LUCK, OR CUNNING AS THE MAIN MEANS OF ORGANIC MODIFICATION

NOTE

This second edition of Luck, or Cunning? is a reprint of the firstedition, dated 1887, but actually published in November, 1886. Theonly alterations of any consequence are in the Index, which has beenenlarged by the incorporation of several entries made by the authorin a copy of the book which came into my possession on the death ofhis literary executor, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild. I thank Mr. G. W. Webb, of the University Library, Cambridge, for the care and skillwith which he has made the necessary alterations; it was atroublesome job because owing to the re-setting, the pagination wasno longer the same. 

Luck, or Cunning? is the fourth of Butler's evolution books; it wasfollowed in 1890 by three articles in The Universal Review entitled"The Deadlock in Darwinism" (republished in The Humour of Homer), after which he published no more upon that subject. 

In this book, as he says in his Introduction, he insists upon twomain points: (1) the substantial identity between heredity andmemory, and (2) the reintroduction of design into organicdevelopment; and these two points he treats as though they havesomething of that physical life with which they are so closelyassociated. He was aware that what he had to say was likely toprove more interesting to future generations than to his immediatepublic, "but any book that desires to see out a literary three-scoreyears and ten must offer something to future generations as well asto its own. " By next year one half of the three-score years and tenwill have passed, and the new generation by their constant enquiriesfor the work have already begun to show their appreciation ofButler's method of treating the subject, and their readiness tolisten to what was addressed to them as well as to their fathers. 

HENRY FESTING JONES. March, 1920. 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

This book, as I have said in my concluding chapter, has turned outvery different from the one I had it in my mind to write when Ibegan it. It arose out of a conversation with the late Mr. AlfredTylor soon after his paper on the growth of trees and protoplasmiccontinuity was read before the Linnean Society--that is to say, inDecember, 1884--and I proposed to make the theory concerning thesubdivision of organic life into animal and vegetable, which I havebroached in my concluding chapter, the main feature of the book. One afternoon, on leaving Mr. Tylor's bedside, much touched at thedeep disappointment he evidently felt at being unable to completethe work he had begun so ably, it occurred to me that it might besome pleasure to him if I promised to dedicate my own book to him, and thus, however unworthy it might be, connect it with his name. It occurred to me, of course, also that the honour to my own bookwould be greater than any it could confer, but the time was not onefor balancing considerations nicely, and when I made my suggestionto Mr. Tylor on the last occasion that I ever saw him, the manner inwhich he received it settled the question. If he had lived I shouldno doubt have kept more closely to my plan, and should probablyhave been furnished by him with much that would have enriched thebook and made it more worthy of his acceptance; but this was not tobe. 

In the course of writing I became more and more convinced that noprogress could be made towards a sounder view of the theory ofdescent until people came to understand what the late Mr. CharlesDarwin's theory of natural selection amounted to, and how it wasthat it ever came to be propounded. Until the mindless theory ofCharles Darwinian natural selection was finally discredited, and amindful theory of evolution was substituted in its place, neitherMr. Tylor's experiments nor my own theories could stand much chanceof being attended to. I therefore devoted myself mainly, as I haddone in "Evolution Old and New, " and in "Unconscious Memory, " toconsidering whether the view taken by the late Mr. Darwin, or theone put forward by his three most illustrious predecessors, shouldmost command our assent. 

The deflection from my original purpose was increased by theappearance, about a year ago, of Mr. Grant Allen's "Charles Darwin, "which I imagine to have had a very large circulation. So important, indeed, did I think it not to leave Mr. Allen's statementsunchallenged, that in November last I recast my book completely, cutting out much that I had written, and practically starting anew. How far Mr. Tylor would have liked it, or even sanctioned its beingdedicated to him, if he were now living, I cannot, of course, say. I never heard him speak of the late Mr. Darwin in any but terms ofwarm respect, and am by no means sure that he would have been wellpleased at an attempt to connect him with a book so polemical as thepresent. On the other hand, a promise made and received as minewas, cannot be set aside lightly. The understanding was that mynext book was to be dedicated to Mr. Tylor; I have written the bestI could, and indeed never took so much pains with any other; to Mr. Tylor's memory, therefore, I have most respectfully, andregretfully, inscribed it. 

Desiring that the responsibility for what has been done should restwith me, I have avoided saying anything about the book while it wasin progress to any of Mr Tylor's family or representatives. Theyknow nothing, therefore, of its contents, and if they did, wouldprobably feel with myself very uncertain how far it is right to useMr. Tylor's name in connection with it. I can only trust that, onthe whole, they may think I have done most rightly in adhering tothe letter of my promise. 

October 15, 1886. 

CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTION

I shall perhaps best promote the acceptance of the two main pointson which I have been insisting for some years past, I mean, thesubstantial identity between heredity and memory, and thereintroduction of design into organic development, by treating themas if they had something of that physical life with which they areso closely connected. Ideas are like plants and animals in thisrespect also, as in so many others, that they are more fullyunderstood when their relations to other ideas of their time, andthe history of their development are known and borne in mind. Bydevelopment I do not merely mean their growth in the minds of thosewho first advanced them, but that larger development which consistsin their subsequent good or evil fortunes--in their reception, favourable or otherwise, by those to whom they were presented. Thisis to an idea what its surroundings are to an organism, and throwsmuch the same light upon it that knowledge of the conditions underwhich an organism lives throws upon the organism itself. I shall, therefore, begin this new work with a few remarks about itspredecessors. 

I am aware that what I may say on this head is likely to prove moreinteresting to future students of the literature of descent than tomy immediate public, but any book that desires to see out a literarythree-score years and ten must offer something to future generationsas well as to its own. It is a condition of its survival that itshall do this, and herein lies one of the author's chiefdifficulties. If books only lived as long as men and women, weshould know better how to grow them; as matters stand, however, theauthor lives for one or two generations, whom he comes in the end tounderstand fairly well, while the book, if reasonable pains havebeen taken with it, should live more or less usefully for a dozen. About the greater number of these generations the author is in thedark; but come what may, some of them are sure to have arrived atconclusions diametrically opposed to our own upon every subjectconnected with art, science, philosophy, and religion; it is plain, therefore, that if posterity is to be pleased, it can only be at thecost of repelling some present readers. Unwilling as I am to dothis, I still hold it the lesser of two evils; I will be as brief, however, as the interests of the opinions I am supporting willallow. 

In "Life and Habit" I contended that heredity was a mode of memory. I endeavoured to show that all hereditary traits, whether of mind orbody, are inherited in virtue of, and as a manifestation of, thesame power whereby we are able to remember intelligently what we didhalf an hour, yesterday, or a twelvemonth since, and this in nofigurative but in a perfectly real sense. If life be compared to anequation of a hundred unknown quantities, I followed ProfessorHering of Prague in reducing it to one of ninety-nine only, byshowing two of the supposed unknown quantities to be so closelyallied that they should count as one. I maintained that instinctwas inherited memory, and this without admitting more exceptions andqualifying clauses than arise, as it were, by way of harmonics fromevery proposition, and must be neglected if thought and language areto be possible. 

I showed that if the view for which I was contending was taken, manyfacts which, though familiar, were still without explanation orconnection with our other ideas, would remain no longer isolated, but be seen at once as joined with the mainland of our most assuredconvictions. Among the things thus brought more comfortably home tous was the principle underlying longevity. It became apparent whysome living beings should live longer than others, and how any racemust be treated whose longevity it is desired to increase. Hithertowe had known that an elephant was a long-lived animal and a flyshort-lived, but we could give no reason why the one should livelonger than the other; that is to say, it did not follow inimmediate coherence with, or as intimately associated with, anyfamiliar principle that an animal which is late in the fulldevelopment of its reproductive system will tend to live longer thanone which reproduces early. If the theory of "Life and Habit" beadmitted, the fact of a slow-growing animal being in general longerlived than a quick developer is seen to be connected with, and tofollow as a matter of course from, the fact of our being able toremember anything at all, and all the well-known traits of memory, as observed where we can best take note of them, are perceived to bereproduced with singular fidelity in the development of an animalfrom its embryonic stages to maturity. 

Take this view, and the very general sterility of hybrids from beinga CRUX of the theory of descent becomes a stronghold of defence. Itappears as part of the same story as the benefit derived fromjudicious, and the mischief from injudicious, crossing; and this, inits turn, is seen as part of the same story, as the good we get fromchange of air and scene when we are overworked. I will not amplify;but reversion to long-lost, or feral, characteristics, the phenomenaof old age, the fact of the reproductive system being generally thelast to arrive at maturity--few further developments occurring inany organism after this has been attained--the sterility of manyanimals in confinement, the development in both males and femalesunder certain circumstances of the characteristics of the oppositesex, the latency of memory, the unconsciousness with which we grow, and indeed perform all familiar actions, these points, thoughhitherto, most of them, so apparently inexplicable that no one evenattempted to explain them, became at once intelligible, if thecontentions of "Life and Habit" were admitted. 

Before I had finished writing this book I fell in with ProfessorMivart's "Genesis of Species, " and for the first time understood thedistinction between the Lamarckian and Charles-Darwinian systems ofevolution. This had not, so far as I then knew, been as yet madeclear to us by any of our more prominent writers upon the subject ofdescent with modification; the distinction was unknown to thegeneral public, and indeed is only now beginning to be widelyunderstood. While reading Mr. Mivart's book, however, I becameaware that I was being faced by two facts, each incontrovertible, but each, if its leading exponents were to be trusted, incompatiblewith the other. 

On the one hand there was descent; we could not read Mr. Darwin'sbooks and doubt that all, both animals and plants, were descendedfrom a common source. On the other, there was design; we could notread Paley and refuse to admit that design, intelligence, adaptationof means to ends, must have had a large share in the development ofthe life we saw around us; it seemed indisputable that the minds andbodies of all living beings must have come to be what they arethrough a wise ordering and administering of their estates. Wecould not, therefore, dispense either with descent or with design, and yet it seemed impossible to keep both, for those who offered usdescent stuck to it that we could have no design, and those, again, who spoke so wisely and so well about design would not for a momenthear of descent with modification. 

Each, moreover, had a strong case. Who could reflect uponrudimentary organs, and grant Paley the kind of design that alonewould content him? And yet who could examine the foot or the eye, and grant Mr. Darwin his denial of forethought and plan?

For that Mr. Darwin did deny skill and contrivance in connectionwith the greatly preponderating part of organic developments cannotbe and is not now disputed. In the first chapter of "Evolution Oldand New" I brought forward passages to show how completely he andhis followers deny design, but will here quote one of the latest ofthe many that have appeared to the same effect since "Evolution Oldand New" was published; it is by Mr. Romanes, and runs as follows:-

"It is the VERY ESSENCE of the Darwinian hypothesis that it onlyseeks to explain the APPARENTLY purposive variations, or variationsof an adaptive kind. " {17a}

The words "apparently purposive" show that those organs in animalsand plants which at first sight seem to have been designed with aview to the work they have to do--that is to say, with a view tofuture function--had not, according to Mr. Darwin, in reality anyconnection with, or inception in, effort; effort involves purposeand design; they had therefore no inception in design, however muchthey might present the appearance of being designed; the appearancewas delusive; Mr. Romanes correctly declares it to be "the veryessence" of Mr. Darwin's system to attempt an explanation of theseseemingly purposive variations which shall be compatible with theirhaving arisen without being in any way connected with intelligenceor design. 

As it is indisputable that Mr. Darwin denied design, so neither canit be doubted that Paley denied descent with modification. What, then, were the wrong entries in these two sets of accounts, on thedetection and removal of which they would be found to balance asthey ought?

Paley's weakest place, as already implied, is in the matter ofrudimentary organs; the almost universal presence in the higherorganisms of useless, and sometimes even troublesome, organs isfatal to the kind of design he is trying to uphold; granted thatthere is design, still it cannot be so final and far-foreseeing ashe wishes to make it out. Mr. Darwin's weak place, on the otherhand, lies, firstly, in the supposition that because rudimentaryorgans imply no purpose now, they could never in time past have doneso--that because they had clearly not been designed with an eye toall circumstances and all time, they never, therefore, could havebeen designed with an eye to any time or any circumstances; and, secondly, in maintaining that "accidental, " "fortuitous, ""spontaneous" variations could be accumulated at all except underconditions that have never been fulfilled yet, and never will be; inother words, his weak place lay in the contention (for it comes tothis) that there can be sustained accumulation of bodily wealth, more than of wealth of any other kind, unless sustained experience, watchfulness, and good sense preside over the accumulation. In"Life and Habit, " following Mr. Mivart, and, as I now find, Mr. Herbert Spencer, I showed (pp. 279-281) how impossible it was forvariations to accumulate unless they were for the most partunderlain by a sustained general principle; but this subject will betouched upon more fully later on. 

The accumulation of accidental variations which owed nothing to mindeither in their inception, or their accumulation, the pitchforking, in fact, of mind out of the universe, or at any rate its exclusionfrom all share worth talking about in the process of organicdevelopment, this was the pill Mr. Darwin had given us to swallow;but so thickly had he gilded it with descent with modification, thatwe did as we were told, swallowed it without a murmur, were lavishin our expressions of gratitude, and, for some twenty years or so, through the mouths of our leading biologists, ordered designperemptorily out of court, if she so much as dared to show herself. Indeed, we have even given life pensions to some of the most notableof these biologists, I suppose in order to reward them for havinghoodwinked us so much to our satisfaction. 

Happily the old saying, Naturam expellas furca, tamen usquerecurret, still holds true, and the reaction that has been gainingforce for some time will doubtless ere long brush aside the cobwebswith which those who have a vested interest in Mr. Darwin'sreputation as a philosopher still try to fog our outlook. ProfessorMivart was, as I have said, among the first to awaken us to Mr. Darwin's denial of design, and to the absurdity involved therein. He well showed how incredible Mr Darwin's system was found to be, assoon as it was fully realised, but there he rather left us. Heseemed to say that we must have our descent and our design too, buthe did not show how we were to manage this with rudimentary organsstill staring us in the face. His work rather led up to the clearerstatement of the difficulty than either put it before us in so manywords, or tried to remove it. Nevertheless there can be no doubtthat the "Genesis of Species" gave Natural Selection what will provesooner or later to be its death-blow, in spite of the persistencewith which many still declare that it has received no hurt, and thesixth edition of the" Origin of Species, " published in the followingyear, bore abundant traces of the fray. Moreover, though Mr. Mivartgave us no overt aid, he pointed to the source from which help mightcome, by expressly saying that his most important objection to Neo-Darwinism had no force against Lamarck. 

To Lamarck, therefore, I naturally turned, and soon saw that thetheory on which I had been insisting in" Life and Habit" was inreality an easy corollary on his system, though one which he doesnot appear to have caught sight of. I saw also that his denial ofdesign was only, so to speak, skin deep, and that his system was inreality teleological, inasmuch as, to use Isidore Geoffroy's words, it makes the organism design itself. In making variations depend onchanged actions, and these, again, on changed views of life, efforts, and designs, in consequence of changed conditions of life, he in effect makes effort, intention, will, all of which involvedesign (or at any rate which taken together involve it), underlieprogress in organic development. True, he did not know he was ateleologist, but he was none the less a teleologist for this. Hewas an unconscious teleologist, and as such perhaps more absolutelyan upholder of teleology than Paley himself; but this is neitherhere nor there; our concern is not with what people think aboutthemselves, but with what their reasoning makes it evident that theyreally hold. 

How strange the irony that hides us from ourselves! When IsidoreGeoffroy said that according to Lamarck organisms designedthemselves, {20a} and endorsed this, as to a great extent he did, hestill does not appear to have seen that either he or Lamarck were inreality reintroducing design into organism; he does not appear tohave seen this more than Lamarck himself had seen it, but, on thecontrary, like Lamarck, remained under the impression that he wasopposing teleology or purposiveness. 

Of course in one sense he did oppose it; so do we all, if the worddesign be taken to intend a very far-foreseeing of minute details, ariding out to meet trouble long before it comes, a provision onacademic principles for contingencies that are little likely toarise. We can see no evidence of any such design as this in nature, and much everywhere that makes against it. There is no suchimprovidence as over providence, and whatever theories we may formabout the origin and development of the universe, we may be surethat it is not the work of one who is unable to understand howanything can possibly go right unless he sees to it himself. Natureworks departmentally and by way of leaving details to subordinates. But though those who see nature thus do indeed deny design of theprescient-from-all-eternity order, they in no way impugn a methodwhich is far more in accord with all that we commonly think of asdesign. A design which is as incredible as that a ewe should givebirth to a lion becomes of a piece with all that we observe mostfrequently if it be regarded rather as an aggregation of many smallsteps than as a single large one. This principle is very simple, but it seems rather difficult to understand. It has taken severalgenerations before people would admit it as regards organism evenafter it was pointed out to them, and those who saw it as regardsorganism still failed to understand it as regards design; aninexorable "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther" barred them fromfruition of the harvest they should have been the first to reap. The very men who most insisted that specific difference was theaccumulation of differences so minute as to be often hardly, if atall, perceptible, could not see that the striking and bafflingphenomena of design in connection with organism admitted of exactlythe same solution as the riddle of organic development, and shouldbe seen not as a result reached per saltum, but as an accumulationof small steps or leaps in a given direction. It was as thoughthose who had insisted on the derivation of all forms of the steam-engine from the common kettle, and who saw that this stands in muchthe same relations to the engines, we will say, of the Great Easternsteamship as the amoeba to man, were to declare that the GreatEastern engines were not designed at all, on the ground that no onein the early kettle days had foreseen so great a future development, and were unable to understand that a piecemeal solvitur ambulandodesign is more omnipresent, all-seeing, and all-searching, and hencemore truly in the strictest sense design, than any speculative leapof fancy, however bold and even at times successful. 

From Lamarck I went on to Buffon and Erasmus Darwin--better men bothof them than Lamarck, and treated by him much as he has himself beentreated by those who have come after him--and found that the systemof these three writers, if considered rightly, and if the corollarythat heredity is only a mode of memory were added, would get us outof our dilemma as regards descent and design, and enable us to keepboth. We could do this by making the design manifested in organismmore like the only design of which we know anything, and thereforethe only design of which we ought to speak--I mean our own. 

Our own design is tentative, and neither very far-foreseeing norvery retrospective; it is a little of both, but much of neither; itis like a comet with a little light in front of the nucleus and agood deal more behind it, which ere long, however, fades away intothe darkness; it is of a kind that, though a little wise before theevent, is apt to be much wiser after it, and to profit even bymischance so long as the disaster is not an overwhelming one;nevertheless, though it is so interwoven with luck, there is nodoubt about its being design; why, then, should the design whichmust have attended organic development be other than this? If thething that has been is the thing that also shall be, must not thething which is be that which also has been? Was there anything inthe phenomena of organic life to militate against such a view ofdesign as this? Not only was there nothing, but this view madethings plain, as the connecting of heredity and memory had alreadydone, which till now had been without explanation. Rudimentaryorgans were no longer a hindrance to our acceptance of design, theybecame weighty arguments in its favour. 

I therefore wrote "Evolution Old and New, " with the object partly ofbacking up "Life and Habit, " and showing the easy rider it admitted, partly to show how superior the old view of descent had been to Mr. Darwin's, and partly to reintroduce design into organism. I wrote"Life and Habit" to show that our mental and bodily acquisitionswere mainly stores of memory: I wrote "Evolution Old and New" toadd that the memory must be a mindful and designing memory. 

I followed up these two books with "Unconscious Memory, " the mainobject of which was to show how Professor Hering of Prague hadtreated the connection between memory and heredity; to show, again, how substantial was the difference between Von Hartmann and myselfin spite of some little superficial resemblance; to put forward asuggestion as regards the physics of memory, and to meet the mostplausible objection which I have yet seen brought against "Life andHabit. "

Since writing these three books I have published nothing on theconnection between heredity and memory, except a few pages ofremarks on Mr. Romanes' "Mental Evolution in Animals" in my book, {23a} from which I will draw whatever seems to be more properlyplaced here. I have collected many facts that make my casestronger, but am precluded from publishing them by the reflectionthat it is strong enough already. I have said enough in "Life andHabit" to satisfy any who wish to be satisfied, and those who wishto be dissatisfied would probably fail to see the force of what Isaid, no matter how long and seriously I held forth to them; Ibelieve, therefore, that I shall do well to keep my facts for my ownprivate reading and for that of my executors. 

I once saw a copy of "Life and Habit" on Mr. Bogue's counter, andwas told by the very obliging shopman that a customer had justwritten something in it which I might like to see. I said of courseI should like to see, and immediately taking the book read thefollowing--which it occurs to me that I am not justified inpublishing. What was written ran thus:-

"As a reminder of our pleasant hours on the broad Atlantic, will Mr. -- please accept this book (which I think contains more truth, andless evidence of it, than any other I have met with) from his friend-- ?"

I presume the gentleman had met with the Bible--a work which laysitself open to a somewhat similar comment. I was gratified, however, at what I had read, and take this opportunity of thankingthe writer, an American, for having liked my book. It was so plainhe had been relieved at not finding the case smothered to death inthe weight of its own evidences, that I resolved not to forget thelesson his words had taught me. 

The only writer in connection with "Life and Habit" to whom I amanxious to reply is Mr. Herbert Spencer, but before doing this Iwill conclude the present chapter with a consideration of somegeneral complaints that have been so often brought against me thatit may be worth while to notice them. 

These general criticisms have resolved themselves mainly into two. 

Firstly, it is said that I ought not to write about biology on theground of my past career, which my critics declare to have beenpurely literary. I wish I might indulge a reasonable hope of oneday becoming a literary man; the expression is not a good one, butthere is no other in such common use, and this must excuse it; if aman can be properly called literary, he must have acquired the habitof reading accurately, thinking attentively, and expressing himselfclearly. He must have endeavoured in all sorts of ways to enlargethe range of his sympathies so as to be able to put himself easilyen rapport with those whom he is studying, and those whom he isaddressing. If he cannot speak with tongues himself, he is theinterpreter of those who can--without whom they might as well besilent. I wish I could see more signs of literary culture among myscientific opponents; I should find their books much more easy andagreeable reading if I could; and then they tell me to satirise thefollies and abuses of the age, just as if it was not this that I wasdoing in writing about themselves. 

What, I wonder, would they say if I were to declare that they oughtnot to write books at all, on the ground that their past career hasbeen too purely scientific to entitle them to a hearing? They wouldreply with justice that I should not bring vague generalcondemnations, but should quote examples of their bad writing. Iimagine that I have done this more than once as regards a good manyof them, and I dare say I may do it again in the course of thisbook; but though I must own to thinking that the greater number ofour scientific men write abominably, I should not bring this againstthem if I believed them to be doing their best to help us; many suchmen we happily have, and doubtless always shall have, but they arenot those who push to the fore, and it is these last who are mostangry with me for writing on the subjects I have chosen. Theyconstantly tell me that I am not a man of science; no one knows thisbetter than I do, and I am quite used to being told it, but I am notused to being confronted with the mistakes that I have made inmatters of fact, and trust that this experience is one which I maycontinue to spare no pains in trying to avoid. 

Nevertheless I again freely grant that I am not a man of science. Ihave never said I was. I was educated for the Church. I was onceinside the Linnean Society's rooms, but have no present wish to gothere again; though not a man of science, however, I have neveraffected indifference to the facts and arguments which men ofscience have made it their business to lay before us; on thecontrary, I have given the greater part of my time to theirconsideration for several years past. I should not, however, saythis unless led to do so by regard to the interests of theorieswhich I believe to be as nearly important as any theories can bewhich do not directly involve money or bodily convenience. 

The second complaint against me is to the effect that I have made nooriginal experiments, but have taken all my facts at second hand. This is true, but I do not see what it has to do with the question. If the facts are sound, how can it matter whether A or B collectedthem? If Professor Huxley, for example, has made a series ofvaluable original observations (not that I know of his having doneso), why am I to make them over again? What are fact-collectorsworth if the fact co-ordinators may not rely upon them? It seems tome that no one need do more than go to the best sources for hisfacts, and tell his readers where he got them. If I had hadoccasion for more facts I daresay I should have taken the necessarysteps to get hold of them, but there was no difficulty on thisscore; every text-book supplied me with all, and more than all, Iwanted; my complaint was that the facts which Mr. Darwin suppliedwould not bear the construction he tried to put upon them; I tried, therefore, to make them bear another which seemed at once more soundand more commodious; rightly or wrongly I set up as a builder, notas a burner of bricks, and the complaint so often brought against meof not having made experiments is about as reasonable as complaintagainst an architect on the score of his not having quarried withhis own hands a single one of the stones which he has used inbuilding. Let my opponents show that the facts which they and I usein common are unsound, or that I have misapplied them, and I willgladly learn my mistake, but this has hardly, to my knowledge, beenattempted. To me it seems that the chief difference between myselfand some of my opponents lies in this, that I take my facts fromthem with acknowledgment, and they take their theories from me--without. 

One word more and I have done. I should like to say that I do notreturn to the connection between memory and heredity under theimpression that I shall do myself much good by doing so. My ownshare in the matter was very small. The theory that heredity isonly a mode of memory is not mine, but Professor Hering's. He wrotein 1870, and I not till 1877. I should be only too glad if he wouldtake his theory and follow it up himself; assuredly he could do somuch better than I can; but with the exception of his one notlengthy address published some fifteen or sixteen years ago he hassaid nothing upon the subject, so far at least as I have been ableto ascertain; I tried hard to draw him in 1880, but could getnothing out of him. If, again, any of our more influential writers, not a few of whom evidently think on this matter much as I do, wouldeschew ambiguities and tell us what they mean in plain language, Iwould let the matter rest in their abler hands, but of this theredoes not seem much chance at present. 

I wish there was, for in spite of the interest I have felt inworking the theory out and the information I have been able tocollect while doing so, I must confess that I have found it somewhatof a white elephant. It has got me into the hottest of hot water, made a literary Ishmael of me, lost me friends whom I have beensorry to lose, cost me a good deal of money, done everything to me, in fact, which a good theory ought not to do. Still, as it seems tohave taken up with me, and no one else is inclined to treat itfairly, I shall continue to report its developments from time totime as long as life and health are spared me. Moreover, Ishmaelsare not without their uses, and they are not a drug in the marketjust now. 

I may now go on to Mr. Spencer. 

CHAPTER II--MR. HERBERT SPENCER

Mr. Herbert Spencer wrote to the Athenaeum (April 5, 1884), andquoted certain passages from the 1855 edition of his "Principles ofPsychology, " "the meanings and implications" from which he contendedwere sufficiently clear. The passages he quoted were as follows:-

Though it is manifest that reflex and instinctive sequences are notdetermined by the experiences of the INDIVIDUAL organism manifestingthem, yet there still remains the hypothesis that they aredetermined by the experiences of the RACE of organisms forming itsancestry, which by infinite repetition in countless successivegenerations have established these sequences as organic relations(p. 526). 

The modified nervous tendencies produced by such new habits of lifeare also bequeathed (p. 526). 

That is to say, the tendencies to certain combinations of psychicalchanges have become organic (p. 527). 

The doctrine that the connections among our ideas are determined byexperience must, in consistency, be extended not only to all theconnections established by the accumulated experiences of everyindividual, but to all those established by the accumulatedexperiences of every race (p. 529). 

Here, then, we have one of the simpler forms of instinct which, under the requisite conditions, must necessarily be established byaccumulated experiences (p. 547). 

And manifestly, if the organisation of inner relations, incorrespondence with outer relations, results from a continualregistration of experiences, &c. (p. 551). 

On the one hand, Instinct may be regarded as a kind of organisedmemory; on the other hand, Memory may be regarded as a kind ofincipient instinct (pp. 555-6). 

Memory, then, pertains to all that class of psychical states whichare in process of being organised. It continues so long as theorganising of them continues; and disappears when the organisationof them is complete. In the advance of the correspondence, eachmore complex class of phenomena which the organism acquires thepower of recognising is responded to at first irregularly anduncertainly; and there is then a weak remembrance of the relations. By multiplication of experiences this remembrance becomes stronger, and the response more certain. By further multiplication ofexperiences the internal relations are at last automaticallyorganised in correspondence with the external ones; and so consciousmemory passes into unconscious or organic memory. At the same time, a new and still more complex order of experiences is thus renderedappreciable; the relations they present occupy the memory in placeof the simpler one; they become gradually organised; and, like theprevious ones, are succeeded by others more complex still (p. 563). 

Just as we saw that the establishment of those compound reflexactions which we call instincts is comprehensible on the principlethat inner relations are, by perpetual repetition, organised intocorrespondence with outer relations; so the establishment of thoseconsolidated, those indissoluble, those instinctive mental relationsconstituting our ideas of Space and Time, is comprehensible on thesame principle (p. 579). 

In a book published a few weeks before Mr. Spencer's letter appeared{29a} I had said that though Mr. Spencer at times closely approachedProfessor Hering and "Life and Habit, " he had nevertheless nowhereshown that he considered memory and heredity to be parts of the samestory and parcel of one another. In his letter to the Athenaeum, indeed, he does not profess to have upheld this view, except "byimplications;" nor yet, though in the course of the six or sevenyears that had elapsed since "Life and Habit" was published I hadbrought out more than one book to support my earlier one, had hesaid anything during those years to lead me to suppose that I wastrespassing upon ground already taken by himself. Nor, again, hadhe said anything which enabled me to appeal to his authority--whichI should have been only too glad to do; at last, however, he wrote, as I have said, to the Athenaeum a letter which, indeed, made noexpress claim, and nowhere mentioned myself, but "the meanings andimplications" from which were this time as clear as could bedesired, and amount to an order to Professor Hering and myself tostand aside. 

