Appendix
A. Evolution and the lower forms of life (p. 165).
A singularly instructive field for the study of the mutability or stability of species should be afforded by the lower forms of life, in which organization is reduced to a minimum, they being mere masses of protoplasm without even a containing envelope, while their nourishment is of the simplest. It would therefore appear that environment should be all-potent to modify them and produce specific modifications, while the extreme rapidity with which they propagate their kind, and that unisexually, ought to require no vast extent of time to make such transmutations apparent.
It is found, however, on the contrary, that nowhere in organic nature does the type remain more rigidly persistent. Professor Macbride, for example, tells us,327
“The Myxomycetæ may be regarded as the organic group in which the forces of heredity,—whatever these forces may be—are at their maximum: they have responded as little as possible to the influence of their environment.”
To the same effect speaks Professor Paulesco of Bucharest, of other elementary organisms.328
What is still more remarkable, these same organisms are extremely sensitive to altered conditions of environment, which have a direct and immediate influence, gravely modifying their morphological and physiological characters, changes in respect of light, minute alterations of temperature, or the introduction of a new chemical substance, even in infinitesimal quantity, frequently causing them to assume forms very different from the specific type, and profoundly modifying their nutritive processes.
Here, it was at first thought, when Pasteur revealed their history, is clear evidence of specific transformation. But he presently convinced himself and others that it is not so, for although liable to assume such polymorphic forms according to the conditions in which they find themselves, there is no alteration of specific nature, and if the original circumstances be restored, the original forms reappear—“une élasticité functionelle de la cellule lui permettant de se plier à des conditions variées d’existence sans changer d’être.” (Pasteur.)
As M. Duclaux adds:329
“La notion d’espèce ne disparait pas pour cela. La variabilité est un caractère comme un autre, bien que plus difficile à inscrire dans la classification, et une espèce est aussi bien définie par les sensibilités diverses qu’elle manifeste que par la petite liste des mots et de propriétés dans laquelle on croyait pouvoir autrefois enfermer toute son histoire.... La lien de l’espèce c’est la loi qui préside à ces changements, et la variété des formes et des fonctions n’est pas du tout en contradiction avec l’unité de l’espèce.”
B. Note on Chap. XV. p. 203.
Since the foregoing pages have been in type there has come to hand the New York Literary Digest of January 23, 1904, containing the following article (p. 119).
“Are the Days of Darwinism Numbered?”
The recent death of Herbert Spencer lends special timeliness to the above topic, which is being actively debated just now in German theological circles. The immediate cause of the revival of interest in the present status of the Darwinian theory is found in a lengthy article by the veteran philosopher, Edward von Hartmann, which appears in Oswald’s Annalen der Naturphilosophie (vol. ii. 1903), under the title ‘Der Niedergang der Darwinismus’ (‘The Passing of Darwinism’). That the famous ‘philosopher of the unconscious’ is not prejudiced in favour of biblical views has been more than clear since the publication of his Selbstzersetzung der Christentums (‘Disintegration of Christianity’) in 1874. Hartmann in his new article has this to say—
‘In the sixties of the past century the opposition of the older group of savants to the Darwinian hypothesis was still supreme. In the seventies, the new idea began to gain ground rapidly in all cultured countries. In the eighties, Darwin’s influence was at its height, and exercised an almost absolute control over technical research. In the nineties, for the first time, a few timid expressions of doubt and opposition were heard, and these gradually swelled into a great chorus of voices, aiming at the overthrow of the Darwinian theory. In the first decade of the twentieth century it has become apparent that the days of Darwinism are numbered. Among its latest opponents are such savants as Eimer, Gustav Wolf, De Vries, Hoocke, von Wellstein, Fleischmann, Reinke, and many others.’
These facts, according to Hartmann’s view, while they do not indicate that the Darwinian theory is doomed, undermine its most radical features:
‘The theory of descent is safe, but Darwinism has been weighed and found wanting. Selection can in general not achieve any positive results, but only negative effects; the origin of species by minimal changes is possible, but has not been demonstrated. The pretensions of Darwinism as a pure mechanical explanation of results that show purpose are totally groundless.’
Other scholars think that Hartmann does not do full justice to the reaction that has set in, particularly in Germany, against Darwinism. This sentiment is voiced by Professor Zoeckler, of the University of Greifswald, in the Beweis des Glaubens (No. xi.), a journal which recently published a collection of anti-Darwinian views from German naturalists. He calls the article of Hartmann ‘the tombstone-inscription [Grabschrift] for Darwinism,’ and goes on to say:
‘The claim that the hypothesis of descent is secured scientifically must most decidedly be denied. Neither Hartmann’s exposition nor the authorities he cites have the force of moral conviction for the claim for purely mechanical descent. The descent of organisms is not a scientifically demonstrated proposition, although descent in an ideal sense can be made to harmonize with the biblical account of creation.’
Views of a similar kind are voiced in many quarters. The Hamburg savant, Edward Hoppe, has written a brochure, Ist mit der Descendenz-Theorie eine religiöse Vorstellung vereinbar? [Is the Theory of Evolution reconcilable with the Religious Idea?] in which he takes issue, in the name of religion, with the purely naturalistic type of Darwinian thought. The most pronounced convert to anti-Darwinian views is Professor Fleischmann, of Erlangen, who has not only discarded the mechanical conception of the origin of being, but the whole Darwinian theory. He recently delivered a course of lectures, entitled ‘Die Darwin’sche Theorie,’ which have appeared in book form in Leipsic. He comes to this conclusion: ‘The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination.’
From another article in the same journal (p. 116), entitled ‘A Study of Creation,’ the following paragraphs may be cited:
“The French have never been enthusiastic Darwinians. It is, perhaps, not surprising, therefore, to find a French geologist, M. Stanislas Meunier, arguing in the Revue Scientifique (December 19) against all schools of transformism and stoutly maintaining what is practically a doctrine of special creation. He admits that living beings form a connected series; but the connexion, he believes, is not one of physical descent, but inheres in something outside of and pre-existent to the earth. He does not name it, but he would probably not object to the inference that it is the mind of a creator.
