WHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT TO FIND IF DIFFERENTIATIONS OF STRUCTURE AND
INSTINCT ARE MAINLY DUE TO MEMORY.
TO repeat briefly;—we remember best our last few performances of any
given kind, and our present performance is most likely to resemble one or
other of these; we only remember our earlier performances by way of
residuum; nevertheless, at times, some older feature is liable to
reappear.
We take our steps in the same order on each successive occasion, and are
for the most part incapable of changing that order.
The introduction of slightly new elements into our manner is attended
with benefit; the new can be fused with the old, and the monotony of our
action is relieved. But if the new element is too foreign, we cannot
fuse the old and new—nature seeming equally to hate too wide a deviation
from our ordinary practice, and no deviation at all. Or, in plain
English—if any one gives us a new idea which is not too far ahead of us,
such an idea is often of great service to us, and may give new life to
our work—in fact, we soon go back, unless we more or less frequently come
into contact with new ideas, and are capable of understanding and making
use of them; if; on the other hand, they are too new, and too little led
up to, so that we find them too strange and hard to be able to understand
them and adopt them, then they put us out, with every degree of
completeness—from simply causing us to fail in this or that particular
part, to rendering us incapable of even trying to do our work at all,
from pure despair of succeeding.
It requires many repetitions to fix an impression firmly; but when it is
fixed, we cease to have much recollection of the manner in which it came
to be so, or of any single and particular recurrence.
Our memory is mainly called into action by force of association and
similarity in the surroundings. We want to go on doing what we did when
we were last as we are now, and we forget what we did in the meantime.
These rules, however, are liable to many exceptions; as for example, that
a single and apparently not very extraordinary occurrence may sometimes
produce a lasting impression, and be liable to return with sudden force
at some distant time, and then to go on returning to us at intervals.
Some incidents, in fact, we know not how nor why, dwell with us much
longer than others which were apparently quite as noteworthy or perhaps
more so.
Now I submit that if the above observations are just, and if, also, the
offspring, after having become a new and separate personality, yet
retains so much of the old identity of which it was once indisputably
part, that it remembers what it did when it was part of that identity as
soon as it finds itself in circumstances which are calculated to refresh
its memory owing to their similarity to certain antecedent ones, then we
should expect to find:—
I. That offspring should, as a general rule, resemble its own most
immediate progenitors; that is to say, that it should remember best what
it has been doing most recently. The memory being a fusion of its
recollections of what it did, both when it was its father and also when
it was its mother, the offspring should have a very common tendency to
resemble both parents, the one in some respects, and the other in others;
but it might also hardly less commonly show a more marked recollection of
the one history than of the other, thus more distinctly resembling one
parent than the other. And this is what we observe to be the case. Not
only so far as that the offspring is almost invariably either male or
female, and generally resembles rather the one parent than the other, but
also that in spite of such preponderance of one set of recollections, the
sexual characters and instincts of the _opposite_ sex appear, whether in
male or female, though undeveloped and incapable of development except by
abnormal treatment, such as has occasionally caused milk to be developed
in the mammary glands of males; or by mutilation, or failure of sexual
instinct through age, upon which, male characteristics frequently appear
in the females of any species.
Brothers and sisters, each giving their own version of the same story,
though in different words, should resemble each other more closely than
more distant relations. This too we see.
But it should frequently happen that offspring should resemble its
penultimate rather than its latest phase, and should thus be more like a
grand-parent than a parent; for we observe that we very often repeat a
performance in a manner resembling that of some earlier, but still
recent, repetition; rather than on the precise lines of our very last
performance. First-cousins may in this case resemble each other more
closely than brothers and sisters.
More especially, we should not expect very successful men to be fathers
of particularly gifted children; for the best men are, as it were, the
happy thoughts and successes of the race—nature’s “flukes,” so to speak,
in her onward progress. No creature can repeat at will, and immediately,
its highest flight. It needs repose. The generations are the essays of
any given race towards the highest ideal which it is as yet able to see
ahead of itself, and this, in the nature of things, cannot be very far;
so that we should expect to see success followed by more or less failure,
and failure by success—a very successful creature being a _great_
“fluke.” And this is what we find.
In its earlier stages the embryo should be simply conscious of a general
method of procedure on the part of its forefathers, and should, by reason
of long practice, compress tedious and complicated histories into a very
narrow compass, remembering no single performance in particular. For we
observe this in nature, both as regards the sleight-of-hand which
practice gives to those who are thoroughly familiar with their business,
and also as regards the fusion of remoter memories into a general
residuum.
II. We should expect to find that the offspring, whether in its
embryonic condition, or in any stage of development till it has reached
maturity, should adopt nearly the same order in going through all its
various stages. There should be such slight variations as are
inseparable from the repetition of any performance by a living being (as
contrasted with a machine), but no more. And this is what actually
happens. A man may cut his wisdom-teeth a little later than he gets his
beard and whiskers, or a little earlier; but on the whole, he adheres to
his usual order, and is completely set off his balance, and upset in his
performance, if that order be interfered with suddenly. It is, however,
likely that gradual modifications of order have been made and then
adhered to.