The question is, whether the passages quoted by Mr. Spencer, or anyothers that can be found in his works, show that he regardedheredity in all its manifestations as a mode of memory. I submitthat this conception is not derivable from Mr. Spencer's writings, and that even the passages in which he approaches it most closelyare unintelligible till read by the light of Professor Hering'saddress and of "Life and Habit. "

True, Mr. Spencer made abundant use of such expressions as "theexperience of the race, " "accumulated experiences, " and others likethem, but he did not explain--and it was here the difficulty lay--how a race could have any experience at all. We know what we meanwhen we say that an individual has had experience; we mean that heis the same person now (in the common use of the words), on theoccasion of some present action, as the one who performed a likeaction at some past time or times, and that he remembers how heacted before, so as to be able to turn his past action to account, gaining in proficiency through practice. Continued personality andmemory are the elements that constitute experience; where these arepresent there may, and commonly will, be experience; where they areabsent the word "experience" cannot properly be used. 

Formerly we used to see an individual as one, and a race as many. We now see that though this is true as far as it goes, it is by nomeans the whole truth, and that in certain important respects it isthe race that is one, and the individual many. We all admit andunderstand this readily enough now, but it was not understood whenMr. Spencer wrote the passages he adduced in the letter to theAthenaeum above referred to. In the then state of our ideas a racewas only a succession of individuals, each one of them new persons, and as such incapable of profiting by the experience of itspredecessors except in the very limited number of cases where oralteaching, or, as in recent times, writing, was possible. The threadof life was, as I have elsewhere said, remorselessly shorn betweeneach successive generation, and the importance of the physical andpsychical connection between parents and offspring had been quite, or nearly quite, lost sight of. It seems strange how this couldever have been allowed to come about, but it should be rememberedthat the Church in the Middle Ages would strongly discourageattempts to emphasize a connection that would raise troublesomequestions as to who in a future state was to be responsible forwhat; and, after all, for nine purposes of life out of ten thegenerally received opinion that each person is himself and nobodyelse is on many grounds the most convenient. Every now and then, however, there comes a tenth purpose, for which the continuedpersonality side of the connection between successive generations isas convenient as the new personality side is for the remaining nine, and these tenth purposes--some of which are not unimportant--areobscured and fulfilled amiss owing to the completeness with whichthe more commonly needed conception has overgrown the other. 

Neither view is more true than the other, but the one was wantedevery hour and minute of the day, and was therefore kept, so tospeak, in stock, and in one of the most accessible places of ourmental storehouse, while the other was so seldom asked for that itbecame not worth while to keep it. By-and-by it was found sotroublesome to send out for it, and so hard to come by even then, that people left off selling it at all, and if any one wanted it hemust think it out at home as best he could; this was troublesome, soby common consent the world decided no longer to busy itself withthe continued personality of successive generations--which was allvery well until it also decided to busy itself with the theory ofdescent with modification. On the introduction of a foe so inimicalto many of our pre-existing ideas the balance of power among themwas upset, and a readjustment became necessary, which is still farfrom having attained the next settlement that seems likely to bereasonably permanent. 

To change the illustration, the ordinary view is true for sevenplaces of decimals, and this commonly is enough; occasions, however, have now arisen when the error caused by neglect of the omittedplaces is appreciably disturbing, and we must have three or fourmore. Mr. Spencer showed no more signs of seeing that he mustsupply these, and make personal identity continue between successivegenerations before talking about inherited (as opposed to post-nataland educational) experience, than others had done before him; therace with him, as with every one else till recently, was not onelong individual living indeed in pulsations, so to speak, but nomore losing continued personality by living in successivegenerations, than an individual loses it by living in consecutivedays; a race was simply a succession of individuals, each one ofwhich was held to be an entirely new person, and was regardedexclusively, or very nearly so, from this point of view. 

When I wrote "Life and Habit" I knew that the words "experience ofthe race" sounded familiar, and were going about in magazines andnewspapers, but I did not know where they came from; if I had, Ishould have given their source. To me they conveyed no meaning, andvexed me as an attempt to make me take stones instead of bread, andto palm off an illustration upon me as though it were anexplanation. When I had worked the matter out in my own way, I sawthat the illustration, with certain additions, would become anexplanation, but I saw also that neither he who had adduced it norany one else could have seen how right he was, till much had beensaid which had not, so far as 1 knew, been said yet, and whichundoubtedly would have been said if people had seen their way tosaying it. 

"What is this talk, " I wrote, "which is made about the experience ofthe race, as though the experience of one man could profit anotherwho knows nothing about him? If a man eats his dinner it nourisheshim and not his neighbour; if he learns a difficult art it is hethat can do it and not his neighbour" ("Life and Habit, " p. 49). 

When I wrote thus in 1877, it was not generally seen that though thefather is not nourished by the dinners that the son eats, yet theson was fed when the father ate before he begot him. 

"Is there any way, " I continued, "of showing that this experience ofthe race about which so much is said without the least attempt toshow in what way it may, or does, become the experience of theindividual, is in sober seriousness the experience of one singlebeing only, who repeats on a great many different occasions, and inslightly different ways, certain performances with which he hasalready become exceedingly familiar?"

I felt, as every one else must have felt who reflected upon theexpression in question, that it was fallacious till this was done. When I first began to write "Life and Habit" I did not believe itcould be done, but when I had gone right up to the end, as it were, of my cu de sac, I saw the path which led straight to the point Ihad despaired of reaching--I mean I saw that personality could notbe broken as between generations, without also breaking it betweenthe years, days, and moments of a man's life. What differentiates"Life and Habit" from the "Principles of Psychology" is theprominence given to continued personal identity, and hence to bonafide memory, as between successive generations; but surely thismakes the two books differ widely. 

Ideas can be changed to almost any extent in almost any direction, if the change is brought about gradually and in accordance with therules of all development. As in music we may take almost anypossible discord with pleasing effect if we have prepared andresolved it rightly, so our ideas will outlive and outgrow almostany modification which is approached and quitted in such a way as tofuse the old and new harmoniously. Words are to ideas what thefairy invisible cloak was to the prince who wore it--only that theprince was seen till he put on the cloak, whereas ideas are unseenuntil they don the robe of words which reveals them to us; thewords, however, and the ideas, should be such as fit each other andstick to one another in our minds as soon as they are broughttogether, or the ideas will fly off, and leave the words void ofthat spirit by the aid of which alone they can become transmutedinto physical action and shape material things with their ownimpress. Whether a discord is too violent or no, depends on what wehave been accustomed to, and on how widely the new differs from theold, but in no case can we fuse and assimilate more than a verylittle new at a time without exhausting our tempering power--andhence presently our temper. 

Mr. Spencer appears to have forgotten that though de minimis noncurat lex, --though all the laws fail when applied to trifles, --yettoo sudden a change in the manner in which our ideas are associatedis as cataclysmic and subversive of healthy evolution as arematerial convulsions, or too violent revolutions in politics. Thismust always be the case, for change is essentially miraculous, andthe only lawful home of the miracle is in the microscopically small. Here, indeed, miracles were in the beginning, are now, and evershall be, but we are deadened if they are required of us on a scalewhich is visible to the naked eye. If we are told to work them ourhands fall nerveless down; if, come what may, we must do or die, weare more likely to die than to succeed in doing. If we are requiredto believe them--which only means to fuse them with our other ideas--we either take the law into our own hands, and our minds being inthe dark fuse something easier of assimilation, and say we havefused the miracle; or if we play more fairly and insist on our mindsswallowing and assimilating it, we weaken our judgments, and protanto kill our souls. If we stick out beyond a certain point we gomad, as fanatics, or at the best make Coleridges of ourselves; andyet upon a small scale these same miracles are the breath andessence of life; to cease to work them is to die. And by miracle Ido not merely mean something new, strange, and not very easy ofcomprehension--I mean something which violates every canon ofthought which in the palpable world we are accustomed to respect;something as alien to, and inconceivable by, us as contradiction interms, the destructibility of force or matter, or the creation ofsomething out of nothing. This, which when writ large maddens andkills, writ small is our meat and drink; it attends each minutestand most impalpable detail of the ceaseless fusion and diffusion inwhich change appears to us as consisting, and which we recognise asgrowth and decay, or as life and death. 

Claude Bernard says, Rien ne nait, rien ne se cree, tout secontinue. La nature ne nous offre le spectacle d'aucune creation, elle est d'une eternelle continuation; {35a} but surely he isinsisting upon one side of the truth only, to the neglect of anotherwhich is just as real, and just as important; he might have said, Rien ne se continue, tout nait, tout se cree. La nature ne nousoffre le spectacle d'aucune continuation. Elle est d'une eternellecreation; for change is no less patent a fact than continuity, and, indeed, the two stand or fall together. True, discontinuity, wheredevelopment is normal, is on a very small scale, but this is onlythe difference between looking at distances on a small instead of alarge map; we cannot have even the smallest change without a smallpartial corresponding discontinuity; on a small scale--too small, indeed, for us to cognise--these breaks in continuity, each one ofwhich must, so far as our understanding goes, rank as a creation, are as essential a factor of the phenomena we see around us, as isthe other factor that they shall normally be on too small a scalefor us to find it out. Creations, then, there must be, but theymust be so small that practically they are no creations. We musthave a continuity in discontinuity, and a discontinuity incontinuity; that is to say, we can only conceive the help of changeat all by the help of flat contradiction in terms. It comes, therefore, to this, that if we are to think fluently andharmoniously upon any subject into which change enters (and there isno conceivable subject into which it does not), we must begin byflying in the face of every rule that professors of the art ofthinking have drawn up for our instruction. These rules may be goodenough as servants, but we have let them become the worst ofmasters, forgetting that philosophy is made for man, not man forphilosophy. Logic has been the true Tower of Babel, which we havethought to build so that we might climb up into the heavens, andhave no more miracle, but see God and live--nor has confusion oftongues failed to follow on our presumption. Truly St. Paul saidwell that the just shall live by faith; and the question "By whatfaith?" is a detail of minor moment, for there are as many faiths asspecies, whether of plants or animals, and each of them is in itsown way both living and saving. 

All, then, whether fusion or diffusion, whether of ideas or things, is miraculous. It is the two in one, and at the same time one intwo, which is only two and two making five put before us in anothershape; yet this fusion--so easy to think so long as it is notthought about, and so unthinkable if we try to think it--is, as itwere, the matrix from which our more thinkable thought is taken; itis the cloud gathering in the unseen world from which the waters oflife descend in an impalpable dew. Granted that all, whether fusionor diffusion, whether of ideas or things, is, if we dwell upon itand take it seriously, an outrage upon our understandings whichcommon sense alone enables us to brook; granted that it carries withit a distinctly miraculous element which should vitiate the wholeprocess ab initio, still, if we have faith we can so work thesemiracles as Orpheus-like to charm denizens of the unseen world intothe seen again--provided we do not look back, and provided also wedo not try to charm half a dozen Eurydices at a time. To think isto fuse and diffuse ideas, and to fuse and diffuse ideas is to feed. We can all feed, and by consequence within reasonable limits we canfuse ideas; or we can fuse ideas, and by consequence withinreasonable limits we can feed; we know not which comes first, thefood or the ideas, but we must not overtax our strength; the momentwe do this we taste of death. 

It is in the closest connection with this that we must chew our foodfine before we can digest it, and that the same food given in largelumps will choke and kill which in small pieces feeds us; or, again, that that which is impotent as a pellet may be potent as a gas. Food is very thoughtful: through thought it comes, and back throughthought it shall return; the process of its conversion andcomprehension within our own system is mental as well as physical, and here, as everywhere else with mind and evolution, there must bea cross, but not too wide a cross--that is to say, there must be amiracle, but not upon a large scale. Granted that no one can draw aclear line and define the limits within which a miracle is healthyworking and beyond which it is unwholesome, any more than he canprescribe the exact degree of fineness to which we must comminuteour food; granted, again, that some can do more than others, andthat at all times all men sport, so to speak, and surpassthemselves, still we know as a general rule near enough, and findthat the strongest can do but very little at a time, and, to returnto Mr. Spencer, the fusion of two such hitherto unassociated ideasas race and experience was a miracle beyond our strength. 

Assuredly when Mr. Spencer wrote the passages he quoted in theletter to the Athenaeum above referred to, we were not in the habitof thinking of any one as able to remember things that had happenedbefore he had been born or thought of. This notion will stillstrike many of my non-readers as harsh and strained; no suchdiscord, therefore, should have been taken unprepared, and whentaken it should have been resolved with pomp and circumstance. MrSpencer, however, though he took it continually, never eitherprepared it or resolved it at all, but by using the words"experience of the race" sprang this seeming paradox upon us, withthe result that his words were barren. They were barren becausethey were incoherent; they were incoherent because they wereapproached and quitted too suddenly. While we were realising"experience" our minds excluded "race, " inasmuch as experience wasan idea we had been accustomed hitherto to connect only with theindividual; while realising the idea "race, " for the same reason, weas a matter of course excluded experience. We were required to fusetwo ideas that were alien to one another, without having had thoseother ideas presented to us which would alone flux them. Theabsence of these--which indeed were not immediately ready to hand, or Mr. Spencer would have doubtless grasped them--made nonsense ofthe whole thing; we saw the ideas propped up as two cards oneagainst the other, on one of Mr. Spencer's pages, only to find thatthey had fallen asunder before we had turned over to the next, so weput down his book resentfully, as written by one who did not knowwhat to do with his meaning even if he had one, or bore it meeklywhile he chastised us with scorpions, as Mr. Darwin had done withwhips, according to our temperaments. 

I may say, in passing, that the barrenness of incoherent ideas, andthe sterility of widely distant species and genera of animals andplants, are one in principle--the sterility of hybrids being just asmuch due to inability to fuse widely unlike and unfamiliar ideasinto a coherent whole, as barrenness of ideas is, and, indeed, resolving itself ultimately into neither more nor less thanbarrenness of ideas--that is to say, into inability to think at all, or at any rate to think as their neighbours do. 

If Mr. Spencer had made it clear that the generations of any raceare bona fide united by a common personality, and that in virtue ofbeing so united each generation remembers (within, of course, thelimits to which all memory is subject) what happened to it whilestill in the persons of its progenitors--then his order to ProfessorHering and myself should be immediately obeyed; but this was justwhat was at once most wanted, and least done by Mr. Spencer. Evenin the passages given above--passages collected by Mr. Spencerhimself--this point is altogether ignored; make it clear asProfessor Hering made it--put continued personality and memory inthe foreground as Professor Hering did, instead of leaving them tobe discovered "by implications, " and then such expressions as"accumulated experiences" and "experience of the race" becomeluminous; till this had been done they were Vox et praeterea nihil. 

To sum up briefly. The passages quoted by Mr. Spencer from his"Principles of Psychology" can hardly be called clear, even now thatProfessor Hering and others have thrown light upon them. If, indeed, they had been clear Mr. Spencer would probably have seenwhat they necesitated, and found the way of meeting the difficultiesof the case which occurred to Professor Hering and myself. Till wewrote, very few writers had even suggested this. The idea thatoffspring was only "an elongation or branch proceeding from itsparents" had scintillated in the ingenious brain of Dr. ErasmusDarwin, and in that of the designer of Jesse tree windows, but ithad kindled no fire; it now turns out that Canon Kingsley had oncecalled instinct inherited memory, {40a} but the idea, if born aliveat all, died on the page on which it saw light: Professor RayLankester, again called attention to Professor Hering's address(Nature, July 13, 1876), but no discussion followed, and the matterdropped without having produced visible effect. As for offspringremembering in any legitimate sense of the words what it had done, and what had happened to it, before it was born, no such notion wasunderstood to have been gravely mooted till very recently. I doubtwhether Mr. Spencer and Mr. Romanes would accept this even now, whenit is put thus undisguisedly; but this is what Professor Hering andI mean, and it is the only thing that should be meant, by those whospeak of instinct as inherited memory. Mr Spencer cannot maintainthat these two startling novelties went without saying "byimplication" from the use of such expressions as "accumulatedexperiences" or "experience of the race. "

CHAPTER III--MR. HERBERT SPENCER (continued)

Whether they ought to have gone or not, they did not go. 

When "Life and Habit" was first published no one considered Mr. Spencer to be maintaining the phenomena of heredity to be in realityphenomena of memory. When, for example, Professor Ray Lankesterfirst called attention to Professor Hering's address, he did notunderstand Mr. Spencer to be intending this. "Professor Hering, " hewrote (Nature, July 13, 1876), "helps us to a comprehensive view ofthe nature of heredity and adaptation, by giving us the word'memory, ' conscious or unconscious, for the continuity of Mr. Spencer's polar forces or polarities of physiological units. " Heevidently found the prominence given to memory a help to him whichhe had not derived from reading Mr. Spencer's works. 

When, again, he attacked me in the Athenaeum (March 29, 1884), hespoke of my "tardy recognition" of the fact that Professor Heringhad preceded me "in treating all manifestations of heredity as aform of memory. " Professor Lankester's words could have no force ifhe held that any other writer, and much less so well known a writeras Mr. Spencer, had preceded me in putting forward the theory inquestion. 

When Mr. Romanes reviewed "Unconscious Memory" in Nature (January27, 1881) the notion of a "race-memory, " to use his own words, wasstill so new to him that he declared it "simply absurd" to supposethat it could "possibly be fraught with any benefit to science, " andwith him too it was Professor Hering who had anticipated me in thematter, not Mr. Spencer. 

In his "Mental Evolution in Animals" (p. 296) he said that CanonKingsley, writing in 1867, was the first to advance the theory thatinstinct is inherited memory; he could not have said this if Mr. Spencer had been understood to have been upholding this view for thelast thirty years. 

Mr. A. R. Wallace reviewed "Life and Habit" in Nature (March 27, 1879), but he did not find the line I had taken a familiar one, ashe surely must have done if it had followed easily by implicationfrom Mr. Spencer's works. He called it "an ingenious andparadoxical explanation" which was evidently new to him. Heconcluded by saying that "it might yet afford a clue to some of thedeepest mysteries of the organic world. "

Professor Mivart, when he reviewed my books on Evolution in theAmerican Catholic Quarterly Review (July 1881), said, "Mr Butler isnot only perfectly logical and consistent in the startlingconsequences he deduces from his principles, but, " &c. ProfessorMivart could not have found my consequences startling if they hadalready been insisted upon for many years by one of the best-knownwriters of the day. 

The reviewer of "Evolution Old and New" in the Saturday Review(March 31, 1879), of whom all I can venture to say is that he or sheis a person whose name carries weight in matters connected withbiology, though he (for brevity) was in the humour for seeingeverything objectionable in me that could be seen, still saw no Mr. Spencer in me. He said--"Mr Butler's own particular contribution tothe terminology of Evolution is the phrase two or three timesrepeated with some emphasis" (I repeated it not two or three timesonly, but whenever and wherever I could venture to do so withoutwearying the reader beyond endurance) "oneness of personalitybetween parents and offspring. " The writer proceeded to reprobatethis in language upon which a Huxley could hardly improve, but as hedeclares himself unable to discover what it means, it may bepresumed that the idea of continued personality between successivegenerations was new to him. 

When Dr. Francis Darwin called on me a day or two before "Life andHabit" went to the press, he said the theory which had pleased himmore than any he had seen for some time was one which referred alllife to memory; {44a} he doubtless intended "which referred all thephenomena of heredity to memory. " He then mentioned Professor RayLankester's article in Nature, of which I had not heard, but he saidnothing about Mr. Spencer, and spoke of the idea as one which hadbeen quite new to him. 

The above names comprise (excluding Mr. Spencer himself) perhapsthose of the best-known writers on evolution that can be mentionedas now before the public; it is curious that Mr Spencer should bethe only one of them to see any substantial resemblance between the"Principles of Psychology" and Professor Hering's address and "Lifeand Habit. "

I ought, perhaps, to say that Mr. Romanes, writing to the Athenaeum(March 8, 1884), took a different view of the value of the theory ofinherited memory to the one he took in 1881. 

In 1881 he said it was "simply absurd" to suppose it could "possiblybe fraught with any benefit to science" or "reveal any truth ofprofound significance;" in 1884 he said of the same theory, that "itformed the backbone of all the previous literature upon instinct" byDarwin, Spencer, Lewes, Fiske, and Spalding, "not to mention theirnumerous followers, and is by all of them elaborately stated asclearly as any theory can be stated in words. "

Few except Mr. Romanes will say this. I grant it ought to "haveformed the backbone, " &c. , and ought "to have been elaboratelystated, " &c. , but when I wrote "Life and Habit" neither Mr Romanesnor any one else understood it to have been even glanced at by morethan a very few, and as for having been "elaborately stated, " it hadbeen stated by Professor Hering as elaborately as it could be statedwithin the limits of an address of only twenty-two pages, but withthis exception it had never been stated at all. It is not too muchto say that "Life and Habit, " when it first came out, was consideredso startling a paradox that people would not believe in my desire tobe taken seriously, or at any rate were able to pretend that theythought I was not writing seriously. 

Mr. Romanes knows this just as well as all must do who keep an eyeon evolution; he himself, indeed, had said (Nature, January 27, 1881) that so long as I "aimed only at entertaining" my "readers bysuch works as 'Erewhon' and 'Life and Habit'" (as though these bookswere of kindred character) I was in my proper sphere. It would bedoing too little credit to Mr. Romanes' intelligence to suppose himnot to have known when he said this that "Life and Habit" waswritten as seriously as my subsequent books on evolution, but itsuited him at the moment to join those who professed to consider itanother book of paradoxes such as, I suppose, "Erewhon" had been, sohe classed the two together. He could not have done this unlessenough people thought, or said they thought, the books akin, to givecolour to his doing so. 

One alone of all my reviewers has, to my knowledge, brought Mr. Spencer against me. This was a writer in the St. James's Gazette(December 2, 1880). I challenged him in a letter which appeared(December 8, 1880), and said, "I would ask your reviewer to be kindenough to refer your readers to those passages of Mr. Spencer's"Principles of Psychology" which in any direct intelligible wayrefer the phenomena of instinct and heredity generally, to memory onthe part of offspring of the action it bona fide took in the personsof its forefathers. " The reviewer made no reply, and I concluded, as I have since found correctly, that he could not find thepassages. 

True, in his "Principles of Psychology" (vol. Ii. P. 195) Mr. Spencer says that we have only to expand the doctrine that allintelligence is acquired through experience "so as to make itinclude with the experience of each individual the experiences ofall ancestral individuals, " &c. This is all very good, but it ismuch the same as saying, "We have only got to stand on our heads andwe shall be able to do so and so. " We did not see our way tostanding on our heads, and Mr. Spencer did not help us; we had beenaccustomed, as I am afraid I must have said usque ad nauseamalready, to lose sight of the physical connection existing betweenparents and offspring; we understood from the marriage service thathusband and wife were in a sense one flesh, but not that parents andchildren were so also; and without this conception of the matter, which in its way is just as true as the more commonly received one, we could not extend the experience of parents to offspring. It wasnot in the bond or nexus of our ideas to consider experience asappertaining to more than a single individual in the commonacceptance of the term; these two ideas were so closely boundtogether that wherever the one went the other went perforce. Here, indeed, in the very passage of Mr. Spencer's just referred to, therace is throughout regarded as "a series of individuals"--without anattempt to call attention to that other view, in virtue of which weare able to extend to many an idea we had been accustomed to confineto one. 

In his chapter on Memory, Mr. Spencer certainly approaches theHeringian view. He says, "On the one hand, Instinct may be regardedas a kind of organised memory; on the other, Memory may be regardedas a kind of incipient instinct" ("Principles of Psychology, " ed. 2, vol. I. P. 445). Here the ball has fallen into his hands, but if hehad got firm hold of it he could not have written, "Instinct MAY BEregarded as A KIND OF, &c. ;" to us there is neither "may be regardedas" nor "kind of" about it; we require, "Instinct is inheritedmemory, " with an explanation making it intelligible how memory cancome to be inherited at all. I do not like, again, calling memory"a kind of incipient instinct;" as Mr. Spencer puts them the wordshave a pleasant antithesis, but "instinct is inherited memory"covers all the ground, and to say that memory is inherited instinctis surplusage. 

Nor does he stick to it long when he says that "instinct is a kindof organised memory, " for two pages later he says that memory, to bememory at all, must be tolerably conscious or deliberate; he, therefore (vol. I. P. 447), denies that there can be such a thing asunconscious memory; but without this it is impossible for us to seeinstinct as the "kind of organised memory" which he has just beencalling it, inasmuch as instinct is notably undeliberate andunreflecting. 

A few pages farther on (vol. I. P. 452) he finds himself driven tounconscious memory after all, and says that "conscious memory passesinto unconscious or organic memory. " Having admitted unconsciousmemory, he declares (vol. I. P. 450) that "as fast as thoseconnections among psychical states, which we form in memory, grow byconstant repetition automatic--they CEASE TO BE PART OF MEMORY, " or, in other words, he again denies that there can be an unconsciousmemory. 

Mr. Spencer doubtless saw that he was involved in contradiction interms, and having always understood that contradictions in termswere very dreadful things--which, of course, under somecircumstances they are--thought it well so to express himself thathis readers should be more likely to push on than dwell on what wasbefore them at the moment. I should be the last to complain of himmerely on the ground that he could not escape contradiction interms: who can? When facts conflict, contradict one another, meltinto one another as the colours of the spectrum so insensibly thatnone can say where one begins and the other ends, contradictions interms become first fruits of thought and speech. They are the basisof intellectual consciousness, in the same way that a physicalobstacle is the basis of physical sensation. No opposition, nosensation, applies as much to the psychical as to the physicalkingdom, as soon as these two have got well above the horizon of ourthoughts and can be seen as two. No contradiction, noconsciousness; no cross, no crown; contradictions are the very smalldeadlocks without which there is no going; going is our sense of asuccession of small impediments or deadlocks; it is a succession ofcutting Gordian knots, which on a small scale please or pain as thecase may be; on a larger, give an ecstasy of pleasure, or shock tothe extreme of endurance; and on a still larger, kill whether theybe on the right side or the wrong. Nature, as I said in "Life andHabit, " hates that any principle should breed hermaphroditically, but will give to each an helpmeet for it which shall cross it and bethe undoing of it; and in the undoing, do; and in the doing, undo, and so ad infinitum. Cross-fertilisation is just as necessary forcontinued fertility of ideas as for that of organic life, and theattempt to frown this or that down merely on the ground that itinvolves contradiction in terms, without at the same time showingthat the contradiction is on a larger scale than healthy thought canstomach, argues either small sense or small sincerity on the part ofthose who make it. The contradictions employed by Mr. Spencer areobjectionable, not on the ground of their being contradictions atall, but on the ground of their being blinked, and usedunintelligently. 

But though it is not possible for any one to get a clear conceptionof Mr. Spencer's meaning, we may say with more confidence what itwas that he did not mean. He did not mean to make memory thekeystone of his system; he has none of that sense of the unifying, binding force of memory which Professor Hering has so wellexpressed, nor does he show any signs of perceiving the far-reachingconsequences that ensue if the phenomena of heredity are consideredas phenomena of memory. Thus, when he is dealing with the phenomenaof old age (vol. I. P. 538, ed. 2) he does not ascribe them to lapseand failure of memory, nor surmise the principle underlyinglongevity. He never mentions memory in connection with hereditywithout presently saying something which makes us involuntarilythink of a man missing an easy catch at cricket; it is only rarely, however, that he connects the two at all. I have only been able tofind the word "inherited" or any derivative of the verb "to inherit"in connection with memory once in all the 1300 long pages of the"Principles of Psychology. " It occurs in vol ii. P. 200, 2d ed. , where the words stand, "Memory, inherited or acquired. " I submitthat this was unintelligible when Mr. Spencer wrote it, for want ofan explanation which he never gave; I submit, also, that he couldnot have left it unexplained, nor yet as an unrepeated expressionnot introduced till late in his work, if he had had any idea of itspregnancy. 

At any rate, whether he intended to imply what he now implies thathe intended to imply (for Mr. Spencer, like the late Mr. Darwin, isfond of qualifying phrases), I have shown that those most able andwilling to understand him did not take him to mean what he nowappears anxious to have it supposed that he meant. Surely, moreover, if he had meant it he would have spoken sooner, when hesaw his meaning had been missed. I can, however, have no hesitationin saying that if I had known the "Principles of Psychology"earlier, as well as I know the work now, I should have used itlargely. 

