Mr. Grant Allen’s “Charles Darwin”
IT is here that Mr. Grant Allen’s book fails. It is impossible to
believe it written in good faith, with no end in view, save to make
something easy which might otherwise be found difficult; on the contrary,
it leaves the impression of having been written with a desire to hinder
us, as far as possible, from understanding things that Mr. Allen himself
understood perfectly well.
After saying that “in the public mind Mr. Darwin is perhaps most commonly
regarded as the discoverer and founder of the evolution hypothesis,” he
continues that “the grand idea which he did really originate was not the
idea of ‘descent with modification,’ but the idea of ‘natural
selection,’” and adds that it was Mr. Darwin’s “peculiar glory” to have
shown the “nature of the machinery” by which all the variety of animal
and vegetable life might have been produced by slow modifications in one
or more original types. “The theory of evolution,” says Mr. Allen,
“already existed in a more or less shadowy and undeveloped shape;” it was
Mr. Darwin’s “task in life to raise this theory from the rank of a mere
plausible and happy guess to the rank of a highly elaborate and almost
universally accepted biological system” (pp. 3–5).
We all admit the value of Mr. Darwin’s work as having led to the general
acceptance of evolution. No one who remembers average middle-class
opinion on this subject before 1860 will deny that it was Mr. Darwin who
brought us all round to descent with modification; but Mr. Allen cannot
rightly say that evolution had only existed before Mr. Darwin’s time in
“a shadowy, undeveloped state,” or as “a mere plausible and happy guess.”
It existed in the same form as that in which most people accept it now,
and had been carried to its extreme development, before Mr. Darwin’s
father had been born. It is idle to talk of Buffon’s work as “a mere
plausible and happy guess,” or to imply that the first volume of the
“Philosophie Zoologique” of Lamarck was a less full and sufficient
demonstration of descent with modification than the “Origin of Species”
is. It has its defects, shortcomings, and mistakes, but it is an
incomparably sounder work than the “Origin of Species;” and though it
contains the deplorable omission of any reference to Buffon, Lamarck does
not first grossly misrepresent Buffon, and then tell him to go away, as
Mr. Darwin did to the author of the “Vestiges” and to Lamarck. If Mr.
Darwin was believed and honoured for saying much the same as Lamarck had
said, it was because Lamarck had borne the brunt of the laughing. The
“Origin of Species” was possible because the “Vestiges” had prepared the
way for it. The “Vestiges” were made possible by Lamarck and Erasmus
Darwin, and these two were made possible by Buffon. Here a somewhat
sharper line can be drawn than is usually found possible when defining
the ground covered by philosophers. No one broke the ground for Buffon
to anything like the extent that he broke it for those who followed him,
and these broke it for one another.
Mr. Allen says (p. 11) that, “in Charles Darwin’s own words, Lamarck
‘first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability
of all change in the organic as well as in the inorganic world being the
result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’” Mr. Darwin did
indeed use these words, but Mr. Allen omits the pertinent fact that he
did not use them till six thousand copies of his work had been issued,
and an impression been made as to its scope and claims which the event
has shown to be not easily effaced; nor does he say that Mr. Darwin only
pays these few words of tribute in a quasi-preface, which, though
prefixed to his later editions of the “Origin of Species,” is amply
neutralised by the spirit which I have shown to be omnipresent in the
body of the work itself. Moreover, Mr. Darwin’s statement is inaccurate
to an unpardonable extent; his words would be fairly accurate if applied
to Buffon, but they do not apply to Lamarck.
Mr. Darwin continues that Lamarck “seems to attribute all the beautiful
adaptations in nature, such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing
on the branches of trees,” to the effects of habit. Mr. Darwin should
not say that Lamarck “seems” to do this. It was his business to tell us
what led Lamarck to his conclusions, not what “seemed” to do so. Any one
who knows the first volume of the “Philosophie Zoologique” will be aware
that there is no “seems” in the matter. Mr. Darwin’s words “seem” to say
that it really could not be worth any practical naturalist’s while to
devote attention to Lamarck’s argument; the inquiry might be of interest
to antiquaries, but Mr. Darwin had more important work in hand than
following the vagaries of one who had been so completely exploded as
Lamarck had been. “Seem” is to men what “feel” is to women; women who
feel, and men who grease every other sentence with a “seem,” are alike to
be looked on with distrust.
“Still,” continues Mr. Allen, “Darwin gave no sign. A flaccid,
cartilaginous, unphilosophic evolutionism had full possession of the
field for the moment, and claimed, as it were, to be the genuine
representative of the young and vigorous biological creed, while he
himself was in truth the real heir to all the honours of the situation.