“M. Meunier gives at some length his reasons for rejecting Darwin’s, Lamarck’s, and all other theories of transformism. All we can be sure of, he thinks, is that, as in the case of the various kinds of pottery, we have to do with an orderly development, although he thinks it is not a development by descent. He closes, thus:
“‘Doubtless we cannot usefully risk any hypothesis on the mechanism of the production of living things; but it is, perhaps, a step in advance only to come to the conclusion that the cause of life and its manifestations on the earth is exterior to the earth; that it is anterior to our world, just as are doubtless the laws of physics and chemistry, which govern the relations of matter and force throughout space.
“‘The philosophy of science can lose nothing by the admission of points of view that, far from narrowing our subjects of study, enlarge them beyond all limits; and this is, perhaps, the occasion to show once more to persons who are turning toward metaphysics in their thirst for mystery, that they will find in pure science that wherewith they may satisfy their legitimate aspirations.’”
C. Succession of Plant forms p. 220.
Recent investigations have led to the remarkable discovery that many fern-like plants of the Carboniferous rocks, hitherto classed as Cryptogams, were in reality seed-bearers, and thus intermediate between Cryptogams and Cycads, the most primitive of existing seed-plants. They have accordingly been placed in a special group “Cycadofilices,” or “Fern-Cycads,” and regarded as transitional types, the view that they are the remains of a natural bridge connecting the Ferns with the Gymnosperms having received wide support,330 and at first sight this conclusion would appear natural and obvious. But here, as in other cases, the difficulty is that the seeds which have been found are all fully developed; there are none in the intermediate stages between true spores and true seeds; we have the finished article, but no trace of seeds in the making; which upon any theory of evolution must have been exceedingly numerous. Hence Dr. Scott tells us:331
“The important discoveries of the seeds of the Pteridosperms scarcely touch the question of descent, for these organs are of too advanced a type to throw light on the probable derivation of the group.”
In this instance, therefore, as in others, it remains true that in no case is any trace found of rudimentary character in the earliest fossil specimens of any class.
It is undoubtedly a further puzzle that some of the Carboniferous cryptogams which did not bear real seeds, yet simulated them, a habit not easily explained on evolutionary principles.
D. The Course of Evolution.
The evidence of Professor Vines quoted in the text (pp. 202, 237) receives a remarkable confirmation from that of Dr. Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology in the National Museum of Natural History. Speaking before the International Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis, U.S.A., September 22nd, 1904, he thus touched upon the same question, which he illustrated especially from the history of fossil fishes, which he has made his special study.332
“It must be confessed that repeated discoveries have now left faint hope that exact and gradual links will ever be forthcoming between most of the families and genera. The ‘imperfection of the record,’ of course, may still render some of the negative evidence untrustworthy; but even approximate links would be much commoner in collections than they actually are if the doctrine of gradual evolution were correct. Palæontology, indeed, is clearly in favour of the theory of discontinuous mutation, or advance by sudden changes, which has lately received so much support from the botanical experiments of H. de Vries.
“Further results obtained from the study of fossils have a bearing even on the deepest problems of Biology, namely, those connected with the nature of life itself. For instance, it is allowable to infer, from the statements already made, that the main factor in the evolution of organisms is some inherent impulse—the ‘bathmic force’ of Cope—which acts with unerring certainty whatever be the conditions of the moment.”
E. Pedigree of the Horse.
Some recent evidence on this subject certainly does not clear away the difficulties set forth in the text.
From Nature, Sept. 8, 1904, p. 474.
“Professor Osborn (in a lecture before the British Association) mentioned that more than a hundred more or less complete skeletons of horses and horse-like animals had been found in North America. He thought he had established the fact that horses were polyphyletic, there being four or five contemporary series in the Miocene, but that the direct origin of the genus Equus in North America was not established with certainty.”
Professor Sedgwick, Student’s Text Book of Zoology, p. 599.
“Much has been written on the ancestry of the horse. It has been maintained by many authors that a continuous series of forms connecting it with the four-toed, brachyodont Hyracothoridæ of the Eocene has been discovered, and that here if anywhere a demonstrative historical proof has been obtained of the doctrine of organic evolution. Without desiring in the smallest degree to impugn that doctrine, it may be permitted us here to examine rather closely the view that the series of forms which recent palæontological research has undoubtedly brought to light constitute that historical proof which has been claimed for them.”
[After an examination of the structural characters of these intermediate forms, viz., Pliohippus, Protohippus, Desmathippus, Miohippus, Mesohippus, Orohippus, and Hyracotherium, the author proceeds]:
“So far as the characters mentioned are concerned, we have here a very remarkable series of forms which at first sight seem to constitute a linear series with no cross-connections. Whether, however, they really do this is a difficult point to decide. There are flaws in the chain of evidence, which require careful and detailed consideration. For instance, the genus Equus appears in the Upper Siwalik beds, which have been ascribed to the Miocene age. It has, however, been maintained that these beds are in reality Lower Pliocene, or even Upper Pliocene. It is clear that the decision of this question is of the utmost importance. If Equus really existed in the Upper Miocene, it was antecedent to some of its supposed ancestors. Again in the series of equine forms, Mesohippus, Miohippus, Desmathippus, Protohippus, which are generally regarded as coming into the direct line of equine descent, Scott333 points out that each genus is, in some respect or other, less modified than its predecessor. In other words, it would appear that in this succession of North American forms the earlier genera show, in some points, closer resemblance to the modern Equus than to their immediate successors. It is possible that these difficulties and others of the same kind will be overcome with the growth of knowledge, but it is necessary to take note of them, for in the search after truth nothing is gained by ignoring such apparent discrepancies between theory and fact.”