It may be interesting, before we leave Mr. Spencer, to see whetherhe even now assigns to continued personality and memory the placeassigned to it by Professor Hering and myself. I will thereforegive the concluding words of the letter to the Athenaeum alreadyreferred to, in which he tells us to stand aside. He writes "Istill hold that inheritance of functionally produced modificationsis the chief factor throughout the higher stages of organicevolution, bodily as well as mental (see 'Principles of Biology, ' i. 166), while I recognise the truth that throughout the lower stagessurvival of the fittest is the chief factor, and in the lowest thealmost exclusive factor. "

This is the same confused and confusing utterance which Mr. Spencerhas been giving us any time this thirty years. According to him thefact that variations can be inherited and accumulated has less to dowith the first development of organic life, than the fact that if asquare organism happens to get into a square hole, it will livelonger and more happily than a square organism which happens to getinto a round one; he declares "the survival of the fittest"--andthis is nothing but the fact that those who "fit" best into theirsurroundings will live longest and most comfortably--to have more todo with the development of the amoeba into, we will say, a molluscthan heredity itself. True, "inheritance of functionally producedmodifications" is allowed to be the chief factor throughout the"higher stages of organic evolution, " but it has very little to doin the lower; in these "the almost exclusive factor" is notheredity, or inheritance, but "survival of the fittest. "

Of course we know that Mr. Spencer does not believe this; of course, also, all who are fairly well up in the history of the developmenttheory will see why Mr. Spencer has attempted to draw thisdistinction between the "factors" of the development of the higherand lower forms of life; but no matter how or why Mr. Spencer hasbeen led to say what he has, he has no business to have said it. What can we think of a writer who, after so many years of writingupon his subject, in a passage in which he should make his meaningdoubly clear, inasmuch as he is claiming ground taken by otherwriters, declares that though hereditary use and disuse, or, to usehis own words, "the inheritance of functionally producedmodifications, " is indeed very important in connection with thedevelopment of the higher forms of life, yet heredity itself haslittle or nothing to do with that of the lower? Variations, whetherproduced functionally or not, can only be perpetuated andaccumulated because they can be inherited;--and this applies just asmuch to the lower as to the higher forms of life; the question whichProfessor Hering and I have tried to answer is, "How comes it thatanything can be inherited at all? In virtue of what power is itthat offspring can repeat and improve upon the performances of theirparents?" Our answer was, "Because in a very valid sense, thoughnot perhaps in the most usually understood, there is continuedpersonality and an abiding memory between successive generations. "How does Mr. Spencer's confession of faith touch this? If anymeaning can be extracted from his words, he is no more supportingthis view now than he was when he wrote the passages he has adducedto show that he was supporting it thirty years ago; but after all nocoherent meaning can be got out of Mr. Spencer's letter--except, ofcourse, that Professor Hering and myself are to stand aside. I haveabundantly shown that I am very ready to do this in favour ofProfessor Hering, but see no reason for admitting Mr. Spencer'sclaim to have been among the forestallers of "Life and Habit. "

CHAPTER IV {52a}--Mr. Romanes' "Mental Evolution in Animals"

Without raising the unprofitable question how Mr. Romanes, in spiteof the indifference with which he treated the theory of InheritedMemory in 1881, came, in 1883, to be sufficiently imbued with asense of its importance, I still cannot afford to dispense with theweight of his authority, and in this chapter will show how closelyhe not infrequently approaches the Heringian position. 

Thus, he says that the analogies between the memory with which weare familiar in daily life and hereditary memory "are so numerousand precise" as to justify us in considering them to be ofessentially the same kind. {52b}

Again, he says that although the memory of milk shown by new-borninfants is "at all events in large part hereditary, it is none theless memory" of a certain kind. {52c}

Two lines lower down he writes of "hereditary memory or instinct, "thereby implying that instinct is "hereditary memory. " "It makes noessential difference, " he says, "whether the past sensation wasactually experienced by the individual itself, or bequeathed it, soto speak, by its ancestors. {52d} For it makes no essentialdifference whether the nervous changes . . . Were occasioned duringthe life-time of the individual or during that of the species, andafterwards impressed by heredity on the individual. "

Lower down on the same page he writes:-

"As showing how close is the connection between hereditary memoryand instinct, " &c. 

And on the following page:-

"And this shows how closely the phenomena of hereditary memory arerelated to those of individual memory: at this stage . . . It ispractically impossible to disentangle the effects of hereditarymemory from those of the individual. "

Again:-

"Another point which we have here to consider is the part whichheredity has played in forming the perceptive faculty of theindividual prior to its own experience. We have already seen thatheredity plays an important part in forming memory of ancestralexperiences, and thus it is that many animals come into the worldwith their power of perception already largely developed. Thewealth of ready-formed information, and therefore of ready-madepowers of perception, with which many newly-born or newly-hatchedanimals are provided, is so great and so precise that it scarcelyrequires to be supplemented by the subsequent experience of theindividual. " {53a}

Again:-

"Instincts probably owe their origin and development to one or otherof the two principles. 

"I. The first mode of origin consists in natural selection orsurvival of the fittest, continuously preserving actions, &c. &c. 

"II. The second mode of origin is as follows:- By the effects ofhabit in successive generations, actions which were originallyintelligent become as it were stereotyped into permanent instincts. Just as in the lifetime of the individual adjustive actions whichwere originally intelligent may by frequent repetition becomeautomatic, so in the lifetime of species actions originallyintelligent may by frequent repetition and heredity so write theireffects on the nervous system that the latter is prepared, evenbefore individual experience, to perform adjustive actionsmechanically which in previous generations were performedintelligently. This mode of origin of instincts has beenappropriately called (by Lewes--see "Problems of Life and Mind"{54a}) the 'lapsing of intelligence. '" {54b}

I may say in passing that in spite of the great stress laid by Mr. Romanes both in his "Mental Evolution in Animals" and in his lettersto the Athenaeum in March 1884, on Natural Selection as anoriginator and developer of instinct, he very soon afterwards letthe Natural Selection part of the story go as completely withoutsaying as I do myself, or as Mr. Darwin did during the later yearsof his life. Writing to Nature, April 10, 1884, he said: "To denyTHAT EXPERIENCE IN THE COURSE OF SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS IS THESOURCE OF INSTINCT, is not to meet by way of argument the enormousmass of evidence which goes to prove THAT THIS IS THE CASE. " Here, then, instinct is referred, without reservation, to "experience insuccessive generations, " and this is nonsense unless explained asProfessor Hering and I explain it. Mr. Romanes' words, in fact, amount to an unqualified acceptance of the chapter "Instinct asInherited Memory" given in "Life and Habit, " of which Mr. Romanes inMarch 1884 wrote in terms which it is not necessary to repeat. 

Later on:-

"That 'practice makes perfect' is a matter, as I have previouslysaid, of daily observation. Whether we regard a juggler, a pianist, or a billiard-player, a child learning his lesson or an actor hispart by frequently repeating it, or a thousand other illustrationsof the same process, we see at once that there is truth in thecynical definition of a man as a 'bundle of habits. ' And the same, of course, is true of animals. " {55a}

From this Mr. Romanes goes on to show "that automatic actions andconscious habits may be inherited, " {55b} and in the course of doingthis contends that "instincts may be lost by disuse, and converselythat they may be acquired as instincts by the hereditarytransmission of ancestral experience. "

On another page Mr. Romanes says:-

"Let us now turn to the second of these two assumptions, viz. , thatsome at least among migratory birds must possess, by inheritancealone, a very precise knowledge of the particular direction to bepursued. It is without question an astonishing fact that a youngcuckoo should be prompted to leave its foster parents at aparticular season of the year, and without any guide to show thecourse previously taken by its own parents, but this is a fact whichmust be met by any theory of instinct which aims at being complete. Now upon our own theory it can only be met by taking it to be due toinherited memory. "

A little lower Mr. Romanes says: "Of what kind, then, is theinherited memory on which the young cuckoo (if not also othermigratory birds) depends? We can only answer, of the same kind, whatever this may be, as that upon which the old bird depends. "{55c}

I have given above most of the more marked passages which I havebeen able to find in Mr. Romanes' book which attribute instinct tomemory, and which admit that there is no fundamental differencebetween the kind of memory with which we are all familiar andhereditary memory as transmitted from one generation to another. 

But throughout his work there are passages which suggest, thoughless obviously, the same inference. 

The passages I have quoted show that Mr. Romanes is upholding thesame opinions as Professor Hering's and my own, but their effect andtendency is more plain here than in Mr Romanes' own book, where theyare overlaid by nearly 400 long pages of matter which is not alwayseasy of comprehension. 

Moreover, at the same time that I claim the weight of Mr. Romanes'authority, I am bound to admit that I do not find his supportsatisfactory. The late Mr. Darwin himself--whose mantle seems tohave fallen more especially and particularly on Mr. Romanes--couldnot contradict himself more hopelessly than Mr. Romanes often does. Indeed in one of the very passages I have quoted in order to showthat Mr. Romanes accepts the phenomena of heredity as phenomena ofmemory, he speaks of "heredity as playing an important part INFORMING MEMORY of ancestral experiences;" so that, whereas I wanthim to say that the phenomena of heredity are due to memory, he willhave it that the memory is due to the heredity, which seems to meabsurd. 

Over and over again Mr. Romanes insists that it is heredity whichdoes this or that. Thus it is "HEREDITY WITH NATURAL SELECTIONWHICH ADAPT the anatomical plan of the ganglia. " {56a} It isheredity which impresses nervous changes on the individual. {56b}"In the lifetime of species actions originally intelligent may byfrequent repetition and heredity, " &c. ; {56c} but he nowhere tellsus what heredity is any more than Messrs. Herbert Spencer, Darwin, and Lewes have done. This, however, is exactly what ProfessorHering, whom I have unwittingly followed, does. He resolves allphenomena of heredity, whether in respect of body or mind, intophenomena of memory. He says in effect, "A man grows his body as hedoes, and a bird makes her nest as she does, because both man andbird remember having grown body and made nest as they now do, orvery nearly so, on innumerable past occasions. " He thus, as I havesaid on an earlier page, reduces life from an equation of say 100unknown quantities to one of 99 only by showing that heredity andmemory, two of the original 100 unknown quantities, are in realitypart of one and the same thing. 

That he is right Mr. Romanes seems to me to admit, though in a veryunsatisfactory way. 

What, for example, can be more unsatisfactory than the following?--Mr. Romanes says that the most fundamental principle of mentaloperation is that of memory, and that this "is the conditio sine quanon of all mental life" (page 35). 

I do not understand Mr. Romanes to hold that there is any livingbeing which has no mind at all, and I do understand him to admitthat development of body and mind are closely interdependent. 

If, then, "the most fundamental principle" of mind is memory, itfollows that memory enters also as a fundamental principle intodevelopment of body. For mind and body are so closely connectedthat nothing can enter largely into the one without correspondinglyaffecting the other. 

On a later page Mr. Romanes speaks point-blank of the new-born childas "EMBODYING the results of a great mass of HEREDITARY EXPERIENCE"(p. 77), so that what he is driving at can be collected by those whotake trouble, but is not seen until we call up from our ownknowledge matter whose relevancy does not appear on the face of it, and until we connect passages many pages asunder, the first of whichmay easily be forgotten before we reach the second. There can be nodoubt, however, that Mr. Romanes does in reality, like ProfessorHering and myself, regard development, whether of mind or body, asdue to memory, for it is now pretty generally seen to be nonsense totalk about "hereditary experience" or "hereditary memory" ifanything else is intended. 

I have said above that on page 113 of his recent work Mr. Romanesdeclares the analogies between the memory with which we are familiarin daily life, and hereditary memory, to be "so numerous andprecise" as to justify us in considering them as of one and the samekind. 

This is certainly his meaning, but, with the exception of the wordswithin inverted commas, it is not his language. His own words arethese:-

"Profound, however, as our ignorance unquestionably is concerningthe physical substratum of memory, I think we are at least justifiedin regarding this substratum as the same both in ganglionic ororganic, and in the conscious or psychological memory, seeing thatthe analogies between them are so numerous and precise. Consciousness is but an adjunct which arises when the physicalprocesses, owing to infrequency of repetition, complexity ofoperation, or other causes, involve what I have before calledganglionic friction. "

I submit that I have correctly translated Mr. Romanes' meaning, andalso that we have a right to complain of his not saying what he hasto say in words which will involve less "ganglionic friction" on thepart of the reader. 

Another example may be found on p. 43 of Mr. Romanes' book. "Lastly, " he writes, "just as innumerable special mechanisms ofmuscular co-ordinations are found to be inherited, innumerablespecial associations of ideas are found to be the same, and in onecase as in the other the strength of the organically imposedconnection is found to bear a direct proportion to the frequencywith which in the history of the species it has occurred. "

Mr. Romanes is here intending what the reader will find insisted onon p. 51 of "Life and Habit;" but how difficult he has made whatcould have been said intelligibly enough, if there had been nothingbut the reader's comfort to be considered. Unfortunately that seemsto have been by no means the only thing of which Mr. Romanes wasthinking, or why, after implying and even saying over and over againthat instinct is inherited habit due to inherited memory, should heturn sharply round on p. 297 and praise Mr. Darwin for trying tosnuff out "the well-known doctrine of inherited habit as advanced byLamarck"? The answer is not far to seek. It is because Mr. Romanesdid not merely want to tell us all about instinct, but wanted also, if I may use a homely metaphor, to hunt with the hounds and run withthe hare at one and the same time. 

I remember saying that if the late Mr. Darwin "had told us what theearlier evolutionists said, why they said it, wherein he differedfrom them, and in what way he proposed to set them straight, hewould have taken a course at once more agreeable with usualpractice, and more likely to remove misconception from his own mindand from those of his readers. " {59a} This I have no doubt was oneof the passages which made Mr. Romanes so angry with me. I can findno better words to apply to Mr. Romanes himself. He knows perfectlywell what others have written about the connection between heredityand memory, and he knows no less well that so far as he isintelligible at all he is taking the same view that they have taken. If he had begun by saying what they had said, and had then improvedon it, I for one should have been only too glad to be improved upon. 

Mr. Romanes has spoiled his book just because this plain old-fashioned method of procedure was not good enough for him. One-halfthe obscurity which makes his meaning so hard to apprehend is due toexactly the same cause as that which has ruined so much of the lateMr. Darwin's work--I mean to a desire to appear to be differingaltogether from others with whom he knew himself after all to be insubstantial agreement. He adopts, but (probably quiteunconsciously) in his anxiety to avoid appearing to adopt, heobscures what he is adopting. 

Here, for example, is Mr. Romanes' definition of instinct:-

"Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported the elementof consciousness. The term is therefore a generic one, comprisingall those faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious andadaptive action, antecedent to individual experience, withoutnecessary knowledge of the relation between means employed and endsattained, but similarly performed under similar and frequentlyrecurring circumstances by all the individuals of the same species. "{60a}

If Mr. Romanes would have been content to build frankly uponProfessor Hering's foundation, the soundness of which he haselsewhere abundantly admitted, he might have said -

"Instinct is knowledge or habit acquired in past generations--thenew generation remembering what happened to it before it partedcompany with the old. More briefly, Instinct is inherited memory. "Then he might have added a rider -

"If a habit is acquired as a new one, during any given lifetime, itis not an instinct. If having been acquired in one lifetime it istransmitted to offspring, it is an instinct in the offspring, thoughit was not an instinct in the parent. If the habit is transmittedpartially, it must be considered as partly instinctive and partlyacquired. "

This is easy; it tells people how they may test any action so as toknow what they ought to call it; it leaves well alone by avoidingall such debatable matters as reflex action, consciousness, intelligence, purpose, knowledge of purpose. &c. ; it both introducesthe feature of inheritance which is the one mainly distinguishinginstinctive from so-called intelligent actions, and shows the mannerin which these last pass into the first, that is to say, by way ofmemory and habitual repetition; finally it points the fact that thenew generation is not to be looked upon as a new thing, but (as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since said {61a}) as "a branch or elongation" ofthe one immediately preceding it. 

In Mr. Darwin's case it is hardly possible to exaggerate the wasteof time, money and trouble that has been caused, by his not havingbeen content to appear as descending with modification like otherpeople from those who went before him. It will take years to getthe evolution theory out of the mess in which Mr. Darwin has leftit. He was heir to a discredited truth; he left behind him anaccredited fallacy. Mr. Romanes, if he is not stopped in time, willget the theory connecting heredity and memory into just such anothermuddle as Mr. Darwin has got evolution, for surely the writer whocan talk about "HEREDITY BEING ABLE TO WORK UP the faculty of hominginto the instinct of migration, " {61b} or of "the principle of(natural) selection combining with that of lapsing intelligence tothe formation of a joint result, " {61c} is little likely to departfrom the usual methods of scientific procedure with advantage eitherto himself or any one else. Fortunately Mr. Romanes is not Mr. Darwin, and though he has certainly got Mr. Darwin's mantle, and gotit very much too, it will not on Mr. Romanes' shoulders hide a gooddeal that people were not going to observe too closely while Mr. Darwin wore it. 

I ought to say that the late Mr. Darwin appears himself eventuallyto have admitted the soundness of the theory connecting heredity andmemory. Mr. Romanes quotes a letter written by Mr. Darwin in thelast year of his life, in which he speaks of an intelligent actiongradually becoming "INSTINCTIVE, I. E. , MEMORY TRANSMITTED FROM ONEGENERATION TO ANOTHER. " {62a}

Briefly, the stages of Mr. Darwin's opinion upon the subject ofhereditary memory are as follows:-

1859. "It would be THE MOST SERIOUS ERROR to suppose that thegreater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in onegeneration and transmitted by inheritance to succeedinggenerations. " {62b} And this more especially applies to theinstincts of many ants. 

1876. "It would be a SERIOUS ERROR to suppose, " &c. , as before. {62c}

1881. "We should remember WHAT A MASS OF INHERITED KNOWLEDGE iscrowded into the minute brain of a worker ant. " {62d}

1881 or 1882. Speaking of a given habitual action Mr. Darwinwrites: "It does not seem to me at all incredible that this action[and why this more than any other habitual action?] should thenbecome instinctive:" i. E. , MEMORY TRANSMITTED FROM ONE GENERATION TOANOTHER. {62e}

And yet in 1839, or thereabouts, Mr. Darwin had pretty nearlygrasped the conception from which until the last year or two of hislife he so fatally strayed; for in his contribution to the volumesgiving an account of the voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, hewrote: "Nature by making habit omnipotent and its effectshereditary, has fitted the Fuegian for the climate and productionsof his country" (p. 237). 

What is the secret of the long departure from the simple common-sense view of the matter which he took when he was a young man? Iimagine simply what I have referred to in the preceding chapter, over-anxiety to appear to be differing from his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck. 

I believe I may say that Mr. Darwin before he died not only admittedthe connection between memory and heredity, but came also to seethat he must readmit that design in organism which he had so manyyears opposed. For in the preface to Hermann Muller's"Fertilisation of Flowers, " {63a} which bears a date only a very fewweeks prior to Mr. Darwin's death, I find him saying:- "Design innature has for a long time deeply interested many men, and thoughthe subject must now be looked at from a somewhat different point ofview from what was formerly the case, it is not on that accountrendered less interesting. " This is mused forth as a general gnome, and may mean anything or nothing: the writer of the letterpressunder the hieroglyph in Old Moore's Almanac could not be moreguarded; but I think I know what it does mean. 

I cannot, of course, be sure; Mr. Darwin did not probably intendthat I should; but I assume with confidence that whether there isdesign in organism or no, there is at any rate design in thispassage of Mr. Darwin's. This, we may be sure, is not a fortuitousvariation; and, moreover, it is introduced for some reason whichmade Mr. Darwin think it worth while to go out of his way tointroduce it. It has no fitness in its connection with HermannMuller's book, for what little Hermann Muller says about teleologyat all is to condemn it; why, then, should Mr. Darwin muse here ofall places in the world about the interest attaching to design inorganism? Neither has the passage any connection with the rest ofthe preface. There is not another word about design, and even hereMr. Darwin seems mainly anxious to face both ways, and pat design asit were on the head while not committing himself to any propositionwhich could be disputed. 

The explanation is sufficiently obvious. Mr Darwin wanted to hedge. He saw that the design which his works had been mainly instrumentalin pitchforking out of organisms no less manifestly designed than aburglar's jemmy is designed, had nevertheless found its way backagain, and that though, as I insisted in "Evolution Old and New, "and "Unconscious Memory, " it must now be placed within the organisminstead of outside it, as "was formerly the case, " it was not onthat account any the less--design, as well as interesting. 

I should like to have seen Mr. Darwin say this more explicitly. Indeed I should have liked to have seen Mr. Darwin say anything atall about the meaning of which there could be no mistake, andwithout contradicting himself elsewhere; but this was not Mr. Darwin's manner. 

In passing I will give another example of Mr Darwin's manner when hedid not quite dare even to hedge. It is to be found in the prefacewhich he wrote to Professor Weismann's "Studies in the Theory ofDescent, " published in 1881. 

"Several distinguished naturalists, " says Mr. Darwin, "maintain withmuch confidence that organic beings tend to vary and to rise in thescale, independently of the conditions to which they and theirprogenitors have been exposed; whilst others maintain that allvariation is due to such exposure, though the manner in which theenvironment acts is as yet quite unknown. At the present time thereis hardly any question in biology of more importance than this ofthe nature and causes of variability; and the reader will find inthe present work an able discussion on the whole subject, which willprobably lead him to pause before he admits the existence of aninnate tendency to perfectibility"--or towards BEING ABLE TO BEPERFECTED. 

I could find no able discussion upon the whole subject in ProfessorWeismann's book. There was a little something here and there, butnot much. 

It may be expected that I should say something here about Mr. Romanes' latest contribution to biology--I mean his theory ofphysiological selection, of which the two first instalments haveappeared in Nature just as these pages are leaving my hands, andmany months since the foregoing, and most of the following chapterswere written. I admit to feeling a certain sense of thankfulnessthat they did not appear earlier; as it is, my book is too faradvanced to be capable of further embryonic change, and this must bemy excuse for saying less about Mr. Romanes' theory than I mightperhaps otherwise do. I cordially, however, agree with the Times, which says that "Mr. George Romanes appears to be the biologicalinvestigator on whom the mantle of Mr. Darwin has most conspicuouslydescended" (August 16, 1886). Mr. Romanes is just the person whomthe late Mr. Darwin would select to carry on his work, and Mr. Darwin was just the kind of person towards whom Mr. Romanes wouldfind himself instinctively attracted. 

The Times continues--"The position which Mr. Romanes takes up is theresult of his perception shared by many evolutionists, that thetheory of natural selection is not really a theory of the origin ofspecies. . . . " What, then, becomes of Mr. Darwin's most famouswork, which was written expressly to establish natural selection asthe main means of organic modification? "The new factor which Mr. Romanes suggests, " continues the Times, "is that at a certain stageof development of varieties in a state of nature a change takesplace in their reproductive systems, rendering those which differ insome particulars mutually infertile, and thus the formation of newpermanent species takes place without the swamping effect of freeintercrossing. . . . How his theory can be properly termed one ofselection he fails to make clear. If correct, it is a law orprinciple of operation rather than a process of selection. It hasbeen objected to Mr. Romanes' theory that it is the re-statement ofa fact. This objection is less important than the lack of facts insupport of the theory. " The Times, however, implies it as itsopinion that the required facts will be forthcoming by and by, andthat when they have been found Mr. Romanes' suggestion willconstitute "the most important addition to the theory of evolutionsince the publication of the 'Origin of Species. '" Considering thatthe Times has just implied the main thesis of the "Origin ofSpecies" to be one which does not stand examination, this is rathera doubtful compliment. 

Neither Mr. Romanes nor the writer in the Times appears to perceivethat the results which may or may not be supposed to ensue on choicedepend upon what it is that is supposed to be chosen from; they donot appear to see that though the expression natural selection mustbe always more or less objectionable, as too highly charged withmetaphor for purposes of science, there is nevertheless a naturalselection which is open to no other objection than this, and which, when its metaphorical character is borne well in mind, may be usedwithout serious risk of error, whereas natural selection fromvariations that are mainly fortuitous is chimerical as well asmetaphorical. Both writers speak of natural selection as thoughthere could not possibly be any selection in the course of nature, or natural survival, of any but accidental variations. Thus Mr. Romanes says: {66a} "The swamping effect of free inter-crossingupon an individual variation constitutes perhaps the most formidabledifficulty with which THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION is beset. "And the writer of the article in the Times above referred to says:"In truth THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION presents many facts andresults which increase rather than diminish the difficulty ofaccounting for the existence of species. " The assertion made ineach case is true if the Charles-Darwinian selection from fortuitousvariations is intended, but it does not hold good if the selectionis supposed to be made from variations under which there lies ageneral principle of wide and abiding application. It is not likelythat a man of Mr. Romanes' antecedents should not be perfectly awaketo considerations so obvious as the foregoing, and I am afraid I aminclined to consider his whole suggestion as only an attempt uponthe part of the wearer of Mr. Darwin's mantle to carry on Mr. Darwin's work in Mr. Darwin's spirit. 

I have seen Professor Hering's theory adopted recently moreunreservedly by Dr. Creighton in his "Illustrations of UnconsciousMemory in Disease. " {67a} Dr. Creighton avowedly bases his systemon Professor Hering's address, and endorses it; it is with muchpleasure that I have seen him lend the weight of his authority tothe theory that each cell and organ has an individual memory. In"Life and Habit" I expressed a hope that the opinions it upheldwould be found useful by medical men, and am therefore the more gladto see that this has proved to be the case. I may perhaps bepardoned if I quote the passage in" Life and Habit" to which I amreferring. It runs:-

"Mutatis mutandis, the above would seem to hold as truly aboutmedicine as about politics. We cannot reason with our cells, forthey know so much more" (of course I mean "about their ownbusiness") "than we do, that they cannot understand us;--but thoughwe cannot reason with them, we can find out what they have been mostaccustomed to, and what, therefore, they are most likely to expect;we can see that they get this as far as it is in our power to giveit them, and may then generally leave the rest to them, only bearingin mind that they will rebel equally against too sudden a change oftreatment and no change at all" (p. 305). 

Dr. Creighton insists chiefly on the importance of change, which--though I did not notice his saying so--he would doubtless see as amode of cross-fertilisation, fraught in all respects with the sameadvantages as this, and requiring the same precautions againstabuse; he would not, however, I am sure, deny that there could be nofertility of good results if too wide a cross were attempted, sothat I may claim the weight of his authority as supporting both thetheory of an unconscious memory in general, and the particularapplication of it to medicine which I had ventured to suggest. 

"Has the word 'memory, '" he asks, "a real application to unconsciousorganic phenomena, or do we use it outside its ancient limits onlyin a figure of speech?"

"If I had thought, " he continues later, "that unconscious memory wasno more than a metaphor, and the detailed application of it to thesevarious forms of disease merely allegorical, I should still havejudged it not unprofitable to represent a somewhat hackneyed classof maladies in the light of a parable. None of our faculties ismore familiar to us in its workings than the memory, and there ishardly any force or power in nature which every one knows so well asthe force of habit. To say that a neurotic subject is like a personwith a retentive memory, or that a diathesis gradually acquired islike an over-mastering habit, is at all events to make comparisonswith things that we all understand. 

"For reasons given chiefly in the first chapter, I conclude thatretentiveness, with reproduction, is a single undivided facultythroughout the whole of our life, whether mental or bodily, conscious or unconscious; and I claim the description of a certainclass of maladies according to the phraseology of memory and habitas a real description and not a figurative. " (p. 2. )

As a natural consequence of the foregoing he regards "alterativeaction" as "habit-breaking action. "

As regards the organism's being guided throughout its development tomaturity by an unconscious memory, Dr. Creighton says that"Professor Bain calls reproduction the acme of organiccomplication. " "I should prefer to say, " he adds, "the acme oforganic implication; for the reason that the sperm and germ elementsare perfectly simple, having nothing in their form or structure toshow for the marvellous potentialities within them. 

"I now come to the application of these considerations to thedoctrine of unconscious memory. If generation is the acme oforganic implicitness, what is its correlative in nature, what is theacme of organic explicitness? Obviously the fine flower ofconsciousness. Generation is implicit memory, consciousness isexplicit memory; generation is potential memory, consciousness isactual memory. "

I am not sure that I understand the preceding paragraph as clearlyas I should wish, but having quoted enough to perhaps induce thereader to turn to Dr. Creighton's book, I will proceed to thesubject indicated in my title. 

CHAPTER V--Statement of the Question at Issue

Of the two points referred to in the opening sentence of this book--I mean the connection between heredity and memory, and thereintroduction of design into organic modification--the second isboth the more important and the one which stands most in need ofsupport. The substantial identity between heredity and memory isbecoming generally admitted; as regards my second point, however, Icannot flatter myself that I have made much way against theformidable array of writers on the neo-Darwinian side; I shalltherefore devote the rest of my book as far as possible to thissubject only. Natural selection (meaning by these words thepreservation in the ordinary course of nature of favourablevariations that are supposed to be mainly matters of pure good luckand in no way arising out of function) has been, to use anAmericanism than which I can find nothing apter, the biggestbiological boom of the last quarter of a century; it is not, therefore, to be wondered at that Professor Ray Lankester, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Grant Allen, and others, should show some impatience atseeing its value as prime means of modification called in question. Within the last few months, indeed, Mr. Grant Allen {70a} andProfessor Ray Lankester {70b} in England, and Dr. Ernst Krause {70c}in Germany, have spoken and written warmly in support of the theoryof natural selection, and in opposition to the views taken bymyself; if they are not to be left in possession of the field thesooner they are met the better. 

Stripped of detail the point at issue is this;--whether luck orcunning is the fitter to be insisted on as the main means of organicdevelopment. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck answered this question infavour of cunning. They settled it in favour of intelligentperception of the situation--within, of course, ever narrower andnarrower limits as organism retreats farther backwards fromourselves--and persistent effort to turn it to account. They madethis the soul of all development whether of mind or body. 

And they made it, like all other souls, liable to aberration bothfor better and worse. They held that some organisms show more readywit and savoir faire than others; that some give more proofs ofgenius and have more frequent happy thoughts than others, and thatsome have even gone through waters of misery which they have used aswells. 

