more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of
which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences, and
the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist,
who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular
arrangement was not[143] intended to evolve the phenomena of the
universe.
Accordingly, although he was clearly persuaded that Theism is a doctrine
which we can never have sufficient grounds for accepting, Professor
Huxley repudiated the notion that scientific discovery has done anything
to disprove it. Thus he tells us,[144] that, in order to be a
teleologist, and yet accept Evolution, it is only necessary
to suppose that the original plan was sketched out ... that the
purpose was foreshadowed in the molecular arrangements out of which
the animals have come.
And again,[145] he thus expressed himself regarding two objections
commonly brought against Darwinism, namely that it introduces "chance"
as a factor in nature, and that it is atheistic:
Both assertions are utter bosh. None but parsons believe in
"chance"; and the philosophical difficulties of Theism now are
neither greater nor less than they have been ever since Theism was
invented.
Accordingly, as has already been urged, in regard of this question we
are precisely where men have always been,--dependent upon arguments such
as satisfied philosophers like Cicero, who declared that when we regard
the starry heavens the existence of a Deity of surpassing intelligence
must appear no less obvious than that of the sun in the sky.[146]
That scientific enlightenment is not incompatible with such reasoning,
we have sufficient evidence in the fact that amongst those whose
conclusions are wholly in accord with Cicero's, men are to be found
standing in the very front rank of Science.
Like the Roman orator, Sir Isaac Newton declared that the existence of a
Being endowed with intelligence and wisdom is a necessary inference from
a study of celestial mechanics, and that to treat of God is therefore a
part of Natural Philosophy.[147]
We assume, as absolutely self-evident [say Professors Stewart and
Tait][148] the existence of a Deity, who is the Creator and
Upholder of all things.
When we contemplate the phenomena of vision, [says Sir G. G.
Stokes,][149] it seems difficult to understand how we can fail to
be impressed with the evidence of design thus imparted to us. But
design is altogether unmeaning without a designing mind. The study
then of the phenomena of nature leads us to the contemplation of a
Being from whom proceeded the orderly arrangement of natural things
that we behold.
Lord Kelvin's recent declaration is even more vigorous.[150]
I cannot say that with regard to the origin of life Science neither
affirms nor denies creative power. Science positively affirms
creating and directive power, which she compels us to accept as an
article of belief.
Thirty years earlier Clerk-Maxwell in concluding his famous lecture
before the British Association[151] thus spoke concerning Molecules:
They continue this day as they were created, perfect in number and
measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed
on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in
measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we
reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they
are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning
created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of
which heaven and earth consist.
It is of course not to be denied that there are eminent men of science
who altogether dissent from such opinions, and reject Theism as false,
or at least as lacking any rational claim on our acceptance. That,
however, is not the point. The above testimonies have not been adduced
as if their authority could settle the question, which is one to be
determined not by authority, but by argument. At the same time, it is
abundantly evident that it is not argument but supposed authority which
influences the great majority of those who style themselves
rationalists. By what modes of reasoning their creed is supposed to be
established they have usually little idea: but they firmly believe, as
they are constantly assured, that no one who knows what Science is can
pretend to credit an antiquated doctrine which she has entirely
exploded. It is to show what degree of truth attaches to such
statements, that our witnesses have been called--and for this purpose
their testimony is undoubtedly sufficient. As Lord Rayleigh in his
Presidential address told the British Association:[152]
It is true that among scientific men, as in other classes, crude
views are to be met with as to the deeper things of Nature; but
that the life-long beliefs of Newton, of Faraday, and of Maxwell,
are inconsistent with the scientific habit of mind, is surely a
proposition which I need not pause to refute.
And when from authority we turn to the line of argument adopted by those
who would impugn that upon which Theists rely, and who reject the idea
of an intelligent First Cause either as superfluous, or as incapable of
verification, we find but two courses one or other of which they feel
themselves compelled to adopt, although it is not very easy to
understand the state of mind which can rest satisfied with either.
Some, on the one hand, frankly admit that Science has not by her own
proper methods discovered any ultimate principle of things, and never
will. But on that very account, they maintain, this ultimate principle,
whatever it may be, must remain utterly unknown to us--for we can never
_know_ anything except by the methods of Science. Accordingly, although
the theistic hypothesis would confessedly furnish such an explanation as
is lacking, we must not adopt it because we cannot test it
experimentally.
And yet in ordinary life we have no difficulty in arguing from effect to
cause in just the same manner, and satisfying ourselves of the existence
of what we can as little touch or see as the First Cause itself. Thus we
are convinced of the genius of Shakespeare and Napoleon, and that there
was a difference between the character of Robespierre and that of Howard
the Philanthropist. But no man ever saw or touched either genius or
character, which can be known only by their results. It is by inference
far less legitimate that those proceed who, like Haeckel, seek in the
forces of Nature themselves an explanation of phenomena which, as we
know them, they are wholly incapable of producing. Instead of arguing
that a cause must therefore exist which is beyond Nature, but whose
character our own experience enables us in some measure, and
analogically, to learn, these philosophers start with the assumption
that no such cause is possible, and then proceed to draw the consequence
that the condition of Nature must once have been totally different from
what it actually is, enabling her forces to produce results which no
experience of any sort indicates as possible.
Those who adopt such an attitude of nescience, and in the proper sense
of the word are termed Agnostics, find themselves compelled accordingly
to leave their system in the air, with no basis more solid than the
elephant and tortoise on which Hindoo astronomers rested the world. They
must ignore the fundamental principle of Causation, from which we
started our present enquiry, and in consequence it is impossible that
their systems should, as Professor Weismann says, satisfy our
intellectual needs.
Others, on the other hand, declare that the Theistic hypothesis must be
dismissed, because a better has been found, Science having discovered
within her own sphere an effectual substitute for the supposed First
Cause. When we enquire what this may be, we are told that it is the "Law
of Substance," or "Evolution," or "Nature" herself, or an "Infinite
Eternal Energy unknown and unknowable," but devoid of intellect and
will--or "Monism," or some other similar abstraction which can represent
no idea at all, unless--as often happens--it be clad in the robes of its
rival, and credited with the very powers and attributes denied to the
First Cause, so as to become practically the same thing under another
and misleading name. Regarding this point there will be more to be said
presently. Here, it will be sufficient to note that this is in truth the
only meaning which can be attached to much of the language of so-called
scientific writers.
Who [asks Mr. Wollaston][153] is this Nature ... who has such
tremendous power, and to whose efficiency such marvellous
performances are ascribed? What are her image and attributes when
dragged from her wordy lurking-place? Is she aught but a pestilent
abstraction, like dust cast in our eyes to obscure the workings of
an intelligent First Cause?
So at the end of his life Clerk-Maxwell characteristically observed,
that he had studied many queer religions and philosophies, but had
found none of them that would work without God concealed somewhere.
Finally, a warning uttered by Lord Rayleigh in the address quoted above
must not be forgotten. After acknowledging that "unfortunately" there
are writers speaking in her name who have set themselves to foster the
prevailing belief that Science necessarily tends towards materialism, he
thus continued:
It would be easy, however, to lay too much stress upon the opinions
of even such distinguished workers as these. Men who devote their
lives to investigation cultivate a love of truth for its own sake,
and endeavour instinctively to clear up, and not, as is too often
the object in business and politics, to obscure, a difficult
question. So far the opinion of a scientific worker may have a
special value; but I do not think that he has a claim superior to
that of other educated men, to assume the attitude of a prophet. In
his heart he knows that underneath the theories that he constructs
there lie contradictions which he cannot reconcile. The higher
mysteries of being, if penetrable at all by the human intellect,
require other weapons than those of calculation and experiment.
XII
PURPOSE AND CHANCE
An objection is no doubt awaiting us which many consider absolutely
fatal to the argument for purpose or design in nature, as above
presented. That argument, it will be said, rests entirely upon the
assumption that the sole alternative to Purpose is _Chance_, an
assumption which, if not dishonest, betrays ignorance scarcely less
discreditable: for men of science constantly warn us that there is no
such thing as Chance,--that every occurrence in nature, one as much as
another, testifies to the uniformity and regularity of natural
causation,--and that if we speak of any phenomenon being due to Chance,
this term is but a conventional symbol signifying that we do not know
what caused it.
Amongst those who take up this position, which is well-nigh universal,
no better representative need be sought than Professor Huxley, who
treated the point formally, and was manifestly well satisfied with his
performance. We have already heard him declare belief in Chance to be an
absurdity of which none but parsons could be guilty, a class in which he
clearly conceived the low-water-mark of intelligence to be reached. On
another occasion,[154] he set himself expressly to the exposure of what
he described as, "The most singular of the, perhaps immortal, fallacies,
which live on, Tithonus-like, when sense and force have long deserted
them."
Probably the best answer [he writes] to those who talk of Darwinism
meaning the reign of "Chance," is to ask them what they themselves
understand by "Chance." Do they believe that anything in this
universe happens without reason or without a cause? Do they really
conceive that any event has no cause, and could not have been
predicted by any one who had a sufficient insight into the order of
Nature? If they do, it is they who are the inheritors of antique
superstition and ignorance, and whose minds have never been
illumined by a ray of scientific thought.
As an object lesson for his enlightenment, the Professor bids one of
these benighted folk betake himself to the sea-shore on which a heavy
storm is breaking; and having painted a rather elaborate word-picture of
the scene, he thus continues:
Surely here, if anywhere, he [the unenlightened one] will say that
chance is supreme, and bend the knee as one who has entered the
very penetralia of his divinity. But the man of science knows that
here as everywhere, perfect order is manifested; that there is not
a curve of the waves, not a note in the howling chorus, not a
rainbow-glint on a bubble, which is other than a necessary
consequence of the ascertained laws of nature; and that with a
sufficient knowledge of the conditions, competent
physico-mathematical skill could account for, and indeed predict,
every one of these "chance" events.
This, however, is mere beating of the air, having no bearing whatever
upon the question at issue; and we can only wonder that so able a man as
Huxley could thus absolutely miss the whole point, while remaining
serenely unconscious that he did so. No sane man ever entertained the
foolish notion with which he credits his man of straw. On the contrary,
it is precisely those whom he so heartily despises, that _dis_believe in
Chance, and deny it any share in the making of the world. They neither
regard Chance as a possible cause of phenomena, nor make of it a kind of
deity or fetish, as some appear inclined to do with Science. Their
contention is that according to those who, with Huxley, reject the idea
of intelligent purpose, Chance would needs be introduced as a ruling
element in nature, which would be absurd. Nor in thus arguing do they
introduce any notion so irrational as that of "absolute" Chance, of
events happening without causes. But unquestionably there can be
"relative" Chance. A cause fully sufficient for the production of a
result, may have no tendency whatever to determine or direct this result
to a particular end; and if in such circumstances this end be attained
it is by Chance. In particular, should many independent results of
purely mechanical forces combine to produce a result, as intelligence
would combine them, its production can only be ascribed to Chance.
"Chance" has therefore a very real meaning. It is not a Cause, but the
absence of Cause: not of Cause altogether, but of the _determining_
Cause requisite for the production of certain results. The argument
based upon the impotence of Chance to obtain such results, is precisely
that which the most exact of all the Sciences, Mathematics, accepts and
applies in the Theory of Chances.
The answer to the question which Professor Huxley evidently deems
unanswerable is plain enough. By "Chance" is meant the concurrence,
unguided by Purpose, of independent forces to produce a definite effect.
"Chance" denotes the absence of Purpose, as "Vacuum" denotes the absence
of air; and when it is denied that certain results can come about by
chance, or fortuitously, it is as when we deny that life can be
sustained _in vacuo_. It is no positive feature or action of the vacuum
that we have in mind, for its essence is negative; but just because of
that negative character, experience has taught us, that it cannot fulfil
certain functions. In the same manner the potency of "Chance" is denied,
simply because it is not Purpose.
That there are phenomena for which "Chance" thus defined cannot account
is, surely, obvious. If a man sits down at a piano and plays "God Save
the King," no evidence in the world would persuade Professor Huxley or
any one else, that the performer had never before seen a musical
instrument, nor knew of the existence of such an air or any other, but
just put his fingers on the keys as the spirit moved him. Such a story
would be rightly felt to be absolutely incredible: and yet the notes he
produced--equally with those of the howling chorus of winds and
waves--were the necessary effects of physical causes; given that
particular strings were struck, they could not but follow. The whole
point is, however, that in this case the result is _not_ a howling
chorus, but a melody; not mere formless noise, but an orderly
composition, constructed on definite principles which our mind can
recognize. It is in regard of this particular feature of the result that
Force of itself, as we have seen, explains nothing, and that, if there
is to be any explanation at all, we must know something as to how Force
received the needful Direction or Determination.