After any animal has reached the period at which it ordinarily begins to
continue its race, we should expect that it should show little further
power of development, or, at any rate, that few great changes of
structure or fresh features should appear; 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 would cease to have
any further experience on which to fall back, and would thus continue to
make the best use of what it already knew, till memory failing either in
one part or another, the organism would begin to decay.
To this cause must be referred the phenomena of old age, which
interesting subject I am unable to pursue within the limits of this
volume.
Those creatures who are longest in reaching maturity might be expected
also to be the longest lived; I am not certain, however, how far what is
called alternate generation militates against this view, but I do not
think it does so seriously.
Lateness of marriage, provided the constitution of the individuals
marrying is in no respect impaired, should also tend to longevity.
I believe that all the above will be found sufficiently well supported by
facts. If so, when we feel that we are getting old we should try and
give our cells such treatment as they will find it most easy to
understand, through their experience of their own individual life, which,
however, can only guide them inferentially, and to a very small extent;
and throughout life we should remember the important bearing which memory
has upon health, and both occasionally cross the memories of our
component cells with slightly new experiences, and be careful not to put
them either suddenly or for long together into conditions which they will
not be able to understand. Nothing is so likely to make our cells forget
themselves, as neglect of one or other of these considerations. They
will either fail to recognise themselves completely, in which case we
shall die; or they will go on strike, more or less seriously as the case
may be, or perhaps, rather, they will try and remember their usual
course, and fail; they will therefore try some other, and will probably
make a mess of it, as people generally do when they try to do things
which they do not understand, unless indeed they have very exceptional
capacity.
It also follows that when we are ill, our cells being in such or such a
state of mind, and inclined to hold a corresponding opinion with more or
less unreasoning violence, should not be puzzled more than they are
puzzled already, by being contradicted too suddenly; for they will not be
in a frame of mind which can understand the position of an open opponent:
they should therefore either be let alone, if possible, without notice
other than dignified silence, till their spleen is over, and till they
have remembered themselves; or they should be reasoned with as by one who
agrees with them, and who is anxious to see things as far as possible
from their own point of view. And this is how experience teaches that we
must deal with monomaniacs, whom we simply infuriate by contradiction,
but whose delusion we can sometimes persuade to hang itself if we but
give it sufficient rope. All which has its bearing upon politics, too,
at much sacrifice, it may be, of political principles, but a politician
who cannot see principles where principle-mongers fail to see them, is a
dangerous person.
I may say, in passing, that the reason why a small wound heals, and
leaves no scar, while a larger one leaves a mark which is more or less
permanent, may be looked for in the fact that when the wound is only
small, the damaged cells are snubbed, so to speak, by the vast majority
of the unhurt cells in their own neighbourhood. When the wound is more
serious they can stick to it, and bear each other out that they were
hurt.
III. We should expect to find a predominance of sexual over asexual
generation, in the arrangements of nature for continuing her various
species, inasmuch as two heads are better than one, and a _locus
pœnitentiæ_ is thus given to the embryo—an opportunity of correcting the
experience of one parent by that of the other. And this is what the more
intelligent embryos may be supposed to do; for there would seem little
reason to doubt that there are clever embryos and stupid embryos, with
better or worse memories, as the case may be, of how they dealt with
their protoplasm before, and better or worse able to see how they can do
better now; and that embryos differ as widely in intellectual and moral
capacity, and in a general sense of the fitness of things, and of what
will look well into the bargain, as those larger embryos—to wit,
children—do. Indeed it would seem probable that all our mental powers
must go through a quasi-embryological condition, much as the power of
keeping, and wisely spending, money must do so, and that all the
qualities of human thought and character are to be found in the embryo.
Those who have observed at what an early age differences of intellect and
temper show themselves in the young, for example, of cats and dogs, will
find it difficult to doubt that from the very moment of impregnation, and
onward, there has been a corresponding difference in the embryo—and that
of six unborn puppies, one, we will say, has been throughout the whole
process of development more sensible and better looking—a nicer embryo,
in fact—than the others.
IV. We should expect to find that all species, whether of plants or
animals, are occasionally benefited by a cross; but we should also expect
that a cross should have a tendency to introduce a disturbing element, if
it be too wide, inasmuch as the offspring would be pulled hither and
thither by two conflicting memories or advices, much as though a number
of people speaking at once were without previous warning to advise an
unhappy performer to vary his ordinary performance—one set of people
telling him he has always hitherto done thus, and the other saying no
less loudly that he did it thus;—and he were suddenly to become convinced
that they each spoke the truth. In such a case he will either completely
break down, if the advice be too conflicting, or if it be less
conflicting, he may yet be so exhausted by the one supreme effort of
fusing these experiences that he will never be able to perform again; or
if the conflict of experience be not great enough to produce such a
permanent effect as this, it will yet, if it be at all serious, probably
damage his performances on their next several occasions, through his
inability to fuse the experiences into a harmonious whole, or, in other
words, to understand the ideas which are prescribed to him; for to fuse
is only to understand.