Besides the structure of limbs and teeth, another argument for the descent of the horse has been drawn from certain phenomena of colouration. Stripings are found not unfrequently to occur in the legs and withers, which Darwin took for a reversion to the character of a very remote ancestor, the common parent, in fact, of horses and asses, which he supposed to have been striped all over like a zebra. Like other such common ancestors, this hypothetical animal had never been seen, but was thought to be most nearly represented by the Kathiwar horse, with stripes on a dun ground, a specimen of which is exhibited as illustrating the hypothesis in the National Museum of Zoology.
Recently, however, Professor Ridgeway, who has devoted special attention to the problem, has satisfied himself that there is no sufficient foundation for these suppositions. He thus sums up the evidence which he has been able to collect:334
“Darwin’s view that the original ancestor of the Equidæ was a dun-coloured animal, striped all over, was based, not merely on the occurrence of stripes in horses, but on his belief that such stripes were common in dun horses, and that there was a tendency in horses to revert to dun colour. But it must be confessed that the facts do not warrant his conclusion.... It is clear that stripes are at least as often a concomitant of dark as of dun colour. Moreover, if Darwin’s hypothesis of a dun-coloured ancestor with stripes is sound, dark colours such as bay and brown must be of more recent origin, and accordingly there ought to be a great readiness on the part of a progeny of a light-coloured animal when mated with a dark to revert to the light. But Professor Ewart’s zebra stallion has never been able to stamp his own peculiar pattern or his own colours on his hybrid offspring. The ground colour has been determined by the dams of the hybrids.”
Footnotes
1 Collected Essays, i. 35.
2 Lectures on Evolution, Cheap Edition, p. 16.
3 Conservation of Energy, § 210, p. 153.
4 F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., The Lesson of Evolution (1902), pp. 9-11.
5 Nineteenth Century, February, 1889. p. 173.
6 This term is now applied almost exclusively to physical science, or that whose province is the observation of phenomena and inferences directly deducible from them. To avoid confusion, this sense of the word “Science” will be here adopted: it is nevertheless objectionable inasmuch as it implies that—as Professor Huxley following Hume would have it—sound knowledge is restricted, outside the field of mathematics, to “experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence.” But although all premisses or data of inference come to us first through the gates of sense, there is much, beyond the limits within which sensible experience is confined, to a knowledge of which inference can lead us, and of which we become certain before experience can verify what we have thus learnt. Thus a chipped flint or a fragment of pottery is universally recognized as evidencing the work of man: a single page of Virgil would suffice—apart from all other information—to prove its author to have been both a poet and a scholar: the shipwrecked mariner cast on an unknown shore argued soundly from the sight of a gibbet that he had reached a civilized land ruled by law. But more than this, Science herself proceeds on this principle to the recognition not only of forces, the character of which is known by previous experience, but of others concerning which she knows nothing at all, except through the very effects from which she argues. Thus, as all bodies left free are found to draw towards one another in a certain mode, it is concluded with absolute confidence that there is a force making them do so, although this is in itself utterly imperceptible, and is known only by the way in which bodies behave under what must be its influence. Yet, who questions the existence of Gravitation? In like manner, the phenomena of light force us to admit the existence of the Ether, as the medium through which its waves are transmitted. Yet, we are compelled to attribute to this medium qualities apparently so incompatible that, as the late Lord Salisbury said, Ether remains, “a half discovered entity.” But little as we can realize its nature, we have no doubt that such a medium exists.
7 “Value of the Natural History Sciences” (Lay Sermons), p. 75.
8 Italics his.
9 Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, English translation, 1903, Preface, p. vii.
10 Riddle of the Universe, Cheap English Edition, p. 2.
11 ibid., p. 85.
12 And also, it should be added, travelling bodily through space with a movement of “translation.”
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 2.
15 The 15th Chapter of Haeckel’s Natural History of Creation is devoted to this point.
16 Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, p. 32.
17 Riddle of the Universe, p. 5.
18 Ibid., p. 78.
19 Ibid., p. 86.
20 Ibid., 134.
21 An Easy Outline of Evolution, by Dennis Hird, M.A., Principal of Ruskin Hall, Oxford, p. 230.
22 Presidential Address, Section D, Zoology, Leeds, 1890.
23 Riddle of the Universe, p. 2.
24 Ibid., p. 83.
25 “Pseudo-Scientific Realism,” Collected Essays, i, 68, 74-78.
26 Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 72. A “Law of Nature,” as has already been said, is simply a statement of what de facto has always been found to occur under certain conditions, and may consequently be expected again. It is obvious however that such expectation is implicitly based on the existence of some cause capable of ensuring the result.
27 “The Teaching of Natural Philosophy,” Contemporary Review, Jan., 1878.
28 Lay Sermons, p. 83.
29 Riddle of the Universe, p. 6.
30 See Wasmann “Gedanken zur Entwicklungslehre,” Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, vol. 63, p. 298.
31 Contemporary Review, ut sup., p. 301.
32 Professor Weldon, F.R.S., in the Dictionary of National Biography.
33 Collected Essays, v. 41.
34 Riddle of the Universe, p. 75.
35 Professor Garnett in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. By “Force” is understood “any cause which tends to alter a body’s natural state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line.” Of the nature of such causes science professes to know very little, and as Clerk-Maxwell, who knew as much as most men, sang apropos of a lecture of Professor Tait’s:
... Tait writes in lucid symbols clear one small equation;
And Force becomes of Energy a mere space-variation.