It is only in regard of human action that we can, as in the above
instance, find an example of what may be called pure fortuity, for such
action alone can be traced up to an initial cause, namely the exercise
of Will. No one can have a right to call the action of natural forces
fortuitous; on the contrary, we have seen arguments that in the
inorganic world itself purpose must be recognized. But an action
directed by purpose to one result may be quite fortuitous in regard of
another. A man who digging a foundation for a house finds a buried
treasure, discovers this by chance. Although his action was ruled by a
most definite purpose, that purpose was not this. So again when,
according to the old story, certain Phoenician mariners finding no
stones on the sea-shore suitable for the purpose, used blocks of natron
to support their cooking-pots, and so produced glass, they were led to
the discovery by mere chance. And in like manner, however definitely the
forces of matter may be determined each to its own proper end, there are
results which if produced by them must be as purely fortuitous as such
an invention made by men who thought only of preparing their dinner. The
cable which was being laid to America having, in 1865, snapped and sunk
in mid-Atlantic, it was determined in the following year to attempt its
recovery. Meanwhile the shore-end at Valencia was still connected with
the dial-plate, on which messages had been scored between ship and shore
while the cable was intact. A telegraphist was constantly on duty,
watching the needle which was never still, being deflected hither and
thither by the earth-currents, working through the wires. On a sudden,
however, the needle spelled out the letters "Got it," and it was known
with absolute certainty that there was a man at the other end. It is no
doubt perfectly true that each previous movement had been the necessary
consequence of the force applied, just as truly as those which coincided
with the conventions of the telegraphist's alphabet; but win any one say
that such coincidence could conceivably be attributable to the forces of
magnetism alone, however exact to the laws according to which they
operate?
It must always be remembered that the question we have to discuss is,
how far Science casts any light upon such questions as the one before
us. And since "Science" is taken to mean knowledge acquired through the
observation of phenomena alone, we have at present to enquire whether
material forces, the only ones of which observation directly tells us
anything, could have produced such effects as we have considered,
otherwise than by mere "Chance"? If they could not, is it imaginable
that they produced these effects at all? And it appears obvious that
unless there be Purpose at the back of Nature, Chance must be
acknowledged as the architect of the universe.
Professor Huxley tells us, it is true, that such an idea could be
entertained by no one whose mind had ever been illumined by a ray of
scientific thought. In face of this it is rather remarkable to find that
the idea was undoubtedly entertained by Mr. Darwin, who took for granted
that to deny Purpose is to affirm Chance.
I am conscious [he wrote to Asa Gray][155] that I am in an utterly
hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is
the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing
as the result of Design.
And again:[156]
I cannot any how be contented to view this wonderful universe, and
especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is
the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as
resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or
bad, left to the working out of what we call chance. Not that this
notion _at all_ satisfies me.
Professor Haeckel too is by no means in accord on this point with his
friend Professor Huxley. He writes:[157]
One group of philosophers affirms, in accordance with the
teleological conception, that the whole cosmos is an orderly
system, in which every phenomenon has its aim and purpose; there is
no such thing as chance. The other group, holding a mechanical
theory, expresses itself thus: The development of the universe is a
monistic mechanical process, in which we discover no aim or purpose
whatever; what we call design in the organic world is a special
result of biological agencies; neither in the evolution of the
heavenly bodies nor in that of the crust of our earth do we find
any trace of a controlling purpose--all is the result of chance.
Each party is right--according to its definition of chance. The
general law of causality, taken in conjunction with the law of
substance, teaches us that every phenomenon has a mechanical cause;
in this sense there is no such thing as chance. Yet it is not only
lawful, but necessary to retain the term for the purpose of
expressing the simultaneous occurrence of two phenomena, which are
not causally related to each other, but of which each has its own
mechanical cause independent of the other. Everybody knows that
chance, in this monistic sense, plays an important part in the life
of man and in the universe at large. That, however, does not
prevent us from recognizing in each "chance" event, as we do in the
evolution of the entire cosmos, the universal sovereignty of
nature's supreme law, _the law of substance_.
There is a good deal here which is less clear in the way of argument
than could be wished. The famous _Law of Substance_, as we have seen,
has two articles: The indestructibility of matter, and the conservation
of energy. What light either of these principles may be supposed to shed
on such questions as the adaptation of organs to their functions is by
no means obvious. To say that there is no design in the organic world,
because it is a special result of biological agencies,--is quite of a
piece with the contention which has actually been made, that we can no
longer argue to Design, with Paley, from the analogy of a watch, since
"nearly every part of a watch is now made by inanimate machinery."[158]
Thus much, however, is perfectly clear: the competence of Chance is
recognized to originate a world like ours, and to enable Nature, as
Professor Clifford says, seemingly to answer our questionings with an
intelligence akin to our own.
It would thus appear that when Newton asks,--Was the eye fashioned
without knowledge of the laws of light, or the ear, without knowledge of
those of sound?--we are to answer in the affirmative, and to say that
such organs are but special results of biological agencies, under the
general management of the Law of Substance.
That such a reply cannot with any truth be termed scientific is
plain--for it touches matters which by her own acknowledgment Science
cannot reach;--nor does it seem probable that this kind of talk would
convince anybody, were there nothing more. Undoubtedly those who
persuade themselves that the Order of the Universe can be sufficiently
explained without introducing the idea of purpose or design, are
influenced by other considerations than these.
(1) With some it is the argument, which appears chiefly to have weighed
with Mr. Darwin, who constantly speaks of it as the great obstacle to
that belief in Design which the marvels of the universe would otherwise
necessitate. This he based on certain features in Nature which appeared
to him incompatible with the work of a beneficent Author, mainly the
existence of suffering amongst animals in whose case it cannot be
supposed to subserve any purpose of moral benefit. As he wrote to Asa
Gray:[159]
I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should
wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us.
There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade
myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly
created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their
feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat
should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in
the belief that the eye was expressly designed.
Such a mode of meeting the arguments for Design, though only indirect,
undoubtedly deserves serious consideration, touching as it does the
darkest of all mysteries--the Origin of Evil. It is clear, however, that
in Mr. Darwin's case, and probably in that of many others, its effect
was due in no slight degree to imagination rather than to reason. He
picks out one or two instances of seeming cruelty in Nature, as though
they were something exceptional, and appears to imply that they create
an obstacle to a belief which Nature as a whole almost forces upon him.
In reality, the same sort of thing goes on everywhere. Animal life from
beginning to end is a record of rapine and slaughter, as Tennyson
declared in a verse too trite to bear quotation. The most petted of pet
dogs has no more compunction than a tiger in worrying creatures weaker
than itself, and a robin-redbreast takes far more lives daily than does
a sparrow-hawk. But to draw from these facts such large conclusions--is
quite another matter. Can we imagine that we are qualified by the
fulness of our knowledge to pronounce judgment and declare that there
can be no good end where we fail to perceive one? As Mr. Darwin admits
in the very same passage: "I feel most deeply that the whole subject is
too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on
the mind of Newton."
How much is there in the actions of persons much lowlier than Newton
which to the most intelligent of animals, dogs, elephants, or monkeys,
could they speculate at all, must seem wholly devoid of sense;--as for
instance that men should spend such continual labour in digging and
ploughing. So again, in his famous lecture on Coal, Professor Huxley
depicts what might have been the reflections of a giant reptile of the
Carboniferous Epoch, suggested by the seemingly senseless waste of
nature's powers in the production of the primeval forests, that have
furnished the coal measures, to which so much of our progress and
civilization is directly due.
And, after all, given the universal law of death for all living things,
it would hardly appear that we can assure ourselves that any attendant
circumstance constitutes a greater evil--as Mr. Darwin's argument seems
to assume; and yet, it does not appear ever to have been argued that
there can be no purpose in Nature since no organic life endures for
ever. Most probably, if we knew enough, we should plainly see that
nothing could be more cruel than to have omitted the carnivora from
creation, leaving herbivorous animals to multiply till they starved one
another to death, or at least to perish of senile decay far more
painfully than under the fangs of tigers and wolves. Instances might
moreover be quoted which serve to remind us how impossible it is rightly
to estimate the true character of suffering amongst creatures altogether
different from ourselves. Thus when, as eye-witnesses report, young
scorpions clinging to their mother devour her alive, scientifically
avoiding as long as possible all vital parts and mortal wounds--we are
inclined to consider them monsters of wickedness, and their parent as a
model of motherly devotion, whose sufferings cannot be less horrible
than those of a caterpillar similarly eaten by the ichneumon grub. But
we cannot with any reason impute more moral blame to the young
scorpions, than to the lambkins which draw sustenance from their dams in
another fashion which we find touching and poetical; while as for the
mother--who doubtless treated her own parent in just the same
fashion--she exhibits no symptom to show that she resents her
offsprings' advances, any more than does the ewe, but on the contrary
has her sting ever ready for any one who would interfere with them.
(2) It is a still more common objection to the doctrine of purpose
everywhere in Nature, that such an idea is negatived by the continuity
and uniformity of natural laws, precluding the notion of constant
interference by another, supernatural, Agent. But this objection is
based upon an entire misconception. No one imagines such intervention,
or that purpose guides nature as a pilot guides a ship by repeated
orders to the man at the wheel. Undoubtedly the reign of law in nature
is uninterrupted, but in that law purpose is interwoven as the
controlling element; just as the mind of Homer governs the hand of every
printer who sets up type for a new edition of the _Iliad_.
(3) Finally, there is the argument, already alluded to, that inasmuch as
the most complex structures are daily transmitted under our eyes by
generation, we have evidence that nature can produce them from her own
resources, and by the operation of a merely natural law, such as no one
doubts generation to be.
Such an argument, it is evident, merely begs the question at issue,
offering as it does no explanation, or suggestion, as to how a power so
marvellous was acquired. It would be equally philosophical to argue that
there is nothing wonderful about the genius of a great poet because we
confidently anticipate that it will be exhibited in the next piece he
produces.
It is likewise clear that, here again, imagination rather than reason
furnishes the argument. In the first place, were there nothing else, no
explanation whatever would thus be afforded as to how the structures in
question were first produced, before they could be transmitted. And,
secondly, which is still more important, generation--far from furnishing
an explanation of anything--introduces us to mysteries yet more
inscrutable than any we have yet encountered, and to problems which
seem to admit of no possible solution apart from, not only Purpose, but
transcendent Power.
Doubtless the propagation of life is ruled by natural law, but how such
law effects its object we understand immeasurably less than we
understand the flight of birds or butterflies. As a recent writer
reminds us,[160] what is transmitted from parents to offspring "is not a
new form or structure, but only the _potentiality_ of such a new form:
which, in suitable circumstances, builds _itself_ up out of surrounding
inorganic and organic material." As Lord Grimthorpe expresses the same
truth:[161]
If we suppose an apple-tree to have once grown somehow, and to have
somehow got power to produce seeds, that would not produce any more
apple-trees, unless the seeds, and all the adjacent atoms that are
wanted, had the power and the will to combine and grow into another
apple-tree. The first hen that laid an egg performed a wonderful
feat enough, but it would have done no good unless the atoms of the
egg also knew and resolved what to do to turn themselves into a
chicken. Yet spontaneous evolutionists are in the habit of slurring
over generation as a thing too "natural," and therefore too easy
and simple to require explanation.
The continual operation of a law such as this, certainly does not remove
mysteries, nor make it more easy to understand how the order and the
marvels of the universe can rationally be attributed to Chance rather
than to Design, according to "this new philosophy of effects without
causes and laws without a lawgiver."[162] For "fortuitous" means, as
Professor Case has well observed,[163] not the accidental, as opposed to
the regular laws of nature, but the spontaneous necessity of nature, as
opposed to the voluntary designs of intelligence. Nor is it only in the
organic world that we find the need of such a factor to explain
phenomena; for it is throughout more essential than any other force to
account for Nature as we find her--in such a manner as to satisfy the
logical demands of our mind. We learn as little from observation and
experiment as to the fundamental laws of matter,--gravitation, for
instance, which Faraday and Herschel termed "the mystery of mysteries,"
or chemical affinities, or the nature of Ether--as concerning anything
in organic nature; though in the latter we undoubtedly mount to a higher
plane of mysteriousness. And in either case we could learn nothing
whatever,--that is to say, Science would be wholly impossible,--did we
not find natural phenomena respond to our enquiries with what seems an
intelligence akin to our own. And accordingly it appears but
reasonable,--that is to say, truly scientific,--to exclaim as did even
Diderot--"Quoi! le monde formé prouverait moins une intelligence que le
monde expliqué!"
XIII
MONISM
All systems of philosophy that reject the idea of an intelligent First
Cause, which alone is self-existent, and whose being is of a higher
order than that of aught else,--base their denial on the assumption that
no such distinction of nature either exists or is possible,--that there
is but one reality, namely the substance whereof the sensible world
consists,--that this has always existed with the same forces it has now,
and that it is the source of all phenomena. This assumption of the
unreality of whatever is beyond the scope of sense, which has ever been
at the bottom of materialistic systems, is now elaborately formulated as
a creed, declared by Professor Haeckel and his following to be the only
creed which science can tolerate. This is termed _Monism_,--from the
Greek Mónos, "single," and is opposed to _Dualism_, or the
doctrine that there are two orders of being, or two distinct substances,
material and spiritual.[164]
According to monistic teaching, therefore, there exists but one _Thing_,
that which we usually call Matter, but might equally well call
Mind,--for all phenomena whatever, whether mental or material, are but
various shapes which it assumes, exhibiting diverse aspects of itself.