And this is absolutely what we find in fact. Mr. Darwin writes
concerning hybrids and first crosses:—“The male element may reach the
female element, but be incapable of causing an embryo to be developed, as
seems to have been the case with some of Thuret’s experiments on Fuci.
No explanation can be given of these facts any more than why certain
trees cannot be grafted on others.”
I submit that what I have written above supplies a very fair _primâ
facie_ explanation.
Mr. Darwin continues:—
“Lastly, an embryo may be developed, and then perish at an early period.
This latter alternative has not been sufficiently attended to; but I
believe, from observations communicated to me by Mr. Hewitt, who has had
great experience in hybridising pheasants and fowls, that the early death
of the embryo is a very frequent cause of sterility in first crosses.
Mr. Salter has recently given the results of an examination of about five
hundred eggs produced from various crosses between three species of
Gallus and their hybrids; the majority of these eggs had been fertilised;
and in the majority of the fertilised eggs, the embryos had either been
partially developed, and had then perished, or had become nearly mature,
but the young chickens had been unable to break through the shell. Of
the chickens which were born more than four-fifths died within the first
few days, or at latest weeks, ‘without any obvious cause, apparently from
mere inability to live,’ so that from the five hundred eggs only twelve
chickens were reared” (“Origin of Species,” 249, ed. 1876).
No wonder the poor creatures died, distracted as they were by the
internal tumult of conflicting memories. But they must have suffered
greatly; and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may
perhaps think it worth while to keep an eye even on the embryos of
hybrids and first crosses. Five hundred creatures puzzled to death is
not a pleasant subject for contemplation. Ten or a dozen should, I
think, be sufficient for the future.
As regards plants, we read:—
“Hybridised embryos probably often perish in like manner . . . of which
fact Max Wichura has given some striking cases with hybrid willows . . .
It may be here worth noticing, that in some cases of parthenogenesis, the
embryos within the eggs of silk moths, which have not been fertilised,
pass through their early stages of development, and then perish like the
embryos produced by a cross between distinct species” (_Ibid_).
This last fact would at first sight seem to make against me, but we must
consider that the presence of a double memory, provided it be not too
conflicting, would be a part of the experience of the silk moth’s egg,
which might be then as fatally puzzled by the monotony of a single memory
as it would be by two memories which were not sufficiently like each
other. So that failure here must be referred to the utter absence of
that little internal stimulant of slightly conflicting memory which the
creature has always hitherto experienced, and without which it fails to
recognise itself. In either case, then, whether with hybrids or in cases
of parthenogenesis, the early death of the embryo is due to inability to
recollect, owing to a fault in the chain of associated ideas. All the
facts here given are an excellent illustration of the principle,
elsewhere insisted upon by Mr. Darwin, that _any_ great and sudden change
of surroundings has a tendency to induce sterility; on which head he
writes (“Plants and Animals under Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 143, ed.
1875):—
“It would appear that any change in the habits of life, whatever their
habits may be, if great enough, tends to affect in an inexplicable manner
the powers of reproduction.”
And again on the next page:—
“Finally, we must conclude, limited though the conclusion is, that
changed conditions of life have an especial power of acting injuriously
on the reproductive system. The whole case is quite peculiar, for these
organs, though not diseased, are thus rendered incapable of performing
their proper functions, or perform them imperfectly.”
One is inclined to doubt whether the blame may not rest with the
inability on the part of the creature reproduced to recognise the new
surroundings, and hence with its failing to know itself. And this seems
to be in some measure supported—but not in such a manner as I can hold to
be quite satisfactory—by the continuation of the passage in the “Origin
of Species,” from which I have just been quoting—for Mr. Darwin goes on
to say:—
“Hybrids, however, are differently circumstanced before and after birth.
When born, and living in a country where their parents live, they are
generally placed under suitable conditions of life. But a hybrid
partakes of only half of the nature and condition of its mother; it may
therefore before birth, as long as it is nourished within its mother’s
womb, or within the egg or seed produced by its mother, be exposed to
conditions in some degree unsuitable, and consequently be liable to
perish at an early period . . . ” After which, however, the conclusion
arrived at is, that, “after all, the cause more probably lies in some
imperfection in the original act of impregnation, causing the embryo to
be imperfectly developed rather than in the conditions to which it is
subsequently exposed.” A conclusion which I am not prepared to accept.
Returning to my second alternative, that is to say, to the case of
hybrids which are born well developed and healthy, but nevertheless
perfectly sterile, it is less obvious why, having succeeded in
understanding the conflicting memories of their parents, they should fail
to produce offspring; but I do not think the reader will feel surprised
that this should be the case. The following anecdote, true or false, may
not be out of place here:—
“Plutarch tells us of a magpie, belonging to a barber at Rome, which
could imitate to a nicety almost every word it heard. Some trumpets
happened one day to be sounded before the shop, and for a day or two
afterwards the magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive and melancholy.