He was in possession of the master-key which alone could unlock the bars
that opposed the progress of evolution, and still he waited. He could
afford to wait. He was diligently collecting, amassing, investigating;
eagerly reading every new systematic work, every book of travels, every
scientific journal, every record of sport, or exploration, or discovery,
to extract from the dead mass of undigested fact whatever item of
implicit value might swell the definite co-ordinated series of notes in
his own commonplace books for the now distinctly contemplated ‘Origin of
Species.’ His way was to make all sure behind him, to summon up all his
facts in irresistible array, and never to set out upon a public progress
until he was secure against all possible attacks of the ever-watchful and
alert enemy in the rear,” &c. (p. 73).
It would not be easy to beat this. Mr. Darwin’s worst enemy could wish
him no more damaging eulogist.
Of the “Vestiges” Mr. Allen says that Mr. Darwin “felt sadly” the
inaccuracy and want of profound technical knowledge everywhere displayed
by the anonymous author. Nevertheless, long after, in the “Origin of
Species,” the great naturalist wrote with generous appreciation of the
“Vestiges of Creation”—“In my opinion it has done excellent service in
this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice,
and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.”
I have already referred to the way in which Mr. Darwin treated the author
of the “Vestiges,” and have stated the facts at greater length in
“Evolution Old and New,” but it may be as well to give Mr. Darwin’s words
in full; he wrote as follows on the third page of the original edition of
the “Origin of Species”:—
“The author of the ‘Vestiges of Creation’ would, I presume, say that,
after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird had given birth
to a woodpecker, and some plant to the mistletoe, and that these had been
produced perfect as we now see them; but this assumption seems to me to
be no explanation, for it leaves the case of the coadaptation of organic
beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life untouched
and unexplained.”
The author of the “Vestiges” did, doubtless, suppose that “_some_ bird”
had given birth to a woodpecker, or more strictly, that a couple of birds
had done so—and this is all that Mr. Darwin has committed himself to—but
no one better knew that these two birds would, according to the author of
the “Vestiges,” be just as much woodpeckers, and just as little
woodpeckers, as they would be with Mr. Darwin himself. Mr. Chambers did
not suppose that a woodpecker became a woodpecker _per saltum_ though
born of some widely different bird, but Mr. Darwin’s words have no
application unless they convey this impression. The reader will note
that though the impression is conveyed, Mr. Darwin avoids conveying it
categorically. I suppose this is what Mr. Allen means by saying that he
“made all things sure behind him.” Mr. Chambers did indeed believe in
occasional sports; so did Mr. Darwin, and we have seen that in the later
editions of the “Origin of Species” he found himself constrained to lay
greater stress on these than he had originally done. Substantially, Mr.
Chambers held much the same opinion as to the suddenness or slowness of
modification as Mr. Darwin did, nor can it be doubted that Mr. Darwin
knew this perfectly well.
What I have said about the woodpecker applies also to the mistletoe.
Besides, it was Mr. Darwin’s business not to presume anything about the
matter; his business was to tell us what the author of the “Vestiges” had
said, or to refer us to the page of the “Vestiges” on which we should
find this. I suppose he was too busy “collecting, amassing,
investigating,” &c., to be at much pains not to misrepresent those who
had been in the field before him. There is no other reference to the
“Vestiges” in the “Origin of Species” than this suave but singularly
fraudulent passage.
In his edition of 1860 the author of the “Vestiges” showed that he was
nettled, and said it was to be regretted Mr. Darwin had read the
“Vestiges” “almost as much amiss as if, like its declared opponents, he
had an interest in misunderstanding it;” and a little lower he adds that
Mr. Darwin’s book “in no essential respect contradicts the ‘Vestiges,’”
but that, on the contrary, “while adding to its explanations of nature,
it expressed the same general ideas.” {216a} This is substantially true;
neither Mr. Darwin’s nor Mr. Chambers’s are good books, but the main
object of both is to substantiate the theory of descent with
modification, and, bad as the “Vestiges” is, it is ingenuous as compared
with the “Origin of Species.” Subsequently to Mr. Chambers’ protest, and
not till, as I have said, six thousand copies of the “Origin of Species”
had been issued, the sentence complained of by Mr. Chambers was expunged,
but without a word of retractation, and the passage which Mr. Allen
thinks so generous was inserted into the “brief but imperfect” sketch
which Mr. Darwin prefixed—after Mr. Chambers had been effectually snuffed
out—to all subsequent editions of his “Origin of Species.” There is no
excuse for Mr. Darwin’s not having said at least this much about the
author of the “Vestiges” in his first edition; and on finding that he had
misrepresented him in a passage which he did not venture to retain, he
should not have expunged it quietly, but should have called attention to
his mistake in the body of his book, and given every prominence in his
power to the correction.