36 Balfour Stewart, Conservation of Energy, § 115; by Clerk-Maxwell, apud Garnett, ut sup.
37 Tyndall, Fragments of Science, 5th Edition, p. 23.
38 Conservation of Energy, § 209.
39 Sir William Thomson, now Lord Kelvin.
40 March 29, 1888.
41 So of another effort in the same direction Capt. Hutton tells us: “The last champion in the field is Professor A. W. Bickerton, who thinks he has found a way in which this dismal conclusion, as he considers it, may be averted. But he is not very sure about it, and has to assume: first, that space contains now and always will contain, a large quantity of cosmic dust scattered through it with some approach to uniformity; and secondly, that the Universe consists of an infinite number of what he calls ‘cosmic systems,’ travelling through space, constantly throwing off dust in all directions and occasionally colliding. As all this is pure assumption and highly improbable, I cannot think that Professor Bickerton has brought forward any serious objection to the theory of the dissipation of energy, and his hypothesis must be added to the list of failures.” (Lesson of Evolution, p. 14, n.)
42 Lesson of Evolution, p. 14.
43 Darwin and after Darwin, p. 17.
44 Riddle of the Universe, p. 64.
45 Über die Grenzen der Naturerkennens: Die Sieben Welträthsel, Leipzic, 1882.
46 Riddle of the Universe, p. 64.
47 Du Bois-Reymond does not say that they are soluble, but only that he cannot pronounce them “transcendental.”
48 Samuel Laing, Modern Science and Modern Thought, Cheap Edition, p. 19.
49 Riddle of the Universe, p. 86.
50 Ibid.
51 P. 78.
52 P. 64.
53 Origin of the Laws of Nature, p. 23.
54 Belfast Address, 1874.
55 Lay Sermons. “On the Physical Basis of Life,” p. 143.
56 Professor Tait, Properties of Matter, § 108.
57 Contemporary Review, January, 1878, p. 301.
58 Story of Creation, p. 11.
59 Edinburgh Review, October, 1903, p. 399.
60 Or “primal stuff.” This looks remarkably like the old Materia Prima of the Schoolmen translated into Greek.
61 Ibid. The Revelations of Radium.
62 Ibid., p. 398. {Note.—It is often assumed that the composite character of the atom—if fully established—must upset the Atomic Theory. This is not so; all that the new hypothesis does is to go further back in accounting for the Atomic Theory, and for all practical purposes things remain exactly as they were; except, indeed, that the dissolution of matter does away with what was held as one of the most assured conclusions of science.}
63 The Nebular Hypothesis itself is, of course, far from being an established certainty, and is not devoid of grave difficulties. Into these, however, it is not necessary now to enter.
64 Apud Gaynor, The New Materialism, p. 83.
65 Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Biology.”
66 Apud Gaynor, p. 84.
67 Professor Marsh.
68 Professor Dewar at Belfast, 1902.
69 Recent Advances in Physical Science, 3rd Edition, p. 6.
70 Gaynor, p. 102.
71 Lay Sermons, p. 18.
72 Critiques and Addresses, p. 305.
73 Being the year in which this passage was written.
74 Viz. that of the derivation of life from life alone, as opposed to Abiogenesis, or its production from lifeless matter.
75 See Fragments of Science, “Spontaneous Generation,” for a full account.
76 March 18, 1863. Life and Letters, i. 352.
77 April 30, 1870. Ibid. ii. 17.
78 Critiques and Addresses, p. 238.
79 Lay Sermons, p. 18.
80 Evolution and the Origin of Life, 1874, p. 23.
81 Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Biology.”
82 Fragments of Science. “Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address.”
83 Ibid. “Scientific use of the imagination.”
84 Fragments of Science, “Spontaneous Generation.”
85 Ibid. “Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address.”
86 Ibid. “Vitality.”
87 Nineteenth Century, May, 1886, p. 769.
88 Italics mine.
89 It has been established by Pasteur and others that the highest temperature at which organic life is possible is 45° Centigrade (113° Fahrenheit). When the globe had cooled to this point from its primitive molten condition, the epoch of terrestrial life commenced.
According to what is perhaps the latest theory, that of M. Quinton, the temperature immediately below this, 44° Centigrade, remains always the best for living things, and those creatures are highest in the scale of life, and consequently the most developed, which have contrived means of keeping their internal heat at, or about, this level, despite the refrigeration of their surroundings. In their blood-heat M. Quinton therefore finds an absolute rule for fixing the relative rank of organic forms, and the date of their appearance; those whose blood is warmest being the most recently evolved. The results of this new system are sufficiently startling. Birds are to be classed as the highest and newest of all; while man, with the other Primates, has to take a much lower place, the ungulates, including the horse and donkey, and the carnivora, as dogs and cats, being his superiors. (La Revue des Idées, January 15, 1904, pp. 29 seq.)
90 To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.
91 To Sir J. D. Hooker, March 29, 1863.
92 To V. Carus, November 21, 1866.
93 To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.
94 Riddle of the Universe, p. 6.
95 As regards Protoplasm, p. 21.
96 Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Biology.”
97 Printed in Lay Sermons.
98 Nature, June 5, 1902, p. 121.
99 Id. ibid.
100 Op. cit. p. 27.
101 Presidential Address, British Association, 1887.
102 Les Emules de Darwin, ii. 66.
103 Op. cit. ii. 63.
104 Darwinism, p. 474.
105 The other stages presenting similar difficulties are the 5th and 6th of Du Bois-Reymond’s Enigmas, viz. the introduction of sensation or consciousness (animal life), and of rational thought and speech.
106 Contemporary Review, January, 1878, p. 298.
107 Die sieben Welträthsel, D. 82.
108 Professor Huxley, it must be remarked, speaks of Homer as a “half savage Greek” (Lay Sermons, p. 12), and intimates a mild wonder that such a being could share our feelings in presence of nature to so large an extent as his poems testify. This is undoubtedly a fine example of the good conceit of ourselves which the pursuit of science is rather apt to produce.
109 Darwinism, p. 475.
110 Descent of Man, c. ii.
111 Ibid. 54.
112 In his paper read before the British Association at Oxford in 1847.
113 Lessons from Nature, p. 89.
114 See Mivart, Origin of Human Reason, p. 166.
115 See Louis Arnould, Une âme en prison, and article “An imprisoned Soul,” by the Ctesse. de Courson, The Month, January, 1902, p. 82.