Thus all the objects which appear to have a being of their own,--as the
globe we inhabit, the furniture of earth and heaven, we ourselves,--are
but the forms momentarily assumed by this protean entity in its
ceaseless transfigurations, and have no more existence of their own than
the ripples on a pool of water or the faces we see in the fire. It
follows that when the particular phase of this basic substance is ended
which brings us into being, (or rather which we _are_,) we like
everything else, sink into blank nothing,--so that the mighty dead whom
nations honour, or the loved ones whose memory we cherish, are blotted
out of existence as utterly as the days and nights which made up the
span of their lives. But amongst its permutations and combinations this
solitary reality can produce the phenomena which we call thought, just
as much as those which we call motion, and accordingly the _Aeneid_ or
_Hamlet_ is its work, a mechanical product of evolution, no less than a
seam of coal, or an eclipse of the moon.
Such, in outline, is the philosophical system which commends itself, as
Professor Haeckel assures us,[165] to all men of science, who combine
the necessary conditions, of scientific knowledge, mental acumen, moral
courage, and intellectual independence. It may be rightly described as
materialistic pantheism; for while, according to it, everything is
equally divine, in the only sense in which anything can be so,
everything is likewise equally material, as falling under the category
of what we know as matter, and within the direct cognizance of physical
science.
Accurately to sketch a doctrine such as this is a task of no slight
difficulty. It undoubtedly contradicts the instinctive teaching of our
consciousness, so that, as Professor Haeckel admits[166] in the
primitive stages of both religion and philosophy Monism is unknown.
Moreover, even those who most loudly profess it, have by no means as yet
succeeded in realizing their own system, and after having from time to
time formally enunciated its articles, proceed forthwith to ignore them,
and in the staple of their discourse speak like other men in terms which
have no meaning if the tenets of their creed have any. As a natural
result their exposition of monistic doctrine is not very easy of
apprehension, but it seems to be not unfairly reflected in the above
summary.
Professor Haeckel himself thus expounds "that unifying conception of
nature as a whole which we designate in a single word as Monism."[167]
By this we unambiguously express our conviction that there lives
"one spirit in all things," and that the whole cognizable world is
constituted, and has been developed, in accordance with one common
fundamental law. We emphasize by it, in particular, the essential
unity of inorganic and organic nature, the latter having been
evolved from the former only at a comparatively late period. We
cannot draw a sharp line of distinction between these two great
divisions of nature, any more than we can recognize an absolute
distinction between the animal and the vegetable kingdom, or
between the lower animals and man. Similarly, we regard the whole
of human knowledge as a structural unity; in this sphere we refuse
to accept the distinction usually drawn between the natural and the
spiritual. The latter is only a part of the former (or _vice
versâ_); both are one. Our monistic view of the world belongs,
therefore, to that group of philosophical systems which from other
points of view have been designated also as mechanical or as
pantheistic.
More concisely and clearly, Professor Romanes tells us:[168]
Mental phenomena and physical phenomena, although apparently
diverse, are really identical.
And in a work recently issued for the express purpose of expounding and
diffusing the new gospel, we read:[169]
Just as the same particles of matter may at one time form parts of
a rose, and at another time parts of a mushroom, so the same force
may at one time strike a church as lightning, and at another time
may be the mother-love that rocks the cradle.
If such conceptions are not easy to grasp, there can be no doubt as to
the practical conclusions to which they lead. We have already heard from
Professor Haeckel that human freedom is an utter delusion. We have
likewise seen that the only term in prospect is utter annihilation,
which Professor Haeckel endeavours to persuade us is the consummation we
ought to wish.
"The best we can desire," he says,[170] "after a courageous life, spent
in doing good according to our light, is the eternal peace of the grave.
'Lord give them an eternal rest.'"
It is evident however that in order to secure such a reward it is not
necessary to show any courage, or attempt any sort of good-work, for
according to him it equally awaits the most selfish and abandoned
voluptuary.
Finally,[171]
At our death there disappears only the individual form in which the
nerve-substance was fashioned, and the personal "soul" which
represented the work performed by this. The complicated chemical
combinations of that nervous mass pass over into other
combinations--by decomposition, and the kinetic energy produced by
them is transformed into other forms of nature.
Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away, etc.--
* * * * *
which lines others besides Haeckel are fond of quoting on this subject
as if they had any possible connexion with it. It would be more to the
point, and far more interesting, were some indication afforded of the
chemical equivalent of the qualities which made Cæsar imperial, or those
which distinguished the author of the above lines from the bards of our
Music Halls. That, when a man is no more, his material part may serve
various material purposes, is no more than was known to the first savage
who made a drum with his enemy's skin, or used his skull for a
drinking-cup.
As has been said, the Monistic philosophy claims to be above all things
scientific, and upon this ground are we bidden to accept it. But what is
the meaning of this claim? The one argument, apart from mere assertion,
brought to show that spirit is not distinct from matter, is drawn from
the part undoubtedly played by the brain in the process of thought,
though we see far less in this, as in other connexions, than the
assertions made by unscientific writers might lead us to imagine. But
when all this is most fully acknowledged can it be said that the state
of the question is changed from what it was? To listen to Monists, it
might be supposed that the intimate connexion between soul and body is
a new discovery, undreamt of in former ages,--and that we have now
arrived at a demonstration that it is our material part that actually
does our thinking. But, as a matter of fact, like other fundamental
questions, this is exactly as it has ever been, and so far as Science is
concerned, we are just as much in the dark respecting it as men ever
were. Though the philosophers of former days were unaware of all the
departmental details of brain activity, they understood as well as we do
the essential point, that in our composite nature soul and body form
_one_ being, whose every operation is of mixed character like itself.
The soul alone is the intelligent principle, yet all objects of
knowledge must come to it through sense, and in the senses it can be
reached only by the mechanical media of light, or sound, or touch. So
firm was their grip of this principle that the Schoolmen styled the soul
the "substantial form" of the body, and in their mouth this term
expressed a union more essential and intimate than modern philosophers
can perhaps imagine.
And, on the other hand, have all the results of modern research brought
anything to light which tends to show that matter can by any possibility
_think_? We are assured on the contrary, upon unimpeachable authority,
that however we may succeed in tracing the mechanical processes of
sensation to their furthest limit, it remains absolutely inconceivable
to us how the gulf is crossed that lies between this and rational
perception. So Professor Tyndall tells us:[172]
The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding
facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite
thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur
simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor
apparently any rudiments of an organ, which would enable us to pass
by a process of reasoning from one to the other. They appear
together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so
expanded as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the
brain, were we capable of following all their motions, all their
groupings and electrical discharges, if such there be, and were we
intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and
feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the
problem--"How are these physical processes connected with the facts
of consciousness?" The chasm between the two classes remains still
intellectually impassable.
With these views Professor Huxley[173] expresses his agreement, and
although he contrives to confuse the issue very considerably, as is not
unusual when he undertakes to philosophize, he lays down in the clearest
possible terms that nothing whatever is _known_ as to the connexion of
mechanical processes with thought, whence it follows that on this point
Science has nothing to tell us.
"I really know nothing whatever [he writes] and never hope to know
anything, of the steps by which the passage from molecular movement to
states of consciousness is effected."
It should be needless to repeat that if nothing is known regarding all
this, it is mere charlatanism to pretend that Science tells us anything
about it, and those who make such assertions use words to which no
meaning can attach. Unfortunately such a practice is far from uncommon
in connexion with these questions. What sense can there be conceivable
in the well-known materialistic doctrine that the brain secretes
thought, just as the proper organs secrete bile or saliva? Bile and
saliva are material substances, with a definite chemical constitution,
each adapted to one definite function. But, Thought! It would be as
intelligible to talk of secreting the British Constitution, the Steam
Engine, and the Differential Calculus.
So much for the sole basis of Monistic argument. When we turn to some
other considerations it certainly becomes no easier to understand the
claim of Monism to be scientific. In the first place, as we have seen,
in order to furnish the system with any semblance of truth, it has been
found necessary to attribute to the ultimate elements of matter
qualities which all our experience denies them; for Professor Haeckel
has told us that "the two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable
matter and ether, are not dead, and only moved by extrinsic force, but
they are endowed with sensation and will." Of such attributes, and that
of self-mobility, it is unnecessary to add anything to what has been
said already. Assuredly nothing can look less like the great ultimate
reality, of whose ceaseless metamorphoses, we are but a flitting phase,
than the material substances with which we can do what we like,
investigating their laws, exploring their constitution, and setting them
tasks which we know exactly how they will accomplish.
Another point in the same connexion is no less important. What is this
one _Thing_, this Ultimate and Solitary Self-existent Reality, from
which Monism takes its title? Professor Haeckel has told us of two
fundamental forms of substance,--ponderable matter and ether. These he
evidently supposes, as his creed requires, to be radically the same: but
what right has he to take such a supposition for a fact? and unless this
unity be a fact, what becomes of Monism? What has Science ever
discovered that can justify any one in speaking of Ether and Matter as
one and the same? How, then, can a theory that assumes their identity be
termed "scientific?"
Or, leaving Ether alone, "that half-discovered entity," as Lord
Salisbury styled it on a famous occasion, and restricting our attention
to ponderable matter, concerning which we know a little more,--how can
even this be spoken of as "One"? As we have seen already it is only by a
figure of speech that the term "Matter" can be used at all. It stands
not for a single thing, but for countless millions and billions of
atoms, dispersed through space, some of one kind some of another, no one
of which can be imagined to owe its existence or its properties to any
other. To say that matter is self-existent is to say that every several
atom is self-existent. If this be so, and if this be the ultimate
Reality,--then there are as many first principles, or first causes, as
there are atoms. Yet none of these could do anything to the purpose
towards the evolution of anything, without the concurrence of a
multitude of others, nor would such concurrence be possible but for the
reign of law, which none of them can have instituted, but to which all
alike are subject. Were matter the great reality, even matter composed
of "animated atoms," the term _Monism_ would be sadly out of keeping,
and should yield its place to _Myriadism_. If, on the other hand, there
_is_ a unifying principle amid such diversity, this it must be which can
control and direct all to one end.
It is undoubtedly hard to understand how the First Principle of all
things can be supposed to consist of Atoms, but this is one of the
perplexities in which monistic doctrines abound. That atoms _are_, so
far as we know, the ultimate constituents of the Fundamental Reality,
Professor Haeckel admits. It is true, he adds, that our knowledge of
these ultimate elements is still far from satisfying, and he likewise
anticipates that atoms will someday be discovered not really to be
ultimate, but forms of something, more primal still.
Although [he says][174] Monism is on the one hand for us an
indispensable and fundamental conception in science, and although,
on the other hand, it strives to carry back all phenomena, without
exception, to the mechanism of the atom, we must nevertheless still
admit that as yet we are by no means in a position to form any
satisfactory conception of the exact nature of these atoms, and
their relation to the general space-filling, universal ether.
Chemistry long ago succeeded in reducing all the various natural
substances to combinations of a relatively small number of
elements; and the most recent advances of that science have made it
in the highest degree probable that these elements ... are
themselves in turn only different combinations of a varying number
of atoms of one single original element. But in all this we have
not as yet obtained any further light as to the real nature of
these original atoms or their primal energies.
From which it is clear, that, while the considerations above presented
lose none of their force, the Monistic system, by the avowal of its
chief apostle, is based on complete ignorance concerning all which could
furnish it with a foundation.
But by far the most serious consideration yet remains. If, according to
Monistic teaching men are but bubbles on the surface of reality, and are
inevitably carried as it wills,--there is an end of all distinction
between good and evil, right and wrong, merit and guilt. One man, or one
line of conduct, is as good, or as bad, as another, being all equally
the products of Evolution, and aspects of the great Monistic
principle;--"Jack the Ripper," and Socrates, Messalina and Queen
Victoria, Chief Justice Scroggs and Sir Thomas More, are none of them in
any possible sense one whit better or worse than the others,--inasmuch
as they all did but act as puppets actuated by one and the same
original, playing its own part in them all.
And in like manner as regards Truth. It must follow that a man's
beliefs, like his actions, are as much beyond his own control as his
stature or the colour of his hair. If Professor Haeckel calls Monism
supreme wisdom, and I call it nonsense, we are equally right, for each
is the mouthpiece of the same one all-embracing first-principle. What
each believes is the only thing possible for him to believe, and, so far
as he is concerned, is the only truth.
But here comes in a perplexity. If such be the case, if there be no
Free-will, and no possibility whatever of doing or believing anything
but what is predetermined for us as a necessary part of our
being,--where is the sense of all the strenuous efforts that are being
made to convert the people to a belief which, according to its own
principles, nothing in the world can make them accept, unless nothing in
the world can prevent them from accepting it? What again is the meaning
of organizations, such as we hear of, for giving ethical instruction to
the young on a Monistic and determinist basis? What can be the possible
sense of giving ethical lectures to young people, if it is really
believed that the course of each is marked out for him more rigorously
than the path of a city omnibus? "If" said Professor Paul Darnley in Mr.
Mallock's clever satire,--"If we would be solemn, and high, and happy,
and heroic, and saintly, we have but to strive and struggle to do what
we cannot for an instant avoid doing,"--namely, conform to the laws of
matter. If Monists were to limit their aspirations to this, their
teaching would at least be intelligible. It ceases to be so, when they
feel compelled to graft on their Monistic stock the Dualistic notions of
Right and Wrong, Truth and Error. But, as Dr. Johnson said respecting
Free-will, no one ever believes the arguments on the other side, however
loudly he may profess to do so. And in the same way it is quite clear
that no Monist can get himself really to accept Monism.[175]
XIV
ORGANIC EVOLUTION
We have now considered the question of Evolution in the larger and more
fundamental signification of the term to which, as we noted at starting,
very different meanings are attached; and at this stage of our
discussion it will be convenient to sum up the main conclusions at which
we have arrived.
