"It is not unusual for children to rest the head on the left forearm or
hand when writing, and I doubt whether much value can be attached to the
case described by Professor Hartog. The kind of observation which his
letter suggests is, however, likely to lead to results either for or
against the transmission of acquired characters. An old friend of mine
lost his right arm when a schoolboy, and has ever since written with his
left. He has a large family and grandchildren, but I have not heard of
any of them showing a disposition to left-handedness."
From _Nature_ (March 21, 1889) I take the second instance communicated by
Mr. J. Jenner-Weir, who wrote as follows:--
"Mr. Marcus M. Hartog's letter of March 6th, inserted in last week's
number (p. 462), is a very valuable contribution to the growing evidence
that acquired characters may be inherited. I have long held the view
that such is often the case, and I have myself observed several instances
of the, at least I may say, apparent fact.
"Many years ago there was a very fine male of the _Capra megaceros_ in
the gardens of the Zoological Society. To restrain this animal from
jumping over the fence of the enclosure in which he was confined, a long,
and heavy chain was attached to the collar round his neck. He was
constantly in the habit of taking this chain up by his horns and moving
it from one side to another over his back; in doing this he threw his
head very much back, his horns being placed in a line with the back. The
habit had become quite chronic with him, and was very tiresome to look
at. I was very much astonished to observe that his offspring inherited
the habit, and although it was not necessary to attach a chain to their
necks, I have often seen a young male throwing his horns over his back
and shifting from side to side an imaginary chain. The action was
exactly the same as that of his ancestor. The case of the kid of this
goat appears to me to be parallel to that of child and parent given by
Mr. Hartog. I think at the time I made this observation I informed Mr.
Darwin of the fact by letter, and he did not accuse me of 'flat
Lamarckism.'"
To this letter there was no rejoinder. It may be said, of course, that
the action of the offspring in each of these cases was due to accidental
coincidence only. Anything can be said, but the question turns not on
what an advocate can say, but on what a reasonably intelligent and
disinterested jury will believe; granted they might be mistaken in
accepting the foregoing stories, but the world of science, like that of
commerce, is based on the faith or confidence, which both creates and
sustains them. Indeed the universe itself is but the creature of faith,
for assuredly we know of no other foundation. There is nothing so
generally and reasonably accepted--not even our own continued
identity--but questions may be raised about it that will shortly prove
unanswerable. We cannot so test every sixpence given us in change as to
be sure that we never take a bad one, and had better sometimes be cheated
than reduce caution to an absurdity. Moreover, we have seen from the
evidence given in my preceding article that the germ-cells issuing from a
parent's body can, and do, respond to profound impressions made on the
somatic-cells. This being so, what impressions are more profound, what
needs engage more assiduous attention than those connected with
self-protection, the procuring of food, and the continuation of the
species? If the mere anxiety connected with an ill-healing wound
inflicted on but one generation is sometimes found to have so impressed
the germ-cells that they hand down its scars to offspring, how much more
shall not anxieties that have directed action of all kinds from birth
till death, not in one generation only but in a longer series of
generations than the mind can realise to itself, modify, and indeed
control, the organisation of every species?