Let us now examine Mr. Allen’s record in the matter of natural selection.
For years he was one of the foremost apostles of Neo-Darwinism, and any
who said a good word for Lamarck were told that this was the “kind of
mystical nonsense” from which Mr. Allen “had hoped Mr. Darwin had for
ever saved us.” {216b} Then in October 1883 came an article in “Mind,”
from which it appeared as though Mr. Allen had abjured Mr. Darwin and all
his works.
“There are only two conceivable ways,” he then wrote, “in which any
increment of brain power can ever have arisen in any individual. The one
is the Darwinian way, by spontaneous variation, that is to say, by
variation due to minute physical circumstances affecting the individual
in the germ. The other is the Spencerian way, by functional increment,
that is to say, by the effect of increased use and constant exposure to
varying circumstances during conscious life.”
Mr. Allen calls this the Spencerian view, and so it is in so far as that
Mr. Spencer has adopted it. Most people will call it Lamarckian. This,
however, is a detail. Mr. Allen continues:—
“I venture to think that the first way, if we look it clearly in the
face, will be seen to be practically unthinkable; and that we have no
alternative, therefore, but to accept the second.”
I like our looking a “way” which is “practically unthinkable” “clearly in
the face.” I particularly like “practically unthinkable.” I suppose we
can think it in theory, but not in practice. I like almost everything
Mr. Allen says or does; it is not necessary to go far in search of his
good things; dredge up any bit of mud from him at random and we are
pretty sure to find an oyster with a pearl in it, if we look it clearly
in the face; I mean, there is sure to be something which will be at any
rate “almost” practically unthinkable. But however this may be, when Mr.
Allen wrote his article in “Mind” two years ago, he was in substantial
agreement with myself about the value of natural selection as a means of
modification—by natural selection I mean, of course, the commonly known
Charles-Darwinian natural selection from fortuitous variations; now,
however, in 1885, he is all for this same natural selection again, and in
the preface to his “Charles Darwin” writes (after a handsome
acknowledgment of “Evolution Old and New”) that he “differs from” me
“fundamentally in” my “estimate of the worth of Charles Darwin’s
distinctive discovery of natural selection.”
This he certainly does, for on page 81 of the work itself he speaks of
“the distinctive notion of natural selection” as having, “like all true
and fruitful ideas, more than once flashed,” &c. I have explained _usque
ad nauseam_, and will henceforth explain no longer, that natural
selection is no “distinctive notion” of Mr. Darwin’s. Mr. Darwin’s
“distinctive notion” is natural selection from among fortuitous
variations.
Writing again (p. 89) of Mr. Spencer’s essay in the “Leader,” {218a} Mr.
Allen says:—
“It contains, in a very philosophical and abstract form, the theory of
‘descent with modification’ without the distinctive Darwinian adjunct of
‘natural selection’ or survival of the fittest. Yet it was just that
lever dexterously applied, and carefully weighted with the whole weight
of his endlessly accumulated inductive instances, that finally enabled
our modern Archimedes to move the world.”
Again:—
“To account for adaptation, for the almost perfect fitness of every plant
and every animal to its position in life, for the existence (in other
words) of definitely correlated parts and organs, we must call in the aid
of survival of the fittest. Without that potent selective agent, our
conception of the becoming of life is a mere chaos; order and
organisation are utterly inexplicable save by the brilliant illuminating
ray of the Darwinian principle” (p. 93).
And yet two years previously this same principle, after having been
thinkable for many years, had become “unthinkable.”
Two years previously, writing of the Charles-Darwinian scheme of
evolution, Mr. Allen had implied it as his opinion “that all brains are
what they are in virtue of antecedent function.” “The one creed,” he
wrote—referring to Mr Darwin’s—“makes the man depend mainly upon the
accidents of molecular physics in a colliding germ cell and sperm cell;
the other makes him depend mainly on the doings and gains of his
ancestors as modified and altered by himself.”
This second creed is pure Erasmus-Darwinism and Lamarck.
