renewal possible for them if that
mind was filled with the color and thought of death, disease, pain,
was occupied with the will to _produce_ these--a will exactly
oppositely directed to that of the worthy physician. They were untuned
with nature's keynote during life and consequently return nearly
unchanged--which, in medical language, will mean a case of congenital
disease, ill-health, or deformity; and, as part of the penalty,
the reaction of the physical defects and disease upon the mind and
disposition of child and youth and man.
Nor does the penalty finish at that. The entire personality of such
a child and man is in greater or less degree repellant to others, to
children, _to animals_. The latter especially, feel him not as a friend
but as enemy. Their dislike is instinctual. And all this will continue
till in one or another life the man has been stung to the redress of
the evil he has done, has returned kindliness for hostility year by
year, has changed, freshened, and sweetened his thought and feeling and
so by degrees every atom of his body.
Truly the plight of the vivisector is a thousandfold worse than that of
the animal he worst outrages.
THE EKOI; Children of Nature: by H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.)
The ideas current about ancient or ethnic peoples are largely qualified
by the "personal equation" of those who have observed and described
them. These ideas are not facts but points of view. In too many cases
the point of view is so colored by an unsympathetic attitude on the
part of the viewer as to constitute a misrepresentation--a fancy
picture, having no counterpart in reality. Thus have been described the
classical times and the non-Christian races. But times are changing.
As our civilization grows older it grows wiser, loses some of its
supercilious ignorance, and can view other times and places than its
own with more sympathy and sense. Already the histories and geographies
of our childhood seem prejudiced in our present eyes. But we cannot
boast; for there is still much to be done in the same direction.
As a notable instance of what may be achieved in the way of beauty,
charm, and uplifting of the mind, by viewing and treating a subject
sympathetically, we welcome an account of "The Land of the Ekoi,
Southern Nigeria," by P. A. Talbot, B. A., F. L. S., F. R. A. S., F.
Z. S., in _The Geographical Journal_ (London, Dec., 1910). By the
adoption of such an attitude, in place of the too frequent attitude of
superiority and condescension, error is avoided, truth learned, and
both writer and reader benefited. We give some extracts and comments,
and refer to _The Geographical Journal_ for the rest.
The Ekoi live to the north and northwest of Calabar, the headquarters
of the eastern province of Southern Nigeria, partly under British rule,
partly under German.
The river is magical, and bold indeed would be that man who should
break an oath sworn on its name. For somewhere in its depths dwells
Nimm--the terrible--who is always ready, at the call of her women
worshipers, to send up her servants, the beasts that flock down to
drink and bathe in her stream, to destroy the farms of those who have
offended. She manifests herself sometimes as a huge snake, sometimes
as a crocodile.
This could have been described so as to make it a heathen superstition.
But we see it is possible to give it another color. The interdependence
of man's conduct and the powers of nature is indicated; and retribution
is shown as the logical consequence of violating natural law. Honor
and fidelity are qualities essential to man's well-being. Evil fortune
is the result of his putting himself out of tune with nature by his
conduct.
We take care about the physical needs of children, but are strangely
reckless in other and more important matters concerning them. Contrast
this with the following about the Ekoi:
The Ekoi are devoted parents, but it will take years of patient
teaching before they grasp the importance of fresh air and the
simplest sanitary measures for the health of their little ones. They
have curious beliefs as to the advent and death of their babes. One
charming superstition [!] forbids all quarreling in a house where
there are little children. The latter, so they say, love sweet words,
kind looks, and gentle voices, and if these are not to be found in the
family into which they have been reincarnated, they will close their
eyes and forsake the earth, till a chance offers to return again amid
less quarrelsome surroundings.
Rather a healthy superstition, is it not? One that we might adopt with
benefit, so that fewer of our children should grow up with quarrel
interwoven with every thread of their bodies, mentally, psychically,
and physically too. We wish well of the efforts to teach the Ekoi the
use of soap and toothbrushes; but only on condition that it does not
mean _unteaching_ them their own "beautiful superstition."
The children gave a particularly charming series of games, singing all
the while in the pretty lilting way usual among them. Nothing could
be more graceful than the waving arms and swaying limbs of the little
brown forms as they bent and moved, always in perfect time to their
song. The musical faculty of this people is certainly wonderful,
though developed along peculiar lines. During the whole period spent
among them I have never heard a false note nor found a dancer or
accompanist one fraction of a second out of time.