That the Geo-system is an incubating organism, of which this earth is
the nucleus—but an organism that is so strongly characterized by
conditions and features of its own that likening it to any object
internal to it is the interpreting of a thing in terms of a
constituent—so that we think of an organism that is incompletely, or
absurdly inadequately, expressible in terms of the egg-like and the
larval and other forms of the immature—a geo-nucleated system that is
dependent upon its externality as, in one way or another, is every
similar, but lesser and included, thing—stimulated by flows of force
that are now said to be meteoric, though many so-called “meteoric”
streams seem more likely to be electric, that radiate from the umbilical
channels of its constellations—vitalized by its sun, which is itself
replenished by the comets, which, coming from external reservoirs of
force, impart to the sun their freightages, and, unaffected by
gravitation, return to an external existence, some of them even touching
the sun, but showing no indication of supposed solar attraction.
In a technical sense we give up the doctrine of Evolution. Ours is an
expression upon Super-embryonic Development, in one enclosed system.
Ours is an expression upon Design underlying and manifesting in all
things within this one system, with a Final Designer left out, because
we know of no designing force that is not itself the product of remoter
design. In terms of our own experience we can not think of an ultimate
designer, any more than we can think of ultimacy in any other respect.
But we are discussing a system that, in our conception, is not a final
entity; so then no metaphysical expression upon it is required.
I point out that this expression of ours is not meant for aid and
comfort to the reactionaries of the type of Col. W. J. Bryan, for
instance: it is not altogether anti-Darwinian: the concept of
Development replaces the concept of Evolution, but we accept the process
of Selection, not to anything loosely known as Environment, but
relatively to underlying Schedule and Design, predetermined and
supervised, as it were, but by nothing that we conceive of in
anthropomorphic terms.
I define what I mean by dynamic design, in the development of any
embryonic thing: a pre-determined, or not accidental, or not
irresponsible, passage along a schedule of phases to a climax of
unification of many parts. Some of the aspects of this process are the
simultaneous varying of parts, with destiny, and not with independence,
for their rule, or with future co-ordinations and functions for their
goal; and their survival while still incipient, not because they are
fittest relatively to contemporaneous environment, so not because of
usefulness or advantage in the present, inasmuch as at first they are
not only functionless but also discordant with established relations,
but surviving because they are in harmony with the dynamic plan of a
whole being: and the presence of forces of suppression, or repression,
as well as forces of stimulation and protection, so that parts are held
back, or are not permitted to develop before their time.
If we accept that these circumstances of embryonic development are the
circumstances of all wider development, within one enclosed system, the
doctrine of Darwinian Evolution, as applied generally, will, in our
minds, have to be replaced by an expression upon Super-embryonic
Development, and Darwinism, unmodified, will become to us one more of
the insufficiencies of the past. Darwinism concerns itself with the
adaptations of the present, and does heed the part that the past has
played, but, in Darwinism, there is no place for the influence of the
future upon the present.
Consider any part of an embryonic thing—the heart of an embryo—and at
first it is only a loop. It will survive, and it will be nourished in
its functionless incipiency; also it will not be permitted to become a
fully developed heart before its scheduled time arrives; its
circumstances are dominated by what it will be in the future. The eye of
an embryo is a better instance.