All who knew it were greatly surprised at its silence; and it was
supposed that the sound of the trumpets had so stunned it as to deprive
it at once of both voice and hearing. It soon appeared, however, that
this was far from being the case; for, says Plutarch, the bird had been
all the time occupied in profound meditation, studying how to imitate the
sound of the trumpets; and when at last master of it, the magpie, to the
astonishment of all its friends, suddenly broke its long silence by a
perfect imitation of the flourish of trumpets it had heard, observing
with the greatest exactness all the repetitions, stops, and changes.
_The acquisition of this lesson had_, _however_, _exhausted the whole of
the magpie’s stock of intellect_, _for it made it forget everything it
had learned before_” (“Percy Anecdotes,” Instinct, p. 166).
Or, perhaps, more seriously, the memory of every impregnate ovum from
which every ancestor of a mule, for example, has sprung, has reverted to
a very long period of time during which its forefathers have been
creatures like that which it is itself now going to become: thus, the
impregnate ovum from which the mule’s father was developed remembered
nothing but horse memories; but it felt its faith in these supported by
the recollection of a _vast number_ of previous generations, in which it
was, to all intents and purposes, what it now is. In like manner, the
impregnate ovum from which the mule’s mother was developed would be
backed by the assurance that it had done what it is going to do now a
hundred thousand times already. All would thus be plain sailing. A
horse and a donkey would result. These two are brought together; an
impregnate ovum is produced which finds an unusual conflict of memory
between the two lines of its ancestors, nevertheless, being accustomed to
_some_ conflict, it manages to get over the difficulty, _as on either
side it finds itself backed by a very long series of sufficiently steady
memory_. A mule results—a creature so distinctly different from either
horse or donkey, that reproduction is baffled, owing to the creature’s
having nothing but its own knowledge of itself to fall back upon, behind
which there comes an immediate dislocation, or fault of memory, which is
sufficient to bar identity, and hence reproduction, by rendering too
severe an appeal to reason necessary—for no creature can reproduce itself
on the shallow foundation which reason can alone give. Ordinarily,
therefore, the hybrid, or the spermatozoon or ovum, which it may throw
off (as the case may be), finds one single experience too small to give
it the necessary faith, on the strength of which even to try to reproduce
itself. In other cases the hybrid itself has failed to be developed; in
others the hybrid, or first cross, is almost fertile; in others it is
fertile, but produces depraved issue. The result will vary with the
capacities of the creatures crossed, and the amount of conflict between
their several experiences.
The above view would remove all difficulties out of the way of evolution,
in so far as the sterility of hybrids is concerned. For it would thus
appear that this sterility has nothing to do with any supposed immutable
or fixed limits of species, but results simply from the same principle
which prevents old friends, no matter how intimate in youth, from
returning to their old intimacy after a lapse of years, during which they
have been subjected to widely different influences, inasmuch as they will
each have contracted new habits, and have got into new ways, which they
do not like now to alter.
We should expect that our domesticated plants and animals should vary
most, inasmuch as these have been subjected to changed conditions which
would disturb the memory, and, breaking the chain of recollection,
through failure of some one or other of the associated ideas, would thus
directly and most markedly affect the reproductive system. Every reader
of Mr. Darwin will know that this is what actually happens, and also that
when once a plant or animal begins to vary, it will probably vary a good
deal further; which, again, is what we should expect—the disturbance of
the memory introducing a fresh factor of disturbance, which has to be
dealt with by the offspring as it best may. Mr. Darwin writes: “All our
domesticated productions, with the rarest exceptions, vary far more than
natural species” (“Plants and Animals,” &c., vol. ii. p. 241, ed. 1875).
On my third supposition, _i.e._, when the difference between parents has
not been great enough to baffle reproduction on the part of the first
cross, but when the histories of the father and mother have been,
nevertheless, widely different—as in the case of Europeans and Indians—we
should expect to have a race of offspring who should seem to be quite
clear only about those points, on which their progenitors on both sides
were in accord before the manifold divergencies in their experiences
commenced; that is to say, the offspring should show a tendency to revert
to an early savage condition.
That this indeed occurs may be seen from Mr. Darwin’s “Plants and Animals
under Domestication” (vol. ii. p. 21, ed. 1875), where we find that
travellers in all parts of the world have frequently remarked “_on the
degraded state and savage condition of crossed races of man_.” A few
lines lower down Mr. Darwin tells us that he was himself “struck with the
fact that, in South America, men of complicated descent between Negroes,
Indians, and Spaniards seldom had, whatever the cause might be, a good
expression.” “Livingstone” (continues Mr. Darwin) “remarks, ‘It is
unaccountable why half-castes are so much more cruel than the Portuguese,
but such is undoubtedly the case.’ An inhabitant remarked to
Livingstone, ‘God made white men, and God made black men, but the devil
made half-castes.’” A little further on Mr. Darwin says that we may
“perhaps infer that the degraded state of so many half-castes _is in part
due to reversion to a primitive and savage condition_, _induced by the
act of crossing_, even if mainly due to the unfavourable moral conditions
under which they are generally reared.” Why the crossing should produce
this particular tendency would seem to be intelligible enough, if the
fashion and instincts of offspring are, in any case, nothing but the
memories of its past existences; but it would hardly seem to be so upon
any of the theories now generally accepted; as, indeed, is very readily
admitted by Mr. Darwin himself, who even, as regards purely-bred animals
and plants, remarks that “we are quite unable to assign any proximate
cause” for their tendency to at times reassume long lost characters.