116 Descent of Man, i. 57.
117 i.e. ape-like.
118 Quoted by Romanes, Mental Evolution in Man.
119 Ibid., p. 371.
120 Origin of Human Reason, p. 385.
121 Op. cit. p. 379.
122 Riddle of the Universe, p. 46.
123 “Ontogeny” signifies the genesis of the individual, “Phylogeny” that of the race. Accordingly, when rendered into ordinary language, declarations such as these, unsupported as they are by any evidence, are found to mean that the development of the individual, tells us all about the development of the individual, and the development of the race all about that of the race. Is it really supposed, as it would seem to be, that such points are scientifically settled by translating terms into Greek?
124 Lavengro, passim.
125 Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 38.
126 British Association Lecture, 1873.
127 Riddle of the Universe, p. 93.
128 Origin of Species (5th Edition), p. 226.
129 Afterwards (April 17, 1863) Mr. Darwin wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker, “I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant ’appeared’ by some wholly unknown process.”
130 At a later period Mr. Darwin modified his views as to what he still termed “that wondrous organ the human eye,” writing thus (Descent of Man, ii. 166): “We know what Helmholtz, the highest authority in Europe on the subject, has said about the human eye: that if an optician had sold him an instrument so carelessly made, he would have thought himself fully justified in returning it.”
It is perfectly true that Helmholtz so expressed himself (Vorträge und Reden, i. 253, etc., English Edition, “Popular Scientific Lectures,” pp. 219, etc.), adding that “the eye has every possible defect that can be found in an optical instrument, and some which are peculiar to itself.” These utterances are frequently quoted, but Helmholtz says a good deal more of which we do not usually hear. He observes, in the first place, that in speaking as above he did so “from the narrow but legitimate point of view of an optician.” Having then enumerated all the defects in question, he continues—“In an artificial camera, all these irregularities would be exceedingly troublesome. In the eye they are not so, so little troublesome, indeed, that it was occasionally a matter of extreme difficulty to detect them.” He adds that men in general not only are unaware of the existence of such defects, but can hardly be induced to credit it. Also that they “almost always affect those portions of the field of vision to which at the moment we are not directing our attention.” What is still more to the point, he observes, that the defects noted are all theoretical, while the purpose of the eye is practical, and that if theoretically more perfect as an optical instrument, it would be practically less serviceable. To complain that the eye is not adapted for the special purposes of a microscope or telescope is like condemning the boats of a sea-going ship because they lack some of the qualities found in racing outriggers or Rob Roy canoes. “As concerns the adaptation of the eye to its functions, [adds Helmholtz,] this is most thorough, and is manifest in the very limitations set to its defects.... A man of any sense would not chop firewood with a razor, and we may assume that any elaboration of the optical structure of the eye would have rendered it more liable to injury and slower in its development.” Helmholtz therefore concludes that the eye is a product which “the wisest Wisdom may have pre-designed.”
It thus comes very much to Pope’s solution:
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason: man is not a fly,—
and in view of his subsequent admissions, Helmholtz’s flourish about returning the eye to its maker looks very like theatrical clap-trap, unworthy of such a man.
131 Life of C. Darwin, ii. 234. Erasmus Darwin to C. Darwin, November 23, 1859.
132 Animal Locomotion (International Scientific Series), p. 180.
133 Origin of Laws of Nature, p. 69.
134 Lectures on Evolution (Cheap Edition), p. 37.
135 Philosophical Basis of Evolution, passim.
136 By a Final Cause is meant the predetermined result or end, towards which a work of intelligence is directed, the end being the ultimate cause of the whole act. Thus the obtaining a light is the Final Cause of striking a match: while the striking of the match is the Efficient Cause producing the light.
137 Grammar of Assent, p. 69.
138 Familiar Lectures, p. 458.
139 “On the Reception of the ‘Origin of Species,’:” Life of C. Darwin, ii. p. 187.
140 Nineteenth Century, No. 2. Reprinted in Lectures and Essays, p. 388 (2nd Edition).
141 Studies in the Theory of Descent, vol. ii. p. 710; vid. Edinburgh Review, October, 1902, The Rise and Influence of Darwinism.
142 Ut sup. p. 201.
143 Sic. The sense evidently requires either that the “not” should be deleted, or “prove” be substituted for “disprove” in the preceding line. This erroneous reading occurs not only in the text from which I quote, but likewise in the Critiques and Addresses, p. 307, where this passage forms part of the Professor’s review of Haeckel’s Natural History of Creation, under the title of The Genealogy of Animals.
144 Life and Letters, ii. 195.
145 Ibid., p. 467.
146 De Natura Deorum, ii. 4.
147 Principia, Schol. Gen.
148 Unseen Universe, p. 47.
149 Burnett Lectures, p. 327.
150 See report of his words emended by himself, Nineteenth Century and After, June, 1903.
151 Bradford, 1873.
152 Montreal, 1884.
153 Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 3rd Series, vol. v. p. 138.
154 “Reception of ‘Origin of Species,’” ubi sup. p. 199.
155 November 26, 1860.
156 May 22, 1860.
157 Riddle of the Universe, p. 92.
158 The Scientific Basis of Morality, by George Gore, LL.D., F.R.S., p. 31.
159 May 22, 1860.
160 Bain, De vi physica, p. 76.
161 Origin of Laws of Nature, p. 61.
162 Lord Grimthorpe, op. cit. 85.
163 Letter to the Times, June 2, 1903
164 The term Monism, invented by Wolf, originally bore a different meaning from that in which Haeckel employs it. It was used to signify equally the materialistic denial of the substantiality of mind, and the idealistic denial of the substantiality of matter. Professor Haeckel, as will be seen, maintains that mind and matter are but two names for one thing.