I see Professor S. H. Vines, in the article on Weismann's theory referred
to in my preceding article, says Mr. Darwin "held that it was not the
sudden variations due to altered external conditions which become
permanent, but those slowly produced by what he termed 'the accumulative
action of changed conditions of life.'" Nothing can be more soundly
Lamarckian, and nothing should more conclusively show that, whatever else
Mr. Darwin was, he was not a Charles-Darwinian; but what evidence other
than inferential can from the nature of the case be adduced in support of
this, as I believe, perfectly correct judgment? None know better than
they who clamour for direct evidence that their master was right in
taking the position assigned to him by Professor Vines, that they cannot
reasonably look for it. With us, as with themselves, modification
proceeds very gradually, and it violates our principles as much as their
own to expect visible permanent progress, in any single generation, or
indeed in any number of generations of wild species which we have yet had
time to observe. Occasionally we can find such cases, as in that of
_Branchipus stagnalis_, quoted by Mr. Wallace, or in that of the New
Zealand Kea whose skin, I was assured by the late Sir Julius von Haast,
has already been modified as a consequence of its change of food. Here
we can show that in even a few generations structure is modified under
changed conditions of existence, but as we believe these cases to occur
comparatively rarely, so it is still more rarely that they occur when and
where we can watch them. Nature is eminently conservative, and fixity of
type, even under considerable change of conditions, is surely more
important for the well-being of any species than an over-ready power of
adaptation to, it may be, passing changes. There could be no steady
progress if each generation were not mainly bound by the traditions of
those that have gone before it. It is evolution and not incessant
revolution that both parties are upholding; and this being so, rapid
visible modification must be the exception, not the rule. I have quoted
direct evidence adduced by competent observers, which is, I believe,
sufficient to establish the fact that offspring can be and is sometimes
modified by the acquired habits of a progenitor. I will now proceed to
the still more, as it appears to me, cogent proof afforded by general
considerations.
What, let me ask, are the principal phenomena of heredity? There must be
physical continuity between parent, or parents, and offspring, so that
the offspring is, as Erasmus Darwin well said, a kind of elongation of
the life of the parent.
Erasmus Darwin put the matter so well that I may as well give his words
in full; he wrote:--
"Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new
animal, but is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent, since a
part of the embryon animal is, or was, a part of the parent, and
therefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at the
time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of
the parent system.
"At the earliest period of its existence the embryon would seem to
consist of a living filament with certain capabilities of irritation,
sensation, volition, and association, and also with some acquired habits
or propensities peculiar to the parent; the former of these are in common
with other animals; the latter seem to distinguish or produce the kind of
animal, whether man or quadruped, with the similarity of feature or form
to the parent." {39}
Those who accept evolution insist on unbroken physical continuity between
the earliest known life and ourselves, so that we both are and are not
personally identical with the unicellular organism from which we have
descended in the course of many millions of years, exactly in the same
way as an octogenarian both is and is not personally identical with the
microscopic impregnate ovum from which he grew up. Everything both is
and is not. There is no such thing as strict identity between any two
things in any two consecutive seconds. In strictness they are identical
and yet not identical, so that in strictness they violate a fundamental
rule of strictness--namely, that a thing shall never be itself and not
itself at one and the same time; we must choose between logic and dealing
in a practical spirit with time and space; it is not surprising,
therefore, that logic, in spite of the show of respect outwardly paid to
her, is told to stand aside when people come to practice. In practice
identity is generally held to exist where continuity is only broken
slowly and piecemeal, nevertheless, that occasional periods of even rapid
change are not held to bar identity, appears from the fact that no one
denies this to hold between the microscopically small impregnate ovum and
the born child that springs from it, nor yet, therefore, between the
impregnate ovum and the octogenarian into which the child grows; for both
ovum and octogenarian are held personally identical with the newborn
baby, and things that are identical with the same are identical with one
another.
The first, then, and most important element of heredity is that there
should be unbroken continuity, and hence sameness of personality, between
parents and offspring, in neither more nor less than the same sense as
that in which any other two personalities are said to be the same. The
repetition, therefore, of its developmental stages by any offspring must
be regarded as something which the embryo repeating them has already done
once, in the person of one or other parent; and if once, then, as many
times as there have been generations between any given embryo now
repeating it, and the point in life from which we started--say, for
example, the amoeba. In the case of asexually and sexually produced
organisms alike, the offspring must be held to continue the personality
of the parent or parents, and hence on the occasion of every fresh
development, to be repeating something which in the person of its parent
or parents it has done once, and if once, then any number of times,
already.