If the reader will follow for himself the remaining phenomena of
reversion, he will, I believe, find them all explicable on the theory
that they are due to memory of past experiences fused, and modified—at
times specifically and definitely—by changed conditions. There is,
however, one apparently very important phenomenon which I do not at this
moment see how to connect with memory, namely, the tendency on the part
of offspring to revert to an earlier impregnation. Mr. Darwin’s
“Provisional Theory of Pangenesis” seemed to afford a satisfactory
explanation of this; but the connection with memory was not immediately
apparent. I think it likely, however, that this difficulty will vanish
on further consideration, so I will not do more than call attention to it
here.
The instincts of certain neuter insects hardly bear upon reversion, but
will be dealt with at some length in Chapter XII.
V. We should expect to find, as was insisted on in the preceding section
in reference to the sterility of hybrids, that it required many, or at
any rate several, generations of changed habits before a sufficiently
deep impression could be made upon the living being (who must be regarded
always as one person in his whole line of ascent or descent) for it to be
unconsciously remembered by him, when making himself anew in any
succeeding generation, and thus to make him modify his method of
procedure during his next embryological development. Nevertheless, we
should expect to find that sometimes a very deep single impression made
upon a living organism, should be remembered by it, even when it is next
in an embryonic condition.
That this is so, we find from Mr. Darwin, who writes (“Plants and Animals
under Domestication,” vol. ii. p. 57, ed. 1875)—“There is ample evidence
that the effect of mutilations and of accidents, especially, or perhaps
exclusively, when followed by disease” (which would certainly intensify
the impression made), “are occasionally inherited. There can be no doubt
that the evil effects of the long continued exposure of the parent to
injurious conditions are sometimes transmitted to the offspring.” As
regards impressions of a less striking character, it is so universally
admitted that they are not observed to be repeated in what is called the
offspring, until they have been confirmed in what is called the parent,
for several generations, but that after several generations, more or
fewer as the case may be, they often are transmitted—that it seems
unnecessary to say more upon the matter. Perhaps, however, the following
passage from Mr. Darwin may be admitted as conclusive:—
“That they” (acquired actions) “are inherited, we see with horses in
certain transmitted paces, such as cantering and ambling, which are not
natural to them—in the pointing of young pointers, and the setting of
young setters—in the peculiar manner of flight of certain breeds of the
pigeon, &c. We have analogous cases with mankind in the inheritance of
tricks or unusual gestures.” . . . (“Expression of the Emotions,” p. 29).
In another place Mr. Darwin writes:—
“How again can we explain _the inherited effects_ of the use or disuse of
particular organs? The domesticated duck flies less and walks more than
the wild duck, and its limb bones have become diminished and increased in
a corresponding manner in comparison with those of the wild duck. A
horse is trained to certain paces, and the colt inherits similar
consensual movements. The domesticated rabbit becomes tame from close
confinement; the dog intelligent from associating with man; the retriever
is taught to fetch and carry; and these mental endowments and bodily
powers are all inherited” (“Plants and Animals,” &c., vol. ii. p. 367,
ed. 1875).
“Nothing,” he continues, “in the whole circuit of physiology is more
wonderful. How can the use or disuse of a particular limb, or of the
brain, affect a small aggregate of reproductive cells, seated in a
distant part of the body in such a manner that the being developed from
these cells inherits the character of one or both parents? Even an
imperfect answer to this question would be satisfactory” (“Plants and
Animals,” &c. vol. ii. p. 367, ed. 1875).
With such an imperfect answer will I attempt to satisfy the reader, as to
say that there appears to be that kind of continuity of existence and
sameness of personality, between parents and offspring, which would lead
us to expect that the impressions made upon the parent should be
epitomised in the offspring, when they have been or have become important
enough, through repetition in the history of several so-called existences
to have earned a place in that smaller edition, which is issued from
generation to generation; or, in other words, when they have been made so
deeply, either at one blow or through many, that the offspring can
remember them. In practice we observe this to be the case—so that the
answer lies in the assertion that offspring and parent, being in one
sense but the same individual, there is no great wonder that, in one
sense, the first should remember what had happened to the latter; and
that too, much in the same way as the individual remembers the events in
the earlier history of what he calls his own lifetime, but condensed, and
pruned of detail, and remembered as by one who has had a host of other
matters to attend to in the interim.