It is, in the first place, unwarrantable to pretend that the discoveries
of modern Science, brilliant and marvellous as they undoubtedly are,
have thrown any light upon the origin of the Material Universe, or of
its forces, or of the laws according to which its operations proceed.
Nor has Science anything to tell as to the origin of life, of sensation,
or of reason. Nothing as yet discovered by her, or which she can discern
any prospect of discovering, adds aught to our knowledge regarding such
points as these.
Therefore, to say that the doctrine of Evolution as affirmed by Science,
explains the existence of the world we know, is untrue and unscientific.
Moreover, we have seen that, as a factor without which the Order of
Nature is unintelligible, the First Cause to which her existence is
owing must be possessed of Intelligence, determining her processes
according to its purposes. Hence it follows that no system of philosophy
satisfies our reason which would find the ultimate explanation of all
things in the forces of matter themselves which it is the province of
Science to investigate.
On the other hand, in maintaining that Purpose must needs have acted, we
do not assume to pronounce as to the manner of its action. To say that
Purpose rules every detail in the making or development of the universe,
does not by any means signify that it interferes at every step with the
laws of Nature. Rather, these laws are the expression of Purpose,--its
machinery to secure its designed result. Assuming, for instance, the
primeval existence of Professor Huxley's cosmic nebula, so constituted
that the actual world was bound naturally to issue from it, as does a
chicken from an egg, or an oak from an acorn,--while we find it
inconceivable that such a piece of mechanism should originate without an
intelligence to design it,--we have no difficulty in supposing that
intelligence to have exhibited itself once for all at the first
beginning, and to have fashioned the actual world by shaping the causes
or conditions by which it was to be produced, thus making everything,
not directly and immediately but as St. Augustine held "_causaliter et
seminaliter_."
* * * * *
There remains for consideration Evolution in its narrower sense, in
which its operations are restricted to organic nature, such Evolution
being commonly, but incorrectly, identified with "Darwinism." Understood
thus, "Evolution" signifies no more than that the various species of
animals and plants have descended _genetically_ one from another,
through a graduated series of intermediate forms which link them
together. _Darwinism_ is one particular mode of explaining how such
transformations may be accounted for,--namely, by what is known as
"Natural Selection." The theory of Evolution, as thus concerned with
Organic life in particular, is compendiously described as
"Transformism," under which head Darwinism is evidently included.
Transformism makes no pretence to account for the origin of life,
whether animal or vegetable. Living things must exist before any
question arises as to their transmutation. But, given the existence of
life, Transformists undertake in the first place to show that Organic
Evolution has, as a matter of fact, occurred, and is still in process of
occurrence; and secondly, to exhibit the manner in which this process is
actually worked out. As to the first point, all Transformists, whether
Darwinians or others, are necessarily at one, for the fact of Evolution
is equally essential for every explanation of its method. It is when
they come to explain in what manner evolutionary transformations have
been wrought that Transformists divide themselves into various schools,
each of which relies upon some particular factor to furnish the required
explanation. Thus besides Darwinians pure and simple, there are
neo-Darwinians, Lamarckians, neo-Lamarckians, Weismannists, and others,
ascribing the results to physiological selection, sexual-selection, or
other forces, rather than natural selection. Of such systems, however,
excepting only Darwinism, it will be unnecessary to speak in particular.
The great fundamental question is whether genetic Evolution be really
established as a fact,--which, as has been said, equally affects them
all--and if it be advisable to treat more in detail of Darwinism, it is
not because this does not hold good of it as of the rest--but because
this particular system has obtained such a position, is so much in the
mouths of men, and has been made the basis of so many and such
far-reaching consequences, that it is impossible to pass it by.
Much the same may indeed be said even of the assumed fact of Organic
Evolution underlying all Transformist theories. This does not affect the
fundamental problems with which we are concerned, and leaving untouched,
as it does, the question of the origin of Life it makes even less
pretence than the cosmic-nebular hypothesis just spoken of to trace the
operations of Nature to their ultimate source. It might therefore appear
superfluous to devote to it so much attention as, if treated at all, it
must needs demand.
But, whatever may thus appear from the point of view of strict logic, it
is abundantly evident that in common estimation the assumed fact of
Organic transformation is the foundation-stone of Evolutionary systems
of every kind. And not unnaturally; for here at last we have something
with which Science can deal, strictly according to her own methods. If
she knows, and can know, nothing from actual observation concerning the
first beginnings of matter, of the cosmic nebula, or of life, it is
quite otherwise with the history of living things since they first
appeared, and with the phenomena of life as it exists and is propagated.
Here are questions which are strictly scientific, forming the
subject-matter of Palæontology and Biology, and these Sciences
supplemented by others, such as Geology, Physical Geography, and
Astronomy, furnish a mass of evidence bearing upon the subject of
Organic Evolution. When therefore the great majority of men of Science,
declare that the fact of genetic Transformism is established beyond the
possibility of doubt, Evolutionists find themselves supplied with a
plausible foothold on which to stand and rest their fulcrum, while, like
Archimedes, they proceed to move the world.
That men of Science generally thus agree, cannot be questioned, and
although this agreement is by no means so universal as is popularly
supposed, there is no doubt that were the question to be settled by
enumeration of the authorities on either side, Transformism would win
easily. It may also be freely acknowledged, that Transformism in general
and Darwinism in particular are theories to which on _à priori_ grounds
no exception need be taken, and that, so far at least as concerns their
general scope, apart from the origin of Man, no one can reasonably
start with a prepossession against them. Nay, we will go farther, and
say that to our way of thinking it appears immensely more probable, that
things should always have gone on as they go on now, by the operation of
the same natural laws, and that specific forms should have been
naturally produced, as individuals of a species are produced now, by
generation,--rather than that not only repeated acts of specific
creation, but any operations totally different from those we witness,
should have occurred to interrupt, and as we should judge, to mar, the
Law of Continuity.
All this is true. But we are engaged on a scientific enquiry,--and if
there be one principle more than another upon which Science insists, it
is that we should prove all things, not by authority, but by
evidence,--and that we should seek evidence, not in pre-conceived ideas
as to what should be, but in observation of what is. Accordingly, while
we are most ready to accept Transformism or Darwinism should we find
solid reasons for doing so, we are bound, for the sake of Science, to
demand unimpeachable proofs before subscribing to doctrines which are
made responsible for so much.
* * * * *
Before proceeding farther it will be necessary to exhibit more in detail
the exact character of the question we have to discuss.
According to the celebrated "Formula" of Mr. Herbert Spencer--"Evolution
is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion;
during which the matter passes from a relatively indefinite, incoherent
homogeneity, to a relatively definite, coherent heterogeneity; and
during which the contained motion undergoes a parallel transformation."
It would be interesting to know what idea this definition conveys to
many of those who are in the habit of quoting it, but, so far as organic
Evolution is concerned, it must mean that whereas in the earlier and
lower forms of life one organ performed many different functions in an
imperfect manner, evolutionary development has gradually produced higher
forms, in which each function has its special organ, by which it is more
perfectly discharged. As an extreme instance of the former condition,
the Hydra has but two organs, an outside which respires, and an inside
which digests. If it be turned inside out these functions are reversed;
the skin becoming the stomach, and the stomach the skin. Thus Evolution
has been an ascending process from the lower to the higher, from the
less to the more organized.
Such, it must be added, has undoubtedly been the course of life. Amongst
plants and animals alike, it began with lower and simpler forms, after
which succeeded in due order others more developed and elaborately
organized, the order in which they came upon the scene being much the
same as that in which we should naturally arrange their specimens in a
museum. Thus in the vegetable kingdom, first came such growths as
sea-weeds and fungi, followed by ferns and club-mosses,--yews and
pines,--and so through grasses, canes, and palms, to the highest group
in which are included our forest trees and the bulk of our garden
flowers. In like manner, the animal series,--to mention only leading
groups of which evidence is found,--starting with almost structureless
_Protozoa_, followed by such forms as starfish and sponges, worms,
molluscs and crustaceans, has advanced to vertebrate creatures--fishes,
amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals,--and finally to man.
Thus, in a quite intelligible sense, there has certainly been Evolution,
or development,--that is to say, an orderly progression from lower types
to higher, throughout the history of life on earth, from its
commencement to the present time. But, this is not the point. Was such
Evolution or development _genetic_? Was it wrought by descent with
modification of form from form? _That_ is what we have to enquire. If
this has not been so, there has been no Evolution in the sense intended
by Evolutionists.
According to their highest authority, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Evolution
means "the production of all organic forms by the accumulation of
modifications and of divergences by the addition of differences to
differences."
Beyond all question [he adds] unlikenesses of structure gradually
arise among the members of successive generations. We find that
there is going on a modifying process of the kind alleged as the
source of specific differences, a process which, though slow, does,
in time, produce changes--a process which to all appearance would
produce in millions of years any amount of changes.[176]
The Transformist doctrine is, therefore, that one species of plants or
animals, has in natural course grown out of another, through the
aggregation of changes each exceedingly minute. Darwinism adds that the
ruling principle of this process is Natural Selection. These are the
points on which our enquiry turns, and we may conveniently commence with
the second.
XV
DARWINISM
It must first be observed that special consideration of Mr. Darwin's
theory is rendered necessary even more imperatively on account of the
claims advanced on his behalf by others, than of those to which he
himself made any pretence. Without question the idea prevails almost
universally, that he has furnished a scientific explanation of all
organic phenomena through the operation of purely natural laws, and has
thus rendered obsolete the idea that any power beyond Nature is required
in order to account for the totality of things, or that there are any
features of the world which indicate the operation of intelligent
purpose.
That such ideas should be widely prevalent amongst those who, having no
special acquaintance with the subject, must depend for their knowledge
on the popularizers of Science, is scarcely wonderful, for such
teachers, with scarcely an exception, so declare, and occasionally real
men of Science lend the weight of their authority to similar
statements.
It will be sufficient to cite Professor Haeckel, who writes thus:[177]
It seemed to Kant so impossible to explain the orderly processes in
the living organism without postulating super-natural final causes
(that is, a purposive creative force) that he said, "It is quite
certain that we cannot even satisfactorily understand, much less
elucidate, the nature of an organism and its internal faculty on
purely mechanical natural principles--it is so certain, indeed,
that we may confidently say: It is absurd for a man even to
conceive the idea that some day a Newton will arise who can explain
the origin of a single blade of grass by natural laws uncontrolled
by design. Such a hope is entirely forbidden us." Seventy years
afterwards this impossible Newton of the organic world appeared in
the person of Charles Darwin, and achieved the great task that Kant
had deemed impracticable.
It is quite impossible to understand how such an assertion can be made
by any one who knows the facts. Not only did Mr. Darwin never profess to
have achieved any thing of the kind,--he repeatedly and distinctly
disclaimed and repudiated any such supposition. Thus at the very end of
his life (August 28, 1881) he wrote concerning one who had spoken of him
like Professor Haeckel:
He implies that my views explain the universe; but it is a most
monstrous exaggeration. The more one thinks, the more one feels
the hopeless immensity of man's ignorance. If we consider the whole
universe, the mind refuses to look at it as the outcome of
chance.[178] The whole question seems to me insoluble.
But it should not be necessary to appeal to such disclaimers in order to
show how absolutely unwarrantable are the pretensions made on Mr.
Darwin's behalf to have solved, or to have attempted to solve, the
fundamental problems which scientific research unceasingly suggests but
has never been able to elucidate. It should be quite sufficient to
examine his theory as it actually is, and although its scope is
immensely less ambitious than has been represented, it still occupies,
even in its genuine form, a position of sufficient importance to
challenge investigation.
Mr. Darwin's famous and epoch-making book, published in November, 1859,
was entitled _On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,
or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life_. In it
he undertook to show how from one species[179] of animals or plants,
another, quite distinct from it, may be derived by means of processes
which go on in Nature every day, through the accumulation of minute
differences occurring in successive generations, and guided to their
collective result by the force of "Natural Selection." As man, he
argues, has by means of selection been able to produce in a brief space
such astonishing varieties among his domestic animals and plants--as
dogs, pigeons, roses or apples,--Nature, with the practically unlimited
ages of geological time at her disposal, must be able to produce far
greater and more enduring transformations, through the accumulation of
minute differences, such as those upon which man has worked,--if only a
factor can be found which amid the infinity of diverse and discordant
variations spontaneously occurring, could, like the breeder or the
gardener, pick out those leading to one particular result, and thus
secure its accomplishment. Such a force Mr. Darwin conceives is found in
"Natural Selection," which he thus explains.