It is obvious, therefore, that the germ-plasm (or whatever the fancy word
for it may be) of any one generation is as physically identical with the
germ-plasm of its predecessor as any two things can be. The difference
between Professor Weismann and, we will say, Heringians consists in the
fact that the first maintains the new germ-plasm when on the point of
repeating its developmental processes to take practically no cognisance
of anything that has happened to it since the last occasion on which it
developed itself; while the latter maintain that offspring takes much the
same kind of account of what has happened to it in the persons of its
parents since the last occasion on which it developed itself, as people
in ordinary life take of things that happen to them. In daily life
people let fairly normal circumstances come and go without much heed as
matters of course. If they have been lucky they make a note of it and
try to repeat their success. If they have been unfortunate but have
recovered rapidly they soon forget it; if they have suffered long and
deeply they grizzle over it and are scared and scarred by it for a long
time. The question is one of cognisance or non-cognisance on the part of
the new germs, of the more profound impressions made on them while they
were one with their parents, between the occasion of their last preceding
development, and the new course on which they are about to enter. Those
who accept the theory put forward independently by Professor Hering of
Prague (whose work on this subject is translated in my book, "Unconscious
Memory") {40} and by myself in "Life and Habit," {41} believe in
cognizance, as do Lamarckians generally. Weismannites, and with them the
orthodoxy of English science, find non-cognisance more acceptable.
If the Heringian view is accepted, that heredity is only a mode of
memory, and an extension of memory from one generation to another, then
the repetition of its development by any embryo thus becomes only the
repetition of a lesson learned by rote; and, as I have elsewhere said,
our view of life is simplified by finding that it is no longer an
equation of, say, a hundred unknown quantities, but of ninety-nine only,
inasmuch as two of the unknown quantities prove to be substantially
identical. In this case the inheritance of acquired characteristics
cannot be disputed, for it is postulated in the theory that each embryo
takes note of, remembers and is guided by the profounder impressions made
upon it while in the persons of its parents, between its present and last
preceding development. To maintain this is to maintain use and disuse to
be the main factors throughout organic development; to deny it is to deny
that use and disuse can have any conceivable effect. For the detailed
reasons which led me to my own conclusions I must refer the reader to my
books, "Life and Habit" {42} and "Unconscious Memory," {42} the
conclusions of which have been often adopted, but never, that I have
seen, disputed. A brief _resume_ of the leading points in the argument
is all that space will here allow me to give.
We have seen that it is a first requirement of heredity that there shall
be physical continuity between parents and offspring. This holds good
with memory. There must be continued identity between the person
remembering and the person to whom the thing that is remembered happened.
We cannot remember things that happened to some one else, and in our
absence. We can only remember having heard of them. We have seen,
however, that there is as much _bona-fide_ sameness of personality
between parents and offspring up to the time at which the offspring quits
the parent's body, as there is between the different states of the parent
himself at any two consecutive moments; the offspring therefore, being
one and the same person with its progenitors until it quits them, can be
held to remember what happened to them within, of course, the limitations
to which all memory is subject, as much as the progenitors can remember
what happened earlier to themselves. Whether it does so remember can
only be settled by observing whether it acts as living beings commonly do
when they are acting under guidance of memory. I will endeavour to show
that, though heredity and habit based on memory go about in different
dresses, yet if we catch them separately--for they are never seen
together--and strip them there is not a mole nor strawberry-mark, nor
trick nor leer of the one, but we find it in the other also.
What are the moles and strawberry-marks of habitual action, or actions
remembered and thus repeated? First, the more often we repeat them the
more easily and unconsciously we do them. Look at reading, writing,
walking, talking, playing the piano, &c.; the longer we have practised
any one of these acquired habits, the more easily, automatically and
unconsciously, we perform it. Look, on the other hand, broadly, at the
three points to which I called attention in "Life and Habit":--
I. That we are most conscious of and have most control over such habits
as speech, the upright position, the arts and sciences--which are
acquisitions peculiar to the human race, always acquired after birth, and
not common to ourselves and any ancestor who had not become entirely
human.