The sheet anchor both of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck is in good senseand thrift; still they are aware that money has been sometimes madeby "striking oil, " and ere now been transmitted to descendants inspite of the haphazard way in which it was originally acquired. Nospeculation, no commerce; "nothing venture, nothing have, " is astrue for the development of organic wealth as for that of any otherkind, and neither Erasmus Darwin nor Lamarck hesitated aboutadmitting that highly picturesque and romantic incidents ofdevelopmental venture do from time to time occur in the racehistories even of the dullest and most dead-level organisms underthe name of "sports;" but they would hold that even these occur mostoften and most happily to those that have persevered in well-doingfor some generations. Unto the organism that hath is given, andfrom the organism that hath not is taken away; so that even "sports"prove to be only a little off thrift, which still remains the sheetanchor of the early evolutionists. They believe, in fact, that moreorganic wealth has been made by saving than in any other way. Therace is not in the long run to the phenomenally swift nor the battleto the phenomenally strong, but to the good average all-roundorganism that is alike shy of Radical crotchets and old worldobstructiveness. Festina, but festina lente--perhaps as involvingso completely the contradiction in terms which must underlie allmodification--is the motto they would assign to organism, and Chi vapiano va lontano, they hold to be a maxim as old, if not as thehills (and they have a hankering even after these), at any rate asthe amoeba. 

To repeat in other words. All enduring forms establish a modusvivendi with their surroundings. They can do this because both theyand the surroundings are plastic within certain undefined butsomewhat narrow limits. They are plastic because they can to someextent change their habits, and changed habit, if persisted in, involves corresponding change, however slight, in the organsemployed; but their plasticity depends in great measure upon theirfailure to perceive that they are moulding themselves. If a changeis so great that they are seriously incommoded by its novelty, theyare not likely to acquiesce in it kindly enough to grow to it, butthey will make no difficulty about the miracle involved inaccommodating themselves to a difference of only two or three percent. {72a}

As long as no change exceeds this percentage, and as long, also, asfresh change does not supervene till the preceding one is wellestablished, there seems no limit to the amount of modificationwhich may be accumulated in the course of generations--provided, ofcourse, always, that the modification continues to be in conformitywith the instinctive habits and physical development of the organismin their collective capacity. Where the change is too great, orwhere an organ has been modified cumulatively in some one direction, until it has reached a development too seriously out of harmony withthe habits of the organism taken collectively, then the organismholds itself excused from further effort, throws up the wholeconcern, and takes refuge in the liquidation and reconstruction ofdeath. It is only on the relinquishing of further effort that thisdeath ensues; as long as effort endures, organisms go on from changeto change, altering and being altered--that is to say, eitherkilling themselves piecemeal in deference to the surroundings orkilling the surroundings piecemeal to suit themselves. There is aceaseless higgling and haggling, or rather a life-and-death strugglebetween these two things as long as life lasts, and one or other orboth have in no small part to re-enter into the womb from whencethey came and be born again in some form which shall give greatersatisfaction. 

All change is pro tanto death or pro tanto birth. Change is thecommon substratum which underlies both life and death; life anddeath are not two distinct things absolutely antagonistic to oneanother; in the highest life there is still much death, and in themost complete death there is still not a little life. La vie, saysClaud Bernard, {73a} c'est la mort: he might have added, andperhaps did, et la mort ce n'est que la vie transformee. Life anddeath are the extreme modes of something which is partly both andwholly neither; this something is common, ordinary change; solve anychange and the mystery of life and death will be revealed; show whyand how anything becomes ever anything other in any respect thanwhat it is at any given moment, and there will be little secret leftin any other change. One is not in its ultimate essence moremiraculous that another; it may be more striking--a greatercongeries of shocks, it may be more credible or more incredible, butnot more miraculous; all change is qua us absolutelyincomprehensible and miraculous; the smallest change baffles thegreatest intellect if its essence, as apart from its phenomena, beinquired into. 

But however this may be, all organic change is either a growth or adissolution, or a combination of the two. Growth is the comingtogether of elements with quasi similar characteristics. Iunderstand it is believed to be the coming together of matter incertain states of motion with other matter in states so nearlysimilar that the rhythms of the one coalesce with and hencereinforce the rhythms pre-existing in the other--making, rather thanmarring and undoing them. Life and growth are an attuning, deathand decay are an untuning; both involve a succession of greater orsmaller attunings and untunings; organic life is "the diapasonclosing full in man"; it is the fulness of a tone that varies inpitch, quality, and in the harmonics to which it gives rise; itranges through every degree of complexity from the endlesscombinations of life-and-death within life-and-death which we findin the mammalia, to the comparative simplicity of the amoeba. Death, again, like life, ranges through every degree of complexity. All pleasant changes are recreative; they are pro tanto births; allunpleasant changes are wearing, and, as such, pro tanto deaths, butwe can no more exhaust either wholly of the other, than we canexhaust all the air out of a receiver; pleasure and pain lurk withinone another, as life in death, and death in life, or as rest andunrest in one another. 

There is no greater mystery in life than in death. We talk asthough the riddle of life only need engage us; this is not so; deathis just as great a miracle as life; the one is two and two makingfive, the other is five splitting into two and two. Solve either, and we have solved the other; they should be studied not apart, forthey are never parted, but together, and they will tell more talesof one another than either will tell about itself. If there is onething which advancing knowledge makes clearer than another, it isthat death is swallowed up in life, and life in death; so that ifthe last enemy that shall be subdued is death, then indeed is oursalvation nearer than what we thought, for in strictness there isneither life nor death, nor thought nor thing, except as figures ofspeech, and as the approximations which strike us for the time asmost convenient. There is neither perfect life nor perfect death, but a being ever with the Lord only, in the eternal f??a, or goingto and fro and heat and fray of the universe. When we were young wethought the one certain thing was that we should one day come todie; now we know the one certain thing to be that we shall neverwholly do so. Non omnis moriar, says Horace, and "I die daily, "says St. Paul, as though a life beyond the grave, and a death onthis side of it, were each some strange thing which happened to themalone of all men; but who dies absolutely once for all, and for everat the hour that is commonly called that of death, and who does notdie daily and hourly? Does any man in continuing to live from dayto day or moment to moment, do more than continue in a changed body, with changed feelings, ideas, and aims, so that he lives from momentto moment only in virtue of a simultaneous dying from moment tomoment also? Does any man in dying do more than, on a larger andmore complete scale, what he has been doing on a small one, as themost essential factor of his life, from the day that he became "he"at all? When the note of life is struck the harmonics of death aresounded, and so, again, to strike death is to arouse the infiniteharmonics of life that rise forthwith as incense curling upwardsfrom a censer. If in the midst of life we are in death, so also inthe midst of death we are in life, and whether we live or whether wedie, whether we like it and know anything about it or no, still wedo it to the Lord--living always, dying always, and in the Lordalways, the unjust and the just alike, for God is no respecter ofpersons. 

Consciousness and change, so far as we can watch them, are asfunctionally interdependent as mind and matter, or condition andsubstance, are--for the condition of every substance may beconsidered as the expression and outcome of its mind. Where thereis consciousness there is change; where there is no change there isno consciousness; may we not suspect that there is no change withouta pro tanto consciousness however simple and unspecialised? Changeand motion are one, so that we have substance, feeling, change (ormotion), as the ultimate three-in-one of our thoughts, and maysuspect all change, and all feeling, attendant or consequent, however limited, to be the interaction of those states which forwant of better terms we call mind and matter. Action may beregarded as a kind of middle term between mind and matter; it is thethroe of thought and thing, the quivering clash and union of bodyand soul; commonplace enough in practice; miraculous, as violatingevery canon on which thought and reason are founded, if we theoriseabout it, put it under the microscope, and vivisect it. It is here, if anywhere, that body or substance is guilty of the contradictionin terms of combining with that which is without material substanceand cannot, therefore, be conceived by us as passing in and out withmatter, till the two become a body ensouled and a soul embodied. 

All body is more or less ensouled. As it gets farther and fartherfrom ourselves, indeed, we sympathise less with it; nothing, we sayto ourselves, can have intelligence unless we understand all aboutit--as though intelligence in all except ourselves meant the powerof being understood rather than of understanding. We areintelligent, and no intelligence, so different from our own as tobaffle our powers of comprehension deserves to be calledintelligence at all. The more a thing resembles ourselves, the moreit thinks as we do--and thus by implication tells us that we areright, the more intelligent we think it; and the less it thinks aswe do, the greater fool it must be; if a substance does not succeedin making it clear that it understands our business, we concludethat it cannot have any business of its own, much less understandit, or indeed understand anything at all. But letting this pass, sofar as we are concerned, [Greek text]; we arebody ensouled, and soul embodied, ourselves, nor is it possible forus to think seriously of anything so unlike ourselves as to consisteither of soul without body, or body without soul. Unmatteredcondition, therefore, is as inconceivable by us as unconditionedmatter; and we must hold that all body with which we can beconceivably concerned is more or less ensouled, and all soul, inlike manner, more or less embodied. Strike either body or soul--that is to say, effect either a physical or a mental change, and theharmonics of the other sound. So long as body is minded in acertain way--so long, that is to say, as it feels, knows, remembers, concludes, and forecasts one set of things--it will be in one form;if it assumes a new one, otherwise than by external violence, nomatter how slight the change may be, it is only through havingchanged its mind, through having forgotten and died to some trainsof thought, and having been correspondingly born anew by theadoption of new ones. What it will adopt depends upon which of thevarious courses open to it it considers most to its advantage. 

What it will think to its advantage depends mainly on the pasthabits of its race. Its past and now invisible lives will influenceits desires more powerfully than anything it may itself be able toadd to the sum of its likes and dislikes; nevertheless, over andabove preconceived opinion and the habits to which all are slaves, there is a small salary, or, as it were, agency commission, whicheach may have for himself, and spend according to his fancy; fromthis, indeed, income-tax must be deducted; still there remains alittle margin of individual taste, and here, high up on this narrow, inaccessible ledge of our souls, from year to year a breed of notunprolific variations build where reason cannot reach them todespoil them; for de gustibus non est disputandum. 

Here we are as far as we can go. Fancy, which sometimes sways somuch and is swayed by so little, and which sometimes, again, is sohard to sway, and moves so little when it is swayed; whose ways havea method of their own, but are not as our ways--fancy, lies on theextreme borderland of the realm within which the writs of ourthoughts run, and extends into that unseen world wherein they haveno jurisdiction. Fancy is as the mist upon the horizon which blendsearth and sky; where, however, it approaches nearest to the earthand can be reckoned with, it is seen as melting into desire, andthis as giving birth to design and effort. As the net result andoutcome of these last, living forms grow gradually but persistentlyinto physical conformity with their own intentions, and becomeoutward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual faiths, orwants of faith, that have been most within them. They thus verygradually, but none the less effectually, design themselves. 

In effect, therefore, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck introduceuniformity into the moral and spiritual worlds as it was alreadybeginning to be introduced into the physical. According to boththese writers development has ever been a matter of the same energy, effort, good sense, and perseverance, as tend to advancement of lifenow among ourselves. In essence it is neither more nor less thanthis, as the rain-drop which denuded an ancient formation is of thesame kind as that which is denuding a modern one, though its effectmay vary in geometrical ratio with the effect it has producedalready. As we are extending reason to the lower animals, so wemust extend a system of moral government by rewards and punishmentsno less surely; and if we admit that to some considerable extent manis man, and master of his fate, we should admit also that allorganic forms which are saved at all have been in proportionatedegree masters of their fate too, and have worked out, not onlytheir own salvation, but their salvation according, in no smallmeasure, to their own goodwill and pleasure, at times with a lightheart, and at times in fear and trembling. I do not say thatErasmus Darwin and Lamarck saw all the foregoing as clearly as it iseasy to see it now; what I have said, however, is only the naturaldevelopment of their system. 

CHAPTER VI--Statement of the Question at Issue (continued)

So much for the older view; and now for the more modern opinion. According to Messrs. Darwin and Wallace, and ostensibly, I am afraidI should add, a great majority of our most prominent biologists, theview taken by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck is not a sound one. Someorganisms, indeed, are so admirably adapted to their surroundings, and some organs discharge their functions with so much appearance ofprovision, that we are apt to think they must owe their developmentto sense of need and consequent contrivance, but this opinion isfantastic; the appearance of design is delusive; what we are temptedto see as an accumulated outcome of desire and cunning, we shouldregard as mainly an accumulated outcome of good luck. 

Let us take the eye as a somewhat crucial example. It is a seeing-machine, or thing to see with. So is a telescope; the telescope inits highest development is a secular accumulation of cunning, sometimes small, sometimes great; sometimes applied to this detailof the instrument, and sometimes to that. It is an admirableexample of design; nevertheless, as I said in "Evolution Old andNew, " he who made the first rude telescope had probably no idea ofany more perfect form of the instrument than the one he had himselfinvented. Indeed, if he had, he would have carried his idea out inpractice. He would have been unable to conceive such an instrumentas Lord Rosse's; the design, therefore, at present evidenced by thetelescope was not design all on the part of one and the same person. Nor yet was it unmixed with chance; many a detail has been doubtlessdue to an accident or coincidence which was forthwith seized andmade the best of. Luck there always has been and always will be, until all brains are opened, and all connections made known, butluck turned to account becomes design; there is, indeed, if thingsare driven home, little other design than this. The telescope, therefore, is an instrument designed in all its parts for thepurpose of seeing, and, take it all round, designed with singularskill. 

Looking at the eye, we are at first tempted to think that it must bethe telescope over again, only more so; we are tempted to see it assomething which has grown up little by little from small beginnings, as the result of effort well applied and handed down from generationto generation, till, in the vastly greater time during which the eyehas been developing as compared with the telescope, a vastly moreastonishing result has been arrived at. We may indeed be tempted tothink this, but, according to Mr. Darwin, we should be wrong. Design had a great deal to do with the telescope, but it had nothingor hardly anything whatever to do with the eye. The telescope owesits development to cunning, the eye to luck, which, it would seem, is so far more cunning than cunning that one does not quiteunderstand why there should be any cunning at all. The main meansof developing the eye was, according to Mr. Darwin, not use asvarying circumstances might direct with consequent slow increase ofpower and an occasional happy flight of genius, but naturalselection. Natural selection, according to him, though not thesole, is still the most important means of its development andmodification. {81a} What, then, is natural selection?

Mr. Darwin has told us this on the title-page of the "Origin ofSpecies. " He there defines it as "The Preservation of FavouredRaces;" "Favoured" is "Fortunate, " and "Fortunate" "Lucky;" it isplain, therefore, that with Mr. Darwin natural selection comes to"The Preservation of Lucky Races, " and that he regarded luck as themost important feature in connection with the development even of soapparently purposive an organ as the eye, and as the one, therefore, on which it was most proper to insist. And what is luck but absenceof intention or design? What, then, can Mr. Darwin's title-pageamount to when written out plainly, but to an assertion that themain means of modification has been the preservation of races whosevariations have been unintentional, that is to say, not connectedwith effort or intention, devoid of mind or meaning, fortuitous, spontaneous, accidental, or whatever kindred word is leastdisagreeable to the reader? It is impossible to conceive any morecomplete denial of mind as having had anything to do with organicdevelopment, than is involved in the title-page of the "Origin ofSpecies" when its doubtless carefully considered words are studied--nor, let me add, is it possible to conceive a title-page more likelyto make the reader's attention rest much on the main doctrine ofevolution, and little, to use the words now most in vogue concerningit, on Mr. Darwin's own "distinctive feature. "

It should be remembered that the full title of the "Origin ofSpecies" is, "On the origin of species by means of naturalselection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle forlife. " The significance of the expansion of the title escaped thegreater number of Mr. Darwin's readers. Perhaps it ought not tohave done so, but we certainly failed to catch it. The very wordsthemselves escaped us--and yet there they were all the time if wehad only chosen to look. We thought the book was called "On theOrigin of Species, " and so it was on the outside; so it was also onthe inside fly-leaf; so it was on the title-page itself as long asthe most prominent type was used; the expanded title was only givenonce, and then in smaller type; so the three big "Origins ofSpecies" carried us with them to the exclusion of the rest. 

The short and working title, "On the Origin of Species, " in effectclaims descent with modification generally; the expanded andtechnically true title only claims the discovery that luck is themain means of organic modification, and this is a very differentmatter. The book ought to have been entitled, "On NaturalSelection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle forlife, as the main means of the origin of species;" this should havebeen the expanded title, and the short title should have been "OnNatural Selection. " The title would not then have involved animportant difference between its working and its technical forms, and it would have better fulfilled the object of a title, which is, of course, to give, as far as may be, the essence of a book in anutshell. We learn on the authority of Mr. Darwin himself {83a}that the "Origin of Species" was originally intended to bear thetitle "Natural Selection;" nor is it easy to see why the changeshould have been made if an accurate expression of the contents ofthe book was the only thing which Mr. Darwin was considering. It iscurious that, writing the later chapters of "Life and Habit" ingreat haste, I should have accidentally referred to the "Origin ofSpecies" as "Natural Selection;" it seems hard to believe that therewas no intention in my thus unconsciously reverting to Mr. Darwin'sown original title, but there certainly was none, and I did not thenknow what the original title had been. 

If we had scrutinised Mr. Darwin's title-page as closely as weshould certainly scrutinise anything written by Mr. Darwin now, weshould have seen that the title did not technically claim the theoryof descent; practically, however, it so turned out that weunhesitatingly gave that theory to the author, being, as I havesaid, carried away by the three large "Origins of Species" (which weunderstood as much the same thing as descent with modification), andfinding, as I shall show in a later chapter, that descent wasubiquitously claimed throughout the work, either expressly or byimplication, as Mr. Darwin's theory. It is not easy to see how anyone with ordinary instincts could hesitate to believe that Mr. Darwin was entitled to claim what he claimed with so muchinsistance. If ars est celare artem Mr. Darwin must be allowed tohave been a consummate artist, for it took us years to understandthe ins and outs of what had been done. 

I may say in passing that we never see the "Origin of Species"spoken of as "On the Origin of Species, &c. , " or as "The Origin ofSpecies, &c. " (the word "on" being dropped in the latest editions). The distinctive feature of the book lies, according to its admirers, in the "&c. , " but they never give it. To avoid pedantry I shallcontinue to speak of the "Origin of Species. "

At any rate it will be admitted that Mr. Darwin did not make histitle-page express his meaning so clearly that his readers couldreadily catch the point of difference between himself and hisgrandfather and Lamarck; nevertheless the point just touched uponinvolves the only essential difference between the systems of Mr. Charles Darwin and those of his three most important predecessors. All four writers agree that animals and plants descend withmodification; all agree that the fittest alone survive; all agreeabout the important consequences of the geometrical ratio ofincrease; Mr. Charles Darwin has said more about these last twopoints than his predecessors did, but all three were alike cognisantof the facts and attached the same importance to them, and wouldhave been astonished at its being supposed possible that theydisputed them. The fittest alone survive; yes--but the fittest fromamong what? Here comes the point of divergence; the fittest fromamong organisms whose variations arise mainly through use anddisuse? In other words, from variations that are mainly functional?Or from among organisms whose variations are in the main matters ofluck? From variations into which a moral and intellectual system ofpayment according to results has largely entered? Or fromvariations which have been thrown for with dice? From variationsamong which, though cards tell, yet play tells as much or more? Orfrom those in which cards are everything and play goes for so littleas to be not worth taking into account? Is "the survival of thefittest" to be taken as meaning "the survival of the luckiest" or"the survival of those who know best how to turn fortune toaccount"? Is luck the only element of fitness, or is not cunningeven more indispensable?

Mr. Darwin has a habit, borrowed, perhaps, mutatis mutandis, fromthe framers of our collects, of every now and then adding the words"through natural selection, " as though this squared everything, anddescent with modification thus became his theory at once. This isnot the case. Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck believed innatural selection to the full as much as any follower of Mr. CharlesDarwin can do. They did not use the actual words, but the ideaunderlying them is the essence of their system. Mr. Patrick Matthewepitomised their doctrine more tersely, perhaps, than was done byany other of the pre-Charles-Darwinian evolutionists, in thefollowing passage which appeared in 1831, and which I have alreadyquoted in "Evolution Old and New" (pp. 320, 323). The passageruns:-

"The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organised life may, inpart, be traced to the extreme fecundity of nature, who, as beforestated, has in all the varieties of her offspring a prolific powermuch beyond (in many cases a thousandfold) what is necessary to fillup the vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existenceis limited and preoccupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggleforward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to whichthey have superior adaptation and greater power of occupancy thanany other kind; the weaker and less circumstance-suited beingprematurely destroyed. This principle is in constant action; itregulates the colour, the figure, the capacities, and instincts;those individuals in each species whose colour and covering are bestsuited to concealment or protection from enemies, or defence frominclemencies or vicissitudes of climate, whose figure is bestaccommodated to health, strength, defence, and support; whosecapacities and instincts can best regulate the physical energies toself-advantage according to circumstances--in such immense waste ofprimary and youthful life those only come forward to maturity fromTHE STRICT ORDEAL BY WHICH NATURE TESTS THEIR ADAPTATION TO HERSTANDARD OF PERFECTION and fitness to continue their kind byreproduction. " {86a} A little lower down Mr. Matthew speaks ofanimals under domestication "NOT HAVING UNDERGONE SELECTION BY THELAW OF NATURE, OF WHICH WE HAVE SPOKEN, and hence being unable tomaintain their ground without culture and protection. "

The distinction between Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism is generallybelieved to lie in the adoption of a theory of natural selection bythe younger Darwin and its non-adoption by the elder. This is truein so far as that the elder Darwin does not use the words "naturalselection, " while the younger does, but it is not true otherwise. Both writers agree that offspring tends to inherit modificationsthat have been effected, from whatever cause, in parents; both holdthat the best adapted to their surroundings live longest and leavemost offspring; both, therefore, hold that favourable modificationswill tend to be preserved and intensified in the course of manygenerations, and that this leads to divergence of type; but theseopinions involve a theory of natural selection or quasi-selection, whether the words "natural selection" are used or not; indeed it isimpossible to include wild species in any theory of descent withmodification without implying a quasi-selective power on the part ofnature; but even with Mr. Charles Darwin the power is only quasi-selective; there is no conscious choice, and hence there is nothingthat can in strictness be called selection. 

It is indeed true that the younger Darwin gave the words "naturalselection" the importance which of late years they have assumed; heprobably adopted them unconsciously from the passage of Mr. Matthew's quoted above, but he ultimately said, {87a} "In theliteral sense of the word (sic) no doubt natural selection is afalse term, " as personifying a fact, making it exercise theconscious choice without which there can be no selection, andgenerally crediting it with the discharge of functions which canonly be ascribed legitimately to living and reasoning beings. Granted, however, that while Mr. Charles Darwin adopted theexpression natural selection and admitted it to be a bad one, hisgrandfather did not use it at all; still Mr. Darwin did not mean thenatural selection which Mr. Matthew and those whose opinions he wasepitomising meant. Mr. Darwin meant the selection to be made fromvariations into which purpose enters to only a small extentcomparatively. The difference, therefore, between the olderevolutionists and their successor does not lie in the acceptance bythe more recent writer of a quasi-selective power in nature whichhis predecessors denied, but in the background--hidden behind thewords natural selection, which have served to cloak it--in the viewswhich the old and the new writers severally took of the variationsfrom among which they are alike agreed that a selection or quasi-selection is made. 

It now appears that there is not one natural selection, and onesurvival of the fittest only, but two natural selections, and twosurvivals of the fittest, the one of which may be objected to as anexpression more fit for religious and general literature than forscience, but may still be admitted as sound in intention, while theother, inasmuch as it supposes accident to be the main purveyor ofvariations, has no correspondence with the actual course of things;for if the variations are matters of chance or hazard unconnectedwith any principle of constant application, they will not occursteadily enough, throughout a sufficient number of successivegenerations, nor to a sufficient number of individuals for manygenerations together at the same time and place, to admit of thefixing and permanency of modification at all. The one theory ofnatural selection, therefore, may, and indeed will, explain thefacts that surround us, whereas the other will not. Mr. CharlesDarwin's contribution to the theory of evolution was not, as iscommonly supposed, "natural selection, " but the hypothesis thatnatural selection from variations that are in the main fortuitouscould accumulate and result in specific and generic differences. 

In the foregoing paragraph I have given the point of differencebetween Mr. Charles Darwin and his predecessors. Why, I wonder, have neither he nor any of his exponents put this difference beforeus in such plain words that we should readily apprehend it? ErasmusDarwin and Lamarck were understood by all who wished to understandthem; why is it that the misunderstanding of Mr. Darwin's"distinctive feature" should have been so long and obstinate? Whyis it that, no matter how much writers like Mr. Grant Allen andProfessor Ray Lankester may say about "Mr. Darwin's master-key, " norhow many more like hyperboles they brandish, they never put asuccinct resume of Mr. Darwin's theory side by side with a similarresume of his grandfather's and Lamarck's? Neither Mr. Darwinhimself, not any of those to whose advocacy his reputation is mainlydue, have done this. Professor Huxley is the man of all others whofoisted Mr. Darwin most upon us, but in his famous lecture on thecoming of age of the "Origin of Species" he did not explain to hishearers wherein the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution differed fromthe old; and why not? Surely, because no sooner is this made clearthan we perceive that the idea underlying the old evolutionists ismore in accord with instinctive feelings that we have cherished toolong to be able now to disregard them than the central idea whichunderlies the "Origin of Species. "

What should we think of one who maintained that the steam-engine andtelescope were not developed mainly through design and effort(letting the indisputably existing element of luck go withoutsaying), but to the fact that if any telescope or steam-engine"happened to be made ever such a little more conveniently for man'spurposes than another, " &c. , &c. ?

Let us suppose a notorious burglar found in possession of a jemmy;it is admitted on all hands that he will use it as soon as he gets achance; there is no doubt about this; how perverted should we notconsider the ingenuity of one who tried to persuade us we were wrongin thinking that the burglar compassed the possession of the jemmyby means involving ideas, however vague in the first instance, ofapplying it to its subsequent function. 

If any one could be found so blind to obvious inferences as toaccept natural selection, "or the preservation of favouredmachines, " as the main means of mechanical modification, we mightsuppose him to argue much as follows:- "I can quite understand, " hewould exclaim, "how any one who reflects upon the originally simpleform of the earliest jemmies, and observes the developments theyhave since attained in the hands of our most accomplishedhousebreakers, might at first be tempted to believe that the presentform of the instrument has been arrived at by long-continuedimprovement in the hands of an almost infinite succession ofthieves; but may not this inference be somewhat too hastily drawn?Have we any right to assume that burglars work by means analogous tothose employed by other people? If any thief happened to pick upany crowbar which happened to be ever such a little better suited tohis purpose than the one he had been in the habit of using hitherto, he would at once seize and carefully preserve it. If it got wornout or broken he would begin searching for a crowbar as like aspossible to the one that he had lost; and when, with advancingskill, and in default of being able to find the exact thing hewanted, he took at length to making a jemmy for himself, he wouldimitate the latest and most perfect adaptation, which would thus bemost likely to be preserved in the struggle of competitive forms. Let this process go on for countless generations, among countlessburglars of all nations, and may we not suppose that a jemmy wouldbe in time arrived at, as superior to any that could have beendesigned as the effect of the Niagara Falls is superior to the punyefforts of the landscape gardener?"

For the moment I will pass over the obvious retort that there is nosufficient parallelism between bodily organs and mechanicalinventions to make a denial of design in the one involve in equity adenial of it in the other also, and that therefore the precedingparagraph has no force. A man is not bound to deny design inmachines wherein it can be clearly seen because he denies it inliving organs where at best it is a matter of inference. Thisretort is plausible, but in the course of the two next followingchapters but one it will be shown to be without force; for themoment, however, beyond thus calling attention to it, I must pass itby. 

I do not mean to say that Mr. Darwin ever wrote anything which madethe utility of his contention as apparent as it is made by what Ihave above put into the mouth of his supposed follower. Mr. Darwinwas the Gladstone of biology, and so old a scientific hand was notgoing to make things unnecessarily clear unless it suited hisconvenience. Then, indeed, he was like the man in "The Hunting ofthe Snark, " who said, "I told you once, I told you twice, what Itell you three times is true. " That what I have supposed said, however, above about the jemmy is no exaggeration of Mr. Darwin'sattitude as regards design in organism will appear from the passageabout the eye already referred to, which it may perhaps be as wellto quote in full. Mr. Darwin says:-

"It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye to a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects, and we naturallyinfer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right toassume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those ofmen? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we oughtin imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with anerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part ofthis layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as toseparate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placedat different distances from each other, and with the surfaces ofeach layer slowly changing in form. Further, we must suppose thatthere is a power always intently watching each slight accidentalalteration in the transparent layers, and carefully selecting eachalteration which, under varied circumstances, may in any way, or inany degree, tend to produce a distincter image. We must supposeeach new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million, and each to be preserved till a better be produced, and then the oldones to be destroyed. In living bodies variation will cause theslight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill eachimprovement. Let this process go on for millions on millions ofyears, and during each year on millions of individuals of manykinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument mightthus be formed as superior to one of glass as the works of theCreator are to those of man?" {92a}

Mr. Darwin does not in this passage deny design, or cunning, pointblank; he was not given to denying things point blank, nor is itimmediately apparent that he is denying design at all, for he doesnot emphasize and call attention to the fact that the VARIATIONS onwhose accumulation he relies for his ultimate specific differenceare accidental, and, to use his own words, in the passage lastquoted, caused by VARIATION. He does, indeed, in his earliereditions, call the variations "accidental, " and accidental theyremained for ten years, but in 1869 the word "accidental" was takenout. Mr. Darwin probably felt that the variations had beenaccidental as long as was desirable; and though they would, ofcourse, in reality remain as accidental as ever, still, there couldbe no use in crying "accidental variations" further. If the readerwants to know whether they were accidental or no, he had better findout for himself. Mr. Darwin was a master of what may be calledscientific chiaroscuro, and owes his reputation in no small measureto the judgment with which he kept his meaning dark when a lesspractised hand would have thrown light upon it. There can, however, be no question that Mr. Darwin, though not denying purposivenesspoint blank, was trying to refer the development of the eye to theaccumulation of small accidental improvements, which were not as arule due to effort and design in any way analogous to thoseattendant on the development of the telescope. 