Consider anything of a sociologic nature that ever has grown: that there
never has been an art, science, religion, invention that was not at
first out of accord with established environment, visionary,
preposterous in the light of later standards, useless in its incipiency,
and resisted by established forces so that, seemingly animating it and
protectively underlying it, there may have been something that in spite
of its unfitness made it survive for future usefulness. Also there are
data for the acceptance that all things, in wider being, are held back
as well as protected and prepared for, and not permitted to develop
before comes scheduled time. Langley’s flying machine makes me think of
something of the kind—that this machine was premature; that it appeared
a little before the era of aviation upon this earth, and that therefore
Langley could not fly. But this machine was capable of flying, because,
some years later, Curtis did fly in it. Then one thinks that the Wright
Brothers were successful, because they did synchronize with a scheduled
time. I have heard that it is questionable that Curtis made no
alterations in Langley’s machine. There is no lack of instances. One of
the greatest of secrets that have eventually been found out was for ages
blabbed by all the pots and kettles in the world—but that the secret of
the steam engine could not, to the lowliest of intellects, or to
supposititiously highest of intellects, more than adumbratorily reveal
itself until came the time for its co-ordination with the other
phenomena and the requirements of the Industrial Age. And coal that was
stored in abundance near the surface of the ground—and the needs of
dwellers over coal mines, veins of which were often exposed upon the
surface of the ground, for fuel—but that this secret, too, obvious, too,
could not be revealed until the coming of the Industrial Age. Then the
building of factories, the inventing of machines, the digging of coal,
and the use of steam, all appearing by simultaneous variation, and
co-ordinating. Shores of North America—nowadays, with less hero-worship
than formerly, historians tell us that, to English and French fishermen,
the coast of Newfoundland was well-known, long before the year 1492;
nevertheless, to the world in general, it was not, or, according to our
acceptances, could not be, known. About the year 1500, a Portuguese
fleet was driven by storms to the coast of Brazil, and returned to
Europe. Then one thinks that likely enough, before the year 1492, other
vessels had been so swept to the coasts of the western hemisphere, and
had returned—but that data of westward lands could not emerge from the
suppressions of that era—but that the data did survive, or were
preserved for future usefulness—that there are “Thou shalt nots”
engraved upon something underlying all things, and then effacing, when
phases pass away.
We conceive now of all building—within one enclosed system—in terms of
embryonic building, and of all histories as local aspects of
Super-embryonic Development. Cells of an embryo build falsely and
futilely, in the sense that what they construct will be only temporary
and will be out of adjustment later. If however there are conditions by
which successive stages must be traversed before the arrival of
maturity, ours is an expression upon the functioning of the false and
the futile, in which case these terms, as derogations, should not be
applied. We see that the cells that build have no basis of their own;
that for their formations there is nothing of reason and necessity of
their own, because they flourish in other formations quite as well. We
see that they need nothing of basis, nor of guidance of their own,
because basis and guidance are of the essence of the whole. All are
responses, or correlates, to a succession of commandments, as it were,
or of dominant, directing, supervising spirits of different eras: that
they take on appearances that are concordant with the general gastrula
era, changing when comes the stimulus to agree with the reptilian era,
and again responding harmoniously when comes the time of the mammalian
era. It is in accordance with our experience that never has human mind,
scientific, religious, philosophic, formulated one basic thought, one
finally true law, principle, or major premise from which guidance could
be deduced. If any thought were true and final it would include the
deduced. We conceive that there has been guidance, just the same, if
human beings be conceived of as cellular units in one developing
organism; and that human minds no more need foundations of their own
than need the sub-embryonic cells that build so preposterously,
according to standards of later growth, but build as they are guided to
build. In this view, human reason is tropism, or response to stimuli,
and reasoning is the trial-and-error process of the most primitive
unicellular organisms, a susceptibility to underlying mandates, then a
groping in perhaps all possible distortions until adjustment with
underlying requirements is reached. In this view, then, though there
are, for instance, no atoms in the Daltonian sense, if in the service of
a building science, the false doctrine of the atoms be needed, the mind
that responds, perhaps not to stimulus, but to requirement, which seems
to be a negative stimulus, and so conceives, is in adjustment and
reaches the state known as success. I accept, myself, that there may be
Final Truth, and that it may be attainable, but never in a service that
is local or special in any one science or nation or world.
It is our expression that temporary isolations characterize embryonic
growth and super-embryonic growth quite as distinctly as do expansions
and co-ordinations. Local centers of development in an egg—and they are
isolated before they sketch out attempting relations. Or in wider
being—hemisphere isolated from hemisphere, and nation from nation—then
the breaking down of barriers—the appearance of Japan out of
obscurity—threads of a military plasm are cast across an ocean by the
United States.
Shafts of light that have pierced the obscurity surrounding planets—and
something like a star shines in Aristarchus of the moon. Embryonic
heavens that have dreamed—and that their mirages will be realized some
day. Sounds and an interval; sounds and the same interval; sounds
again—that there is one integrating organism and that we have heard its
pulse.