II. That we are less conscious of and have less control over eating and
drinking [provided the food be normal], swallowing, breathing, seeing,
and hearing--which were acquisitions of our prehuman ancestry, and for
which we had provided ourselves with all the necessary apparatus before
we saw light, but which are still, geologically speaking, recent.
III. That we are most unconscious of and have least control over our
digestion and circulation--powers possessed even by our invertebrate
ancestry, and, geologically speaking, of extreme antiquity.
I have put the foregoing very broadly, but enough is given to show the
reader the gist of the argument. Let it be noted that disturbance and
departure, to any serious extent, from normal practice tends to induce
resumption of consciousness even in the case of such old habits as
breathing, seeing, and hearing, digestion and the circulation of the
blood. So it is with habitual actions in general. Let a player be never
so proficient on any instrument, he will be put out if the normal
conditions under which he plays are too widely departed from, and will
then do consciously, if indeed he can do it at all, what he had hitherto
been doing unconsciously. It is an axiom as regards actions acquired
after birth, that we never do them automatically save as the result of
long practice; the stages in the case of any acquired facility, the
inception of which we have been able to watch, have invariably been from
a nothingness of ignorant impotence to a little somethingness of highly
self-conscious, arduous performance, and thence to the
unselfconsciousness of easy mastery. I saw one year a poor blind lad of
about eighteen sitting on a wall by the wayside at Varese, playing the
concertina with his whole body, and snorting like a child. The next year
the boy no longer snorted, and he played with his fingers only; the year
after that he seemed hardly to know whether he was playing or not, it
came so easily to him. I know no exception to this rule. Where is the
intricate and at one time difficult art in which perfect automatic ease
has been reached except as the result of long practice? If, then,
wherever we can trace the development of automatism we find it to have
taken this course, is it not most reasonable to infer that it has taken
the same even when it has risen in regions that are beyond our ken? Ought
we not, whenever we see a difficult action performed, automatically to
suspect antecedent practice? Granted that without the considerations in
regard to identity presented above it would not have been easy to see
where a baby of a day old could have had the practice which enables it to
do as much as it does unconsciously, but even without these
considerations it would have been more easy to suppose that the necessary
opportunities had not been wanting, than that the easy performance could
have been gained without practice and memory.
When I wrote "Life and Habit" (originally published in 1877) I said in
slightly different words:--
"Shall we say that a baby of a day old sucks (which involves the whole
principle of the pump and hence a profound practical knowledge of the
laws of pneumatics and hydrostatics), digests, oxygenises its
blood--millions of years before any one had discovered oxygen--sees and
hears, operations that involve an unconscious knowledge of the facts
concerning optics and acoustics compared with which the conscious
discoveries of Newton are insignificant--shall we say that a baby can do
all these things at once, doing them so well and so regularly without
being even able to give them attention, and yet without mistake, and
shall we also say at the same time that it has not learnt to do them, and
never did them before?
"Such an assertion would contradict the whole experience of mankind."
I have met with nothing during the thirteen years since the foregoing was
published that has given me any qualms about its soundness. From the
point of view of the law courts and everyday life it is, of course,
nonsense; but in the kingdom of thought, as in that of heaven, there are
many mansions, and what would be extravagance in the cottage or
farmhouse, as it were, of daily practice, is but common decency in the
palace of high philosophy, wherein dwells evolution. If we leave
evolution alone, we may stick to common practice and the law courts;
touch evolution and we are in another world; not higher, not lower, but
different as harmony from counterpoint. As, however, in the most
absolute counterpoint there is still harmony, and in the most absolute
harmony still counterpoint, so high philosophy should be still in touch
with common sense, and common sense with high philosophy.
The common-sense view of the matter to people who are not over-curious
and to whom time is money, will be that a baby is not a baby until it is
born, and that when born it should be born in wedlock. Nevertheless, as
a sop to high philosophy, every baby is allowed to be the offspring of
its father and mother.