Again:—
“It seems to me easy to understand how survival of the fittest may result
in progress _starting from such functionally produced gains_ (italics
mine), but impossible to understand how it could result in progress, if
it had to start in mere accidental structural increments due to
spontaneous variation alone.” {219a}
Which comes to saying that it is easy to understand the Lamarckian system
of evolution, but not the Charles-Darwinian. Mr. Allen concluded his
article a few pages later on by saying:—
“The first hypothesis” (Mr. Darwin’s) “is one that throws no light upon
any of the facts. The second hypothesis” (which is unalloyed Erasmus
Darwin and Lamarck) “is one that explains them all with transparent
lucidity.” Yet in his “Charles Darwin” Mr. Allen tells us that though
Mr. Darwin “did not invent the development theory, he made it believable
and comprehensible” (p. 4).
In his “Charles Darwin” Mr. Allen does not tell us how recently he had,
in another place, expressed an opinion about the value of Mr. Darwin’s
“distinctive contribution” to the theory of evolution, so widely
different from the one he is now expressing with characteristic
appearance of ardour. He does not explain how he is able to execute such
rapid changes of front without forfeiting his claim on our attention;
explanations on matters of this sort seem out of date with modern
scientists. I can only suppose that Mr. Allen regards himself as having
taken a brief, as it were, for the production of a popular work, and
feels more bound to consider the interests of the gentleman who pays him
than to say what he really thinks; for surely Mr. Allen would not have
written as he did in such a distinctly philosophical and scientific
journal as “Mind” without weighing his words, and nothing has transpired
lately, _apropos_ of evolution, which will account for his present
recantation. I said in my book “Selections,” &c., that when Mr. Allen
made stepping-stones of his dead selves, he jumped upon them to some
tune. I was a little scandalised then at the completeness and suddenness
of the movement he executed, and spoke severely; I have sometimes feared
I may have spoken too severely, but his recent performance goes far to
warrant my remarks.
If, however, there is no dead self about it, and Mr. Allen has only taken
a brief, I confess to being not greatly edified. I grant that a good
case can be made out for an author’s doing as I suppose Mr. Allen to have
done; indeed I am not sure that both science and religion would not gain
if every one rode his neighbour’s theory, as at a donkey-race, and the
least plausible were held to win; but surely, as things stand, a writer
by the mere fact of publishing a book professes to be giving a _bonâ
fide_ opinion. The analogy of the bar does not hold, for not only is it
perfectly understood that a barrister does not necessarily state his own
opinions, but there exists a strict though unwritten code to protect the
public against the abuses to which such a system must be liable. In
religion and science no such code exists—the supposition being that these
two holy callings are above the necessity for anything of the kind.
Science and religion are not as business is; still, if the public do not
wish to be taken in, they must be at some pains to find out whether they
are in the hands of one who, while pretending to be a judge, is in
reality a paid advocate, with no one’s interests at heart except his
client’s, or in those of one who, however warmly he may plead, will say
nothing but what springs from mature and genuine conviction.
The present unsettled and unsatisfactory state of the moral code in this
respect is at the bottom of the supposed antagonism between religion and
science. These two are not, or never ought to be, antagonistic. They
should never want what is spoken of as reconciliation, for in reality
they are one. Religion is the quintessence of science, and science the
raw material of religion; when people talk about reconciling religion and
science they do not mean what they say; they mean reconciling the
statements made by one set of professional men with those made by another
set whose interests lie in the opposite direction—and with no recognised
president of the court to keep them within due bounds this is not always
easy.
Mr. Allen says:—
“At the same time it must be steadily remembered that there are many
naturalists at the present day, especially among those of the lower order
of intelligence, who, while accepting evolutionism in a general way, and
therefore always describing themselves as Darwinians, do not believe, and
often cannot even understand, the distinctive Darwinian addition to the
evolutionary doctrine—namely, the principle of natural selection. Such
hazy and indistinct thinkers as these are still really at the prior stage
of Lamarckian evolution” (p. 199).
Considering that Mr. Allen was at that stage himself so recently, he
might deal more tenderly with others who still find “the distinctive
Darwinian adjunct” “unthinkable.” It is perhaps, however, because he
remembers his difficulties that Mr. Allen goes on as follows:—
“It is probable that in the future, while a formal acceptance of
Darwinism becomes general, the special theory of natural selection will
be thoroughly understood and assimilated only by the more abstract and
philosophical minds.”
By the kind of people, in fact, who read the _Spectator_ and are called
thoughtful; and in point of fact less than a twelvemonth after this
passage was written, natural selection was publicly abjured as “a theory
of the origin of species” by Mr. Romanes himself, with the implied
approval of the _Times_.
“Thus,” continues Mr. Allen, “the name of Darwin will often no doubt be
tacked on to what are in reality the principles of Lamarck.”
