KŌBE, April, 1895.
DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--On re-reading your letter I find it necessary
to assure you positively (pardon me if I am rude) that you have no
conception whatever, not the least, of the scientific opinions as to
psychological evolution held by Spencer. It is necessary I should say
this,--otherwise the mere discussion of details would leave you under
the impression that I recognize your understanding of the subject. It
is quite obvious that you do not understand evolution at all. You do
understand natural selection,--but that is quite another matter.
To comprehend psychological evolution, it is first necessary to
banish absolutely from the mind every speck of belief that the
individual can be changed in character, or intrinsically added to,
by any influence whatever, to any perceptible degree. There may be
modifications or increments, just as there may be decrements, but these
remain imperceptible. The race is visibly modified in the course of
centuries--not the individual, whether by education, environment or
anything else. The millions of years required for the development of a
body are much more required for the development of a mind. Could the
individual be really changed to the degree imagined by the soul-theory,
a few generations would suffice to form a perfectly evolved race.
Education and other influences only develop or stimulate the
preëxisting. There is an unfolding (possibly also a very slight
increment of neural structure), but the unfolding is of that formed
before birth. There are no changes such as seriously affect character.
The evolution of the race is perceptible,--not that of the individual,
except as the individual life is that of the race in epitome.
Besides emotions, passions, etc., certain ideas are necessarily
inherited. Otherwise mental development in the individual even could not
take place. Such is the idea of Space, and other ideas which form the
canvas and stage of thought. Simple as they seem, they are complicated
enough to have required millions of years to form.
Evolution includes not merely the shaping and modification of existing
matter, but the development of visible matter itself out of the
invisible. The evidence of chemistry is that all substances we call
elements have been evolved by tendencies out of something infinitely
simpler and massless.