It is thus easy to understand why such a rite as circumcision, though
practised during many ages, should have produced little, if any,
modification tending to make circumcision unnecessary. On the view here
supported such modification would be more surprising than not, for unless
the impression made upon the parent was of a grave character—and probably
unless also aggravated by subsequent confusion of memories in the cells
surrounding the part originally impressed—the parent himself would not be
sufficiently impressed to prevent him from reproducing himself, as he had
already done upon an infinite number of past occasions. The child,
therefore, in the womb would do what the father in the womb had done
before him, nor should any trace of memory concerning circumcision be
expected till the eighth day after birth, when, but for the fact that the
impression in this case is forgotten almost as soon as made, some slight
presentiment of coming discomfort might, after a large number of
generations, perhaps be looked for as a general rule. It would not,
however, be surprising, that the effect of circumcision should be
occasionally inherited, and it would appear as though this was sometimes
actually the case.
The question should turn upon whether the disuse of an organ has arisen:—
1. From an internal desire on the part of the creature disusing it, to
be quit of an organ which it finds troublesome.
2. From changed conditions and habits which render the organ no longer
necessary, or which lead the creature to lay greater stress on certain
other organs or modifications.
3. From the wish of others outside itself; the effect produced in this
case being perhaps neither very good nor very bad for the individual, and
resulting in no grave impression upon the organism as a whole.
4. From a single deep impression on a parent, affecting both himself as
a whole, and gravely confusing the memories of the cells to be
reproduced, or his memories in respect of those cells—according as one
adopts Pangenesis and supposes a memory to “run” each gemmule, or as one
supposes one memory to “run” the whole impregnate ovum—a compromise
between these two views being nevertheless perhaps possible, inasmuch as
the combined memories of all the cells may possibly _be_ the memory which
“runs” the impregnate ovum, just as we _are_ ourselves the combination of
all our cells, each one of which is both autonomous, and also takes its
share in the central government. But within the limits of this volume it
is absolutely impossible for me to go into this question.
In the first case—under which some instances which belong more strictly
to the fourth would sometimes, but rarely, come—the organ should soon go,
and sooner or later leave no rudiment, though still perhaps to be found
crossing the life of the embryo, and then disappearing.
In the second it should go more slowly, and leave, it may be, a
rudimentary structure.
In the third it should show little or no sign of natural decrease for a
very long time.
In the fourth there may be absolute and total sterility, or sterility in
regard to the particular organ, or a scar which shall show that the
memory of the wound and of each step in the process of healing has been
remembered; or there may be simply such disturbance in the reproduced
organ as shall show a confused recollection of injury. There may be
infinite gradations between the first and last of these possibilities.
I think that the facts, as given by Mr. Darwin (“Plants and Animals,”
&c., vol. i. pp. 466–472, ed. 1875), will bear out the above to the
satisfaction of the reader. I can, however, only quote the following
passage:—
“ . . . Brown Séquard has bred during thirty years many thousand
guinea-pigs, . . . nor has he ever seen a guinea-pig born without toes
which was not the offspring of parents _which had gnawed off their own
toes_, owing to the sciatic nerve having been divided. Of this fact
thirteen instances were carefully recorded, and a greater number were
seen; yet Brown Séquard speaks of such cases as among the rarer forms of
inheritance. It is a still more interesting fact—‘that the sciatic nerve
in the congenitally toeless animal has inherited the power of passing
through _all the different morbid states_ which have occurred in one of
its parents _from the time of division_ till after its reunion with the
peripheric end. It is not therefore the power of simply performing an
action which is inherited, but the power of performing a whole series of
actions in a certain order.’”
I feel inclined to say it is not merely the original wound that is
remembered, but the whole process of cure which is now accordingly
repeated. Brown Séquard concludes, as Mr. Darwin tells us, “that what is
transmitted is the morbid state of the nervous system,” due to the
operation performed on the parents.
A little lower down Mr. Darwin writes that Professor Rolleston has given
him two cases—“namely, of two men, one of whom had his knee, and the
other his cheek, severely cut, and both had children born with exactly
the same spot marked or scarred.”
VI. When, however, an impression has once reached transmission
point—whether it be of the nature of a sudden striking thought, which
makes its mark deeply then and there, or whether it be the result of
smaller impressions repeated until the nail, so to speak, has been driven
home—we should expect that it should be remembered by the offspring as
something which he has done all his life, and which he has therefore no
longer any occasion to learn; he will act, therefore, as people say,
_instinctively_. No matter how complex and difficult the process, if the
parents have done it sufficiently often (that is to say, for a sufficient
number of generations), the offspring will remember the fact when
association wakens the memory; it will need no instruction, and—unless
when it has been taught to look for it during many generations—will
expect none. This may be seen in the case of the humming-bird sphinx
moth, which, as Mr. Darwin writes, “shortly after its emergence from the
cocoon, as shown by the bloom on its unruffled scales, may be seen poised
stationary in the air with its long hair-like proboscis uncurled, and
inserted into the minute orifices of flowers; _and no one I believe has
ever seen_ this moth learning to perform its difficult task, which
requires such unerring aim” (“Expression of the Emotions,” p. 30).