The tendency of organic life, whether vegetable or animal, being to
propagate itself enormously,--and the life-sustaining capacity of the
earth being limited,--it necessarily follows that only a fraction of the
creatures which are born can survive to maturity, and that while those
best fitted to live will live, those less well fitted will die. Thus,
there is set up a constant struggle for existence, in which every
advantage, however slight, must tell, so that those possessing such
advantages in one generation will be the parents of the next. But in the
course of propagation, the offspring never exactly reproduce the parent
form, from which they vary, some in one way some in another, and as some
of these variations cannot help being advantageous to their possessors
in the struggle, we have here the required factor for the production of
new forms. Any thus beneficially equipped, (although the variation, and
consequently the advantage, must in each instance be exceedingly
slight,) will have the chances on their side against their less favoured
fellows, whom in the long run they will supplant. And as their
offspring, or some of them, will carry the profitable variation somewhat
further, the stream of life will thus be set in such a direction as will
ultimately bring about what might at first appear impossible
metamorphoses.
Thus, to take a simple and favourite illustration,[180] winged insects
inhabiting an island far from other land, are liable to be blown out to
sea and drowned. It is in consequence, an advantage to them to have
their power of flight curtailed, or taken away, and consequently in such
situations their wings are generally found to be so reduced as to permit
little or even nothing in the way of flying. Or to take an example of
another kind,[181] the extraordinary length of neck which characterizes
the giraffe enables it to browse on the higher branches of trees
inaccessible to other vegetable feeders, and thus gives it an advantage
over them in times of drought and scarcity of fodder. It can accordingly
be easily understood, how its present structure has resulted from
gradual elongations of the neck, each conferring on its possessor a
slight advantage.
The work attributed to Natural Selection in such instances, though no
doubt highly important, is comparatively facile, and it would be
difficult to say that it could not be accomplished. But Mr. Darwin
ascribes to the same factor, not merely such modification of existing
structures, but the creation of entirely new mechanisms for specific
purposes. We have, for instance, heard his description of the eye and
its manifold "inimitable contrivances:" yet all these, he persuaded
himself, might be thus accounted for. The idea, he confessed,[182] seems
at first sight preposterous; yet, though not without much
difficulty,[183] he succeeded in convincing himself, that given the
rudest and most rudimentary form of eye to start with--no more than a
nerve sensitive to light but incapable of forming an image--Natural
Selection might develop therefrom, through an infinite series of
gradations the inconceivably complex machine that is now found in the
higher vertebrates,[184] and the totally different but equally
marvellous organs of sight possessed by insects, crustaceans, and other
creatures.
In like manner, Mr. Darwin contended, might the most complex and
wonderful instincts be generated. As an example may be cited that by
which the hive-bee constructs its combs--of which he thus speaks:[185]
He must be a dull man who can examine the exquisite structure of a
comb, so beautifully adapted to its end, without enthusiastic
admiration. We hear from mathematicians that bees have practically
solved a recondite problem, and have made their cells of the proper
shape to hold the greatest possible amount of honey, with the least
possible consumption of precious wax in their construction. It has
been remarked that a skilful workman with fitting tools and
measures, would find it very difficult to make cells of wax of the
true form, though this is perfectly effected by a crowd of bees
working in a dark hive.[186] Granting whatever instincts you
please, it seems at first sight quite inconceivable how they can
make all the necessary angles and planes, or even perceive when
they are correctly made. But the difficulty is not nearly so great
as it at first appears: all this beautiful work can be shown, I
think, to follow from a few simple instincts.
He accordingly proceeds to argue, that beginning with circular cells,
like those of Humble Bees, and progressing through an intermediate form,
circular where free, but with flat partition walls where two or more
cells touch one another, it is quite possible to suppose that Natural
Selection has effected the whole improvement, those insects which
accomplished any advance towards more scientific workmanship, and thus
made materials go further, having been able to secure a livelihood
better than their competitors.
Such in brief outline is the Darwinian system, which undertakes to
account for all the alleged facts of Organic Evolution by means of the
above factor, variously described as "Natural Selection," or the
"Survival of the fittest in the Struggle for Existence." It should be
remembered, though it is constantly forgotten, that it is this
particular theory as to the working-cause of evolutionary
transformations which is the essence of Darwinism. Mr. Darwin did not
originate the idea of genetic transformism, which is almost necessarily
suggested by the systematic development of life-forms to which Geology
bears witness. Consequently, long before he came on the scene, the
doctrine of transformation had been propounded, especially by Lamarck,
and if it had met with no general acceptance, this was chiefly because
no force was indicated which seemed to offer a satisfactory account of
the mode in which the required changes could have been wrought. Such a
force Mr. Darwin's "Natural Selection" was widely taken to furnish, and
his theory was eagerly welcomed and adopted by those who only required
such a basis on which to ground beliefs to which they were already
predisposed, and Darwinism thus obtained that pre-eminent position
which it still retains, at least in popular estimation.
Two special arguments may here be mentioned, which, although they really
apply to all systems of Organic Evolution, have obtained a prescriptive
right to be quoted particularly in favour of Darwinism, their bearing on
which is easily seen.
The first is based on the frequent occurrence of "rudimentary,"
"fragmentary," or "vestigial" structures in animals and plants, which,
although now seemingly useless, or even harmful, to their possessors,
may be assumed to have been of service to their ancestors, but under
changed conditions to have been thrown out of work by Natural Selection,
and atrophied by disuse. Such are--the splint-bones of the horse,
representing lost digits,--the rudimentary legs of some whales and
serpents,--the _mammae_ and mammary glands of male mammals; and in the
vegetable kingdom,--the aborted pistil in male florets of some
_compositae_,--the useless corolla of certain wind-fertilized flowers,
as _plantago_, and indeed the whole floral apparatus of plants which,
like Wordsworth's pet the Lesser Celandine,[187] seldom ripen their
seeds, but depend on other methods of propagation. The other fact cited
on behalf of Darwinism is unquestionably very striking. In the course of
their embryonic development, and even in the initial stages of their
life after birth, higher animals pass through various phases in which
they exhibit the characteristics of lower forms. Thus all life starts
from a cell, in which there is nothing to shew whether it is ever to be
anything more than a cell, or is to evolve a plant or animal,--nor, in
this latter case, what sort of animal it is to be--a mollusc, for
instance, a frog, or a mammal. At a later stage[188] it is impossible to
distinguish the embryos of lizards, birds, and mammals except by size.
Even the human fetus at an early period bears vestiges of gill-clefts or
arches, pointing to an aquatic existence. When the extremities come to
be developed,[189] "The feet of lizards and mammals, the wings and feet
of birds, no less than the hands and feet of man, all arise from the
same fundamental form." The young of flat-fish such as soles and
turbots, when they leave the egg are not flat, but shaped like ordinary
fish, and they wear their eyes in the normal fashion, one on each side
of their head, not both on the same side like their parents--whose form
however they presently by degrees assume. Young lions and black birds
are spotted, showing their affinity respectively to panthers and
thrushes--and so on in numberless instances. All such features, it is
assumed, indicate the _phylogeny_ of each animal, or the history of the
race to which it belongs. As Professor Milnes Marshall succinctly put
the matter:[190]
The phases through which an animal passes in its progress from the
egg to the adult are no accidental freaks, no mere matters of
developmental convenience, but represent more or less closely ...
the successive ancestral stages through which the present condition
has been acquired. Evolution tells us that each animal has had a
pedigree in the past. Embryology reveals to us this ancestry,
because every animal in its own development repeats this history,
climbs up its own genealogical tree.
Such are not by any means the only instances in which the Darwinist can
appeal to Nature for facts with which his theory well agrees, and which
therefore so far furnish a persuasive argument in its favour; but these
are perhaps the chief ones, and the best known, and may serve as
representative of their class which it is impossible for us to examine
in detail.
It now remains to enquire how far, from the point of view of Science,
with which alone we are concerned, the Darwinian hypothesis can make
good its claim to our acceptance. When we proceed accordingly to examine
the grounds upon which it rests, it must be confessed that as we do so
it becomes increasingly difficult to understand how such a theory has
been able to obtain such wide acceptance, especially on the ground that
scientific evidence is in its favour.
On the very threshold of any such enquiry lies a difficulty the gravity
of which seems to be strangely overlooked. Darwinism by its own
confession knows nothing of Origins, not even of the Origin of Species
itself. There must be life already existing before Natural Selection has
anything to select; there must be eyes and honey-cells of some kind,
before they can be improved; there must be Species, before one can be
transformed into another. Is it not evident, however, that the cause--of
whatever kind it may be--which brought any of these into being, must
have _something_,--not to say everything,--to do with the capacities and
potentialities by which its future history is conditioned? But this
supreme and vital factor Mr. Darwin entirely eliminates from his
calculation. In his system, the initiating force has no more to do with
the subsequent career of its productions, than has the gas which lifts a
balloon with the direction in which it travels. It is not, on his
theory, as the impulse which, besides raising from earth an arrow or
rifle bullet, directs it to a goal, but, on the contrary, an organism
once launched on its course is left to be driven hither and thither and
twisted into this form and that, as clouds are by the wind. For the
variations through which transformations are wrought, Darwin could find
no better epithet than "fortuitous," and it is laid down by his
staunchest disciples that if such variations be predetermined towards
certain results, there is an end of Darwinism.
It is not easy to understand how any theory can be deemed satisfactory
which thus ignores the initial force, of whose existence and potency we
have far clearer evidence than of any other.
When we turn from its omissions to study Darwinism as it is, obviously,
in the first place, still, more than forty years since it was given to
the world, it remains only an hypothesis, based not upon observation or
experiment but speculation. In no single instance, past or contemporary,
is one species known to have originated from another. The fact upon
which Mr. Darwin primarily relies is that of variation. Undoubtedly
amongst both plants and animals the offspring are not mere slavish
reproductions of their parents, as if cast in the same mould, but
exhibit individual differences, working upon which in domesticated
instances, man can by selection produce wonderful varieties, as has
already been admitted. But, as M. de Quatrefages says,[191] this tells
us no more than that species admit of variation; it does not prove that
they are capable of transformation, which is the whole point. Certainly,
such transformation has never within our knowledge been effected. No
breeder or fancier has succeeded, or can hope to succeed, in producing a
new species. Moreover, as was pointed out by a critic whose ability Mr.
Darwin himself candidly acknowledged,[192] the range of variability as
we find it in any species is strictly limited, and although at first it
is easy,--in the case of some few animals or plants,--to make great
changes in particular directions, by selective breeding, it becomes more
and more difficult as we proceed to continue in the same line. If, for
instance, in the case of pigeons, a bird can be produced in six years
with head and beak only one-half the size of those whence the process
started, are we to say that in twelve years their bulk will be reduced
to a quarter, and in twenty-four to an eighth? No one could suppose
anything so absurd. Mr. Darwin would answer, that he relies upon the
vast periods of geologic time to produce alterations such as we cannot
possibly attempt within the few years at our disposal. But, it is
replied, no length of time will avail anything for such a purpose,
unless there be some force to produce variations in the required
direction, to the required extent. Such a force is not proved to
exist--all the evidence is against it. Where art is most practised in
improvement of breeds, or the obtaining of any peculiarities--as with
the speed of racehorses, the size of toy-terriers, or the "points" of
prize cattle, it becomes most strikingly apparent that we have reached a
limit beyond which species will not vary. And until such a cause as we
require is fully proved to exist, its supposed effects cannot be made
the basis of scientific argument.
A given animal or plant, [says the Reviewer] appears to be
contained, as it were, within a sphere of variation; one individual
lies near one portion of the surface, another individual near
another part of the surface; the average animal at the centre. Any
individual may produce descendants varying in any direction, but is
more likely to produce descendants varying towards the centre of
the sphere, and the variations in that direction will be greater in
amount than the variations towards the surface. Thus a set of
racers of equal merit indiscriminately breeding will produce more
colts and foals of inferior than of superior breed, and the falling
off of the degenerate will be greater than the improvement of the
select (p. 282).
Similarly M. Blanchard declares:[193]
All investigation and observation make it clear that, while the
variability of creatures in a state of nature displays itself in
very different degrees, yet in its most astonishing manifestations
it remains confined within a circle beyond which it cannot pass.
And the facts of nature, as we know them, far from favouring the
instability of species, exhibit a tenacity of form compelling us to
treat them as practically immutable. Thus, as Mr. Carruthers points
out,[194] in the notoriously variable genus _Salix_, or willow-tribe,
which seems to be actively advancing towards a multiplication of its
subdivisions, sub-genera, species, varieties, and hybrid forms,--one
species is found, _S. polaris_, dating from before the Glacial Epoch,
which has been driven from England and other lands, by climatic changes,
to within the Arctic circle of both Hemispheres,--yet amid this stress
of circumstances has preserved its specific identity, down even to the
casual variations, which might be supposed to furnish the
starting-points for new developments. Yet in this tribe, if anywhere,
evidence of specific evolution might be looked for.[195]
Other instances seem to show that even under new and trying conditions
those creatures survive best which keep closest to the central family
type, not those which diverge in any direction. Thus, of European
sparrows introduced in America, Mr. Bumpus writes:[196]
Natural Selection is most destructive of those birds which have
departed most from the ideal type, and its activity raises the
general standard by favouring those birds which approach the
structural ideal.
Variation supplies the raw material upon which Natural Selection is
supposed to work. When we turn to examine the process by which its
results should be produced, we find, quite apart from the above
difficulties, a crop of others still more formidable.