Though Mr. Darwin, if he was to have any point of difference fromhis grandfather, was bound to make his variations accidental, yet, to do him justice, he did not like it. Even in the earlier editionsof the "Origin of Species, " where the "alterations" in the passagelast quoted are called "accidental" in express terms, the word doesnot fall, so to speak, on a strong beat of the bar, and is apt topass unnoticed. Besides, Mr. Darwin does not say point blank "wemay believe, " or "we ought to believe;" he only says "may we notbelieve?" The reader should always be on his guard when Mr. Darwinasks one of these bland and child-like questions, and he is fond ofasking them; but, however this may be, it is plain, as I pointed outin "Evolution Old and New" {93a} that the only "skill, " that is tosay the only thing that can possibly involve design, is "theunerring skill" of natural selection. 

In the same paragraph Mr. Darwin has already said: "Further, wemust suppose that there is a power represented by natural selectionor the survival of the fittest always intently watching each slightalteration, &c. " Mr. Darwin probably said "a power represented bynatural selection" instead of "natural selection" only, because hesaw that to talk too frequently about the fact that the most luckylive longest as "intently watching" something was greater nonsensethan it would be prudent even for him to write, so he fogged it bymaking the intent watching done by "a power represented by" a fact, instead of by the fact itself. As the sentence stands it is just asgreat nonsense as it would have been if "the survival of thefittest" had been allowed to do the watching instead of "the powerrepresented by" the survival of the fittest, but the nonsense isharder to dig up, and the reader is more likely to pass it over. 

This passage gave Mr. Darwin no less trouble than it must have givento many of his readers. In the original edition of the "Origin ofSpecies" it stood, "Further, we must suppose that there is a poweralways intently watching each slight accidental variation. " Isuppose it was felt that if this was allowed to stand, it might befairly asked what natural selection was doing all this time? If thepower was able to do everything that was necessary now, why notalways? and why any natural selection at all? This clearly wouldnot do, so in 1861 the power was allowed, by the help of brackets, actually to become natural selection, and remained so till 1869, when Mr. Darwin could stand it no longer, and, doubtless for thereason given above, altered the passage to "a power represented bynatural selection, " at the same time cutting out the word"accidental. "

It may perhaps make the workings of Mr. Darwin's mind clearer to thereader if I give the various readings of this passage as taken fromthe three most important editions of the "Origin of Species. "

In 1859 it stood, "Further, we must suppose that there is a poweralways intently watching each slight accidental alteration, " &c. 

In 1861 it stood, "Further, we must suppose that there is a power(natural selection) always intently watching each slight accidentalalteration, " &c. 

And in 1869, "Further, we must suppose that there is a powerrepresented by natural selection or the survival of the fittestalways intently watching each slight alteration, " &c. {94a}

The hesitating feeble gait of one who fears a pitfall at every step, so easily recognisable in the "numerous, successive, slightalterations" in the foregoing passage, may be traced in many anotherpage of the "Origin of Species" by those who will be at the troubleof comparing the several editions. It is only when this is done, and the working of Mr. Darwin's mind can be seen as though it werethe twitchings of a dog's nose, that any idea can be formed of thedifficulty in which he found himself involved by his initial blunderof thinking he had got a distinctive feature which entitled him toclaim the theory of evolution as an original idea of his own. Hefound his natural selection hang round his neck like a millstone. There is hardly a page in the "Origin of Species" in which traces ofthe struggle going on in Mr. Darwin's mind are not discernible, witha result alike exasperating and pitiable. I can only repeat what Isaid in "Evolution Old and New, " namely, that I find the task ofextracting a well-defined meaning out of Mr. Darwin's wordscomparable only to that of trying to act on the advice of a lawyerwho has obscured the main issue as much as he can, and whose chiefaim has been to leave as many loopholes as possible for himself toescape by, if things should go wrong hereafter. Or, again, to thatof one who has to construe an Act of Parliament which was originallydrawn with a view to throwing as much dust as possible in the eyesof those who would oppose the measure, and which, having been foundutterly unworkable in practice, has had clauses repealed up and downit till it is now in an inextricable tangle of confusion andcontradiction. 

The more Mr. Darwin's work is studied, and more especially the morehis different editions are compared, the more impossible is it toavoid a suspicion of arriere pensee as pervading it whenever the"distinctive feature" is on the tapis. It is right to say, however, that no such suspicion attaches to Mr. A. R. Wallace, Mr. Darwin'sfellow discoverer of natural selection. It is impossible to doubtthat Mr. Wallace believed he had made a real and importantimprovement upon the Lamarckian system, and, as a naturalconsequence, unlike Mr. Darwin, he began by telling us what Lamarckhad said. He did not, I admit, say quite all that I should havebeen glad to have seen him say, nor use exactly the words I shouldmyself have chosen, but he said enough to make it impossible todoubt his good faith, and his desire that we should understand thatwith him, as with Mr. Darwin, variations are mainly accidental, notfunctional. Thus, in his memorable paper communicated to theLinnean Society in 1858 he said, in a passage which I have quoted in"Unconscious Memory":

"The hypothesis of Lamarck--that progressive changes in species havebeen produced by the attempts of the animals to increase thedevelopment of their own organs, and thus modify their structuresand habits--has been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers onthe subject of varieties and species; . . . But the view heredeveloped renders such an hypothesis quite unnecessary. . . . Thepowerful retractile talons of the falcon and cat tribes have notbeen produced or increased by the volition of those animals; . . . Neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to reachthe foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching itsneck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurredamong its antitypes with a longer neck than usual AT ONCE SECURED AFRESH RANGE OF PASTURE OVER THE SAME GROUND AS THEIR SHORTER-NECKEDCOMPANIONS, AND ON THE FIRST SCARCITY OF FOOD WERE THUS ENABLED TOOUTLIVE THEM" (italics in original). {96a}

"Which occurred" is obviously "which happened to occur, by somechance or accident entirely unconnected with use and disuse;" andthough the word "accidental" is never used, there can be no doubtabout Mr. Wallace's desire to make the reader catch the fact thatwith him accident, and not, as with Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, sustained effort, is the main purveyor of the variations whoseaccumulation amounts ultimately to specific difference. It is apity, however, that instead of contenting himself like a theologianwith saying that his opponent had been refuted over and over again, he did not refer to any particular and tolerably successful attemptto refute the theory that modifications in organic structure aremainly functional. I am fairly well acquainted with the literatureof evolution, and have never met with any such attempt. But letthis pass; as with Mr. Darwin, so with Mr. Wallace, and so indeedwith all who accept Mr. Charles Darwin's natural selection as themain means of modification, the central idea is luck, while thecentral idea of the Erasmus-Darwinian system is cunning. 

I have given the opinions of these contending parties in theirextreme development; but they both admit abatements which bring themsomewhat nearer to one another. Design, as even its most strenuousupholders will admit, is a difficult word to deal with; it is, likeall our ideas, substantial enough until we try to grasp it--andthen, like all our ideas, it mockingly eludes us; it is like life ordeath--a rope of many strands; there is design within design, anddesign within undesign; there is undesign within design (as when aman shuffles cards designing that there shall be no design in theirarrangement), and undesign within undesign; when we speak of cunningor design in connection with organism we do not mean cunning, allcunning, and nothing but cunning, so that there shall be no placefor luck; we do not mean that conscious attention and forethoughtshall have been bestowed upon the minutest details of action, andnothing been left to work itself out departmentally according toprecedent, or as it otherwise best may according to the chapter ofaccidents. 

So, again, when Mr. Darwin and his followers deny design and effortto have been the main purveyors of the variations whose accumulationresults in specific difference, they do not entirely exclude theaction of use and disuse--and this at once opens the door forcunning; nevertheless, according to Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, thehuman eye and the long neck of the giraffe are alike due to theaccumulation of variations that are mainly functional, and hencepractical; according to Charles Darwin they are alike due to theaccumulation of variations that are accidental, fortuitous, spontaneous, that is to say, mainly cannot be reduced to any knowngeneral principle. According to Charles Darwin "the preservation offavoured, " or lucky, "races" is by far the most important means ofmodification; according to Erasmus Darwin effort non sibi res sed serebus subjungere is unquestionably the most potent means; roughly, therefore, there is no better or fairer way of putting the matter, than to say that Charles Darwin is the apostle of luck, and hisgrandfather, and Lamarck, of cunning. 

It should be observed also that the distinction between the organismand its surroundings--on which both systems are founded--is one thatcannot be so universally drawn as we find it convenient to allege. There is a debatable ground of considerable extent on which RES andME, ego and non ego, luck and cunning, necessity and freewill, meetand pass into one another as night and day, or life and death. Noone can draw a sharp line between ego and non ego, nor indeed anysharp line between any classes of phenomena. Every part of the egois non ego qua organ or tool in use, and much of the non ego runs upinto the ego and is inseparably united with it; still there isenough that it is obviously most convenient to call ego, and enoughthat it is no less obviously most convenient to call non ego, asthere is enough obvious day and obvious night, or obvious luck andobvious cunning, to make us think it advisable to keep separateaccounts for each. 

I will say more on this head in a following chapter; in this presentone my business should be confined to pointing out as clearly andsuccinctly as I can the issue between the two great main contendingopinions concerning organic development that obtain among those whoaccept the theory of descent at all; nor do I believe that this canbe done more effectually and accurately than by saying, as above, that Mr. Charles Darwin (whose name, by the way, was "CharlesRobert, " and not, as would appear from the title-pages of his books, "Charles" only), Mr. A. R. Wallace, and their supporters are theapostles of luck, while Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, followed, moreor less timidly, by the Geoffroys and by Mr. Herbert Spencer, andvery timidly indeed by the Duke of Argyll, preach cunning as themost important means of organic modification. 

NOTE. --It appears from "Samuel Butler: A Memoir" (II, 29) thatButler wrote to his father (Dec. 1885) about a passage in Horace(near the beginning of the First Epistle of the First Book) -

Nunc in Aristippi furtim praecepta relabor, Et mihi res, non me rebus subjungere conor. 

On the preceding page he is adapting the second of these two versesto his own purposes. --H. F. J. 

CHAPTER VII--(Intercalated) Mr. Spencer's "The Factors of OrganicEvolution"

Since the foregoing and several of the succeeding chapters werewritten, Mr. Herbert Spencer has made his position at once moreclear and more widely understood by his articles "The Factors ofOrganic Evolution" which appeared in the Nineteenth Century forApril and May, 1886. The present appears the fittest place in whichto intercalate remarks concerning them. 

Mr. Spencer asks whether those are right who regard Mr. CharlesDarwin's theory of natural selection as by itself sufficient toaccount for organic evolution. 

"On critically examining the evidence" (modern writers never examineevidence, they always "critically, " or "carefully, " or "patiently, "examine it), he writes, we shall find reason to think that it by nomeans explains all that has to be explained. Omitting for thepresent any consideration of a factor which may be consideredprimordial, it may be contended that one of the factors alleged byErasmus Darwin and Lamarck must be recognised as a co-operator. Unless that increase of a part resulting from extra activity, andthat decrease of it resulting from inactivity, are transmissible todescendants, we are without a key to many phenomena of organicevolution. UTTERLY INADEQUATE TO EXPLAIN THE MAJOR PART OF THEFACTS AS IS THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE INHERITANCE OF FUNCTIONALLYPRODUCED MODIFICATIONS, yet there is a minor part of the facts veryextensive though less, which must be ascribed to this cause. "(Italics mine. )

Mr. Spencer does not here say expressly that Erasmus Darwin andLamarck considered inheritance of functionally producedmodifications to be the sole explanation of the facts of organiclife; modern writers on evolution for the most part avoid sayinganything expressly; this nevertheless is the conclusion which thereader naturally draws--and was doubtless intended to draw--from Mr. Spencer's words. He gathers that these writers put forward an"utterly inadequate" theory, which cannot for a moment beentertained in the form in which they left it, but which, nevertheless, contains contributions to the formation of a justopinion which of late years have been too much neglected. 

This inference would be, as Mr. Spencer ought to know, a mistakenone. Erasmus Darwin, who was the first to depend mainly onfunctionally produced modifications, attributes, if not as muchimportance to variations induced either by what we must call chance, or by causes having no connection with use and disuse, as Mr. Spencer does, still so nearly as much that there is little to choosebetween them. Mr. Spencer's words show that he attributes, if nothalf, still not far off half the modification that has actually beenproduced, to use and disuse. Erasmus Darwin does not say whether heconsiders use and disuse to have brought about more than half orless than half; he only says that animal and vegetable modificationis "in part produced" by the exertions of the animals and vegetablesthemselves; the impression I have derived is, that just as Mr. Spencer considers rather less than half to be due to use and disuse, so Erasmus Darwin considers decidedly more than half--so much more, in fact, than half as to make function unquestionably the factormost proper to be insisted on if only one can be given. Furtherthan this he did not go. I will quote enough of Dr. ErasmusDarwin's own words to put his position beyond doubt. He writes:-

"Thirdly, when we enumerate the great changes produced in thespecies of animals before their nativity, as, for example, when theoffspring reproduces the effects produced upon the parent byaccident or culture, or the changes produced by the mixture ofspecies, as in mules; or the changes produced probably by exuberanceof nourishment supplied to the foetus, as in monstrous births withadditional limbs; many of these enormities are propagated andcontinued as a variety at least, if not as a new species of animal. I have seen a breed of cats with an additional claw on every foot;of poultry also with an additional claw and with wings to theirfeet; and of others without rumps. Mr. Buffon" (who, by the way, surely, was no more "Mr. Buffon" than Lord Salisbury is "Mr. Salisbury") "mentions a breed of dogs without tails which are commonat Rome and Naples--which he supposes to have been produced by acustom long established of cutting their tails close off. " {102a}

Here not one of the causes of variation adduced is connected withuse and disuse, or effort, volition, and purpose; the manner, moreover, in which they are brought forward is not that of one whoshows signs of recalcitrancy about admitting other causes ofmodification as well as use and disuse; indeed, a little lower downhe almost appears to assign the subordinate place to functionallyproduced modifications, for he says--"Fifthly, from their firstrudiments or primordium to the termination of their lives, allanimals undergo perpetual transformations; WHICH ARE IN PARTPRODUCED by their own exertions in consequence of their desires andaversions, of their pleasures and their pains, or of irritations orof associations; and many of these acquired forms or propensitiesare transmitted to their posterity. "

I have quoted enough to show that Dr. Erasmus Darwin would haveprotested against the supposition that functionally producedmodifications were an adequate explanation of all the phenomena oforganic modification. He declares accident and the chances andchanges of this mortal life to be potent and frequent causes ofvariations, which, being not infrequently inherited, result in theformation of varieties and even species, but considers these causesif taken alone as no less insufficient to account for observablefacts than the theory of functionally produced modifications wouldbe if not supplemented by inheritance of so-called fortuitous, orspontaneous variations. The difference between Dr. Erasmus Darwinand Mr. Spencer does not consist in the denial by the first, that avariety which happens, no matter how accidentally, to have varied ina way that enables it to comply more fully and readily with theconditions of its existence, is likely to live longer and leave moreoffspring than one less favoured; nor in the denial by the second ofthe inheritance and accumulation of functionally producedmodifications; but in the amount of stress which they respectivelylay on the relative importance of the two great factors of organicevolution, the existence of which they are alike ready to admit. 

With Erasmus Darwin there is indeed luck, and luck has had a greatdeal to do with organic modification, but no amount of luck wouldhave done unless cunning had known how to take advantage of it;whereas if cunning be given, a very little luck at a time willaccumulate in the course of ages and become a mighty heap. Cunning, therefore, is the factor on which, having regard to the usage oflanguage and the necessity for simplifying facts, he thinks it mostproper to insist. Surely this is as near as may be the opinionwhich common consent ascribes to Mr. Spencer himself. It iscertainly the one which, in supporting Erasmus Darwin's system asagainst his grandson's, I have always intended to support. WithCharles Darwin, on the other hand, there is indeed cunning, effort, and consequent use and disuse; nor does he deny that these haveproduced some, and sometimes even an important, effect in modifyingspecies, but he assigns by far the most important role in the wholescheme to natural selection, which, as I have already shown, must, with him, be regarded as a synonym for luck pure and simple. This, for reasons well shown by Mr. Spencer in the articles underconsideration, is so untenable that it seems only possible toaccount for its having been advanced at all by supposing Mr. Darwin's judgment to have been perverted by some one or more of themany causes that might tend to warp them. What the chief of thosecauses may have been I shall presently point out. 

Buffon erred rather on the side of ignoring functionally producedmodifications than of insisting on them. The main agency with himis the direct action of the environment upon the organism. This, nodoubt, is a flaw in Buffon's immortal work, but it is one whichErasmus Darwin and Lamarck easily corrected; nor can we doubt thatBuffon would have readily accepted their amendment if it had beensuggested to him. Buffon did infinitely more in the way ofdiscovering and establishing the theory of descent with modificationthan any one has ever done either before or since. He was too muchoccupied with proving the fact of evolution at all, to dwell asfully as might have been wished upon the details of the processwhereby the amoeba had become man, but we have already seen that heregarded inherited mutilation as the cause of establishing a newbreed of dogs, and this is at any rate not laying much stress onfunctionally produced modifications. Again, when writing of thedog, he speaks of variations arising "BY SOME CHANCE common enoughwith nature, " {104a} and clearly does not contemplate function asthe sole cause of modification. Practically, though I grant Ishould be less able to quote passages in support of my opinion thanI quite like, I do not doubt that his position was much the same asthat of his successors, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. 

Lamarck is more vulnerable than either Erasmus Darwin or Buffon onthe score of unwillingness to assign its full share to mere chance, but I do not for a moment believe his comparative reticence to havebeen caused by failure to see that the chapter of accidents is afateful one. He saw that the cunning or functional side had beentoo much lost sight of, and therefore insisted on it, but he did notmean to say that there is no such thing as luck. "Let us suppose, "he says, "that a grass growing in a low-lying meadow, gets carriedBY SOME ACCIDENT to the brow of a neighbouring hill, where the soilis still damp enough for the plant to be able to exist. " {105a} Oragain--"With sufficient time, favourable conditions of life, successive changes in the condition of the globe, and the power ofnew surroundings and habits to modify the organs of living bodies, all animal and vegetable forms have been imperceptibly rendered suchas we now see them. " {105b} Who can doubt that accident is hereregarded as a potent factor of evolution, as well as the design thatis involved in the supposition that modification is, in the main, functionally induced? Again he writes, "As regards thecircumstances that give rise to variation, the principal areclimatic changes, different temperatures of any of a creature'senvironments, differences of abode, of habit, of the most frequentactions, and lastly of the means of obtaining food, self-defence, reproduction, " &c. {105c} I will not dwell on the smallinconsistencies which may be found in the passages quoted above; thereader will doubtless see them, and will also doubtless see that inspite of them there can be no doubt that Lamarck, while believingmodification to be effected mainly by the survival in the strugglefor existence of modifications which had been induced functionally, would not have hesitated to admit the survival of favourablevariations due to mere accident as also a potent factor in inducingthe results we see around us. 

For the rest, Mr. Spencer's articles have relieved me from thenecessity of going into the evidence which proves that suchstructures as a giraffe's neck, for example, cannot possibly havebeen produced by the accumulation of variations which had theirorigin mainly in accident. There is no occasion to add anything towhat Mr. Spencer has said on this score, and I am satisfied thatthose who do not find his argument convince them would not beconvinced by anything I might say; I shall, therefore, omit what Ihad written on this subject, and confine myself to giving thesubstance of Mr. Spencer's most telling argument against Mr. Darwin's theory that accidental variations, if favourable, wouldaccumulate and result in seemingly adaptive structures. Mr. Spencerwell shows that luck or chance is insufficient as a motive-power, orhelm, of evolution; but luck is only absence of design; if, then, absence of design is found to fail, it follows that there must havebeen design somewhere, nor can the design be more convenientlyplaced than in association with function. 

Mr. Spencer contends that where life is so simple as to consistpractically in the discharge of only one function, or wherecircumstances are such that some one function is supremely important(a state of things, by the way, more easily found in hypothesis thanin nature--at least as continuing without modification for manysuccessive seasons), then accidental variations, if favourable, would indeed accumulate and result in modification, without the aidof the transmission of functionally produced modification. This istrue; it is also true, however, that only a very small number ofspecies in comparison with those we see around us could thus arise, and that we should never have got plants and animals as embodimentsof the two great fundamental principles on which it is alonepossible that life can be conducted, {107a} and species of plantsand animals as embodiments of the details involved in carrying outthese two main principles. 

If the earliest organism could have only varied favourably in onedirection, the one possible favourable accidental variation wouldhave accumulated so long as the organism continued to exist at all, inasmuch as this would be preserved whenever it happened to occur, while every other would be lost in the struggle of competitiveforms; but even in the lowest forms of life there is more than onecondition in respect of which the organism must be supposedsensitive, and there are as many directions in which variations maybe favourable as there are conditions of the environment that affectthe organism. We cannot conceive of a living form as having a powerof adaptation limited to one direction only; the elasticity whichadmits of a not being "extreme to mark that which is done amiss" inone direction will commonly admit of it in as many directions asthere are possible favourable modes of variation; the number ofthese, as has been just said, depends upon the number of theconditions of the environment that affect the organism, and theselast, though in the long run and over considerable intervals of timetolerably constant, are over shorter intervals liable to frequentand great changes; so that there is nothing in Mr. Charles Darwin'ssystem of modification through the natural survival of the lucky, toprevent gain in one direction one year from being lost irretrievablyin the next, through the greater success of some in no waycorrelated variation, the fortunate possessors of which alonesurvive. This, in its turn, is as likely as not to disappearshortly through the arising of some difficulty in some entirely newdirection, and so on; nor, if function be regarded as of smalleffect in determining organism, is there anything to ensure eitherthat, even if ground be lost for a season or two in any onedirection, it shall be recovered presently on resumption by theorganism of the habits that called it into existence, or that itshall appear synchronously in a sufficient number of individuals toensure its not being soon lost through gamogenesis. 

How is progress ever to be made if races keep reversing, Penelope-like, in one generation all that they have been achieving in thepreceding? And how, on Mr. Darwin's system, of which theaccumulation of strokes of luck is the greatly preponderatingfeature, is a hoard ever to be got together and conserved, no matterhow often luck may have thrown good things in an organism's way?Luck, or absence of design, may be sometimes almost said to throwgood things in our way, or at any rate we may occasionally get morethrough having made no design than any design we should have beenlikely to have formed would have given us; but luck does not hoardthese good things for our use and make our wills for us, nor does itkeep providing us with the same good gifts again and again, and nomatter how often we reject them. 

I had better, perhaps, give Mr. Spencer's own words as quoted byhimself in his article in the Nineteenth Century for April, 1886. He there wrote as follows, quoting from section 166 of his"Principles of Biology, " which appeared in 1864:-

"Where the life is comparatively simple, or where surroundingcircumstances render some one function supremely important, thesurvival of the fittest" (which means here the survival of theluckiest) "may readily bring about the appropriate structuralchange, without any aid from the transmission of functionally-acquired modifications" (into which effort and design have entered). "But in proportion as the life grows complex--in proportion as ahealthy existence cannot be secured by a large endowment of some onepower, but demands many powers; in the same proportion do therearise obstacles to the increase of any particular power, by 'thepreservation of favoured races in the struggle for life'" (that isto say, through mere survival of the luckiest). "As fast as thefaculties are multiplied, so fast does it become possible for theseveral members of a species to have various kinds of superiorityover one another. While one saves its life by higher speed, anotherdoes the like by clearer vision, another by keener scent, another byquicker hearing, another by greater strength, another by unusualpower of enduring cold or hunger, another by special sagacity, another by special timidity, another by special courage; and othersby other bodily and mental attributes. Now it is unquestionablytrue that, other things equal, each of these attributes, giving itspossessor an equal extra chance of life, is likely to be transmittedto posterity. But there seems no reason to believe it will beincreased in subsequent generations by natural selection. That itmay be thus increased, the animals not possessing more than averageendowments of it must be more frequently killed off than individualshighly endowed with it; and this can only happen when the attributeis one of greater importance, for the time being, than most of theother attributes. 

If those members of the species which have but ordinary shares ofit, nevertheless survive by virtue of other superiorities which theyseverally possess, then it is not easy to see how this particularattribute can be developed by natural selection in subsequentgenerations. " (For if some other superiority is a greater source ofluck, then natural selection, or survival of the luckiest, willensure that this other superiority be preserved at the expense ofthe one acquired in the earlier generation. ) "The probability seemsrather to be, that by gamogenesis, this extra endowment will, on theaverage, be diminished in posterity--just serving in the long run tocompensate the deficient endowments of other individuals, whosespecial powers lie in other directions; and so to keep up the normalstructure of the species. The working out of the process is heresomewhat difficult to follow" (there is no difficulty as soon as itis perceived that Mr. Darwin's natural selection invariably means, or ought to mean, the survival of the luckiest, and that seasons andwhat they bring with them, though fairly constant on an average, yetindividually vary so greatly that what is luck in one season isdisaster in another); "but it appears to me that as fast as thenumber of bodily and mental faculties increases, and as fast as themaintenance of life comes to depend less on the amount of any one, and more on the combined action of all, so fast does the productionof specialities of character by natural selection alone becomedifficult. Particularly does this seem to be so with a species somultitudinous in powers as mankind; and above all does it seem to beso with such of the human powers as have but minor shares in aidingthe struggle for life--the aesthetic faculties, for example. 

"Dwelling for a moment on this last illustration of the class ofdifficulties described, let us ask how we are to interpret thedevelopment of the musical faculty; how came there that endowment ofmusical faculty which characterises modern Europeans at large, ascompared with their remote ancestors? The monotonous chants of lowsavages cannot be said to show any melodic inspiration; and it isnot evident that an individual savage who had a little more musicalperception than the rest would derive any such advantage in themaintenance of life as would secure the spread of his superiority byinheritance of the variation, " &c. 

It should be observed that the passage given in the last paragraphbut one appeared in 1864, only five years after the first edition ofthe "Origin of Species, " but, crushing as it is, Mr. Darwin neveranswered it. He treated it as nonexistent--and this, doubtless froma business standpoint, was the best thing he could do. How far sucha course was consistent with that single-hearted devotion to theinterests of science for which Mr. Darwin developed such an abnormalreputation, is a point which I must leave to his many admirers todetermine. 

CHAPTER VIII--Property, Common Sense, and Protoplasm

One would think the issue stated in the three preceding chapters wasdecided in the stating. This, as I have already implied, isprobably the reason why those who have a vested interest in Mr. Darwin's philosophical reputation have avoided stating it. 

It may be said that, seeing the result is a joint one, inasmuch asboth "res" and "me, " or both luck and cunning, enter so largely intodevelopment, neither factor can claim pre-eminence to the exclusionof the other. But life is short and business long, and if we are toget the one into the other we must suppress details, and leave ourwords pregnant, as painters leave their touches when painting fromnature. If one factor concerns us greatly more than the other, weshould emphasize it, and let the other go without saying, by forceof association. There is no fear of its being lost sight of;association is one of the few really liberal things in nature; byliberal, I mean precipitate and inaccurate; the power of words, asof pictures, and indeed the power to carry on life at all, vests inthe fact that association does not stick to the letter of its bond, but will take the half for the whole without even looking closely atthe coin given to make sure that it is not counterfeit. Through thehaste and high pressure of business, errors arise continually, andthese errors give us the shocks of which our consciousness iscompounded. Our whole conscious life, therefore, grows out ofmemory and out of the power of association, in virtue of which notonly does the right half pass for the whole, but the wrong half notinfrequently passes current for it also, without being challengedand found out till, as it were, the accounts come to be balanced, and it is found that they will not do so. 

Variations are an organism's way of getting over an unexpecteddiscrepancy between its resources as shown by the fly-leaves of itsown cheques and the universe's passbook; the universe is generallyright, or would be upheld as right if the matter were to come beforethe not too incorruptible courts of nature, and in nine cases out often the organism has made the error in its own favour, so that itmust now pay or die. It can only pay by altering its mode of life, and how long is it likely to be before a new departure in its modeof life comes out in its own person and in those of its family?Granted it will at first come out in their appearance only, butthere can be no change in appearance without some slightcorresponding organic modification. In practice there is usuallycompromise in these matters. The universe, if it does not give anorganism short shrift and eat it at once, will commonly abatesomething of its claim; it gets tricked out of an additional moietyby the organism; the organism really does pay something by way ofchanged habits; this results in variation, in virtue of which theaccounts are cooked, cobbled, and passed by a series of thosemiracles of inconsistency which was call compromises, and after thisthey cannot be reopened--not till next time. 