165 Confession of Faith of a Man of Science (English translation), p. 60.
166 Ibid., p. 10.
167 Ibid., p. 3.
168 Mind and Motion.
169 An Easy Outline of Evolution, by Dennis Hird, M.A., Principal of Ruskin Hall, Oxford, p. 184.
170 Ibid., p. 74.
171 Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, p. 51.
172 Presidential Address, Section A, British Association, Norwich, 1868.
173 “Mr. Darwin’s Critics.” (Critiques and Addresses, p. 283.)
174 Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, p. 19.
175 To what extremes such doctrines must logically lead is illustrated by Mr. Edmund Selous in his very interesting Bird Watching, where he casually observes, as a matter of course, that the “life-part” of a tom-tit is as important in the sum of things as Napoleon’s (p. 248), and declares elsewhere, more formally (p. 335)—“Surely, a beautiful butterfly, that, for all time, charms—and raises by charming—some number of those who see it, does more good on this earth than any single man or woman, who, ‘departing,’ leaves no ‘foot-prints on the sands of time.’ Homer, for instance, has left his Iliad and Odyssey, and these have been, and still are, mighty in their effects. But let them once perish, and Homer will be caught up and overtaken by almost any bird or butterfly—even a brown one.”
176 First Principles.
177 Riddle of the Universe, p. 92.
178 As to the term “Chance” which he frequently used, Mr. Darwin wrote in one place (Origin of Species, Opening passage of c. v.): “I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations—so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree with those in a state of nature—had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation.” It is obvious, however, that this explanation only serves to show that, as we have heard him confess, Mr. Darwin was anything but a clear thinker, for it is absolutely meaningless if applied to his mention of “Chance” quoted in the text above. He could not possibly mean that the mind refuses to regard the world as the outcome of a cause whereof we know nothing, for that is just what he thinks it is. Mr. Darwin, in fact, instinctively recognized, as every man of common-sense must do, that if not due to purpose, the order of Nature is due to chance, according to the true and legitimate use of the word, and thus he commonly employed it. Occasionally however he endeavoured, following Huxley and others, to defend himself against the reproach of relying upon such a factor.—Vid. sup., c. xii.
179 Although at first Mr. Darwin appeared to restrict his system to species, very soon, as was but natural, it was extended to the production of new genera, and even of divisions of the organic kingdoms yet wider asunder. Thus—apart from the most famous instance of all, treated by Darwin himself in his Descent of Man—it is now a cardinal point with Evolutionists generally that all the higher forms of life are descended from the lowest, and that even far up the line of development, creatures apparently the most diverse have sprung from one identical ancestor. Thus amongst vertebrates it is considered certain that Birds and Reptiles are branches of the same stock,—and, still farther on, that at least all placental mammals—bats and whales, elephants and mice—trace their pedigree to some common progenitor.
180 Origin of Species, v.
181 Ibid., c. vii.
182 Ibid., c. vi.
183 “I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and now some small trifling particulars of structure often make me feel very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick.” (C. Darwin to Asa Gray, April 3, 1860.)
184 It will help to understand the nature of the task thus imposed upon Natural Selection, to consider what Lord Grimthorpe writes on this subject (Origin of the Laws of Nature, p. 103):
“We take pieces of glass of different kinds and grind them to particular shapes and set them in a frame and make a telescope, which refracts rays of light so as to produce an ‘image’ of a very distant object near our eye, and that appears much larger when seen through another glass of proper shape. But we have never yet been able to make one that can bring all the rays from a single distant point exactly to another point without confusion. Yet there are many millions of apparently self-made machines in the world that do it perfectly; and when we cut up one of them and examine it we find that instead of our large lumps of glass melted together into a coarse kind of uniformity, this machine has been built up of an innumerable quantity of particles arranged in peculiar and complicated ways, some of which have objects that we can understand, though we cannot imitate them, and others that we do not. Moreover they are persistently alike in every machine of the same class, and again some of them persistently unlike those belonging to any other class of animals. For a long time the retina of the eye used to be called a membrane, or a kind of thin sheet. Then it was found to be a kind of brush of which the hairs vibrate under the vibration of the rays of light; and now these hairs are found by further magnification to be divided into so many parts lengthwise that a picture of them has to be as long as the picture of a striped or spotted animal to distinguish them; and instead of being simply set fast by one end like hairs in a brush, they pass through several frames or membranes; and of the use of all these pieces we know nothing. Such is the ‘simplicity of nature’ in that organ which next to a stomach is the commonest in all living creatures; and such is our ignorance of nature yet.”
185 Ibid., c. vii.
186 Although, as bee-keepers soon discover, Mr. Darwin supposed the workmanship of bees’ cells to be considerably more exact and accurate than usually is the case,—there remains quite enough of architectural merit to justify his remarks. It may even be said to increase the mystery that the insects should thus appear to strive towards an ideal, which they frequently fail to satisfy.
187 Ranunculus ficaria. It is remarkable that in the season of 1904 this plant has ripened fruit profusely in various districts in which such fruit had for many years been practically undiscoverable.
188 Origin of Species, c. xiv.
189 Descent of Man, Part I, c. i.
190 Biological Lectures and Addresses, p. 202.
191 Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs Français (1870), p. 120.
192 North British Review, June, 1867. Professor Huxley likewise declared this criticism to be of “real and permanent value.” (Critiques and Addresses, 252.)
193 La vie des êtres animés, p. 102.
194 Presidential Address Geologists’ Association (Proceedings, vol. v. 1875-6). Partly reprinted in Contemporary Review, February, 1877, under the title “Evolution and the Vegetable Kingdom.”
195 See Appendix A. p. 280a.
196 Variation in Animals and Plants, p. 343. By H. M. Verney (International Scientific Series, 88).
197 J. W. Barclay, New Theory of Organic Evolution, p. 90.
198 Huxley, Lectures and Essays (Popular Edition), pp. 28, seq.
199 Since Professor Huxley wrote the idea has been completely discarded that these birds occupy such a place as he assigned them. The wing of Hesperornis, for example, is now declared to be an instance of degeneration from one capable of flight. None of these fowls can be considered as the progenitors of any now existing, but all as the descendants of flying ancestors of arboreal habits, whereof no trace has yet been discovered. (See Pycraft’s Story of Bird Life, p. 190.)