It must be remembered, that the variations on which Natural Selection
must work are in each instance extremely minute, well-nigh
infinitesimal. Mr. Darwin was as strongly opposed to the idea of Nature
making sudden bounds, as to that of a predetermined course of
development. But, he argued, an extra chance of living, however slight,
must necessarily tell in the long run, the theory of probabilities
giving results as certain as any others in mathematics, and, according
to these, we may confidently say that, given sufficient time, the
favoured individuals would infallibly distance their competitors.
The impressiveness of such an argument depends upon its seemingly
mathematical character, which is however wholly fallacious, for the
probabilities are all the other way. It is perfectly true that a
beneficial variation however slight will confer on its happy possessor a
corresponding advantage in the struggle for life, as compared with each
_individual_ of the non-favoured herd, but, as to that herd
collectively, the chances would, on the contrary, ensure that _some_ of
its members should outlive the favoured one. Let us even imagine the
advantage of the latter to be very great, great enough to double his
chances, so that the odds on his surviving each of his fellows will be
two to one. Yet if there be a dozen of them to contend with, the odds
will be six to one _against_ his surviving the lot. And what of the
actual case of minutest benefits conferred by variation? In order to
give them even an equal chance of survival, the numbers of those
possessing such advantages must be large in proportion as the advantages
themselves are small. Thus, if a variation increases the chance of life
by one-thousandth part, so that the odds on its possessor are 1001,
against 1000 on each non-possessor, yet unless the number of possessors
be to that of non-possessors as 1,000 to 1,001, their collective chances
will not even be equal. As it is quite absurd to suppose that casual
variations could ever occur in such wholesale fashion, how can it be
supposed that, were Natural Selection the only factor operating, minute
advantages could be accumulated by variation even in the simplest cases?
But it is also hard to suppose that in any actual case is the matter so
simple as it appears to our limited comprehension. To take for instance
the above example of the giraffe. It is very well to have a neck that
will reach high-branches of a tree,--but this is not everything. For the
mere prolongation of life, much else is required, fleet limbs to
distance lions, and keen senses, sight, hearing, and smell, to give
warning of the approach of human or other hunters, to say nothing of the
extra strengthening of muscles and bones which increased size and weight
demands. Unless, however, improvements in all these respects happened
casually to concur in the same individual, which could scarcely happen,
it is clear that each would militate against the others, for the
survival of an individual beneficially developed in one respect, would
tend to the extinction of other beneficial developments, possessed by
individuals whom he overcame in the struggle for life.
Even the case of the insular insects is by no means so plain as might at
first sight appear. There can be no doubt that wings are of _some_
advantage, or on no system could they be supposed to exist. Nor do their
advantages cease because disadvantages outweigh them. If some insects
are blown out to sea when flying, others will doubtless perish in one
way or another because they cannot fly. It may even be that those which
can fly _best_ will survive, as being able to make head against a breeze
which overpowers others. Natural Selection will thus have many arrows in
its quiver, some of which must reach the wrong objects.
Still more clearly does this appear in the case of complex structures in
which, if they were produced as Mr. Darwin supposes, variation must have
hit simultaneously upon independent contrivances, without each of which
all the others would be useless and confer no benefit at all. In the
eye, for example, to mention but one or two of innumerable similar
points, it would be of no avail to have a retina, even such as has been
described, without a lens to throw an image upon it, set just at the
proper distance, and provided with muscles to alter its shape according
to the distance of the object. How can Natural Selection be even
conceived to have set to work on such a task as this?
It is still more fundamental to observe that, according to Mr. Darwin's
own showing, Natural Selection is purely negative in its action. "If it
does select, it selects for death and not for life."[197] It can
originate nothing, but only destroy. All that it does for favoured races
is to spare them while it sweeps away others, and the sole benefit they
derive from it is to have more ample resources upon which to draw. But
as for anything they possess in the way of structure or character, they
must derive it entirely from themselves--Natural Selection can no more
confer it, than the labourer who weeds a garden bed makes the flowers
that grow there. Let it be imagined that the first human beings on
earth, any number of thousand years ago, planted a garden, and
determined to produce a rose, by eliminating every plant that did not
show some promise of progress rose-wards. Let the gardeners have been
endowed with acumen sufficient to detect every symptom of such a
tendency, and let their operations have been carried on without
interruption to this day,--it is obvious that if roses had resulted, it
could only be because among the plants they allowed to remain there
existed a rose-making quality of some kind, to which, and not to
anything done by human art or skill, the result was due. It would
likewise have to be supposed that there were infinite other
potentialities latent in the original plants, as of evolving thistles,
shamrocks, or leeks--all equally awaiting their opportunity. Selective
action could effectually put such competitors out of the way; but in the
way of developing a race it could but leave it entirely to itself.
Precisely similar is the part played by Natural Selection, except that
it must needs play it immensely more slowly,--and if no one can fancy
that human agency could by any possibility grow roses unless from some
stock predetermined to grow into a rose and nothing else, what grounds
have we that can be called scientific for attributing to a blind
struggle for life an incomparably greater potency? Nor does it avail to
quote the immense extent of time which may be supposed to have been
available. No more than Natural Selection has time by itself any
creative power. We know on the contrary by experience, that when things
are not controlled by some principle of order, the lapse of time serves
only to make confusion worse confounded.
Another consideration of prime importance is too frequently ignored. On
Darwinian principles, each step in any development can be made, not
because it leads to an advantageous result in the future, but only
because it is itself advantageous. At each stage favoured individuals
survive others because they are favoured here and now, not because, when
the development they promote shall be completed, their remote
descendants will be favoured. Hence it must, for instance, be possible
to suppose, that all the intermediate forms between two extremes,
whereof one is supposed to have originated the other, were, each in its
day, so beneficial as to preserve their possessors at the expense of
non-possessors. But can this possibly be even imagined?
To take one example. We have heard, speaking of embryology, that the
feet of lizards and the wings and feet of birds arise from the same
fundamental form of limb, whence it is argued that birds and lizards are
alike descended from a common sauroid, or lizard-like, ancestor, whose
limbs in the case of the former class have developed into wings and into
feet of a totally new type,--while scales were developing into feathers,
and innumerable alterations of internal structure were simultaneously in
progress. But if so, to confine our attention to one particular, it
must be true that each of the innumerable minute gradations between the
fore-limb of a lizard and the wing of a bird, was in its turn the best
kind of member for a creature to possess, giving him a distinct
advantage in the struggle for existence. Nothing, however, appears
plainer than that this could not possibly have been the case. The limb
shaping towards a wing would be a very clumsy and inefficient leg long
before it got to the point at which it became of the slightest use for
purposes of flight, that is to say before its alteration was accompanied
by any utility whatever. We can neither imagine that creatures furnished
with limbs of such intermediate forms could have been otherwise than
hopelessly handicapped by them, nor do we find anywhere in the rocks any
trace whatever of the innumerable series of modifications which would be
needed to link by imperceptible gradations legs and wings together.
It only serves to make the matter less intelligible, that there _are_
found in Secondary strata some few relics of birds with decidedly
saurian characteristics,[198] as the _Hesperornis_ and _Ichthyornis_ in
the Chalk, and the _Archæopteryx_, most ancient of fowls, lower still,
in the Oolite. All these creatures have lizard-like heads and teeth; the
_Archæopteryx_ in addition has decidedly reptilian characters connected
with its wings and tail. But none of them throw the slightest light upon
the point we are now considering. In the case of all, the problem of
flight has been completely solved. Their wings are no rudimentary
structures half way between legs and wings, but as finished productions
as those of to-day. As Professor Huxley acknowledges, if the skeletons
of _Hesperornis_ and _Icthyornis_ had been found without their skulls,
they would probably have been classed without more ado amongst existing
birds. The latter "has, [he tells us,] strong wings, and no doubt
possessed corresponding powers of flight." The wings of _Hesperornis_,
he says, resemble those of our divers and grebes, and were probably
used, like theirs, chiefly for swimming.[199] As for the _Archæopteryx_,
its reptilian features notwithstanding, it is a perfectly-appointed
bird. As Sir Richard Owen testifies,[200] its wing, despite the
peculiarities mentioned, is completely developed as to all essentials.
Nor does even this member furnish the creature with its most bird-like
characteristics,--but the keeled breast-bone, so intimately connected
with the requirements of flight,--and, still more markedly, the feet.
Professor Huxley writes: "The feet are not only altogether bird-like,
but have the special character of the feet of perching birds; while the
body had a clothing of true feathers."
Thus, to whatever these Saurian birds may testify,--and the extreme
importance of their evidence none will question--they no more serve to
bridge the gulf between reptiles and birds, than a group of volcanic
islets like the Azores bridges the Atlantic, for they supply no vestige
of a continuous way from one term to the other. Rather, they do but
enhance the mystery of the transformation, to the manner of which,
despite their composite features, they furnish no clue.
All such difficulties are enormously aggravated by a consideration
which, obvious as it is, seems seldom to be considered. The arguments we
commonly hear appear to imply that _one_ parent is sufficient to secure
the transmission of a beneficial variation to the next generation. But,
of course, the parent requires a mate, and unless this mate has chanced
to hit on the same line of variation, it cannot be supposed that it will
be transmitted. Seeing, however, the exceeding minuteness of these
variations in each instance, they can avail nothing to bring together
the right mates to perpetuate them. Two reptiles, for instance, are not
the more likely to pair because their fore limbs have taken the first
faint and distant step towards becoming wings, while in the vegetable
kingdom, notwithstanding Erasmus Darwin's _Loves of the Plants_, the
idea of any choice of partners is still more grotesque. The allotment of
mates must therefore be left to Chance; and the results will follow the
ordinary laws of probability. Accordingly, if we suppose so large a
proportion as five per cent., or one in twenty, of any species to
possess an advantageous variation,--only one in twenty of the
individuals thus favoured will secure a similarly favoured mate,--for
each will have nineteen wrong selections offered to him or her, for one
right one. Only one pair in four hundred will therefore transmit the
variation to five per cent. of _their_ offspring, or one in eight
thousand of the species, and of these only one pair in
a-hundred-and-sixty-thousand will make an advantageous match. Such is
the inevitable consequence of leaving any definite result to Chance: and
here it is that Natural Selection is found to betray the most fatal of
all its deficiencies; for, whatever its advocates may say, it is Chance
and Chance alone upon which it relies. Just because man can and does
select the proper mates, is he able to produce by breeding the results
to which Mr. Darwin appeals as evidence, that Nature having no such
power of selection, must be able to produce results of which man cannot
even dream.[201]
Natural Selection is in truth no selection at all, that is just its weak
point, which the title conferred upon it serves to hide. What are called
its products owe no more to it than Wellington owed his generalship to
the bullets which did not hit him at Seringapatam. If they are not
determined to a particular development they can attain it only by
Chance.
Of Chance, enough has already been said. It is, however, worth our
while to observe how constantly to the last Mr. Darwin was haunted by
the consciousness that this was in reality the factor upon which his
system must depend, and that it could not possibly account for much that
he came across in nature. If, as he confessed, the sight of a peacock's
tail-feather made him sick, it was just because its elaborate beauty, to
which no commensurate advantage can be supposed to attach, forbade the
notion that his theory could account for it. So, of another still more
marvellous instance in which Nature exhibits artistic power, namely the
ball-and-socket ornament on the wings of the Argus pheasant, he
writes:[202]
No one, I presume, will attribute this shading, which has excited
the admiration of many experienced artists, to chance--to the
fortuitous concourse of atoms of colouring matter. That these
ornaments should have been formed through the selection of many
successive variations, not one of which was originally intended to
produce the ball-and-socket effect, seems as incredible as that one
of Raphael's Madonnas should have been formed by the selection of
chance daubs of paints made by a long succession of young artists,
not one of whom intended at first to draw the human figure.
[Illustration:
1. Basal portion of secondary wing-feather; nearest body, shewing first
rudiment of "ocelli."
2. Portion of secondary wing-feather near body, shewing "elliptic"
ornaments.
3. Part of secondary wing-feather, shewing developed "ocelli."
Feathers from wing of Argus Pheasant, from Darwin's _Descent of Man_.]
Nevertheless, Mr. Darwin proceeds to argue at considerable length that
an explanation consistent with his theory is favoured by the occurrence
on the same wings of designs exhibiting every stage of gradation from a
mere spot to the finished ball-and-socket _ocellus_; in the same way as
the tail feathers of a peacock advance from a mere sketch to the
completed design. It is not easy, however, to understand in what way
this is supposed to solve the difficulty and not vastly to increase it.
That a finished artistic effect should be fortuitously produced at all
would be incredible enough. That it should be worked up by Chance
through a series of processes, each doing something towards its
completion, is surely not less, but far more inconceivable.
In such a mode of explanation, however, is exemplified a feature which
must not be forgotten in discussing Darwinism,--namely the fatal
facility with which seeming arguments can be procured on its behalf. As
Mr. Mivart well remarks:[203] "The Darwinian theory has the great
advantage of only needing for its support the suggestion of some
possible utility, actual or ancestral, in each case--no difficult task
for an ingenious, patient, and accomplished thinker." And our _North
British_ Reviewer makes a similar comment: "The believer who is at
liberty to invent any imaginary circumstances, will very generally be
able to conceive some series of transmutations answering his wants."