And, indeed, when we consider that after a time the most complex and
difficult actions come to be performed by man without the least effort or
consciousness—that offspring cannot be considered as anything but a
continuation of the parent life, whose past habits and experiences it
epitomises when they have been sufficiently often repeated to produce a
lasting impression—that consciousness of memory vanishes on the memory’s
becoming intense, as completely as the consciousness of complex and
difficult movements vanishes as soon as they have been sufficiently
practised—and finally, that the real presence of memory is testified
rather by performance of the repeated action on recurrence of like
surroundings, than by consciousness of recollecting on the part of the
individual—so that not only should there be no reasonable bar to our
attributing the whole range of the more complex instinctive actions, from
first to last, to memory pure and simple, no matter how marvellous they
may be, but rather that there is so much to compel us to do so, that we
find it difficult to conceive how any other view can have been ever
taken—when, I say, we consider all these facts, we should rather feel
surprise that the hawk and sparrow still teach their offspring to fly,
than that the humming-bird sphinx moth should need no teacher.
The phenomena, then, which we observe are exactly those which we should
expect to find.
VII. We should also expect that the memory of animals, as regards their
earlier existences, was solely stimulated by association. For we find,
from Prof. Bain, that “actions, sensations, and states of feeling
occurring together, or in close succession, tend to grow together or
cohere in such a way that when any one of them is afterwards presented to
the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea” (“The Senses and
the Intellect,” 2d ed. 1864, p. 332). And Prof. Huxley says (“Elementary
Lessons in Physiology,” 5th ed. 1872, p. 306), “It may be laid down as a
rule that if any two mental states be called up together, or in
succession, with due frequency and vividness, the subsequent production
of the one of them will suffice to call up the other, _and that whether
we desire it or not_.” I would go one step further, and would say not
only whether we desire it or not, but _whether we are aware that the idea
has ever before been called up in our minds or not_. I should say that I
have quoted both the above passages from Mr. Darwin’s “Expression of the
Emotions” (p. 30, ed. 1872).
We should, therefore, expect that when the offspring found itself in the
presence of objects which had called up such and such ideas for a
sufficient number of generations, that is to say, “with due frequency and
vividness”—it being of the same age as its parents were, and generally in
like case as when the ideas were called up in the minds of the
parents—the same ideas should also be called up in the minds of the
offspring “_whether they desire it or not_;” and, I would say also,
“whether they recognise the ideas as having ever before been present to
them or not.”
I think we might also expect that no other force, save that of
association, should have power to kindle, so to speak, into the flame of
action the atomic spark of memory, which we can alone suppose to be
transmitted from one generation to another.
That both plants and animals do as we should expect of them in this
respect is plain, not only from the performance of the most intricate and
difficult actions—difficult both physically and intellectually—at an age,
and under circumstances which preclude all possibility of what we call
instruction, but from the fact that deviations from the parental
instinct, or rather the recurrence of a memory, unless in connection with
the accustomed train of associations, is of comparatively rare
occurrence; the result, commonly, of some one of the many memories about
which we know no more than we do of the memory which enables a cat to
find her way home after a hundred-mile journey by train, and shut up in a
hamper, or, perhaps even more commonly, of abnormal treatment.
VIII. If, then, memory depends on association, we should expect two
corresponding phenomena in the case of plants and animals—namely, that
they should show a tendency to resume feral habits on being turned wild
after several generations of domestication, and also that peculiarities
should tend to show themselves at a corresponding age in the offspring
and in the parents. As regards the tendency to resume feral habits, Mr.
Darwin, though apparently of opinion that the tendency to do this has
been much exaggerated, yet does not doubt that such a tendency exists, as
shown by well authenticated instances. He writes: “It has been
repeatedly asserted in the most positive manner by various authors that
feral animals and plants invariably return to their primitive specific
type.”
This shows, at any rate, that there is a considerable opinion to this
effect among observers generally.
He continues: “It is curious on what little evidence this belief rests.