200 Philosophical Transactions Royal Society, 1863, p. 36.
201 This point is well handled by M. Paul Janet, Final Causes, 2nd English Edition, p. 245.
202 Descent of Man, ii. 156.
203 Tablet, May 26, 1888, p. 837.
204 Lessons from Nature, p. 297.
205 Descent of Man, i. p. 57.
206 In later editions (e.g. that of 1888, i. 133) the suggestion is put in form of a question: “May not some unusually wise ape-like animal...?”
207 Origin of Species, c. vi.
208 Ibid., c. viii.
209 It is a grave aggravation of the problem, which need only be mentioned here, that the bees which make cells are neuters and have no descendants, while the queens and drones which are the progenitors of the whole race never do a stroke of work in the course of their existence.
210 Descent of Man (1st Edition), ii. 385.
211 Ibid., i. 107.
212 Ibid., ii. 386.
213 Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs Français, p. 151
214 Ibid., p. 167.
215 La vie des êtres animés, p. 161.
216 Saint-Hilaire.
217 Les Emules de Darwin, ii. p. 82.
218 North British Review, July, 1867, p. 316.
219 P. 313.
220 November 5, 1903, Journal of Botany, January, 1904, p. 32.
221 Dr. Hudson, see Nature, February 20, 1890, p. 375.
222 Origin of Species, c. xi.
223 Op. cit. p. 59.
224 History of Creation, English Edition, ii. 353.
225 The Genealogy of Animals: a Review of Haeckel’s “Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte.” The Academy, 1869. Reprinted in Critiques and Addresses, and Darwiniana (Collected Works).
226 The Thyroid gland in the throat, the function of which is unknown, was supposed to be absolutely without use. It is found, however, that its removal entails myxoedema, a condition closely allied to cretinism.
227 “Geological Contemporaneity.” (Lay Sermons, p. 206.)
228 Mr. Mivart, Types of Animal Life, p. 113.
229 Les Emules de Darwin, ii. 13.
230 Mr. Mivart, Tablet, April 21, 1888.
231 The Mexican Axolotl, the Triton Alpestris, and probably others.
232 Nature, March 24, 1892.
233 i.e. the Science of Causes.
234 Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales.
235 Thus having described in detail a series of experiments as to the effects of an alteration of diet supplied to the larvæ of various hymenoptera, M. Fabre writes:
“Tout cela est bien autrement grave que les petits riens invoqués par Darwin.” (Souvenirs entomologiques, 3rd Series, p. 330.)
236 Journal of Linnean Society, vol. xix.
237 Hibbert Journal, January, 1903, p. 218.
238 Revue de Philosophie, April 1, 1904.
239 Souvenirs entomologiques, 3rd Series, p. 317.
240 For some further testimonies on this head see Appendix.
241 Nature, September 10, 1891.
242 Coming of Age of the Origin of Species.
243 De opere sex dierum, ii. 10, n. 12.
244 Modern Idea of Evolution, p. 97.
245 Darwin (Origin of Species, p. 274, 6th Edition) considers it “incredible” that the same identical species should originate twice even under the very same conditions. In the following passage, Haeckel affirms such unity of origin in respect of a most remarkable species of wide-reaching affinities.
“All morphologists arrive at the firm conviction that all vertebrata, from the Amphioxus upwards to man himself, all fishes, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and mammals, descend originally from a single vertebrate ancestor, for we cannot imagine that all the different and highly complicated conditions of life which, through a long series of processes or stages of development, led to the typical formation of a vertebrate, have accidentally happened together more than once in the course of the earth’s history.” (Address to Munich meeting of German Association, vid. Nature, October 4, 1877.)
246 Origin of Species (6th Edition), p. 265.
247 Les Emules de Darwin, ii., 76.
248 History of Plant Life and its bearings on Theory of Evolution (1898).
249 Harebell.
250 According to the most recent system of classification, the Monopetalæ, now re-christened Sympetalae, are ranked above the Polypetalæ, the family of the Compositae being highest of all.
251 Proceedings, vol. v., p. 17, etc. (1875-6). The substance of this address appeared as an article in the Contemporary Review, February, 1877, entitled, “Evolution and the Vegetable Kingdom.”
252 See Appendix B. p. 284.
253 Modern Ideas of Evolution (6th Edition), pp. 107, seq.
254 These first mammals, which were exceedingly small, are supposed by most naturalists to have been Marsupials. They would appear presently to have become extinct, no traces of them having been found in the chalk, a formation so rich in other organic remains. As Professor Marsh tells us on this subject (Nature, September 27, 1877, p. 471):
“Of the existence of Mammals before the Trias we have no evidence, either in the New or the Old World, and it is a significant fact that at essentially the same horizon in each hemisphere similar low forms of Mammals make their appearance. Although only a few incomplete specimens have been discovered, they are characteristic and well preserved, and all are apparently marsupials; the lowest mammalian group known in America, living or fossil. The American Triassic mammals are known at present only from two small lower jaws, on which has been founded the genus Dromotherium, supposed to be related to the insect-eating Myrmecobius, now living in Australia. Although the fauna of Europe have yielded other similar mammals for the Oolite, America has as yet none of this class from that formation, while from the rocks of cretaceous age, no mammals are known in any part of the world.”
255 P. 118.
256 P. 105.
257 Le monde des plantes avant l’apparition de l’homme, p. 34.
258 Genesis of Species, p. 129.
259 Charles Darwin, p. 185.
260 Genesis of Species, p. 130.
261 Types of Animal Life, 149.
262 Genesis of Species, p. 132.
263 “Primeval Vegetation in its relation to the Doctrine of Natural Selection and Evolution” (Essays and Addresses, Owen’s College, Manchester, p. 251).