The high-philosophy view of the matter is that every human being is still
but a fresh edition of the primordial cell with the latest additions and
corrections; there has been no leap nor break in continuity anywhere; the
man of to-day is the primordial cell of millions of years ago as truly as
he is the himself of yesterday; he can only be denied to be the one on
grounds that will prove him not to be the other. Every one is both
himself and all his direct ancestors and descendants as well; therefore,
if we would be logical, he is one also with all his cousins, no matter
how distant, for he and they are alike identical with the primordial
cell, and we have already noted it as an axiom that things which are
identical with the same are identical with one another. This is
practically making him one with all living things, whether animal or
vegetable, that ever have existed or ever will--something of all which
may have been in the mind of Sophocles when he wrote:--
"Nor seest thou yet the gathering hosts of ill
That shall en-one thee both with thine own self
And with thine offspring."
And all this has come of admitting that a man may be the same person for
two days running! As for sopping common sense it will be enough to say
that these remarks are to be taken in a strictly scientific sense, and
have no appreciable importance as regards life and conduct. True they
deal with the foundations on which all life and conduct are based, but
like other foundations they are hidden out of sight, and the sounder they
are, the less we trouble ourselves about them.
What other main common features between heredity and memory may we note
besides the fact that neither can exist without that kind of physical
continuity which we call personal identity? First, the development of
the embryo proceeds in an established order; so must all habitual actions
based on memory. Disturb the normal order and the performance is
arrested. The better we know "God save the Queen," the less easily can
we play or sing it backwards. The return of memory again depends on the
return of ideas associated with the particular thing that is
remembered--we remember nothing but for the presence of these, and when
enough of these are presented to us we remember everything. So, if the
development of an embryo is due to memory, we should suppose the memory
of the impregnate ovum to revert not to yesterday, when it was in the
persons of its parents, but to the last occasion on which it was an
impregnate ovum. The return of the old environment and the presence of
old associations would at once involve recollection of the course that
should be next taken, and the same should happen throughout the whole
course of development. The actual course of development presents
precisely the phenomena agreeable with this. For fuller treatment of
this point I must refer the reader to the chapter on the abeyance of
memory in my book "Life and Habit," already referred to.
Secondly, we remember best our last few performances of any given kind,
so our present performance will probably resemble some one or other of
these; we remember our earlier performances by way of residuum only, but
every now and then we revert to an earlier habit. This feature of memory
is manifested in heredity by the way in which offspring commonly
resembles most its nearer ancestors, but sometimes reverts to earlier
ones. Brothers and sisters, each as it were giving their own version of
the same story, but in different words, should generally resemble each
other more closely than more distant relations. And this is what
actually we find.
Thirdly, the introduction of slightly new elements into a method already
established varies it beneficially; the new is soon fused with the old,
and the monotony ceases to be oppressive. But if the new be too foreign,
we cannot fuse the old and the new--nature seeming to hate equally too
wide a deviation from ordinary practice and none at all. This fact
reappears in heredity as the beneficial effects of occasional crossing on
the one hand, and on the other, in the generally observed sterility of
hybrids. If heredity be an affair of memory, how can an embryo, say of a
mule, be expected to build up a mule on the strength of but two
mule-memories? Hybridism causes a fault in the chain of memory, and it
is to this cause that the usual sterility of hybrids must be referred.
Fourthly, it requires many repeated impressions to fix a method firmly,
but when it has been engrained into us we cease to have much recollection
of the manner in which it came to be so, or indeed of any individual
repetition, but sometimes a single impression, if prolonged as well as
profound, produces a lasting impression and is liable to return with
sudden force, and then to go on returning to us at intervals. As a
general rule, however, abnormal impressions cannot long hold their own
against the overwhelming preponderance of normal authority. This appears
in heredity as the normal non-inheritance of mutilations on the one hand,
and on the other as their occasional inheritance in the case of injuries
followed by disease.