It requires no great power of prophecy to foretell this, considering that
it is done daily by nine out of ten who call themselves Darwinians. Ask
ten people of ordinary intelligence how Mr. Darwin explains the fact that
giraffes have long necks, and nine of them will answer “through
continually stretching them to reach higher and higher boughs.” They do
not understand that this is the Lamarckian view of evolution, not the
Darwinian; nor will Mr. Allen’s book greatly help the ordinary reader to
catch the difference between the two theories, in spite of his frequent
reference to Mr. Darwin’s “distinctive feature,” and to his “master-key.”
No doubt the British public will get to understand all about it some day,
but it can hardly be expected to do so all at once, considering the way
in which Mr. Allen and so many more throw dust in its eyes, and will
doubtless continue to throw it as long as an honest penny is to be turned
by doing so. Mr. Allen, then, is probably right in saying that “the name
of Darwin will no doubt be often tacked on to what are in reality the
principles of Lamarck,” nor can it be denied that Mr. Darwin, by his
practice of using “the theory of natural selection” as though it were a
synonym for “the theory of descent with modification,” contributed to
this result.
I do not myself doubt that he intended to do this, but Mr. Allen would
say no less confidently he did not. He writes of Mr. Darwin as follows:—
“Of Darwin’s pure and exalted moral nature no Englishman of the present
generation can trust himself to speak with becoming moderation.”
He proceeds to trust himself thus:—
“His love of truth, his singleness of heart, his sincerity, his
earnestness, his modesty, his candour, his absolute sinking of self and
selfishness—these, indeed are all conspicuous to every reader on the very
face of every word he ever printed.”
This “conspicuous sinking of self” is of a piece with the “delightful
unostentatiousness _which every one must have noticed_” about which Mr.
Allen writes on page 65. Does he mean that Mr. Darwin was
“ostentatiously unostentatious,” or that he was “unostentatiously
ostentatious”? I think we may guess from this passage who it was that in
the old days of the _Pall Mall Gazelle_ called Mr. Darwin “a master of a
certain happy simplicity.”
Mr. Allen continues:—
“Like his works themselves, they must long outlive him. But his
sympathetic kindliness, his ready generosity, the staunchness of his
friendship, the width and depth and breadth of his affections, the manner
in which ‘he bore with those who blamed him unjustly without blaming them
again’—these things can never be so well known to any other generation of
men as to the three generations that walked the world with him” (pp. 174,
175).
Again:—
“He began early in life to collect and arrange a vast encyclopædia of
facts, all finally focussed with supreme skill upon the great principle
he so clearly perceived and so lucidly expounded. He brought to bear
upon the question an amount of personal observation, of minute
experiment, of world-wide book knowledge, of universal scientific
ability, such as never, perhaps, was lavished by any other man upon any
other department of study. His conspicuous and beautiful love of truth,
his unflinching candour, his transparent fearlessness and honesty of
purpose, his childlike simplicity, his modesty of demeanour, his charming
manner, his affectionate disposition, his kindliness to friends, his
courtesy to opponents, his gentleness to harsh and often bitter
assailants, kindled in the minds of men of science everywhere throughout
the world a contagious enthusiasm only equalled perhaps among the
disciples of Socrates and the great teachers of the revival of learning.
His name became a rallying-point for the children of light in every
country” (pp. 196, 197).
I need not quote more; the sentence goes on to talk about “firmly
grounding” something which philosophers and speculators might have taken
a century or two more “to establish in embryo;” but those who wish to see
it must turn to Mr. Allen’s book.
If I have formed too severe an estimate of Mr. Darwin’s work and
character—and this is more than likely—the fulsomeness of the adulation
lavished on him by his admirers for many years past must be in some
measure my excuse. We grow tired even of hearing Aristides called just,
but what is so freely said about Mr. Darwin puts us in mind more of what
the people said about Herod—that he spoke with the voice of a God, not of
a man. So we saw Professor Ray Lankester hail him not many years ago as
the “greatest of living men.” {224a}
It is ill for any man’s fame that he should be praised so extravagantly.
Nobody ever was as good as Mr. Darwin looked, and a counterblast to such
a hurricane of praise as has been lately blowing will do no harm to his
ultimate reputation, even though it too blow somewhat fiercely. Art,
character, literature, religion, science (I have named them in
alphabetical order), thrive best in a breezy, bracing air; I heartily
hope I may never be what is commonly called successful in my own
lifetime—and if I go on as I am doing now, I have a fair chance of
succeeding in not succeeding.