264 “Succession of Life on Earth.” (Half-hour Recreations, 2nd Series, p. 329.)
265 Essays and Addresses, Owen’s College, Manchester, p. 220, note.
266 See note, p. 238.
267 “Geological Contemporaneity,” 1862. (Lay Sermons, p. 222.)
268 “Palæontology and Evolution,” 1876. (Critiques and Addresses, p. 182.)
269 P. 187.
270 P. 192.
271 Genealogy of Animals.
272 Natural History of Creation.
273 Le Transformisme, pp. 337-340.
274 Lectures on Evolution, New York, 1876. Cheap Edition, p. 43.
275 Coming of Age of the Origin of Species, etc.
276 Essays on Controverted Questions, p. 450.
277 “Utebatur autem equo insigni, pedibus prope humanis, et in modum digitorum ungulis fissis; quem natum apud se, cum haruspices imperium orbis terrae significare domino pronuntiassent, magna cura aluit.” (Suetonius, Julius, 61.)
278 The radius and ulna are the two bones of the forearm above the wrist; the tibia and fibula the corresponding bones of the leg above the ankle. In the horse, the ulna and fibula are almost, but not quite, lost.
279 Animals and plants are placed in different species when the differences between them are only relative; in different genera, when such differences are absolute. Thus, for example, the size of teeth is considered relative; the number of teeth absolute.
280 American Journal of Science and Arts, 3rd Series, vol. 43 (1892), p. 351.
281 Modern Ideas of Evolution, p. 119.
282 Types of Animal Life, 205.
283 Nicholson and Lydekker’s Manual of Palæontology, ii. 1362.
284 Origin of Species, c. xi.
285 Lydekker, p. 1361.
286 Evolution of the Horse, 12.
287 “Succession of Life on Earth” (Recreations in Popular Science, 2nd Series, p. 339).
288 British Museum (Nat. Hist.) Guide to fossil mammals and birds, p. 38.
289 American Journal of Science and Art, 3rd Series, vol. 43 (1892), p. 351.
290 The Evolution of the Horse, p. 16.
291 Lydekker, ut sup. p. 1363.
292 Sir W. Flower, The Horse, p. 74.
293 “It is a consequence of the theory of Natural Selection that identity of structure involves community of descent; a given result can only be arrived at through a given sequence of events; the same morphological goal cannot be reached by two independent paths.” Milnes Marshall, Biological Lectures, 247.
294 Origin of Species, c. xi. “Geological Succession of Organic Beings.”
295 Tablet, April 21, 1888, p. 637.
296 Catalogue of Mammals, etc., ut sup. p. 38.
297 Chain of Life, p. 222.
298 Les Enchainements du Monde Animal... Mammifères Tertiaires.
299 Chain of Life, 227.
300 It is the “fingers” of the bat’s “hand” which support the wing membrane. Hence the scientific name Cheiroptera.
301 E.g. Dinotherium giganteum and Elephas meridionalis. (Vid. Gaudry, op. cit. 169.)
302 Lecture at Royal Institution, January 2, 1904.
303 A remarkable instance of the need of caution is furnished by the history of the Dinotherium itself. From the teeth, first found, Cuvier set down the animal as a monster Tapir. Then, a whole skull being discovered, Herr Kaup of Darmstadt, commenting upon the danger of such a proceeding, himself classed the beast among the Edentata (Sloths, etc.), and afterwards among the Hippopotami. Buckland and Strauss thought it must have been an aquatic creature; Blainville and Pictet labelled it a Manatee, or sea-cow. (Vid. Gaudry, op. cit. 187-9.)
304 Op. cit. p. 191.
305 Milnes Marshall, Lectures on Darwinian Theory, p. 66.
306 See Appendix C. p. 285.
307 Modern Ideas of Evolution, c. iv.
308 “Primeval Vegetation in its relation to the Doctrine of Natural Selection and Evolution.” (Essays and Addresses, Owen’s College, Manchester, p. 200.)
309 History of Creation, ii. 92, English Edition.
310 Ibid., p. 295.
311 Les Emules de Darwin, ii. 76.
312 As an instance M. de Quatrefages cites Haeckel’s own words, from his Anthropogenie. “The Vertebrate Ancestor No. 15, akin to the Salamanders, must have been a species of Saurian (Lizard). There remains to us no fossil relic of this animal; in no respect did he resemble any form actually existing. Nevertheless, comparative anatomy and ontogeny authorize us in affirming that he once existed. We will call this animal Protamnion.”
313 Ibid., p. 122.
314 Revue Scientifique (1886), p. 486.
315 Ibid. (1877), I. 1101.
316 Origin of Species, c. x.
317 Genesis of Species, p. 134.
318 Le monde des plantes avant l’apparition de l’homme, p. vi.
319 Op. cit., p. 288.
320 Life of Darwin, ii. 193.
321 Epistle I—to Pope.
322 Hibbert Journal, January, 1903.
323 Order of Nature, p. 239.
324 Thoughts on Religion, p. 123.
325 Presidential Address, British Association, 1871.
326 Système Analytique des Connaissances positives de l’homme (1830), pp. 8, 43.
327 North American Slime Moulds, Introduction, p. II.
328 Bloud’s Science et Religion, No. 431, pp. 50, seq.
329 Traité de Microbiologie, I., p. 253. Also the Magazine Broteria (Lisbon), Vol. vi., 1907, Botany, p. 23.
330 See Nature, June 4, 1903, p. 113, in notice of a paper on the subject by Professor F. W. Oliver and Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S.
331 Linnean Society’s Proceedings, May 3, 1906.
332 See the Congress Report, vol. iv.
333 Transactions American Philosophical Society (N.S.), 18, 1896, pp. 119, 120.
334 The Origin and Influence of the Thorough-bred Horse. Cambridge, 1905.