Or if, as in the above instance of the Argus' eyes, a series is actually
found, it is even less difficult to take for granted that it can have
but one significance; while such assumptions are too frequently
accepted without hesitation or demur, although it would be no easy task
to show that they rest upon any solid grounds. When, in addition, either
Mr. Darwin himself or some of his leading partisans has declared that
some unverified process has undoubtedly occurred, or that they see no
reason to doubt its occurrence, or that nothing which we know precludes
its possibility,--it appears to be widely supposed that something
substantial is thereby added to the scientific evidence, and that the
suppositions thus sanctioned may even rank as facts. But however such a
method may avail to secure acceptance for a doctrine, it does nothing
for its scientific value. Such a style, as Mr. Mivart says,[204] is
calculated to impress only minds too easily dominated, and not prepared
by special studies accurately to weigh the evidence put before them.
Illustrations of this strange method of procedure are furnished in
connexion with various points already mentioned. Thus, as we have seen,
Mr. Darwin attempts to explain the origin of rational speech, by the
conscious utterance of a significant sound by an unusually wise ape-like
creature. In favour of this very large suggestion, Mr. Darwin has
nothing more substantial to say[205] than that "it does not appear
altogether incredible," which does not appear to take us very far.[206]
Yet I have seen this described as an "idyllic scene" shedding an
entirely new light on the subject. So again in regard of the evolution
of the eye.[207] Having summarily enumerated the various stages of
development exhibited by this organ as actually existing in various
animals, Mr. Darwin goes on to say that when we remember how small the
number of living forms must be in comparison with extinct, and the other
gradations that may consequently have existed, "the difficulty ceases to
be very great" in believing that Natural Selection has connected the
most rudimentary with the perfect structure. Similarly, as to the
cell-making instinct of the bee,[208] having postulated four several
suppositions for which evidence is not forthcoming, he concludes: "By
such modification of instincts ... I believe that the hive bee has
acquired, through natural selection, her inimitable architectural
powers."[209] Similar examples might be multiplied indefinitely.
Not unfrequently the tone of such utterances is more imperious. Thus, of
the descent of Man from some animal ancestor Mr. Darwin pronounces[210]
"The grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken," and
again[211] "the possession of exalted mental powers is no insuperable
objection to this conclusion" ... "It is only [p. 32] our natural
prejudice which leads us to demur to this conclusion." He even goes so
far as to declare that his view is forced upon every man who is not
content to assume the mental attitude of a savage.[212]
Argumentation of this character, which he finds common with Darwin to
other Evolutionists, is judged by de Quatrefages to be one of the
weakest and most misleading features of their systems.
Personal conviction [he writes],[213] mere possibility, are offered
as proofs, or at least as arguments in favour of the theory. Can we
admit their validity? Obviously not. The human mind can conceive
many things: is that a reason for accepting them all?... Obviously
more serious proofs are needed. After all, save where a
contradiction is involved, everything is _possible_.... If
adopting, under the shadow of Oken's great name, his principle of
the repetition of phenomena, a naturalist should maintain that each
of the planets has its own Europe, its England, and its Darwin
expounding to the Jovians and Saturnians the origin of species, I
do not quite see how one would set about showing him that he was
wrong. Unquestionably the thing is _possible_. Are we to draw the
conclusion that it is a fact?
Again,[214] the same distinguished naturalist, having quoted Darwin's
very elaborate explanation of a difficulty, remarks:
We see how with Darwin, as with his precursors, one hypothesis
necessitates another. But can he, at least, by means of these
subsidiary theories, these comparisons, these metaphors, account
for all the facts? No, he himself honestly confesses more than once
that he cannot. It is true that he adds "I am convinced that the
objections have little weight, and the difficulties are not
insoluble." But is this conviction of his a proof, or even an
argument?
M. Blanchard likewise comments vigorously on this mode of argumentation.
Speaking of the Mole and Darwin's explanation of its blindness, namely
that having taken to living under-ground it lost its eyes through
disuse--which he considers a most preposterous supposition,--M Blanchard
continues:[215]
The realms of fancy are boundless; but the observer who is
concerned with realities can only have recourse to the facts of
science. Fossil remains discovered in very ancient strata show that
the underground animal of present times does not differ from his
geological counterpart. The Mole belongs to a very peculiar type,
and has no nearer European relatives than the Hedgehog and the
Shrew. Can we imagine a common ancestor of Shrews, Hedgehogs, and
Moles? On this point Mr. Darwin expresses no opinion,--which should
not be, for when confronted by forms clearly differentiated, he is
wont to extricate himself from difficulties with matchless
facility. The intermediate links, he will say, were doubtless less
fitted to live than were the others, and so have disappeared. After
_that_ the Evolutionists consider any one quite out of date who
does not consider himself entirely satisfied with so felicitous an
explanation.
M. de Quatrefages denounces another fatal defect often observable in the
method of proof.
Mr. Darwin frequently complains that our actual knowledge is
incomplete. But instead of discovering in our lack of precise and
extensive information a motive for caution, he appears to derive
from it only greater daring. Doctrines based on the instability of
species have often been combated by geologists and palæontologists.
In reply to their objections Darwin devotes a whole chapter to
shewing the imperfection of the geological record. "For my part,"
he concludes, "I look at the geological record as a history of the
world imperfectly kept and written in a changing dialect; of this
history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or
three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short
chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a
few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less
different in the successive chapters, may represent the forms of
life, which are entombed in our consecutive formations, and which
falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. On this view, the
difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even
disappear."
On my part [continues M. de Quatrefages] I will ask whether such a
conclusion is the correct one. No doubt, Darwin is right in
refusing to certain naturalists the right to dogmatize on the
strength of uncompleted studies, or scanty and isolated
observations. Is he therefore entitled to allege as proofs on his
own behalf the very gaps of science, appealing to the lost volumes
and leaves of Nature's chronicle? Clearly not. But the slightest
reflection suffices to recognize that this appeal to the unknown,
so frankly evidenced in the above passage, lies at the root of all
argumentation analogous to that which I have tried to
describe--that of Maillet, Lamarck, and Geoffroy,[216] as well as
Darwin. Only the unknown, in sooth, can open the boundless region
of speculation, where the possible replaces the actual, and where,
despite the widest knowledge and the soundest intelligence, one
comes as by a fatality to find a conclusive proof on one's own
side, precisely in that of which we profess to know nothing.
So again, speaking of a certain conclusion of Professor Haeckel's
concerning the embryology of lemurs, which MM. Grandidier and Alphonse
Edwards afterwards proved experimentally to be altogether erroneous, de
Quatrefages writes:[217]
Haeckel will perhaps answer that the publication of his book
preceded the observation of the French savants. But such a plea
itself discloses a method of procedure which is common to the
majority of evolutionists, and of which, it must be added, Darwin
set the example. When confronted by a question about which nobody
knows anything, they appeal precisely to this want of knowledge,
and draw arguments from their very ignorance.
In like manner speaks the Reviewer already cited more than once.
Thus:[218]
The peculiarities of geographical distribution seem very difficult
of explanation on any theory. Darwin calls in alternately winds,
tides, birds, beasts, all animated nature, as the diffusers of
species, and then a good many of the same agencies as impenetrable
barriers.... With these facilities of hypothesis there seems to be
no particular reason why many theories should not be true. However
an animal may have been produced, it must have been produced
somewhere, and it must either have spread very widely or not have
spread, and Darwin can give good reasons for both results.
And again:[219]
We are asked to believe all these maybes happening on an enormous
scale, in order that we may believe the final Darwinian "maybe" as
to the origin of species. The general form of his argument is as
follows:--"All these things may have been, therefore my theory is
possible, and since my theory is a possible one, all those
hypotheses which it requires are rendered probable." There is
little direct evidence that any of these maybes actually _have
been_.
In no respect, moreover, have Darwin's followers more closely imitated
their master than in the construction of such hypotheses, which would
appear to constitute in the eyes of many the most important work of
Science. Attention has very largely been diverted from Nature as
actually existing, which seems to be studied more for the light it can
be supposed to throw upon evolutionary history, than simply for itself,
and it seems to be thought that to imagine the mode of an evolutionary
process is equivalent to establishing the facts which that process
supposes. By this method lengthy and learned papers are written
concerning the transformation of one species into another, which in
reality do no more than describe in minute detail all the changes which
must have taken place, _if_ the said transformation really occurred.
That Science is thus benefited, is not the opinion of some at least who
are well entitled to speak on her behalf, for as the President of the
Linnean Society recently observed,[220] as one grows older, it becomes
more and more apparent that facts alone are of any serious interest, and
that speculations however ingenious and attractive are best left to the
constructive and destructive energies of the young. So too, a few years
ago, the President of the Microscopical Society complained that interest
in living creatures is largely supplanted by dead ones.[221]
We read much [he said] of the animal's organs: we see plates
showing that its bristles have been counted, and its muscular
fibres traced to the last thread; we have the structure of its
tissues analyzed to their very elements; we have long discussions
on its title to rank with this group or that; and sometimes even
disquisitions on the probable form and habits of some extremely
remote, but quite hypothetical, ancestor, who is made to degrade in
this way, or to advance in that, or who is credited with one organ
or deprived of another, just as the ever-varying necessities of a
desperate hypothesis require....
There is another aspect of the question which must by no means be
overlooked. It has to be assumed that Natural Selection, or the survival
of the fittest in the struggle for existence, necessarily tends to the
benefit of the _race_ and moreover to its farther development on the
upward grade, towards a more perfect and more specialized
organization;--in Mr. Herbert Spencer's words, to progression from a
relatively indefinite incoherent homogeneity, to a relatively definite,
coherent heterogeneity. But here many questions occur.
In the first place, a consideration presents itself, which appears to
furnish the most formidable of all difficulties in the way of Mr.
Darwin's hypothesis. How can this struggle for existence be supposed to
have any tendency to promote organic development to ever higher and more
perfect types, in the orderly sequence which has in fact occurred? The
"Survival of the fittest" means only the survival _of the fittest to
survive_,--of such as can find means of living where others cannot.
Unless it can be shown that increased complexity of organization
necessarily brings with it such increased vitality, Natural Selection
can do nothing for organic development. If the mere power of living be
the only factor in the process, as on Mr. Darwin's showing it is, a man
is only a more complicated and delicate machine for securing the same
object which can equally well, or better, be attained by a mole, a
cockroach, or a microbe. And who will say that, so far as this
particular end is concerned, he is better equipped than creatures which
all the resources of civilization are powerless to exterminate?
That practical advantage in the struggle for existence must necessarily
accompany increased specialization of organs, and thus produce a
"higher" organization, was a prime point of Mr. Darwin's argument,
though at the same time he found himself compelled to encumber it with
qualifications which go very far to neutralize its force; for he had to
explain the obvious fact that so many creatures which represent the
lowest and least specialized forms of life, have survived down to our
own time. Thus he writes:[222]
The degree of differentiation and specialization of the parts in
organic beings, when arrived at maturity, is the best standard, as
yet suggested, of their degree of perfection or highness. As the
specialization of parts is an advantage to each being, so natural
selection will tend to render the organization of each being more
specialized and perfect, and in this sense higher; not but that it
may leave many creatures with simple and unimproved structures
fitted for simple conditions of life, and in some cases will even
degrade or simplify the organization, yet leaving such degraded
beings better fitted for their new walks of life.
By this fundamental test of victory in the battle of life, as well
as by the standard of the specialization of organs, modern forms
ought, on the theory of Natural Selection, to stand higher than
ancient forms. Is this the case? A large number of palæontologists
would answer in the affirmative; and it seems that this answer must
be admitted as true, though difficult of proof.
That is to say, Natural Selection is just as ready to degrade as to
elevate a creature, according to the actual requirements of the
circumstances in which it is placed, and how far progress has been the
rule, rather than stability or retrogression, is a question for
geological history to determine. This we shall have to consider in our
next chapter.
It is likewise obvious that so far as the mere struggle for existence is
concerned, a species each of whose individual members is but poorly
furnished, may nevertheless flourish unimpaired on the mere strength of
its fecundity. It is thus, says M. Blanchard,[223] that the lower forms
of life continue to hold their own despite the enormous ravages to which
they are subject. The herring, for example, affords food to all the
fowls of the air and fish of the sea, over and above the myriads
annually requisitioned by man. Yet its hosts show no sign of being
exterminated or even reduced. Much the same is the case of the cod; but
a tribe one individual of which has been known to produce nine million
eggs does not require much in the way of coherent heterogeneity to
ensure its survival.
Thus it appears that of itself Darwinism affords no explanation whatever
of the regular progression of life forms from lower to higher, to which
the records of Nature bear witness, and which is the one solid fact
suggesting the idea of Evolution.
Such are some of the reasons which, on purely rational grounds, appear
amply to justify those who decline to pledge their faith to Darwinism,
in spite of the popularity it enjoys. But what is to be said of the
phenomena cited as furnishing positive and unimpeachable evidence in its
favour, which were mentioned above in our sketch of its main features?