Surely of the two factors which go to the making up of development, cunning is the one more proper to be insisted on as determining thephysical and psychical well or ill being, and hence, ere long, thefuture form of the organism. We can hardly open a newspaper withoutseeing some sign of this; take, for example, the following extractfrom a letter in the Times of the day on which I am writing(February 8, 1886)-- "You may pass along a road which divides asettlement of Irish Celts from one of Germans. They all came to thecountry equally without money, and have had to fight their way inthe forest, but the difference in their condition is veryremarkable; on the German side there is comfort, thrift, peace, buton the other side the spectacle is very different. " Few will denythat slight organic differences, corresponding to these differencesof habit, are already perceptible; no Darwinian will deny that thesedifferences are likely to be inherited, and, in the absence ofintermarriage between the two colonies, to result in still moretypical difference than that which exists at present. According toMr. Darwin, the improved type of the more successful race would notbe due mainly to transmitted perseverance in well-doing, but to thefact that if any member of the German colony "happened" to be born"ever so slightly, " &c. Of course this last is true to a certainextent also; if any member of the German colony does "happen to beborn, " &c. , then he will stand a better chance of surviving, and, ifhe marries a wife like himself, of transmitting his good qualities;but how about the happening? How is it that this is of suchfrequent occurrence in the one colony, and is so rare in the other?Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis. True, but how and why? Throughthe race being favoured? In one sense, doubtless, it is true thatno man can have anything except it be given him from above, but itmust be from an above into the composition of which he himselflargely enters. God gives us all things; but we are a part of God, and that part of Him, moreover, whose department it more especiallyis to look after ourselves. It cannot be through luck, for luck isblind, and does not pick out the same people year after year andgeneration after generation; shall we not rather say, then, that itis because mind, or cunning, is a great factor in the achievement ofphysical results, and because there is an abiding memory betweensuccessive generations, in virtue of which the cunning of an earlierone enures to the benefit of its successors?

It is one of the commonplaces of biology that the nature of theorganism (which is mainly determined by ancestral antecedents) isgreatly more important in determining its future than the conditionsof its environment, provided, of course, that these are not toocruelly abnormal, so that good seed will do better on rather poorsoil, than bad seed on rather good soil; this alone should be enoughto show that cunning, or individual effort, is more important indetermining organic results than luck is, and therefore that ifeither is to be insisted on to the exclusion of the other, it shouldbe cunning, not luck. Which is more correctly said to be the mainmeans of the development of capital--Luck? or Cunning? Of coursethere must be something to be developed--and luck, that is to say, the unknowable and unforeseeable, enters everywhere; but is it moreconvenient with our oldest and best-established ideas to say thatluck is the main means of the development of capital, or thatcunning is so? Can there be a moment's hesitation in admitting thatif capital is found to have been developed largely, continuously, bymany people, in many ways, over a long period of time, it can onlyhave been by means of continued application, energy, effort, industry, and good sense? Granted there has been luck too; ofcourse there has, but we let it go without saying, whereas we cannotlet the skill or cunning go without saying, inasmuch as we feel thecunning to have been the essence of the whole matter. 

Granted, again, that there is no test more fallacious on a smallscale than that of immediate success. As applied to any particularindividual, it breaks down completely. It is unfortunately no rarething to see the good man striving against fate, and the fool bornwith a silver spoon in his mouth. Still on a large scale no testcan be conceivably more reliable; a blockhead may succeed for atime, but a succession of many generations of blockheads does not goon steadily gaining ground, adding field to field and farm to farm, and becoming year by year more capable and prosperous. Given time--of which there is no scant in the matter of organic development--andcunning will do more with ill luck than folly with good. People donot hold six trumps every hand for a dozen games of whist running, if they do not keep a card or two up their sleeves. Cunning, if itcan keep its head above water at all, will beat mere luck unaided bycunning, no matter what start luck may have had, if the race be afairly long one. Growth is a kind of success which does indeed cometo some organisms with less effort than to others, but it cannot bemaintained and improved upon without pains and effort. A foolishorganism and its fortuitous variation will be soon parted, for, as ageneral rule, unless the variation has so much connection with theorganism's past habits and ways of thought as to be in no propersense of the word "fortuitous, " the organism will not know what todo with it when it has got it, no matter how favourable it may be, and it is little likely to be handed down to descendants. Indeedthe kind of people who get on best in the world--and what test to aDarwinian can be comparable to this?--commonly do insist on cunningrather than on luck, sometimes perhaps even unduly; speaking, atleast, from experience, I have generally found myself more or lessof a failure with those Darwinians to whom I have endeavoured toexcuse my shortcomings on the score of luck. 

It may be said that the contention that the nature of the organismdoes more towards determining its future than the conditions of itsimmediate environment do, is only another way of saying that theaccidents which have happened to an organism in the persons of itsancestors throughout all time are more irresistible by it for goodor ill than any of the more ordinary chances and changes of its ownimmediate life. I do not deny this; but these ancestral accidentswere either turned to account, or neglected where they might havebeen taken advantage of; they thus passed either into skill, or wantof skill; so that whichever way the fact is stated the result is thesame; and if simplicity of statement be regarded, there is no moreconvenient way of putting the matter than to say that though luck ismighty, cunning is mightier still. Organism commonly shows itscunning by practising what Horace preached, and treating itself asmore plastic than its surroundings; those indeed who have had thegreatest the first to admit that they had gained their ends more byreputation as moulders of circumstances have ever been shaping theiractions and themselves to suit events, than by trying to shapeevents to suit themselves and their actions. Modification, likecharity, begins at home. 

But however this may be, there can be no doubt that cunning is inthe long run mightier than luck as regards the acquisition ofproperty, and what applies to property applies to organism also. Property, as I have lately seen was said by Rosmini, is a kind ofextension of the personality into the outside world. He might havesaid as truly that it is a kind of penetration of the outside worldwithin the limits of the personality, or that it is at any rate aprophesying of, and essay after, the more living phase of matter inthe direction of which it is tending. If approached from thedynamical or living side of the underlying substratum, it is thebeginning of the comparatively stable equilibrium which we callbrute matter; if from the statical side, that is to say, from thatof brute matter, it is the beginning of that dynamical state whichwe associate with life; it is the last of ego and first of non ego, or vice versa, as the case may be; it is the ground whereon the twomeet and are neither wholly one nor wholly the other, but a whirlingmass of contradictions such as attends all fusion. 

What property is to a man's mind or soul that his body is also, onlymore so. The body is property carried to the bitter end, orproperty is the body carried to the bitter end, whichever the readerchooses; the expression "organic wealth" is not figurative; noneother is so apt and accurate; so universally, indeed, is thisrecognised that the fact has found expression in our liturgy, whichbids us pray for all those who are any wise afflicted "in mind, body, or estate;" no inference, therefore, can be more simple andlegitimate than the one in accordance with which the laws thatgovern the development of wealth generally are supposed also togovern the particular form of health and wealth which comes mostclosely home to us--I mean that of our bodily implements or organs. What is the stomach but a living sack, or purse of untanned leather, wherein we keep our means of subsistence? Food is money made easy;it is petty cash in its handiest and most reduced form; it is ourway of assimilating our possessions and making them indeed our own. What is the purse but a kind of abridged extra corporeal stomachwherein we keep the money which we convert by purchase into food, aswe presently convert the food by digestion into flesh and blood?And what living form is there which is without a purse or stomach, even though it have to job it by the meal as the amoeba does, andexchange it for some other article as soon as it has done eating?How marvellously does the analogy hold between the purse and thestomach alike as regards form and function; and I may say in passingthat, as usual, the organ which is the more remote from protoplasmis at once more special, more an object of our consciousness, andless an object of its own. 

Talk of ego and non ego meeting, and of the hopelessness of avoidingcontradiction in terms--talk of this, and look, in passing, at theamoeba. It is itself qua maker of the stomach and being fed; it isnot itself qua stomach and qua its using itself as a mere tool orimplement to feed itself with. It is active and passive, object andsubject, ego and non ego--every kind of Irish bull, in fact, which asound logician abhors--and it is only because it has persevered, asI said in "Life and Habit, " in thus defying logic and arguing mostvirtuously in a most vicious circle, that it has come in the personsof some of its descendants to reason with sufficient soundness. Andwhat the amoeba is man is also; man is only a great many amoebas, most of them dreadfully narrow-minded, going up and down the countrywith their goods and chattels like gipsies in a caravan; he is onlya great many amoebas that have had much time and money spent ontheir education, and received large bequests of organisedintelligence from those that have gone before them. 

The most incorporate tool--we will say an eye, or a tooth, or theclosed fist when used to strike--has still something of the non egoabout it in so far as it is used; those organs, again, that are themost completely separate from the body, as the locomotive engine, must still from time to time kiss the soil of the human body, and behandled and thus crossed with man again if they would remain inworking order. They cannot be cut adrift from the most living formof matter (I mean most living from our point of view), and remainabsolutely without connection with it for any length of time, anymore than a seal can live without coming up sometimes to breathe;and in so far as they become linked on to living beings they live. Everything is living which is in close communion with, andinterpermeated by, that something which we call mind or thought. Giordano Bruno saw this long ago when he made an interlocutor in oneof his dialogues say that a man's hat and cloak are alive when he iswearing them. "Thy boots and spurs live, " he exclaims, "when thyfeet carry them; thy hat lives when thy head is within it; and sothe stable lives when it contains the horse or mule, or evenyourself;" nor is it easy to see how this is to be refuted except ata cost which no one in his senses will offer. 

It may be said that the life of clothes in wear and implements inuse is no true life, inasmuch as it differs from flesh and bloodlife in too many and important respects; that we have made up ourminds about not letting life outside the body too decisively toallow the question to be reopened; that if this be tolerated weshall have societies for the prevention of cruelty to chairs andtables, or cutting clothes amiss, or wearing them to tatters, orwhatever other absurdity may occur to idle and unkind people; thewhole discussion, therefore, should be ordered out of court at once. 

I admit that this is much the most sensible position to take, but itcan only be taken by those who turn the deafest of deaf ears to theteachings of science, and tolerate no going even for a moment belowthe surface of things. People who take this line must know how toput their foot down firmly in the matter of closing a discussion. Some one may perhaps innocently say that some parts of the body aremore living and vital than others, and those who stick to commonsense may allow this, but if they do they must close the discussionon the spot; if they listen to another syllable they are lost; ifthey let the innocent interlocutor say so much as that a piece ofwell-nourished healthy brain is more living than the end of afinger-nail that wants cutting, or than the calcareous parts of abone, the solvent will have been applied which will soon make an endof common sense ways of looking at the matter. Once even admit theuse of the participle "dying, " which involves degrees of death, andhence an entry of death in part into a living body, and common sensemust either close the discussion at once, or ere long surrender atdiscretion. 

Common sense can only carry weight in respect of matters with whichevery one is familiar, as forming part of the daily and hourlyconduct of affairs; if we would keep our comfortable hard and fastlines, our rough and ready unspecialised ways of dealing withdifficult questions, our impatience of what St. Paul calls "doubtfuldisputations, " we must refuse to quit the ground on which thejudgments of mankind have been so long and often given that they arenot likely to be questioned. Common sense is not yet formulated inmanners of science or philosophy, for only few consider them; fewdecisions, therefore, have been arrived at which all hold final. Science is, like love, "too young to know what conscience, " orcommon sense, is. As soon as the world began to busy itself withevolution it said good-bye to common sense, and must get on withuncommon sense as best it can. The first lesson that uncommon sensewill teach it is that contradiction in terms is the foundation ofall sound reasoning--and, as an obvious consequence, compromise, thefoundation of all sound practice. This, it follows easily, involvesthe corollary that as faith, to be of any value, must be based onreason, so reason, to be of any value, must be based on faith, andthat neither can stand alone or dispense with the other, any morethan culture or vulgarity can stand unalloyed with one anotherwithout much danger of mischance. 

It may not perhaps be immediately apparent why the admission that apiece of healthy living brain is more living than the end of afinger-nail, is so dangerous to common sense ways of looking at lifeand death; I had better, therefore, be more explicit. By thisadmission degrees of livingness are admitted within the body; thisinvolves approaches to non-livingness. On this the question arises, "Which are the most living parts?" The answer to this was given afew years ago with a flourish of trumpets, and our biologistsshouted with one voice, "Great is protoplasm. There is no life butprotoplasm, and Huxley is its prophet. " Read Huxley's "PhysicalBasis of Mind. " Read Professor Mivart's article, "What are LivingBeings?" in the Contemporary Review, July, 1879. Read Dr. AndrewWilson's article in the Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1879. Remember Professor Allman's address to the British Association, 1879; ask, again, any medical man what is the most approvedscientific attitude as regards the protoplasmic and non-protoplasmicparts of the body, and he will say that the thinly veiled conclusionarrived at by all of them is, that the protoplasmic parts are alonetruly living, and that the non-protoplasmic are non-living. 

It may suffice if I confine myself to Professor Allman's address tothe British Association in 1879, as a representative utterance. Professor Allman said:-

"Protoplasm lies at the base of every vital phenomenon. It is, asHuxley has well expressed it, 'the physical basis of life;' whereverthere is life from its lowest to its highest manifestation there isprotoplasm; wherever there is protoplasm there is life. " {122a}

To say wherever there is life there is protoplasm, is to say thatthere can be no life without protoplasm, and this is saying thatwhere there is no protoplasm there is no life. But large parts ofthe body are non-protoplasmic; a bone is, indeed, permeated byprotoplasm, but it is not protoplasm; it follows, therefore, thataccording to Professor Allman bone is not in any proper sense ofwords a living substance. From this it should follow, and doubtlessdoes follow in Professor Allman's mind, that large tracts of thehuman body, if not the greater part by weight (as bones, skin, muscular tissues, &c. ), are no more alive than a coat or pair ofboots in wear is alive, except in so far as the bones, &c. , are moreclosely and nakedly permeated by protoplasm than the coat or boots, and are thus brought into closer, directer, and more permanentcommunication with that which, if not life itself, still has more ofthe ear of life, and comes nearer to its royal person than anythingelse does. Indeed that this is Professor Allman's opinion appearsfrom the passage on page 26 of the report, in which he says that in"protoplasm we find the only form of matter in which life canmanifest itself. "

According to this view the skin and other tissues are supposed to bemade from dead protoplasm which living protoplasm turns to accountas the British Museum authorities are believed to stuff their newspecimens with the skins of old ones; the matter used by the livingprotoplasm for this purpose is held to be entirely foreign toprotoplasm itself, and no more capable of acting in concert with itthan bricks can understand and act in concert with the bricklayer. As the bricklayer is held to be living and the bricks non-living, sothe bones and skin which protoplasm is supposed to construct areheld non-living and the protoplasm alone living. Protoplasm, it issaid, goes about masked behind the clothes or habits which it hasfashioned. It has habited itself as animals and plants, and we havemistaken the garment for the wearer--as our dogs and cats doubtlessthink with Giordano Bruno that our boots live when we are wearingthem, and that we keep spare paws in our bedrooms which lie by thewall and go to sleep when we have not got them on. 

If, in answer to the assertion that the osseous parts of bone arenon-living, it is said that they must be living, for they heal ifbroken, which no dead matter can do, it is answered that the brokenpieces of bone do not grow together; they are mended by theprotoplasm which permeates the Haversian canals; the bonesthemselves are no more living merely because they are tenanted bysomething which really does live, than a house lives because men andwomen inhabit it; and if a bone is repaired, it no more repairsitself than a house can be said to have repaired itself because itsowner has sent for the bricklayer and seen that what was wanted wasdone. 

We do not know, it is said, by what means the structureless viscidsubstance which we call protoplasm can build for itself a solidbone; we do not understand how an amoeba makes its test; no oneunderstands how anything is done unless he can do it himself; andeven then he probably does not know how he has done it. Set a manwho has never painted, to watch Rembrandt paint the Burgomaster Six, and he will no more understand how Rembrandt can have done it, thanwe can understand how the amoeba makes its test, or the protoplasmcements two broken ends of a piece of bone. Ces choses se font maisne s'expliquent pas. So some denizen of another planet looking atour earth through a telescope which showed him much, but still notquite enough, and seeing the St. Gothard tunnel plumb on end so thathe could not see the holes of entry and exit, would think the trainsthere a kind of caterpillar which went through the mountain by apure effort of the will--that enabled them in some mysterious way todisregard material obstacles and dispense with material means. Weknow, of course, that it is not so, and that exemption from the toilattendant on material obstacles has been compounded for, in theordinary way, by the single payment of a tunnel; and so with thecementing of a bone, our biologists say that the protoplasm, whichis alone living, cements it much as a man might mend a piece ofbroken china, but that it works by methods and processes which eludeus, even as the holes of the St. Gothard tunnel may be supposed toelude a denizen of another world. 

The reader will already have seen that the toils are beginning toclose round those who, while professing to be guided by commonsense, still parley with even the most superficial probers beneaththe surface; this, however, will appear more clearly in thefollowing chapter. It will also appear how far-reaching were theconsequences of the denial of design that was involved in Mr. Darwin's theory that luck is the main element in survival, and howlargely this theory is responsible for the fatuous developments inconnection alike with protoplasm and automatism which a few yearsago seemed about to carry everything before them. 

CHAPTER IX--Property, Common Sense, and Protoplasm (continued)

The position, then, stands thus. Common sense gave the inch ofadmitting some parts of the body to be less living than others, andphilosophy took the ell of declaring the body to be almost all of itstone dead. This is serious; still if it were all, for a quietlife, we might put up with it. Unfortunately we know only too wellthat it will not be all. Our bodies, which seemed so living and nowprove so dead, have served us such a trick that we can have noconfidence in anything connected with them. As with skin and bonesto-day, so with protoplasm to-morrow. Protoplasm is mainly oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon; if we do not keep a sharp look out, we shall have it going the way of the rest of the body, and beingdeclared dead in respect, at any rate, of these inorganiccomponents. Science has not, I believe, settled all the componentsof protoplasm, but this is neither here nor there; she has settledwhat it is in great part, and there is no trusting her not to settlethe rest at any moment, even if she has not already done so. Assoon as this has been done we shall be told that nine-tenths of theprotoplasm of which we are composed must go the way of our non-protoplasmic parts, and that the only really living part of us isthe something with a new name that runs the protoplasm that runs theflesh and bones that run the organs -

Why stop here? Why not add "which run the tools and propertieswhich are as essential to our life and health as much that isactually incorporate with us?" The same breach which has let thenon-living effect a lodgment within the body must, in all equity, let the organic character--bodiliness, so to speak--pass out beyondits limits and effect a lodgment in our temporary and extra-corporeal limbs. What, on the protoplasmic theory, the skin andbones are, that the hammer and spade are also; they differ in thedegree of closeness and permanence with which they are associatedwith protoplasm, but both bones and hammers are alike non-livingthings which protoplasm uses for its own purposes and keeps closeror less close at hand as custom and convenience may determine. 

According to this view, the non-protoplasmic parts of the body aretools of the first degree; they are not living, but they are in suchclose and constant contact with that which really lives, that anaroma of life attaches to them. Some of these, however, such ashorns, hooves, and tusks, are so little permeated by protoplasm thatthey cannot rank much higher than the tools of the second degree, which come next to them in order. 

These tools of the second degree are either picked up ready-made, orare manufactured directly by the body, as being torn or bitten intoshape, or as stones picked up to throw at prey or at an enemy. 

Tools of the third degree are made by the instrumentality of toolsof the second and first degrees; as, for example, chipped flint, arrow-heads, &c. 

Tools of the fourth degree are made by those of the third, second, and first. They consist of the simpler compound instruments thatyet require to be worked by hand, as hammers, spades, and even handflour-mills. 

Tools of the fifth degree are made by the help of those of thefourth, third, second, and first. They are compounded of manytools, worked, it may be, by steam or water and requiring noconstant contact with the body. 

But each one of these tools of the fifth degree was made in thefirst instance by the sole instrumentality of the four precedingkinds of tool. They must all be linked on to protoplasm, which isthe one original tool-maker, but which can only make the tools thatare more remote from itself by the help of those that are nearer, that is to say, it can only work when it has suitable tools to workwith, and when it is allowed to use them in its own way. There canbe no direct communication between protoplasm and a steam-engine;there may be and often is direct communication between machines ofeven the fifth order and those of the first, as when an engine-manturns a cock, or repairs something with his own hands if he hasnothing better to work with. But put a hammer, for example, to apiece of protoplasm, and the protoplasm will no more know what to dowith it than we should be able to saw a piece of wood in two withouta saw. Even protoplasm from the hand of a carpenter who has beenhandling hammers all his life would be hopelessly put off its strokeif not allowed to work in its usual way but put bare up against ahammer; it would make a slimy mess and then dry up; still there canbe no doubt (so at least those who uphold protoplasm as the oneliving substance would say) that the closer a machine can be got toprotoplasm and the more permanent the connection, the more living itappears to be, or at any rate the more does it appear to be endowedwith spontaneous and reasoning energy, so long, of course, as thecloseness is of a kind which protoplasm understands and is familiarwith. This, they say, is why we do not like using any implement ortool with gloves on, for these impose a barrier between the tool andits true connection with protoplasm by means of the nervous system. For the same reason we put gloves on when we box so as to bar theconnection. 

That which we handle most unglovedly is our food, which we handlewith our stomachs rather than with our hands. Our hands are sothickly encased with skin that protoplasm can hold but smallconversation with what they contain, unless it be held for a longtime in the closed fist, and even so the converse is impeded as in astrange language; the inside of our mouths is more naked, and ourstomachs are more naked still; it is here that protoplasm brings itsfullest powers of suasion to bear on those whom it would proselytiseand receive as it were into its own communion--whom it would convertand bring into a condition of mind in which they shall see things asit sees them itself, and, as we commonly say, "agree with" it, instead of standing out stiffly for their own opinion. We call thisdigesting our food; more properly we should call it being digestedby our food, which reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests us, till it comes to understand us and encourage us by assuring us thatwe were perfectly right all the time, no matter what any one mighthave said, or say, to the contrary. Having thus recanted all itsown past heresies, it sets to work to convert everything that comesnear it and seems in the least likely to be converted. Eating is amode of love; it is an effort after a closer union; so we say welove roast beef. A French lady told me once that she adored veal;and a nurse tells her child that she would like to eat it. Even hewho caresses a dog or horse pro tanto both weds and eats it. Strange how close the analogy between love and hunger; in each casethe effort is after closer union and possession; in each case theoutcome is reproduction (for nutrition is the most complete ofreproductions), and in each case there are residua. But to return. 

I have shown above that one consequence of the attempt so vigorouslymade a few years ago to establish protoplasm as the one livingsubstance, is the making it clear that the non-protoplasmic parts ofthe body and the simpler extra-corporeal tools or organs must run onall fours in the matter of livingness and non-livingness. If theprotoplasmic parts of the body are held living in virtue of theirbeing used by something that really lives, then so, though in a lessdegree, must tools and machines. If, on the other hand, tools andmachines are held non-living inasmuch as they only owe what littleappearance of life they may present when in actual use to somethingelse that lives, and have no life of their own--so, though in a lessdegree, must the non-protoplasmic parts of the body. Allow anoverflowing aroma of life to vivify the horny skin under the heel, and from this there will be a spilling which will vivify the boot inwear. Deny an aroma of life to the boot in wear, and it must erelong be denied to ninety-nine per cent. Of the body; and if the bodyis not alive while it can walk and talk, what in the name of allthat is unreasonable can be held to be so?

That the essential identity of bodily organs and tools is noingenious paradoxical way of putting things is evident from the factthat we speak of bodily organs at all. Organ means tool. There isnothing which reveals our most genuine opinions to us so unerringlyas our habitual and unguarded expressions, and in the case underconsideration so completely do we instinctively recognise theunderlying identity of tools and limbs, that scientific men use theword "organ" for any part of the body that discharges a function, practically to the exclusion of any other term. Of course, however, the above contention as to the essential identity of tools andorgans does not involve a denial of their obvious superficialdifferences--differences so many and so great as to justify ourclassing them in distinct categories so long as we have regard tothe daily purposes of life without looking at remoter ones. 

If the above be admitted, we can reply to those who in an earlierchapter objected to our saying that if Mr. Darwin denied design inthe eye he should deny it in the burglar's jemmy also. For ifbodily and non-bodily organs are essentially one in kind, being eachof them both living and non-living, and each of them only a higherdevelopment of principles already admitted and largely acted on inthe other, then the method of procedure observable in the evolutionof the organs whose history is within our ken should throw lightupon the evolution of that whose history goes back into so dim apast that we can only know it by way of inference. In the absenceof any show of reason to the contrary we should argue from the knownto the unknown, and presume that even as our non-bodily organsoriginated and were developed through gradual accumulation ofdesign, effort, and contrivance guided by experience, so also mustour bodily organs have been, in spite of the fact that thecontrivance has been, as it were, denuded of external evidences inthe course of long time. This at least is the most obviousinference to draw; the burden of proof should rest not with thosewho uphold function as the most important means of organicmodification, but with those who impugn it; it is hardly necessary, however, to say that Mr. Darwin never attempted to impugn by way ofargument the conclusions either of his grandfather or of Lamarck. He waved them both aside in one or two short semi-contemptuoussentences, and said no more about them--not, at least, until late inlife he wrote his "Erasmus Darwin, " and even then his remarks werepurely biographical; he did not say one syllable by way ofrefutation, or even of explanation. 

I am free to confess that, overwhelming as is the evidence broughtforward by Mr. Spencer in the articles already referred to, asshowing that accidental variations, unguided by the helm of any maingeneral principle which should as it were keep their heads straight, could never accumulate with the results supposed by Mr. Darwin; andoverwhelming, again, as is the consideration that Mr. Spencer's mostcrushing argument was allowed by Mr. Darwin to go without reply, still the considerations arising from the discoveries of the lastforty years or so in connection with protoplasm, seem to me almostmore overwhelming still. This evidence proceeds on different linesfrom that adduced by Mr. Spencer, but it points to the sameconclusion, namely, that though luck will avail much if backed bycunning and experience, it is unavailing for any permanent resultwithout them. There is an irony which seems almost always to attendon those who maintain that protoplasm is the only living substancewhich ere long points their conclusions the opposite way to thatwhich they desire--in the very last direction, indeed, in which theyof all people in the world would willingly see them pointed. 

It may be asked why I should have so strong an objection to seeingprotoplasm as the only living substance, when I find this view souseful to me as tending to substantiate design--which I admit that Ihave as much and as seriously at heart as I can allow myself to haveany matter which, after all, can so little affect daily conduct; Ireply that it is no part of my business to inquire whether this orthat makes for my pet theories or against them; my concern is toinquire whether or no it is borne out by facts, and I find theopinion that protoplasm is the one living substance unstable, inasmuch as it is an attempt to make a halt where no halt can bemade. This is enough; but, furthermore, the fact that theprotoplasmic parts of the body are MORE living than the non-protoplasmic--which I cannot deny, without denying that it is anylonger convenient to think of life and death at all--will answer mypurpose to the full as well or better. 

I pointed out another consequence, which, again, was cruelly thereverse of what the promoters of the protoplasm movement might besupposed anxious to arrive at--in a series of articles whichappeared in the Examiner during the summer of 1879, and showed thatif protoplasm were held to be the sole seat of life, then this unityin the substance vivifying all, both animals and plants, must beheld as uniting them into a single corporation or body--especiallywhen their community of descent is borne in mind--more effectuallythan any merely superficial separation into individuals can be heldto disunite them, and that thus protoplasm must be seen as the lifeof the world--as a vast body corporate, never dying till the earthitself shall pass away. This came practically to saying thatprotoplasm was God Almighty, who, of all the forms open to Him, hadchosen this singularly unattractive one as the channel through whichto make Himself manifest in the flesh by taking our nature upon Him, and animating us with His own Spirit. Our biologists, in fact, werefast nearing the conception of a God who was both personal andmaterial, but who could not be made to square with pantheisticnotions inasmuch as no provision was made for the inorganic world;and, indeed, they seem to have become alarmed at the grotesquenessof the position in which they must ere long have found themselves, for in the autumn of 1879 the boom collapsed, and thenceforth theleading reviews and magazines have known protoplasm no more. Aboutthe same time bathybius, which at one time bade fair to supplant itupon the throne of popularity, died suddenly, as I am told, atNorwich, under circumstances which did not transpire, nor has itsname, so far as I am aware, been ever again mentioned. 

So much for the conclusions in regard to the larger aspect of lifetaken as a whole which must follow from confining life toprotoplasm; but there is another aspect--that, namely, which regardsthe individual. The inevitable consequences of confining life tothe protoplasmic parts of the body were just as unexpected andunwelcome here as they had been with regard to life at large; for, as I have already pointed out, there is no drawing the line atprotoplasm and resting at this point; nor yet at the next halting-point beyond; nor at the one beyond that. How often is this processto be repeated? and in what can it end but in the rehabilitation ofthe soul as an ethereal, spiritual, vital principle, apart frommatter, which, nevertheless, it animates, vivifying the clay of ourbodies? No one who has followed the course either of biology orpsychology during this century, and more especially during the lastfive-and-twenty years, will tolerate the reintroduction of the soulas something apart from the substratum in which both feeling andaction must be held to inhere. The notion of matter being everchanged except by other matter in another state is so shocking tothe intellectual conscience that it may be dismissed withoutdiscussion; yet if bathybius had not been promptly dealt with, itmust have become apparent even to the British public that there wereindeed but few steps from protoplasm, as the only living substance, to vital principle. Our biologists therefore stifled bathybius, perhaps with justice, certainly with prudence, and left protoplasmto its fate. 

Any one who reads Professor Allman's address above referred to withdue care will see that he was uneasy about protoplasm, even at thetime of its greatest popularity. Professor Allman never saysoutright that the non-protoplasmic parts of the body are no morealive than chairs and tables are. He said what involved this as aninevitable consequence, and there can be no doubt that this is whathe wanted to convey, but he never insisted on it with theoutspokenness and emphasis with which so startling a paradox shouldalone be offered us for acceptance; nor is it easy to believe thathis reluctance to express his conclusion totidem verbis was not dueto a sense that it might ere long prove more convenient not to havedone so. When I advocated the theory of the livingness, or quasi-livingness of machines, in the chapters of "Erewhon" of which allelse that I have written on biological subjects is a development, Itook care that people should see the position in its extreme form;the non-livingness of bodily organs is to the full as startling aparadox as the livingness of non-bodily ones, and we have a right toexpect the fullest explicitness from those who advance it. Ofcourse it must be borne in mind that a machine can only claim anyappreciable even aroma of livingness so long as it is in actual use. In "Erewhon" I did not think it necessary to insist on this, and didnot, indeed, yet fully know what I was driving at. 