Many of our domesticated animals could not subsist in a wild state,”—so
that there is no knowing whether they would or would not revert. “In
several cases we do not know the aboriginal parent species, and cannot
tell whether or not there has been any close degree of reversion.” So
that here, too, there is at any rate no evidence _against_ the tendency;
the conclusion, however, is that, notwithstanding the deficiency of
positive evidence to warrant the general belief as to the force of the
tendency, yet “the simple fact of animals and plants becoming feral does
cause some tendency to revert to the primitive state,” and he tells us
that “when variously-coloured tame rabbits are turned out in Europe, they
generally re-acquire the colouring of the wild animal;” “there can be no
doubt,” he says, “that this really does occur,” though he seems inclined
to account for it by the fact that oddly-coloured and conspicuous animals
would suffer much from beasts of prey and from being easily shot. “The
best known case of reversion:” he continues, “and that on which the
widely-spread belief in its universality apparently rests, is that of
pigs. These animals have run wild in the West Indies, South America, and
the Falkland Islands, and have everywhere re-acquired the dark colour,
the thick bristles, and great tusks of the wild boar; and the young have
re-acquired longitudinal stripes.” And on page 22 of “Plants and Animals
under Domestication” (vol. ii. ed. 1875) we find that “the re-appearance
of coloured, longitudinal stripes on young feral pigs cannot be
attributed to the direct action of external conditions. In this case,
and in many others, we can only say that any change in the habits of life
apparently favours a tendency, inherent or latent, in the species to
return to the primitive state.” On which one cannot but remark that
though any change may favour such tendency, yet the return to original
habits and surroundings appears to do so in a way so marked as not to be
readily referable to any other cause than that of association and
memory—the creature, in fact, having got into its old groove, remembers
it, and takes to all its old ways.
As regards the tendency to inherit changes (whether embryonic, or during
post-natal development as ordinarily observed in any species), or
peculiarities of habit or form which do not partake of the nature of
disease, it must be sufficient to refer the reader to Mr. Darwin’s
remarks upon this subject (“Plants and Animals Under Domestication,” vol.
ii. pp. 51–57, ed. 1875). The existence of the tendency is not likely to
be denied. The instances given by Mr. Darwin are strictly to the point
as regards all ordinary developmental and metamorphic changes, and even
as regards transmitted acquired actions, and tricks acquired before the
time when the offspring has issued from the body of the parent, or on an
average of many generations does so; but it cannot for a moment be
supposed that the offspring knows by inheritance anything about what
happens to the parent subsequently to the offspring’s being born. Hence
the appearance of diseases in the offspring, at comparatively late
periods in life, but at the same age as, or earlier, than in the parents,
must be regarded as due to the fact that in each case the machine having
been made after the same pattern (which _is_ due to memory), is liable to
have the same weak points, and to break down after a similar amount of
wear and tear; but after less wear and tear in the case of the offspring
than in that of the parent, because a diseased organism is commonly a
deteriorating organism, and if repeated at all closely, and without
repentance and amendment of life, will be repeated for the worse. If we
do not improve, we grow worse. This, at least, is what we observe daily.
Nor again can we believe, as some have fancifully imagined, that the
remembrance of any occurrence of which the effect has been entirely, or
almost entirely mental, should be remembered by offspring with any
definiteness. The intellect of the offspring might be affected, for
better or worse, by the general nature of the intellectual employment of
the parent; or a great shock to a parent might destroy or weaken the
intellect of the offspring; but unless a deep impression were made upon
the cells of the body, and deepened by subsequent disease, we could not
expect it to be remembered with any definiteness, or precision. We may
talk as we will about mental pain, and mental scars, but after all, the
impressions they leave are incomparably less durable than those made by
an organic lesion. It is probable, therefore, that the feeling which so
many have described, as though they remembered this or that in some past
existence, is purely imaginary, and due rather to unconscious recognition
of the fact that we certainly have lived before, than to any actual
occurrence corresponding to the supposed recollection.
And lastly, we should look to find in the action of memory, as between
one generation and another, a reflection of the many anomalies and
exceptions to ordinary rules which we observe in memory, so far as we can
watch its action in what we call our own single lives, and the single
lives of others. We should expect that reversion should be frequently
capricious—that is to say, give us more trouble to account for than we
are either able or willing to take. And assuredly we find it so in fact.
Mr. Darwin—from whom it is impossible to quote too much or too fully,
inasmuch as no one else can furnish such a store of facts, so well
arranged, and so above all suspicion of either carelessness or want of
candour—so that, however we may differ from him, it is he himself who
shows us how to do so, and whose pupils we all are—Mr. Darwin writes: “In
every living being we may rest assured that a host of long-lost
characters lie ready to be evolved under proper conditions” (does not one
almost long to substitute the word “memories” for the word “characters?”)
“How can we make intelligible, and connect with other facts, this
wonderful and common capacity of reversion—this power of calling back to
life long-lost characters?” (“Plants and Animals,” &c., vol. ii. p. 369,
ed. 1875). Surely the answer may be hazarded, that we shall be able to
do so when we can make intelligible the power of calling back to life
long-lost memories. But I grant that this answer holds out no immediate
prospect of a clear understanding.
One word more. Abundant facts are to be found which point inevitably, as
will appear more plainly in the following chapter, in the direction of
thinking that offspring inherits the memories of its parents; but I know
of no single fact which suggests that parents are in the smallest degree
affected (other than sympathetically) by the memories of their offspring
_after that offspring has been born_. Whether the unborn offspring
affects the memory of the mother in some particulars, and whether we have
here the explanation of occasional reversion to a previous impregnation,
is a matter on which I should hardly like to express an opinion now.
Nor, again, can I find a single fact which seems to indicate any memory
of the parental life on the part of offspring later than the average date
of the offspring’s quitting the body of the parent.