First as to the rudimentary, fragmentary, or vestigial organs so common
in Nature. These, it is said, being of no possible advantage to their
possessors, and often a serious disadvantage, can be explained only by
supposing that they were serviceable in the past to the ancestral race
whence these possessors are derived, and have since been superseded by
other modifications of structure, so as to dwindle away by disuse. This,
no doubt, seems a very plausible explanation, but it does not follow
that we ought immediately to adopt it as a certainty, instead of
setting ourselves to examine how it accords with all the facts. Nothing
is more dangerous and less scientific than to be in a hurry to conclude
that everything is certain which seems to ourselves probable, especially
if it suits a theory of our own. Unfortunately, this law is too
frequently more honoured in the breach than the observance. In the
present instance, Professor Haeckel himself furnishes an example. He is
quite sure that the rudimentary structures can have but one
significance, and that they are fatal to the idea of purpose in Nature,
the object of his special aversion, and so he has proposed a new term,
"Dysteleology," to embody this idea, of which he says,[224]
_Dysteleology, or the theory of purposelessness_ [is] the name I
have given to the science of rudimentary organs, of suppressed and
degenerated, aimless and inactive, parts of the body; one of the
most important and most interesting branches of comparative
anatomy, which, when rightly estimated, is alone sufficient to
refute the fundamental error of the teleological and dualistic
conception of Nature, and to serve as the foundation of the
mechanical and monistic conception of the universe.
It will be sufficient to quote Professor Huxley's remarks upon this
passage, taken from the very laudatory review he wrote of the work in
which it occurs.[225]
Professor Haeckel has invented a new and convenient name,
"Dysteleology," for the study of the "purposelessnesses" which are
observable in living organisms--such as the multitudinous cases of
rudimentary and apparently useless structures. I confess, however,
that it has often appeared to me that the facts of Dysteleology cut
two ways. If we are to assume, as evolutionists in general do, that
useless organs atrophy, such cases as the existence of lateral
rudiments of toes in the foot of a horse place us in a dilemma.
For, either these rudiments are of no use to the animal, in which
case, considering that the horse has existed in its present form
since the Pliocene epoch, they surely ought to have disappeared; or
they are of some use to the animal, in which case they are of no
use as arguments against Teleology. A similar, but stronger
argument may be based upon the existence of teats, and even
functional mammary glands in male mammals.... There can be little
doubt that the mammary gland was as apparently useless in the
remotest male mammalian ancestor of man as in living men, and yet
it has not disappeared. Is it then still profitable to the male
organism to retain it? Possibly; but in that case its
dysteleological value is gone.
In later editions Professor Huxley further observed: "The recent
discovery of the important part played by the Thyroid gland should be a
warning to all speculators about useless organs."[226]
It seems, therefore, the wiser part to refrain from basing any vital
conclusions upon these organs until we can assure ourselves that our
knowledge warrants our so doing. As the same Professor Huxley intimated,
it might be well for palæontologists, and doubtless for biologists
likewise,[227] "To learn a little more carefully that scientific '_ars
artium_,' the art of saying 'I don't know.'"
So again as to the phenomena of embryology. No doubt they are very
striking and impressive. That the most highly developed creatures, and
man himself, should in the first stages of existence exhibit the
characteristics of lower forms, is an exemplification of development no
less signal than the succession of ascending types witnessed to by the
rocks. It is not easy to see, however, why it should be taken for
granted that this can only signify genetic descent from all such forms,
and that these embryo animals are engaged in climbing up their
genealogical trees. Yet this is usually assumed as a matter of course,
and any one who ventures to question the validity of such an inference,
must be prepared to find himself accused of dogmatizing.
And yet, after all, upon what grounds does the assumption rest? That
such a recapitulation of racial experiences forms no essential feature
of Evolution is sufficiently evident from the case of the vegetable
world,--for plants do not climb _their_ genealogical trees, or pass in
the seed through a series of botanical phases. And as to animals, since
through all varieties of form, each always arrives at the required term,
it is obvious that, apart from any archaic associations, and on
Darwinian principles themselves, these forms must be the best for the
purpose at each respective stage,--perhaps the only ones by which the
term could be reached. It is therefore, to say the least, quite
conceivable, that we have here the whole explanation and need go no
further.
In certain instances this obvious consideration is strikingly
illustrated. Thus the salamander, an Amphibian of the newt family,
brings forth its young in adult condition without gills.[228] But
previously to birth they have gills relatively large. The experiment
having been tried of bringing some of them forth by artificial means
before their time, and placing them in water, the first thing they did
was to cast off these big gills, which were speedily replaced by new
ones of much smaller size, and evidently better suited for the work
required, as they lasted as long as a fortnight.
Here, in the first place, it is quite impossible to suppose that the
large gills would continue to appear unless they were of advantage
during the period of gestation. It is equally evident that it is not
from a previous aquatic condition that they are inherited, for in such a
condition they are useless. Finally, as Mr. Mivart observes, the new
gills, suitable for unwonted conditions, were developed "not in a
struggle for existence against rivals, but directly and spontaneously
from the innate nature of the animal."
This view of the matter commended itself on mature consideration to so
ardent an evolutionist as Carl Vogt, with whom we may couple M. de
Quatrefages, who cites his words with approval as follows:[229]
It has been laid down as a fundamental law of biogenesis that
ontogeny (the development of the individual) and phylogeny (that of
the race) must exactly correspond.... This law which I long held as
well founded is absolutely and radically false. Attentive study of
embryology shows us, in fact, that embryos have their own
conditions suitable to themselves, very different from those of
adults.
"In a word," M. de Quatrefages continues, "the learned Genevan professor
rightly considers that, 'The ontogenesis of all organic beings without
exception, is the normal result of all the various influences which
operate upon such beings.'"
But it must, moreover, be noted that the story which embryology can be
made to tell is by no means so plain as we might easily be led to
suppose.
Thus, although snakes are held to be descended from lizards, and some of
them have rudimentary legs even in the adult stage, others have no trace
of limbs even in the egg, while they _have_ vestiges of gills, and thus
would seem to be visibly linked to ancient water-dwelling ancestors, and
not to far more recent land-dwellers. Again;[230] Amphibians (frogs,
newts and the like) agree in some respects, as to the development of the
germ, with mammals, differing in the same respects from reptiles and
birds. But reptiles and birds are supposed to be a more recent
development than Amphibia, and therefore should intervene between them
and mammals on the genealogical tree. Moreover the eggs of one group of
Amphibians are found to exhibit some remarkable resemblances to those of
reptiles and birds, from which it would thus appear to have derived
them, although on other grounds it is declared to be of an older stock
than theirs. Most frogs, toads, and newts come out of the egg as
tadpoles, furnished with gills and so breathing in water. This should
signify that these creatures are descended from fish or fishlike
ancestors. But one frog (_Rana opisthodon_) is never a tadpole even in
the egg, from which he gets out by means of a special opener on his
snout which he has somehow acquired. On the other hand certain
newts[231] breed as tadpoles instead of in their mature form, which
looks like an attempt to climb down the tree instead of up.
It will be remembered that the latter phrase was that used by Professor
Milnes Marshall. Yet even he expressed himself strongly concerning the
exaggerations of Professor Haeckel on this subject. In his review of
Haeckel's _Anthropogenie_,[232] after observing that many descriptions
of human embryology have been based on observations of dogs, pigs,
rabbits, or even chickens and dogfish, he thus continued regarding the
book before him:
A student who relied on Professor Haeckel's description, would
obtain an entirely erroneous idea of the development of the human
embryo.... It is a matter for great regret that a book of 900
pages, bearing such a title, should be allowed to appear, in which
the account of the actual development of the human embryo is so
inadequate or even erroneous.
Far more fundamental, however, is a remark of Mr. Mivart's, that if, as
Darwinians say, the development of the individual is an epitome of that
of the species, the latter must like the former be due to the action of
definite innate laws unconsciously carrying out definite preordained
ends and purposes. For although cells or embryos may be
indistinguishable from one another, and may appear to us identical in
constitution, their differences are absolute. Each is determined to be
one sort of animal and no other, and can live at all only on condition
of developing towards the prescribed form.--Therefore, whatever evidence
the embryonic forms may be supposed to afford in support of Evolution,
they have nothing in common with the haphazard process of Natural
Selection.
And here again Professor Huxley found himself obliged to enter his
_caveat_, and to intimate his opinion that some of his friends were
inclined to build too confidently upon this foundation. As his
biographer Professor Weldon writes in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_:
Darwin had suggested an interpretation of the facts of embryology
which led to the hope that a fuller knowledge of development might
reveal the history of all the great groups of animals at least in
its main outlines. This hope was of service as a stimulus to
research, but the attempt to interpret the phenomena observed led
to speculations which were often fanciful and always incapable of
verification. Huxley was keenly sensible of the danger attending
the use of a hypothetical explanation, leading to conclusions which
cannot be experimentally tested, and he carefully avoided it.... In
the preface to the _Manual of the Comparative Anatomy of
Invertebrated Animals_, he says: "I have abstained from discussing
questions of ætiology,[233] not because I underestimate their
importance, or am insensible to the interest of the great problem
of Evolution, but because, to my mind, the growing tendency to mix
up ætiological speculations with morphological generalizations
will, if unchecked, throw Biology into confusion."
Accordingly, Huxley himself based his faith in Evolution on
palæontological evidence, and attempted to decide the precise course it
had followed only "in the few cases where the evidence seemed to him
sufficiently complete." This line of enquiry we have still to pursue,
but meanwhile, it is evident that the phenomena we have been
considering, failing to meet the approval of so thorough-going an
Evolutionist as he undoubtedly was, cannot be said to furnish convincing
scientific evidence in favour of Darwinism.
It will be asked how it comes to pass, if the Darwinian system really
lies open to so many objections, that it occupies so large a place in
scientific estimation. To this we must reply that, in spite of its great
name, its success has throughout been popular rather than truly
scientific, and that as time went on it has lost ground among the class
of men best qualified to judge. Evolutionists there are in plenty,--but
very few genuine Darwinists, and amongst these can by no means be
reckoned all who adopt the title, for not a few of them--as Romanes and
Weismann--profess doctrines which cannot be reconciled with those of
Darwin himself. Meanwhile, an increasing volume of scientific opinion
sets definitely against Darwinism as an adequate explanation of the
philosophy of life, and falls into the view expressed long ago by
Charles Robin[234] who, as a freethinker, had no antecedent objections
against it, "Darwinism is a fiction, a poetical accumulation of
probabilities without proof, and of attractive explanations without
demonstration."
It would be tedious to cite testimonies at length, but, in addition to
M. de Quatrefages who has made a full and careful study of the whole
question, [_Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs Français_, and _Les Emules
de Darwin_] may be mentioned such continental scholars as Blanchard [_La
vie des êtres animés_], Wigand [_Der Darwinismus und die
Naturforschung_, etc.], Wolff [_Beiträge zur Kritik der darwinschen
Lehre_], Hamann [_Entwicklungslehre und Darwinismus_], Pauly [_Wahres
und Falsches an Darwins Lehre_], Driesch [_Biologisches Zentralblatt_,
1896 and 1902], Plate [_Bedeutung und Tragweite des Darwinschen
Selektionsprincip_], Hertwig [_Address to Naturalist Congress_,
_Aachen_, 1900], Heer [_Urwelt der Schweiz_], Kölliker [_Ueber die
darwin'sche Schöpfungstheorie_], Eimer [_Entstehung der Arten_], Von
Hartmann [_Wahrheit und Irrthum im Darwinismus_], Schilde
[_Antidarwinistisches im Ausland_], Du Bois-Reymond [_Conference_,
August 2, 1881, etc.], Virchow [_Freiheit der Wissenschaft_, etc.],
Nägeli [_Mechanisch-physiologische Theorie der Abstammungslehre_],
Schaafhausen [_Ueber die anthropologischen Fragen_], Fechner [_Ideen zur
Schöpfungs-und Entwicklungsgeschichte der Organismen_], Jakob [_Der
Mensch_, etc.], Diebolder [_Darwins Grundprinzip_, etc.], Huber [_Die
Lehre Darwins kritisch betrachtet_], Joseph Ranke, and Von Bauer,--all
of whom either reject Darwinism altogether, or admit it only with fatal
reservations.
Special weight must attach to the adverse verdict of M. Fabre, styled by
Darwin himself "that inimitable observer," who declares that he cannot
reconcile the theory with the facts he encounters.[235]
It must be sufficient to quote one or two of our own countrymen, whose
utterances will enable us to form an opinion as to the true scientific
status of the doctrine.
We may begin with Huxley, the great popular champion of Darwinism, who
did more than any other man to spread the new doctrine. Yet, strange to
say, he seems never to have really accepted its fundamental tenet
himself, always appearing very shy of Natural Selection, and carefully
abstaining from committing himself to any responsibility for it. Thus in
his treatise on _Man's Place in Nature_, he thus explains his position
in its regard:
Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as I am aware, inconsistent
with any biological fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts
of Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geographical
Distribution, and of Palæontology, become connected together, and
exhibit a meaning such as they never possessed before; and I, for
one, am firmly convinced, that if not precisely true, that
hypothesis is as near an approximation to the truth as, for
example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true theory of the
planetary motions. But for all this, our acceptance of the
Darwinian hypothesis must be provisional so long as one link in the
chain of evidence is wanting; and so long as all the animals and
plants certainly produced by selective breeding from a common stock
are fertile with one another, the link will be wanting. For, so
long, selective breeding will not be proved to be competent to do
all that is required of it to produce natural species.