The same disposition to avoid committing themselves to the assertionthat any part of the body is non-living may be observed in thewritings of the other authorities upon protoplasm above referred to;I have searched all they said, and cannot find a single passage inwhich they declare even the osseous parts of a bone to be non-living, though this conclusion was the raison d'etre of all theywere saying and followed as an obvious inference. The reader willprobably agree with me in thinking that such reticence can only havebeen due to a feeling that the ground was one on which it behovedthem to walk circumspectly; they probably felt, after a vague, ill-defined fashion, that the more they reduced the body to mechanismthe more they laid it open to an opponent to raise mechanism to thebody, but, however this may be, they dropped protoplasm, as I havesaid, in some haste with the autumn of 1879. 

CHAPTER X--The Attempt to Eliminate Mind

What, it may be asked, were our biologists really aiming at?--formen like Professor Huxley do not serve protoplasm for nought. Theywanted a good many things, some of them more righteous than others, but all intelligible. Among the more lawful of their desires was acraving after a monistic conception of the universe. We all desirethis; who can turn his thoughts to these matters at all and notinstinctively lean towards the old conception of one supreme andultimate essence as the source from which all things proceed andhave proceeded, both now and ever? The most striking and apparentlymost stable theory of the last quarter of a century had been SirWilliam Grove's theory of the conservation of energy; and yetwherein is there any substantial difference between this recentoutcome of modern amateur, and hence most sincere, science--pointingas it does to an imperishable, and as such unchangeable, and assuch, again, for ever unknowable underlying substance the modes ofwhich alone change--wherein, except in mere verbal costume, doesthis differ from the conclusions arrived at by the psalmist?

"Of old, " he exclaims, "hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth;and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, butThou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; asa vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed; but Thouart the same, and Thy years shall have no end. " {135a}

I know not what theologians may think of this passage, but from ascientific point of view it is unassailable. So again, "O Lord, " heexclaims, "Thou hast searched me out, and known me: Thou knowest mydown-sitting and mine up-rising; Thou understandest my thoughts longbefore. Thou art about my path, and about my bed: and spiest outall my ways. For lo, there is not a word in my tongue but Thou, OLord, knowest it altogether . . . Whither shall I go, then, from ThySpirit? Or whither shall I go, then, from Thy presence? If I climbup into heaven Thou art there: if I go down to hell, Thou art therealso. If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in theuttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead meand Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Peradventure thedarkness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned to day. Yea, the darkness is no darkness with Thee, but . . . The darkness andlight to Thee are both alike. " {136a}

What convention or short cut can symbolise for us the results oflaboured and complicated chains of reasoning or bring them moreaptly and concisely home to us than the one supplied long since bythe word God? What can approach more nearly to a rendering of thatwhich cannot be rendered--the idea of an essence omnipresent in allthings at all times everywhere in sky and earth and sea; everchanging, yet the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; theineffable contradiction in terms whose presence none can either everenter, or ever escape? Or rather, what convention would have beenmore apt if it had not been lost sight of as a convention and cometo be regarded as an idea in actual correspondence with a more orless knowable reality? A convention was converted into a fetish, and now that its worthlessness as a fetish is being generally felt, its great value as a hieroglyph or convention is in danger of beinglost sight of. No doubt the psalmist was seeking for Sir WilliamGrove's conception, if haply he might feel after it and find it, andassuredly it is not far from every one of us. But the course oftrue philosophy never did run smooth; no sooner have we fairlygrasped the conception of a single eternal and for ever unknowableunderlying substance, then we are faced by mind and matter. Long-standing ideas and current language alike lead us to see these asdistinct things--mind being still commonly regarded as somethingthat acts on body from without as the wind blows upon a leaf, and asno less an actual entity than the body. Neither body nor mind seemsless essential to our existence than the other; not only do we feelthis as regards our own existence, but we feel it also as pervadingthe whole world of life; everywhere we see body and mind workingtogether towards results that must be ascribed equally to both; butthey are two, not one; if, then, we are to have our monisticconception, it would seem as though one of these must yield to theother; which, therefore, is it to be?

This is a very old question. Some, from time immemorial, have triedto get rid of matter by reducing it to a mere concept of the mind, and their followers have arrived at conclusions that may belogically irrefragable, but are as far removed from common sense asthey are in accord with logic; at any rate they have failed tosatisfy, and matter is no nearer being got rid of now than it waswhen the discussion first began. Others, again, have triedmaterialism, have declared the causative action of both thought andfeeling to be deceptive, and posit matter obeying fixed laws ofwhich thought and feeling must be admitted as concomitants, but withwhich they have no causal connection. The same thing has happenedto these men as to their opponents; they made out an excellent caseon paper, but thought and feeling still remain the mainsprings ofaction that they have been always held to be. We still say, "I gavehim 5 pounds because I felt pleased with him, and thought he wouldlike it;" or, "I knocked him down because I felt angry, and thoughtI would teach him better manners. " Omnipresent life and mind withappearances of brute non-livingness--which appearances aredeceptive; this is one view. Omnipresent non-livingness ormechanism with appearances as though the mechanism were guided andcontrolled by thought--which appearances are deceptive; this is theother. Between these two views the slaves of logic have oscillatedfor centuries, and to all appearance will continue to oscillate forcenturies more. 

People who think--as against those who feel and act--want hard andfast lines--without which, indeed, they cannot think at all; theselines are as it were steps cut on a slope of ice without which therewould be no descending it. When we have begun to travel thedownward path of thought, we ask ourselves questions about life anddeath, ego and non ego, object and subject, necessity and free will, and other kindred subjects. We want to know where we are, and inthe hope of simplifying matters, strip, as it were, each subject tothe skin, and finding that even this has not freed it from allextraneous matter, flay it alive in the hope that if we grub downdeep enough we shall come upon it in its pure unalloyed state freefrom all inconvenient complication through intermixture withanything alien to itself. Then, indeed, we can docket it, andpigeon-hole it for what it is; but what can we do with it till wehave got it pure? We want to account for things, which means thatwe want to know to which of the various accounts opened in ourmental ledger we ought to carry them--and how can we do this if weadmit a phenomenon to be neither one thing nor the other, but tobelong to half-a-dozen different accounts in proportions which oftencannot even approximately be determined? If we are to keep accountswe must keep them in reasonable compass; and if keeping them withinreasonable compass involves something of a Procrustean arrangement, we may regret it, but cannot help it; having set up as thinkers wehave got to think, and must adhere to the only conditions underwhich thought is possible; life, therefore, must be life, all life, and nothing but life, and so with death, free will, necessity, design, and everything else. This, at least, is how philosophersmust think concerning them in theory; in practice, however, not evenJohn Stuart Mill himself could eliminate all taint of its oppositefrom any one of these things, any more than Lady Macbeth could clearher hand of blood; indeed, the more nearly we think we havesucceeded the more certain are we to find ourselves ere long mockedand baffled; and this, I take it, is what our biologists began inthe autumn of 1879 to discover had happened to themselves. 

For some years they had been trying to get rid of feeling, consciousness, and mind generally, from active participation in theevolution of the universe. They admitted, indeed, that feeling andconsciousness attend the working of the world's gear, as noiseattends the working of a steam-engine, but they would not allow thatconsciousness produced more effect in the working of the world thannoise on that of the steam-engine. Feeling and noise were alikeaccidental unessential adjuncts and nothing more. Incredible as itmay seem to those who are happy enough not to know that this attemptis an old one, they were trying to reduce the world to the level ofa piece of unerring though sentient mechanism. Men and animals mustbe allowed to feel and even to reflect; this much must be conceded, but granted that they do, still (so, at least, it was contended) ithas no effect upon the result; it does not matter as far as this isconcerned whether they feel and think or not; everything would go onexactly as it does and always has done, though neither man nor beastknew nor felt anything at all. It is only by maintaining thingslike this that people will get pensions out of the British public. 

Some such position as this is a sine qua non for the Neo-Darwinisticdoctrine of natural selection, which, as Von Hartmann justlyobserves, involves an essentially mechanical mindless conception ofthe universe; to natural selection's door, therefore, the blame ofthe whole movement in favour of mechanism must be justly laid. Itwas natural that those who had been foremost in preaching mindlessdesignless luck as the main means of organic modification, shouldlend themselves with alacrity to the task of getting rid of thoughtand feeling from all share in the direction and governance of theworld. Professor Huxley, as usual, was among the foremost in thisgood work, and whether influenced by Hobbes, or Descartes, or Mr. Spalding, or even by the machine chapters in "Erewhon" which werestill recent, I do not know, led off with his article "On thehypothesis that animals are automata" (which it may be observed isthe exact converse of the hypothesis that automata are animated) inthe Fortnightly Review for November 1874. Professor Huxley did notsay outright that men and women were just as living and just as deadas their own watches, but this was what his article came to insubstance. The conclusion arrived at was that animals wereautomata; true, they were probably sentient, still they wereautomata pure and simple, mere sentient pieces of exceedinglyelaborate clockwork, and nothing more. 

"Professor Huxley, " says Mr. Romanes, in his Rede Lecture for 1885, {140a} "argues by way of perfectly logical deduction from thisstatement, that thought and feeling have nothing to do withdetermining action; they are merely the bye-products of cerebration, or, as he expresses it, the indices of changes which are going on inthe brain. Under this view we are all what he terms consciousautomata, or machines which happen, as it were by chance, to beconscious of some of their own movements. But the consciousness isaltogether adventitious, and bears the same ineffectual relation tothe activity of the brain as a steam whistle bears to the activityof a locomotive, or the striking of a clock to the time-keepingadjustments of the clockwork. Here, again, we meet with an echo ofHobbes, who opens his work on the commonwealth with these words:-

"'Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is bythe ART of man, as in many other things, in this also imitated, thatit can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motionof limbs, the beginning whereof is in the principal part within; whymay we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves bysprings and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? Forwhat is the HEART but a spring, and the NERVES but so many STRINGS;and the JOINTS but so many WHEELS giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the artificer?'

"Now this theory of conscious automatism is not merely a legitimateoutcome of the theory that nervous changes are the causes of mentalchanges, but it is logically the only possible outcome. Nor do Isee any way in which this theory can be fought on grounds ofphysiology. "

In passing, I may say the theory that living beings are consciousmachines, can be fought just as much and just as little as thetheory that machines are unconscious living beings; everything thatgoes to prove either of these propositions goes just as well toprove the other also. But I have perhaps already said as much as isnecessary on this head; the main point with which I am concerned isthe fact that Professor Huxley was trying to expel consciousness andsentience from any causative action in the working of the universe. In the following month appeared the late Professor Clifford's hardlyless outspoken article, "Body and Mind, " to the same effect, also inthe Fortnightly Review, then edited by Mr. John Morley. Perhapsthis view attained its frankest expression in an article by the lateMr. Spalding, which appeared in Nature, August 2, 1877; thefollowing extracts will show that Mr. Spalding must be credited withnot playing fast and loose with his own conclusions, and knew bothhow to think a thing out to its extreme consequences, and how to putthose consequences clearly before his readers. Mr. Spalding said:-

"Against Mr. Lewes's proposition that the movements of living beingsare prompted and guided by feeling, I urged that the amount anddirection of every nervous discharge must depend solely on physicalconditions. And I contended that to see this clearly is to see thatwhen we speak of movement being guided by feeling, we use thelanguage of a less advanced stage of enlightenment. This view hassince occupied a good deal of attention. Under the name ofautomatism it has been advocated by Professor Huxley, and withfirmer logic by Professor Clifford. In the minds of our savageancestors feeling was the source of all movement . . . Using theword feeling in its ordinary sense . . . WE ASSERT NOT ONLY THAT NOEVIDENCE CAN BE GIVEN THAT FEELING EVER DOES GUIDE OR PROMPT ACTION, BUT THAT THE PROCESS OF ITS DOING SO IS INCONCEIVABLE. (Italicsmine. ) How can we picture to ourselves a state of consciousnessputting in motion any particle of matter, large or small? Puss, while dozing before the fire, hears a light rustle in the corner, and darts towards the spot. What has happened? Certain sound-waveshave reached the ear, a series of physical changes have taken placewithin the organism, special groups of muscles have been called intoplay, and the body of the cat has changed its position on the floor. Is it asserted that this chain of physical changes is not at allpoints complete and sufficient in itself?"

I have been led to turn to this article of Mr. Spalding's by Mr. Stewart Duncan, who, in his "Conscious Matter, " {142a} quotes thelatter part of the foregoing extract. Mr. Duncan goes on to quotepassages from Professor Tyndall's utterances of about the same datewhich show that he too took much the same line--namely, that thereis no causative connection between mental and physical processes;from this it is obvious he must have supposed that physicalprocesses would go on just as well if there were no accompaniment offeeling and consciousness at all. 

I have said enough to show that in the decade, roughly, between 1870and 1880 the set of opinion among our leading biologists wasstrongly against mind, as having in any way influenced thedevelopment of animal and vegetable life, and it is not likely to bedenied that the prominence which the mindless theory of naturalselection had assumed in men's thoughts since 1860 was one of thechief reasons, if not the chief, for the turn opinion was taking. Our leading biologists had staked so heavily upon natural selectionfrom among fortuitous variations that they would have been more thanhuman if they had not caught at everything that seemed to give itcolour and support. It was while this mechanical fit was upon them, and in the closest connection with it, that the protoplasm boomdeveloped. It was doubtless felt that if the public could be got todislodge life, consciousness, and mind from any considerable part ofthe body, it would be no hard matter to dislodge it, presently, fromthe remainder; on this the deceptiveness of mind as a causativeagent, and the sufficiency of a purely automatic conception of theuniverse, as of something that will work if a penny be dropped intothe box, would be proved to demonstration. It would be proved fromthe side of mind by considerations derivable from automatic andunconscious action where mind ex hypothesi was not, but where actionwent on as well or better without it than with it; it would beproved from the side of body by what they would doubtless call the"most careful and exhaustive" examination of the body itself by theaid of appliances more ample than had ever before been within thereach of man. 

This was all very well, but for its success one thing was a sine quanon--I mean the dislodgment must be thorough; the key must be gotclean of even the smallest trace of blood, for unless this could bedone all the argument went to the profit not of the mechanism, withwhich, for some reason or other, they were so much enamoured, but ofthe soul and design, the ideas which of all others were mostdistasteful to them. They shut their eyes to this for a long time, but in the end appear to have seen that if they were in search of anabsolute living and absolute non-living, the path along which theywere travelling would never lead them to it. They were driving lifeup into a corner, but they were not eliminating it, and, moreover, at the very moment of their thinking they had hedged it in and couldthrow their salt upon it, it flew mockingly over their heads andperched upon the place of all others where they were mostscandalised to see it--I mean upon machines in use. So they retiredsulkily to their tents baffled but not ashamed. 

Some months subsequent to the completion of the foregoing chapter, and indeed just as this book is on the point of leaving my hands, there appears in Nature {144a} a letter from the Duke of Argyll, which shows that he too is impressed with the conviction expressedabove--I mean that the real object our men of science have latelyhad in view has been the getting rid of mind from among the causesof evolution. The Duke says:-

"The violence with which false interpretations were put upon thistheory (natural selection) and a function was assigned to it whichit could never fulfil, will some day be recognised as one of theleast creditable episodes in the history of science. With a curiousperversity it was the weakest elements in the theory which wereseized upon as the most valuable, particularly the part assigned toblind chance in the occurrence of variations. This was valued notfor its scientific truth, --for it could pretend to none, --butbecause of its assumed bearing upon another field of thought and theweapon it afforded for expelling mind from the causes of evolution. "

The Duke, speaking of Mr. Herbert Spencer's two articles in theNineteenth Century for April and May, 1886, to which I have alreadycalled attention, continues:-

"In these two articles we have for the first time an avowed anddefinite declaration against some of the leading ideas on which themechanical philosophy depends; and yet the caution, and almosttimidity, with which a man so eminent approaches the announcement ofconclusions of the most self-evident truth is a most curious proofof the reign of terror which has come to be established. "

Against this I must protest; the Duke cannot seriously maintain thatthe main scope and purpose of Mr. Herbert Spencer's articles is new. Their substance has been before us in Mr. Spencer's own writings forsome two-and-twenty years, in the course of which Mr. Spencer hasbeen followed by Professor Mivart, the Rev. J. J. Murphy, the Dukeof Argyll himself, and many other writers of less note. When theDuke talks about the establishment of a scientific reign of terror, I confess I regard such an exaggeration with something likeimpatience. Any one who has known his own mind and has had thecourage of his opinions has been able to say whatever he wanted tosay with as little let or hindrance during the last twenty years, asduring any other period in the history of literature. Of course, ifa man will keep blurting out unpopular truths without consideringwhose toes he may or may not be treading on, he will make enemiessome of whom will doubtless be able to give effect to theirdispleasure; but that is part of the game. It is hardly possiblefor any one to oppose the fallacy involved in the Charles-Darwiniantheory of natural selection more persistently and unsparingly than Ihave done myself from the year 1877 onwards; naturally I have attimes been very angrily attacked in consequence, and as a matter ofbusiness have made myself as unpleasant as I could in my rejoinders, but I cannot remember anything having been ever attempted against mewhich could cause fear in any ordinarily constituted person. If, then, the Duke of Argyll is right in saying that Mr. Spencer hasshown a caution almost amounting to timidity in attacking Mr. Darwin's theory, either Mr. Spencer must be a singularly timidperson, or there must be some cause for his timidity which is notimmediately obvious. If terror reigns anywhere among scientificmen, I should say it reigned among those who have staked imprudentlyon Mr. Darwin's reputation as a philosopher. I may add that thediscovery of the Duke's impression that there exists a scientificreign of terror, explains a good deal in his writings which it hasnot been easy to understand hitherto. 

As regards the theory of natural selection, the Duke says:-

"From the first discussions which arose on this subject, I haveventured to maintain that . . . The phrase 'natural-selection'represented no true physical cause, still less the complete set ofcauses requisite to account for the orderly procession of organicforms in Nature; that in so far as it assumed variations to arise byaccident it was not only essentially faulty and incomplete, butfundamentally erroneous; in short, that its only value lay in theconvenience with which it groups under one form of words, highlycharged with metaphor, an immense variety of causes, some purelymental, some purely vital, and others purely physical ormechanical. "

CHAPTER XI--The Way of Escape

To sum up the conclusions hitherto arrived at. Our philosophershave made the mistake of forgetting that they cannot carry therough-and-ready language of common sense into precincts within whichpoliteness and philosophy are supreme. Common sense sees life anddeath as distinct states having nothing in common, and hence in allrespects the antitheses of one another; so that with common sensethere should be no degrees of livingness, but if a thing is alive atall it is as much alive as the most living of us, and if dead at allit is stone dead in every part of it. Our philosophers haveexercised too little consideration in retaining this view of thematter. They say that an amoeba is as much a living being as a manis, and do not allow that a well-grown, highly educated man inrobust health is more living than an idiot cripple. They say hediffers from the cripple in many important respects, but not indegree of livingness. Yet, as we have seen already, even commonsense by using the word "dying" admits degrees of life; that is tosay, it admits a more and a less; those, then, for whom thesuperficial aspects of things are insufficient should surely find nodifficulty in admitting that the degrees are more numerous than isdreamed of in the somewhat limited philosophy which common sensealone knows. Livingness depends on range of power, versatility, wealth of body and mind--how often, indeed, do we not see peopletaking a new lease of life when they have come into money even at anadvanced age; it varies as these vary, beginning with things that, though they have mind enough for an outsider to swear by, can hardlybe said to have yet found it out themselves, and advancing to thosethat know their own minds as fully as anything in this world doesso. The more a thing knows its own mind the more living it becomes, for life viewed both in the individual and in the general as theoutcome of accumulated developments, is one long process ofspecialising consciousness and sensation; that is to say, of gettingto know one's own mind more and more fully upon a greater andgreater variety of subjects. On this I hope to touch more fully inanother book; in the meantime I would repeat that the error of ourphilosophers consists in not having borne in mind that when theyquitted the ground on which common sense can claim authority, theyshould have reconsidered everything that common sense had taughtthem. 

The votaries of common sense make the same mistake as philosophersdo, but they make it in another way. Philosophers try to make thelanguage of common sense serve for purposes of philosophy, forgetting that they are in another world, in which another tongueis current; common sense people, on the other hand, every now andthen attempt to deal with matters alien to the routine of dailylife. The boundaries between the two kingdoms being very badlydefined, it is only by giving them a wide berth and being sophilosophical as almost to deny that there is any either life ordeath at all, or else so full of common sense as to refuse to seeone part of the body as less living than another, that we can hopeto steer clear of doubt, inconsistency, and contradiction in termsin almost every other word we utter. We cannot serve the God ofphilosophy and the Mammon of common sense at one and the same time, and yet it would almost seem as though the making the best that canbe made of both these worlds were the whole duty of organism. 

It is easy to understand how the error of philosophers arose, for, slaves of habit as we all are, we are more especially slaves whenthe habit is one that has not been found troublesome. There is nodenying that it saves trouble to have things either one thing or theother, and indeed for all the common purposes of life if a thing iseither alive or dead the small supplementary residue of the oppositestate should be neglected as too small to be observable. If it isgood to eat we have no difficulty in knowing when it is dead enoughto be eaten; if not good to eat, but valuable for its skin, we knowwhen it is dead enough to be skinned with impunity; if it is a man, we know when he has presented enough of the phenomena of death toallow of our burying him and administering his estate; in fact, Icannot call to mind any case in which the decision of the questionwhether man or beast is alive or dead is frequently found to beperplexing; hence we have become so accustomed to think there can beno admixture of the two states, that we have found it almostimpossible to avoid carrying this crude view of life and death intodomains of thought in which it has no application. There can be nodoubt that when accuracy is required we should see life and deathnot as fundamentally opposed, but as supplementary to one another, without either's being ever able to exclude the other altogether;thus we should indeed see some things as more living than others, but we should see nothing as either unalloyedly living orunalloyedly non-living. If a thing is living, it is so living thatit has one foot in the grave already; if dead, it is dead as a thingthat has already re-entered into the womb of Nature. And within theresidue of life that is in the dead there is an element of death;and within this there is an element of life, and so ad infinitum--again, as reflections in two mirrors that face one another. 

In brief, there is nothing in life of which there are not germs, and, so to speak, harmonics in death, and nothing in death of whichgerms and harmonics may not be found in life. Each emphasizes whatthe other passes over most lightly--each carries to its extremeconceivable development that which in the other is only sketched inby a faint suggestion--but neither has any feature rigorouslyspecial to itself. Granted that death is a greater new departure inan organism's life, than any since that congeries of births anddeaths to which the name embryonic stages is commonly given, stillit is a new departure of the same essential character as any other--that is to say, though there be much new there is much, not to saymore, old along with it. We shrink from it as from any other changeto the unknown, and also perhaps from an instinctive sense that thefear of death is a sine qua non for physical and moral progress, butthe fear is like all else in life, a substantial thing which, if itsfoundations be dug about, is found to rest on a superstitious basis. 

Where, and on what principle, are the dividing lines between livingand non-living to be drawn? All attempts to draw them hitherto haveended in deadlock and disaster; of this M. Vianna De Lima, in his"Expose Sommaire des Theories transformistes de Lamarck, Darwin, etHaeckel, " {150a} says that all attempts to trace une ligne dedemarcation nette et profonde entre la matiere vivante et la matiereinerte have broken down. {150b} Il y a un reste de vie dans lecadavre, says Diderot, {150c} speaking of the more gradual decay ofthe body after an easy natural death, than after a sudden andviolent one; and so Buffon begins his first volume by saying that"we can descend, by almost imperceptible degrees, from the mostperfect creature to the most formless matter--from the most highlyorganised matter to the most entirely inorganic substance. " {150d}

Is the line to be so drawn as to admit any of the non-living withinthe body? If we answer "yes, " then, as we have seen, moiety aftermoiety is filched from us, till we find ourselves left face to facewith a tenuous quasi immaterial vital principle or soul as animatingan alien body, with which it not only has no essential underlyingcommunity of substance, but with which it has no conceivable pointin common to render a union between the two possible, or give theone a grip of any kind over the other; in fact, the doctrine ofdisembodied spirits, so instinctively rejected by all who need belistened to, comes back as it would seem, with a scientificimprimatur; if, on the other hand, we exclude the non-living fromthe body, then what are we to do with nails that want cutting, dyingskin, or hair that is ready to fall off? Are they less living thanbrain? Answer "yes, " and degrees are admitted, which we havealready seen prove fatal; answer "no, " and we must deny that onepart of the body is more vital than another--and this is refusing togo as far even as common sense does; answer that these things arenot very important, and we quit the ground of equity and highphilosophy on which we have given ourselves such airs, and go backto common sense as unjust judges that will hear those widows onlywho importune us. 

As with the non-living so also with the living. Are we to let itpass beyond the limits of the body, and allow a certain temporaryoverflow of livingness to ordain as it were machines in use? Thendeath will fare, if we once let life without the body, as life faresif we once let death within it. It becomes swallowed up in life, just as in the other case life was swallowed up in death. Are we toconfine it to the body? If so, to the whole body, or to parts? Andif to parts, to what parts, and why? The only way out of thedifficulty is to rehabilitate contradiction in terms, and say thateverything is both alive and dead at one and the same time--somethings being much living and little dead, and others, again, muchdead and little living. Having done this we have only got to settlewhat a thing is--when a thing is a thing pure and simple, and whenit is only a congeries of things--and we shall doubtless then livevery happily and very philosophically ever afterwards. 

But here another difficulty faces us. Common sense does indeed knowwhat is meant by a "thing" or "an individual, " but philosophy cannotsettle either of these two points. Professor Mivart made thequestion "What are Living Beings?" the subject of an article in oneof our leading magazines only a very few years ago. He asked, buthe did not answer. And so Professor Moseley was reported (Times, January 16, 1885) as having said that it was "almost impossible" tosay what an individual was. Surely if it is only "almost"impossible for philosophy to determine this, Professor Moseleyshould have at any rate tried to do it; if, however, he had triedand failed, which from my own experience I should think most likely, he might have spared his "almost. " "Almost" is a very dangerousword. I once heard a man say that an escape he had had fromdrowning was "almost" providential. The difficulty about definingan individual arises from the fact that we may look at "almost"everything from two different points of view. If we are in acommon-sense humour for simplifying things, treating them broadly, and emphasizing resemblances rather than differences, we can findexcellent reasons for ignoring recognised lines of demarcation, calling everything by a new name, and unifying up till we haveunited the two most distant stars in heaven as meeting and beinglinked together in the eyes and souls of men; if we are in thishumour individuality after individuality disappears, and ere long, if we are consistent, nothing will remain but one universal whole, one true and only atom from which alone nothing can be cut off andthrown away on to something else; if, on the other hand, we are in asubtle philosophically accurate humour for straining at gnats andemphasizing differences rather than resemblances, we can drawdistinctions, and give reasons for subdividing and subdividing, till, unless we violate what we choose to call our consistencysomewhere, we shall find ourselves with as many names as atoms andpossible combinations and permutations of atoms. The lines we draw, the moments we choose for cutting this or that off at this or thatplace, and thenceforth the dubbing it by another name, are asarbitrary as the moments chosen by a South-Eastern Railway porterfor leaving off beating doormats; in each case doubtless there is anapproximate equity, but it is of a very rough and ready kind. 

What else, however, can we do? We can only escape the Scylla ofcalling everything by one name, and recognising no individualexistences of any kind, by falling into the Charybdis of having aname for everything, or by some piece of intellectual sharp practicelike that of the shrewd but unprincipled Ulysses. If we wereconsistent honourable gentlemen, into Charybdis or on to Scylla weshould go like lambs; every subterfuge by the help of which weescape our difficulty is but an arbitrary high-handed act ofclassification that turns a deaf ear to everything not robust enoughto hold its own; nevertheless even the most scrupulous ofphilosophers pockets his consistency at a pinch, and refuses to letthe native hue of resolution be sicklied o'er with the pale cast ofthought, nor yet fobbed by the rusty curb of logic. He is right, for assuredly the poor intellectual abuses of the time wantcountenancing now as much as ever, but so far as he countenancesthem, he should bear in mind that he is returning to the ground ofcommon sense, and should not therefore hold himself too stiffly inthe matter of logic. 