Fifthly, if heredity and memory are essentially the same, we should
expect that no animal would develop new structures of importance after
the age at which its species begins ordinarily to continue its race; for
we cannot suppose offspring to remember anything that happens to the
parent subsequently to the parent's ceasing to contain the offspring
within itself. From the average age, therefore, of reproduction,
offspring should cease to have any farther steady, continuous memory to
fall back upon; what memory there is should be full of faults, and as
such unreliable. An organism ought to develop as long as it is backed by
memory--that is to say, until the average age at which reproduction
begins; it should then continue to go for a time on the impetus already
received, and should eventually decay through failure of any memory to
support it, and tell it what to do. This corresponds absolutely with
what we observe in organisms generally, and explains, on the one hand,
why the age of puberty marks the beginning of completed development--a
riddle hitherto not only unexplained but, so far as I have seen, unasked;
it explains, on the other hand, the phenomena of old age--hitherto
without even attempt at explanation.
Sixthly, those organisms that are the longest in reaching maturity should
on the average be the longest-lived, for they will have received the most
momentous impulse from the weight of memory behind them. This harmonises
with the latest opinion as to the facts. In his article on Weismann in
the _Contemporary Review_ for May 1890, Mr. Romanes writes: "Professor
Weismann has shown that there is throughout the metazoa a general
correlation between the natural lifetime of individuals composing any
given species, and the age at which they reach maturity or first become
capable of procreation." This, I believe, has been the conclusion
generally arrived at by biologists for some years past.
Lateness, then, in the average age of reproduction appears to be the
principle underlying longevity. There does not appear at first sight to
be much connection between such distinct and apparently disconnected
phenomena as 1, the orderly normal progress of development; 2, atavism
and the resumption of feral characteristics; 3, the more ordinary
resemblance _inter se_ of nearer relatives; 4, the benefit of an
occasional cross, and the usual sterility of hybrids; 5, the
unconsciousness with which alike bodily development and ordinary
physiological functions proceed, so long as they are normal; 6, the
ordinary non-inheritance, but occasional inheritance of mutilations; 7,
the fact that puberty indicates the approach of maturity; 8, the
phenomena of middle life and old age; 9, the principle underlying
longevity. These phenomena have no conceivable bearing on one another
until heredity and memory are regarded as part of the same story.
Identify these two things, and I know no phenomenon of heredity that does
not immediately become infinitely more intelligible. Is it conceivable
that a theory which harmonises so many facts hitherto regarded as without
either connection or explanation should not deserve at any rate
consideration from those who profess to take an interest in biology?
It is not as though the theory were unknown, or had been condemned by our
leading men of science. Professor Ray Lankester introduced it to English
readers in an appreciative notice of Professor Hering's address, which
appeared in _Nature_, July 18, 1876. He wrote to the _Athenaeum_, March
24, 1884, and claimed credit for having done so, but I do not believe he
has ever said more in public about it than what I have here referred to.
Mr. Romanes did indeed try to crush it in _Nature_, January 27, 1881, but
in 1883, in his "Mental Evolution in Animals," he adopted its main
conclusion without acknowledgment. The _Athenaeum_, to my unbounded
surprise, called him to task for this (March 1, 1884), and since that
time he has given the Heringian theory a sufficiently wide berth. Mr.
Wallace showed himself favourably enough disposed towards the view that
heredity and memory are part of the same story when he reviewed my book
"Life and Habit" in _Nature_, March 27, 1879, but he has never since
betrayed any sign of being aware that such a theory existed. Mr. Herbert
Spencer wrote to the _Athenaeum_ (April 5, 1884), and claimed the theory
for himself, but, in spite of his doing this, he has never, that I have
seen, referred to the matter again. I have dealt sufficiently with his
claim in my book, "Luck or Cunning." {43} Lastly, Professor Hering
himself has never that I know of touched his own theory since the single
short address read in 1870, and translated by me in 1881. Every one,
even its originator, except myself, seems afraid to open his mouth about
it. Of course the inference suggests itself that other people have more
sense than I have. I readily admit it; but why have so many of our
leaders shown such a strong hankering after the theory, if there is
nothing in it?
The deadlock that I have pointed out as existing in Darwinism will, I
doubt not, lead ere long to a consideration of Professor Hering's theory.
English biologists are little likely to find Weismann satisfactory for
long, and if he breaks down there is nothing left for them but Lamarck,
supplemented by the important and elucidatory corollary on his theory
proposed by Professor Hering. When the time arrives for this to obtain a
hearing it will be confirmed, doubtless, by arguments clearer and more
forcible than any I have been able to adduce; I shall then be delighted
to resign the championship which till then I shall continue, as for some
years past, to have much pleasure in sustaining. Heretofore my
satisfaction has mainly lain in the fact that more of our prominent men
of science have seemed anxious to claim the theory than to refute it; in
the confidence thus engendered I leave it to any fuller consideration
which the outline I have above given may incline the reader to bestow
upon it.
Footnotes:
{1} Published in the _Universal Review_, July 1888.
{2} Published in the _Universal Review_, December 1890.
{3} Published in the _Universal Review_, May 1889. As I have several
times been asked if the letters here reprinted were not fabricated by
Butler himself, I take this opportunity of stating that they are
authentic in every particular, and that the originals are now in my
possession.--R. A. S.
{4} An address delivered at the Somerville Club, February 27, 1895.
{5} "The Foundations of Belief," by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour.
Longmans, 1895, p. 48.
{6} Published in the _Universal Review_, November 1888.
{7} Since this essay was written it has been ascertained by Cavaliere
Francesco Negri, of Casale Monferrato, that Tabachetti died in 1615. If,
therefore, the Sanctuary of Montrigone was not founded until 1631, it is
plain that Tabachetti cannot have worked there. All the latest
discoveries about Tabachetti's career will be found in Cavaliere Negri's
pamphlet "Il Santuario di Crea" (Alessandria, 1902). See also note on p.
154.--R. A. S.
{8} Published in the _Universal Review_, December 1889.
{9} Longmans & Co., 1890.
{10} Longmans & Co., 1890.
{11} Published in the _Universal Review_, November 1890.
{12} Longmans & Co., 1890.
{13} M. Ruppen's words run: "1687 wurde die Kapelle zur hohen Stiege
gebaut, 1747 durch Zusatz vergrossert und 1755 mit Orgeln ausgestattet.
Anton Ruppen, ein geschickter Steinhauer mid Maurermeister leitete den
Kapellebau, und machte darin das kleinere Altarlein. Bei der hohen
Stiege war fruher kein Gebetshauslein; nur ein wunderthatiges Bildlein
der Mutter Gottes stand da in einer Mauer vor dem fromme Hirten und viel
andachtiges Volk unter freiem Himmel beteten.
"1709 wurden die kleinen Kapellelein die 15 Geheimnisse des Psalters
vorstelland auf dem Wege zur hohen Stiege gebaut. Jeder Haushalter des
Viertels Fee ubernahm den Bau eines dieser Geheimnisskapellen, und ein
besonderer Gutthater dieser frommen Unternehmung war Heinrich
Andenmatten, nachher Bruder der Geselischaft Jesu."
{14} The story of Tabachetti's incarceration is very doubtful. Cavaliere
F. Negri, to whose book on Tabachetti and his work at Crea I have already
referred the reader, does not mention it. Tabachetti left his native
Dinant in 1585, and from that date until his death in 1615 he appears to
have worked chiefly at Varallo and Crea. There is a document in
existence stating that in 1588 he executed a statue for the hermitage of
S. Rocco, at Crea, which, if it is to be relied on, disposes both of the
incarceration and of the visit to Saas. It is possible, however, that
the date is 1598, in which case Butler's theory of the visit to Saas may
hold good. In 1590 Tabachetti was certainly at Varallo, and again in
1594, 1599, and 1602. He died in 1615, possibly during a visit to
Varallo, though his home at that time was Costigliole, near Asti.--R. A.
S.
{15} This is thus chronicled by M. Ruppen: "1589 den 9 September war
eine Wassergrosse, die viel Schaden verursachte. Die Thalstrasse, die
von den Steinmatten an bis zur Kirche am Ufer der Visp lag, wurde ganz
zerstort. Man ward gezwungen eine neue Strasse in einiger Entfernung vom
Wasser durch einen alten Fussweg auszuhauen welche vier und einerhalben
Viertel der Klafter, oder 6 Schuh und 9 Zoll breit soilte." (p. 43).
{16} A lecture delivered at the Working Men's College in Great Ormond
Street, March 15, 1890; rewritten and delivered again at the Somerville
Club, February 13, 1894.
{17} "Correlation of Forces": Longmans, 1874, p. 15.
{18} "Three Lectures on the Science of Language," Longmans, 1889, p. 4.
{19} "Science of Thought," Longmans, 1887, p. 9.
{20} Published in the _Universal Review_, April, May, and June 1890.
{21} "Voyages of the _Adventure_ and _Beagle_," iii. p. 237.
{22} "Luck, or Cunning, as the main means of Organic Modification?"
(Longmans), pp. 179, 180.
{23} _Journals of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society_ (Zoology, vol.
iii.), 1859, p. 61.
{24} "Darwinism" (Macmillan, 1889), p. 129.
{25} Longmans, 1890, p. 376.
{26} See _Nature_, March 6, 1890.
{27} "Origin of Species," sixth edition, 1888, vol. i. p. 168.
{28} "Origin of Species," sixth edition, 1888, vol. ii. p. 261.
{29} Mr. J. T. Cunningham, of the Marine Biological Laboratory,
Plymouth, has called my attention to the fact that I have ascribed to
Professor Ray Lankester a criticism on Mr. Wallace's remarks upon the
eyes of certain fiat-fish, which Professor Ray Lankester was, in reality,
only adopting--with full acknowledgment--from Mr. Cunningham. Mr.
Cunningham has left it to me whether to correct my omission publicly or
not, but he would so plainly prefer my doing so that I consider myself
bound to insert this note. Curiously enough I find that in my book
"Evolution Old and New," I gave what Lamarck actually said upon the eyes
of flat-fish, and having been led to return to the subject, I may as well
quote his words. He wrote:--
"Need--always occasioned by the circumstances in which an animal is
placed, and followed by sustained efforts at gratification--can not only
modify an organ--that is to say, augment or reduce it--but can change its
position when the case requires its removal.
"Ocean fishes have occasion to see what is on either side of them, and
have their eyes accordingly placed on either side of their head. Some
fishes, however, have their abode near coasts on submarine banks and
inclinations, and are thus forced to flatten themselves as much as
possible in order to get as near as they can to the shore. In this
situation they receive more light from above than from below, and find it
necessary to pay attention to whatever happens to be above them; this
need has involved the displacement of their eyes, which now take the
remarkable position which we observe in the case of soles, turbots,
plaice, &c. The transfer of position is not even yet complete in the
case of these fishes, and the eyes are not, therefore, symmetrically
placed; but they are so with the skate, whose head and whole body are
equally disposed on either side a longitudinal section. Hence the eyes
of this fish are placed symmetrically upon the uppermost
_side_."--_Philosophie Zoologique_, tom. i., pp. 250, 251. Edition C.
Martins. Paris, 1873.
{30} "Essays on Heredity," &c., Oxford, 1889, p. 171.
{31} "Essays on Heredity," &c., Oxford, 1889, p. 266.
{32} "Darwinism," 1889, p. 440.
{33} Page 83.
{34} Vol. i. p. 466, &c. Ed. 1885.
{35} "Darwinism," p. 440.
{36} Longmans, 1890.
{37} Tom. iv. p. 383. Ed. 1753.
{38} Essays, &c., p. 447.
{39} "Zoonomia," 1794, vol. i. p. 480.
{40} Longmans, 1890.
{41} Longmans, 1890.
{42} Longmans, 1890.
{43} Longmans, 1890.