As with life and death so with design and absence of design or luck. So also with union and disunion. There is never either absolutedesign rigorously pervading every detail, nor yet absolute absenceof design pervading any detail rigorously, so, as betweensubstances, there is neither absolute union and homogeneity, notabsolute disunion and heterogeneity; there is always a little placeleft for repentance; that is to say, in theory we should admit thatboth design and chance, however well defined, each have an aroma, asit were, of the other. Who can think of a case in which his owndesign--about which he should know more than any other, and fromwhich, indeed, all his ideas of design are derived--was so completethat there was no chance in any part of it? Who, again, can bringforward a case even of the purest chance or good luck into which noelement of design had entered directly or indirectly at anyjuncture? This, nevertheless, does not involve our being unableever to ascribe a result baldly either to luck or cunning. In somecases a decided preponderance of the action, whether seen as a wholeor looked at in detail, is recognised at once as due to design, purpose, forethought, skill, and effort, and then we properlydisregard the undesigned element; in others the details cannotwithout violence be connected with design, however much the positionwhich rendered the main action possible may involve design--as, forexample, there is no design in the way in which individual pieces ofcoal may hit one another when shot out of a sack, but there may bedesign in the sack's being brought to the particular place where itis emptied; in others design may be so hard to find that we rightlydeny its existence, nevertheless in each case there will be anelement of the opposite, and the residuary element would, if seenthrough a mental microscope, be found to contain a residuary elementof ITS opposite, and this again of ITS opposite, and so on adinfinitum, as with mirrors standing face to face. This having beenexplained, and it being understood that when we speak of design inorganism we do so with a mental reserve of exceptis excipiendis, there should be no hesitation in holding the various modificationsof plants and animals to be in such preponderating measure due tofunction, that design, which underlies function, is the fittest ideawith which to connect them in our minds. 

We will now proceed to inquire how Mr. Darwin came to substitute, ortry to substitute, the survival of the luckiest fittest, for thesurvival of the most cunning fittest, as held by Erasmus Darwin andLamarck; or more briefly how he came to substitute luck for cunning. 

CHAPTER XII--Why Darwin's Variations were Accidental

Some may perhaps deny that Mr. Darwin did this, and say he laid somuch stress on use and disuse as virtually to make function his mainfactor of evolution. 

If, indeed, we confine ourselves to isolated passages, we shall findlittle difficulty in making out a strong case to this effect. Certainly most people believe this to be Mr. Darwin's doctrine, andconsidering how long and fully he had the ear of the public, it isnot likely they would think thus if Mr. Darwin had willed otherwise, nor could he have induced them to think as they do if he had notsaid a good deal that was capable of the construction so commonlyput upon it; but it is hardly necessary, when addressing biologists, to insist on the fact that Mr. Darwin's distinctive doctrine is thedenial of the comparative importance of function, or use and disuse, as a purveyor of variations, --with some, but not very considerable, exceptions, chiefly in the cases of domesticated animals. 

He did not, however, make his distinctive feature as distinct as heshould have done. Sometimes he said one thing, and sometimes thedirectly opposite. Sometimes, for example, the conditions ofexistence "included natural selection" or the fact that the bestadapted to their surroundings live longest and leave most offspring;{156a} sometimes "the principle of natural selection" "fullyembraced" "the expression of conditions of existence. " {156b} Itwould not be easy to find more unsatisfactory writing than this is, nor any more clearly indicating a mind ill at ease with itself. Sometimes "ants work BY INHERITED INSTINCTS and inherited tools;"{157a} sometimes, again, it is surprising that the case of antsworking by inherited instincts has not been brought as ademonstrative argument "against the well-known doctrine of INHERITEDHABIT, as advanced by Lamarck. " {157b} Sometimes the winglessnessof beetles inhabiting ocean islands is "mainly due to naturalselection, " {157c} and though we might be tempted to ascribe therudimentary condition of the wing to disuse, we are on no account todo so--though disuse was probably to some extent "combined with"natural selection; at other times "it is probable that disuse hasbeen the main means of rendering the wings of beetles living onsmall exposed islands" rudimentary. {157d} We may remark in passingthat if disuse, as Mr. Darwin admits on this occasion, is the mainagent in rendering an organ rudimentary, use should have been themain agent in rendering it the opposite of rudimentary--that is tosay, in bringing about its development. The ostensible raisond'etre, however, of the "Origin of Species" is to maintain that thisis not the case. 

There is hardly an opinion on the subject of descent withmodification which does not find support in some one passage oranother of the "Origin of Species. " If it were desired to show thatthere is no substantial difference between the doctrine of ErasmusDarwin and that of his grandson, it would be easy to make out a goodcase for this, in spite of Mr. Darwin's calling his grandfather'sviews "erroneous, " in the historical sketch prefixed to the latereditions of the "Origin of Species. " Passing over the passagealready quoted on p. 62 of this book, in which Mr. Darwin declares"habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary"--a sentence, by theway, than which none can be either more unfalteringly Lamarckian orless tainted with the vices of Mr. Darwin's later style--passingthis over as having been written some twenty years before the"Origin of Species"--the last paragraph of the "Origin of Species"itself is purely Lamarckian and Erasmus-Darwinian. It declares thelaws in accordance with which organic forms assumed their presentshape to be--"Growth with reproduction; Variability from theindirect and direct action of the external conditions of life andfrom use and disuse, &c. " {158a} Wherein does this differ from theconfession of faith made by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck? Where arethe accidental fortuitous, spontaneous variations now? And if theyare not found important enough to demand mention in this perorationand stretto, as it were, of the whole matter, in which specialprominence should be given to the special feature of the work, whereought they to be made important?

Mr. Darwin immediately goes on: "A ratio of existence so high as tolead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to naturalselection, entailing divergence of character and the extinction ofless improved forms;" so that natural selection turns up after all. Yes--in the letters that compose it, but not in the spirit; not inthe special sense up to this time attached to it in the "Origin ofSpecies. " The expression as used here is one with which ErasmusDarwin would have found little fault, for it means not as elsewherein Mr. Darwin's book and on his title-page the preservation of"favoured" or lucky varieties, but the preservation of varietiesthat have come to be varieties through the causes assigned in thepreceding two or three lines of Mr. Darwin's sentence; and these aremainly functional or Erasmus-Darwinian; for the indirect action ofthe conditions of life is mainly functional, and the direct actionis admitted on all hands to be but small. 

It now appears more plainly, as insisted upon on an earlier page, that there is not one natural selection and one survival of thefittest, but two, inasmuch as there are two classes of variationsfrom which nature (supposing no exception taken to herpersonification) can select. The bottles have the same labels, andthey are of the same colour, but the one holds brandy, and the othertoast and water. Nature can, by a figure of speech, be said toselect from variations that are mainly functional or from variationsthat are mainly accidental; in the first case she will eventuallyget an accumulation of variation, and widely different types willcome into existence; in the second, the variations will not occurwith sufficient steadiness for accumulation to be possible. In thebody of Mr. Darwin's book the variations are supposed to be mainlydue to accident, and function, though not denied all efficacy, isdeclared to be the greatly subordinate factor; natural selection, therefore, has been hitherto throughout tantamount to luck; in theperoration the position is reversed in toto; the selection is nowmade from variations into which luck has entered so little that itmay be neglected, the greatly preponderating factor being function;here, then, natural selection is tantamount to cunning. We are suchslaves of words that, seeing the words "natural selection" employed--and forgetting that the results ensuing on natural selection willdepend entirely on what it is that is selected from, so that thegist of the matter lies in this and not in the words "naturalselection"--it escaped us that a change of front had been made, anda conclusion entirely alien to the tenor of the whole book smuggledinto the last paragraph as the one which it had been written tosupport; the book preached luck, the peroration cunning. 

And there can be no doubt Mr. Darwin intended that the change offront should escape us; for it cannot be believed that he did notperfectly well know what he had done. Mr. Darwin edited and re-edited with such minuteness of revision that it may be said nodetail escaped him provided it was small enough; it is incrediblethat he should have allowed this paragraph to remain from first tolast unchanged (except for the introduction of the words "by theCreator, " which are wanting in the first edition) if they did notconvey the conception he most wished his readers to retain. Even ifin his first edition he had failed to see that he was abandoning inhis last paragraph all that it had been his ostensible object mostespecially to support in the body of his book, he must have becomeaware of it long before he revised the "Origin of Species" for thelast time; still he never altered it, and never put us on our guard. 

It was not Mr. Darwin's manner to put his reader on his guard; wemight as well expect Mr. Gladstone to put us on our guard about theIrish land bills. Caveat lector seems to have been his motto. Mr. Spencer, in the articles already referred to, is at pains to showthat Mr. Darwin's opinions in later life underwent a change in thedirection of laying greater stress on functionally producedmodifications, and points out that in the sixth edition of the"Origin of Species" Mr. Darwin says, "I think there can be no doubtthat use in our domestic animals has strengthened and enlargedcertain parts, and disuse diminished them;" whereas in his firstedition he said, "I think there can be LITTLE doubt" of this. Mr. Spencer also quotes a passage from "The Descent of Man, " in whichMr. Darwin said that EVEN IN THE FIRST EDITION of the "Origin ofSpecies" he had attributed great effect to function, as though inthe later ones he had attributed still more; but if there was anyconsiderable change of position, it should not have been left to betoilsomely collected by collation of editions, and comparison ofpassages far removed from one another in other books. If his mindhad undergone the modification supposed by Mr. Spencer, Mr. Darwinshould have said so in a prominent passage of some later edition ofthe "Origin of Species. " He should have said--"In my earliereditions I underrated, as now seems probable, the effects of use anddisuse as purveyors of the slight successive modifications whoseaccumulation in the ordinary course of things results in specificdifference, and I laid too much stress on the accumulation of merelyaccidental variations;" having said this, he should have summarisedthe reasons that had made him change his mind, and given a list ofthe most important cases in which he has seen fit to alter what hehad originally written. If Mr. Darwin had dealt thus with us weshould have readily condoned all the mistakes he would have been atall likely to have made, for we should have known him as one who wastrying to help us, tidy us up, keep us straight, and enable us touse our judgments to the best advantage. The public will forgivemany errors alike of taste and judgment, where it feels that awriter persistently desires this. 

I can only remember a couple of sentences in the later editions ofthe "Origin of Species" in which Mr. Darwin directly admits a changeof opinion as regards the main causes of organic modification. Howshuffling the first of these is I have already shown in "Life andHabit, " p. 260, and in "Evolution, Old and New, " p. 359; I need not, therefore, say more here, especially as there has been no rejoinderto what I then said. Curiously enough the sentence does not bearout Mr. Spencer's contention that Mr. Darwin in his later yearsleaned more decidedly towards functionally produced modifications, for it runs: {161a}--"In the earlier editions of this work Iunderrated, as now seems probable, the frequency and importance ofmodifications due, " not, as Mr. Spencer would have us believe, touse and disuse, but "to spontaneous variability, " by which can onlybe intended, "to variations in no way connected with use anddisuse, " as not being assignable to any known cause of generalapplication, and referable as far as we are concerned to accidentonly; so that he gives the natural survival of the luckiest, whichis indeed his distinctive feature, if it deserve to be called afeature at all, greater prominence than ever. Nevertheless there isno change in his concluding paragraph, which still remains anembodiment of the views of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. 

The other passage is on p. 421 of the edition of 1876. It stands:-"I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which havethoroughly" (why "thoroughly"?) "convinced me that species have beenmodified during a long course of descent. This has been effectedchiefly through the natural selection of numerous, successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by theinherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in anunimportant manner, that is, in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of externalconditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance toarise spontaneously. It appears that I formerly underrated thefrequency and value of these latter forms of variation as leading topermanent modifications of structure independently of naturalselection. "

Here, again, it is not use and disuse which Mr. Darwin declareshimself to have undervalued, but spontaneous variations. Thesentence just given is one of the most confusing I ever read even inthe works of Mr Darwin. It is the essence of his theory that the"numerous successive, slight, favourable variations, " above referredto, should be fortuitous, accidental, spontaneous; it is evident, moreover, that they are intended in this passage to be accidental orspontaneous, although neither of these words is employed, inasmuchas use and disuse and the action of the conditions of existence, whether direct or indirect, are mentioned specially as separatecauses which purvey only the minor part of the variations from amongwhich nature selects. The words "that is, in relation to adaptiveforms" should be omitted, as surplusage that draws the reader'sattention from the point at issue; the sentence really amounts tothis--that modification has been effected CHIEFLY THROUGH SELECTIONin the ordinary course of nature FROM AMONG SPONTANEOUS VARIATIONS, AIDED IN AN UNIMPORTANT MANNER BY VARIATIONS WHICH QUa US ARESPONTANEOUS. Nevertheless, though these spontaneous variations arestill so trifling in effect that they only aid spontaneousvariations in an unimportant manner, in his earlier editions Mr. Darwin thought them still less important than he does now. 

This comes of tinkering. We do not know whether we are on our headsor our heels. We catch ourselves repeating "important, ""unimportant, " "unimportant, " "important, " like the King whenaddressing the jury in "Alice in Wonderland;" and yet this is thebook of which Mr. Grant Allen {163a} says that it is "one of thegreatest, and most learned, the most lucid, the most logical, themost crushing, the most conclusive, that the world has ever seen. Step by step, and principle by principle, it proved every point inits progress triumphantly before it went on to the next. So vast anarray of facts so thoroughly in hand had never before been musteredand marshalled in favour of any biological theory. " The book andthe eulogy are well mated. 

I see that in the paragraph following on the one just quoted, Mr. Allen says, that "to the world at large Darwinism and evolutionbecame at once synonymous terms. " Certainly it was no fault of Mr. Darwin's if they did not, but I will add more on this headpresently; for the moment, returning to Mr. Darwin, it is hardlycredible, but it is nevertheless true, that Mr Darwin begins theparagraph next following on the one on which I have just reflectedso severely, with the words, "It can hardly be supposed that a falsetheory would explain in so satisfactory a manner as does the theoryof natural selection, the several large classes of facts abovespecified. " If Mr. Darwin found the large classes of facts"satisfactorily" explained by the survival of the luckiestirrespectively of the cunning which enabled them to turn their luckto account, he must have been easily satisfied. Perhaps he was inthe same frame of mind as when he said {164a} that "even animperfect answer would be satisfactory, " but surely this is beingthankful for small mercies. 

On the following page Mr. Darwin says:- "Although I am fully" (why"fully"?) "convinced of the truth of the views given in this volumeunder the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convinceexperienced naturalists, " &c. I have not quoted the whole of Mr. Darwin's sentence, but it implies that any experienced naturalistwho remained unconvinced was an old-fashioned, prejudiced person. Iconfess that this is what I rather feel about the experiencednaturalists who differ in only too great numbers from myself, but Idid not expect to find so much of the old Adam remaining in Mr. Darwin; I did not expect to find him support me in the belief thatnaturalists are made of much the same stuff as other people, and, ifthey are wise, will look upon new theories with distrust until theyfind them becoming generally accepted. I am not sure that Mr. Darwin is not just a little bit flippant here. 

Sometimes I ask myself whether it is possible that, not beingconvinced, I may be an experienced naturalist after all; at othertimes, when I read Mr. Darwin's works and those of his eulogists, Iwonder whether there is not some other Mr. Darwin, some other"Origin of Species, " some other Professors Huxley, Tyndal, and RayLankester, and whether in each case some malicious fiend has notpalmed off a counterfeit upon me that differs toto caelo from theoriginal. I felt exactly the same when I read Goethe's "WilhelmMeister"; I could not believe my eyes, which nevertheless told methat the dull diseased trash I was so toilsomely reading was a workwhich was commonly held to be one of the great literary masterpiecesof the world. It seemed to me that there must be some other Goetheand some other Wilhelm Meister. Indeed I find myself sodepressingly out of harmony with the prevailing not opinion only, but spirit--if, indeed, the Huxleys, Tyndals, Miss Buckleys, RayLankesters, and Romaneses express the prevailing spirit asaccurately as they appear to do--that at times I find it difficultto believe I am not the victim of hallucination; nevertheless I knowthat either every canon, whether of criticism or honourable conduct, which I have learned to respect is an impudent swindle, suitable forthe cloister only, and having no force or application in the outsideworld; or else that Mr. Darwin and his supporters are misleading thepublic to the full as much as the theologians of whom they speak attimes so disapprovingly. They sin, moreover, with incomparably lessexcuse. Right as they doubtless are in much, and much as wedoubtless owe them (so we owe much also to the theologians, and theyalso are right in much), they are giving way to a temper whichcannot be indulged with impunity. I know the great power ofacademicism; I know how instinctively academicism everywhere mustrange itself on Mr. Darwin's side, and how askance it must look onthose who write as I do; but I know also that there is a powerbefore which even academicism must bow, and to this power I look notunhopefully for support. 

As regards Mr. Spencer's contention that Mr. Darwin leaned moretowards function as he grew older, I do not doubt that at the end ofhis life Mr. Darwin believed modification to be mainly due tofunction, but the passage quoted on page 62 written in 1839, coupledwith the concluding paragraph of the "Origin of Species" written in1859, and allowed to stand during seventeen years of revision, though so much else was altered--these passages, when their datesand surroundings are considered, suggest strongly that Mr. Darwinthought during all the forty years or so thus covered exactly as hisgrandfather and Lamarck had done, and indeed as all sensible peoplesince Buffon wrote have done if they have accepted evolution at all. 

Then why should he not have said so? What object could he have inwriting an elaborate work to support a theory which he knew all thetime to be untenable? The impropriety of such a course, unless thework was, like Buffon's, transparently ironical, could only bematched by its fatuousness, or indeed by the folly of one who shouldassign action so motiveless to any one out of a lunatic asylum. 

This sounds well, but unfortunately we cannot forget that when Mr. Darwin wrote the "Origin of Species" he claimed to be the originatorof the theory of descent with modification generally; that he didthis without one word of reference either to Buffon or ErasmusDarwin until the first six thousand copies of his book had beensold, and then with as meagre, inadequate notice as can be wellconceived. Lamarck was just named in the first editions of the"Origin of Species, " but only to be told that Mr. Darwin had not gotanything to give him, and he must go away; the author of the"Vestiges of Creation" was also just mentioned, but only in asentence full of such gross misrepresentation that Mr. Darwin didnot venture to stand by it, and expunged it in later editions, asusual, without calling attention to what he had done. It would havebeen in the highest degree imprudent, not to say impossible, for oneso conscientious as Mr. Darwin to have taken the line he took inrespect of descent with modification generally, if he were notprovided with some ostensibly distinctive feature, in virtue ofwhich, if people said anything, he might claim to have advancedsomething different, and widely different, from the theory ofevolution propounded by his illustrious predecessors; a distinctivetheory of some sort, therefore, had got to be looked for--and ifpeople look in this spirit they can generally find. 

I imagine that Mr. Darwin, casting about for a substantialdifference, and being unable to find one, committed the Gladstonianblunder of mistaking an unsubstantial for a substantial one. It wasdoubtless because he suspected it that he never took us fully intohis confidence, nor in all probability allowed even to himself howdeeply he distrusted it. Much, however, as he disliked theaccumulation of accidental variations, he disliked not claiming thetheory of descent with modification still more; and if he was toclaim this, accidental his variations had got to be. Accidentalthey accordingly were, but in as obscure and perfunctory a fashionas Mr. Darwin could make them consistently with their being to handas accidental variations should later developments make thisconvenient. Under these circumstances it was hardly to be expectedthat Mr. Darwin should help the reader to follow the workings of hismind--nor, again, that a book the writer of which was hampered as Ihave supposed should prove clear and easy reading. 

The attitude of Mr. Darwin's mind, whatever it may have been inregard to the theory of descent with modification generally, goes sofar to explain his attitude in respect to the theory of naturalselection (which, it cannot be too often repeated, is only one ofthe conditions of existence advanced as the main means ofmodification by the earlier evolutionists), that it is worth whileto settle the question once for all whether Mr. Darwin did or didnot believe himself justified in claiming the theory of descent asan original discovery of his own. This will be a task of somelittle length, and may perhaps try the reader's patience, as itassuredly tried mine; if, however, he will read the two followingchapters, he will probably be able to make up his mind upon muchthat will otherwise, if he thinks about it at all, continue topuzzle him. 

CHAPTER XIII--Darwin's Claim to Descent with Modification

Mr. Allen, in his "Charles Darwin, " {168a} says that "in the publicmind Mr. Darwin is commonly regarded as the discoverer and founderof the evolution hypothesis, " and on p. 177 he says that to most menDarwinism and evolution mean one and the same thing. Mr. Allendeclares misconception on this matter to be "so extremely general"as to be "almost universal;" this is more true than creditable toMr. Darwin. 

Mr. Allen says {168b} that though Mr. Darwin gained "far widergeneral acceptance" for both the doctrine of descent in general, andfor that of the descent of man from a simious or semi-simiousancestor in particular, "he laid no sort of claim to originality orproprietorship in either theory. " This is not the case. No one canclaim a theory more frequently and more effectually than Mr. Darwinclaimed descent with modification, nor, as I have already said, isit likely that the misconception of which Mr. Allen complains wouldbe general, if he had not so claimed it. The "Origin of Species"begins:-

"When on board H. M. S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck withcertain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of SouthAmerica, and in the geological relation of the present to the pastinhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throwsome light on the origin of species--that mystery of mysteries, asit has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On myreturn home it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhapsbe made out on this question by patiently accumulating andreflecting upon all sorts of facts which could possibly have anybearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculateupon the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in1844 {169a} into a sketch of the conclusions which then seemed to meprobable. From that period to the present day I have steadilypursued the same object. I hope I may be excused these personaldetails, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in comingto a decision. "

This is bland, but peremptory. Mr. Darwin implies that the mereasking of the question how species has come about opened up a fieldinto which speculation itself had hardly yet ventured to intrude. It was the mystery of mysteries; one of our greatest philosophershad said so; not one little feeble ray of light had ever yet beenthrown upon it. Mr. Darwin knew all this, and was appalled at thegreatness of the task that lay before him; still, after he hadpondered on what he had seen in South America, it really did occurto him, that if he was very very patient, and went on reflecting foryears and years longer, upon all sorts of facts, good, bad, andindifferent, which could possibly have any bearing on the subject--and what fact might not possibly have some bearing?--well, something, as against the nothing that had been made out hitherto, might by some faint far-away possibility be one day dimly seem. Itwas only what he had seen in South America that made all this occurto him. He had never seen anything about descent with modificationin any book, nor heard any one talk about it as having been putforward by other people; if he had, he would, of course, have beenthe first to say so; he was not as other philosophers are; so themountain went on for years and years gestating, but still there wasno labour. 

"My work, " continues Mr. Darwin, "is now nearly finished; but as itwill take me two or three years to complete it, and as my health isfar from strong, I have been urged to publish this abstract. I havebeen more especially induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is nowstudying the natural history of the Malay Archipelago, has arrivedat almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on theorigin of species. " Mr. Darwin was naturally anxious to forestallMr. Wallace, and hurried up with his book. What reader, on findingdescent with modification to be its most prominent feature, coulddoubt--especially if new to the subject, as the greater number ofMr. Darwin's readers in 1859 were--that this same descent withmodification was the theory which Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace hadjointly hit upon, and which Mr. Darwin was so anxious to show thathe had not been hasty in adopting? When Mr. Darwin went on to saythat his abstract would be very imperfect, and that he could notgive references and authorities for his several statements, we didnot suppose that such an apology could be meant to cover silenceconcerning writers who during their whole lives, or nearly so, hadborne the burden and heat of the day in respect of descent withmodification in its most extended application. "I much regret, "says Mr. Darwin, "that want of space prevents my having thesatisfaction of acknowledging the generous assistance I havereceived from very many naturalists, some of them personally unknownto me. " This is like what the Royal Academicians say when they donot intend to hang our pictures; they can, however, generally findspace for a picture if they want to hang it, and we assume withsafety that there are no master-works by painters of the veryhighest rank for which no space has been available. Want of spacewill, indeed, prevent my quoting from more than one other paragraphof Mr. Darwin's introduction; this paragraph, however, should alonesuffice to show how inaccurate Mr. Allen is in saying that Mr. Darwin "laid no sort of claim to originality or proprietorship" inthe theory of descent with modification, and this is the point withwhich we are immediately concerned. Mr. Darwin says:-

"In considering the origin of species, it is quite conceivable thata naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to theconclusion that each species had not been independently created, buthad descended like varieties from other species. "

It will be observed that not only is no hint given here that descentwith modification was a theory which, though unknown to the generalpublic, had been occupying the attention of biologists for a hundredyears and more, but it is distinctly implied that this was not thecase. When Mr. Darwin said it was "conceivable that a naturalistmight" arrive at the theory of descent, straightforward readers tookhim to mean that though this was conceivable, it had never, to Mr. Darwin's knowledge, been done. If we had a notion that we hadalready vaguely heard of the theory that men and the lower animalswere descended from common ancestors, we must have been wrong; itwas not this that we had heard of, but something else, which, thoughdoubtless a little like it, was all wrong, whereas this wasobviously going to be all right. 

To follow the rest of the paragraph with the closeness that itmerits would be a task at once so long and so unpleasant that I willomit further reference to any part of it except the last sentence. That sentence runs:-

"In the case of the mistletoe, which draws its nourishment fromcertain trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certainbirds, and which has flowers with separate sexes absolutelyrequiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from oneflower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for thestructure of this parasite, with its relations to several distinctorganic beings, by the effects of the external conditions, or ofhabit, or of the volition of the plant itself. "

Doubtless it would be preposterous to refer the structure of eitherwoodpecker or mistletoe to the single agency of any one of thesethree causes; but neither Lamarck nor any other writer on evolutionhas, so far as I know, even contemplated this; the earlyevolutionists supposed organic modification to depend on the actionand interaction of all three, and I venture to think that this willere long be considered as, to say the least of it, not morepreposterous than the assigning of the largely preponderating sharein the production of such highly and variously correlated organismsas the mistletoe and woodpecker mainly to luck pure and simple, asis done by Mr. Charles Darwin's theory. 

It will be observed that in the paragraph last quoted from, Mr. Darwin, more suo, is careful not to commit himself. All he has saidis, that it would be preposterous to do something thepreposterousness of which cannot be reasonably disputed; theimpression, however, is none the less effectually conveyed, thatsome one of the three assigned agencies, taken singly, was the onlycause of modification ever yet proposed, if, indeed, any writer hadeven gone so far as this. We knew we did not know much about thematter ourselves, and that Mr. Darwin was a naturalist of long andhigh standing; we naturally, therefore, credited him with the samegood faith as a writer that we knew in ourselves as readers; itnever so much as crossed our minds to suppose that the head which hewas holding up all dripping before our eyes as that of a fool, wasnot that of a fool who had actually lived and written, but only of afigure of straw which had been dipped in a bucket of red paint. Naturally enough we concluded, since Mr. Darwin seemed to say so, that if his predecessors had nothing better to say for themselvesthan this, it would not be worth while to trouble about themfurther; especially as we did not know who they were, nor what theyhad written, and Mr. Darwin did not tell us. It would be better andless trouble to take the goods with which it was plain Mr. Darwinwas going to provide us, and ask no questions. We have seen thateven tolerably obvious conclusions were rather slow in occurring topoor simple-minded Mr. Darwin, and may be sure that it never onceoccurred to him that the British public would be likely to arguethus; he had no intention of playing the scientific confidence trickupon us. I dare say not, but unfortunately the result has closelyresembled the one that would have ensued if Mr. Darwin had had suchan intention. 

The claim to originality made so distinctly in the opening sentencesof the" Origin of Species" is repeated in a letter to ProfessorHaeckel, written October 8, 1864, and giving an account of thedevelopment of his belief in descent with modification. Thisletter, part of which is quoted by Mr. Allen, {173a} is given on p. 134 of the English translation of Professor Haeckel's "History ofCreation, " {173b} and runs as follows:-

"In South America three classes of facts were brought stronglybefore my mind. Firstly, the manner in which closely allied speciesreplace species in going southward. Secondly, the close affinity ofthe species inhabiting the islands near South America to thoseproper to the continent. This struck me profoundly, especially thedifference of the species in the adjoining islets in the GalapagosArchipelago. Thirdly, the relation of the living Edentata andRodentia to the extinct species. I shall never forget myastonishment when I dug out a gigantic piece of armour like that ofthe living armadillo. 

"Reflecting on these facts, and collecting analogous ones, it seemedto me probable that allied species were descended from a commonancestor. But during several years I could not conceive how eachform could have been modified so as to become admirably adapted toits place in nature. I began, therefore, to study domesticatedanimals and cultivated plants, and after a time perceived that man'spower of selecting and breeding from certain individuals was themost powerful of all means in the production of new races. Havingattended to the habits of animals and their relations to thesurrounding conditions, I was able to realise the severe strugglefor existence to which all organisms are subjected, and mygeological observations had allowed me to appreciate to a certainextent the duration of past geological periods. Therefore, when Ihappened to read Malthus on population, the idea of naturalselection flashed on me. Of all minor points, the last which Iappreciated was the importance and cause of the principle ofdivergence. "

This is all very naive, and accords perfectly with the introductoryparagraphs of the "Origin of Species;" it gives us the same pictureof a solitary thinker, a poor, lonely, friendless student of nature, who had never so much as heard of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, orLamarck. Unfortunately, however, we cannot forget the descriptionof the influences which, according to Mr. Grant Allen, did inreality surround Mr. Darwin's youth, and certainly they are morewhat we should have expected than those suggested rather thanexpressly stated by Mr. Darwin. "Everywhere around him, " says Mr. Allen, {174a} "in his childhood and youth these great but formless"(why "formless"?) "evolutionary ideas were brewing and fermenting. The scientific society of his elders and of the contemporaries amongwhom he grew up was permeated with the leaven of Laplace andLamarck, of Hutton and of Herschel. Inquiry was especiallyeverywhere rife as to the origin and nature of specific distinctionsamong plants and animals. Those who believed in the doctrine ofBuffon and of the 'Zoonomia, ' and those who disbelieved in it, alike, were profoundly interested and agitated in soul by the far-reaching implications of that fundamental problem. On every sideevolutionism, in its crude form. " (I suppose Mr. Allen could nothelp saying "in its crude form, " but descent with modification in1809 meant, to all intents and purposes, and was understood to mean, what it means now, or ought to mean, to most people. ) "Theuniversal stir, " says Mr. Allen on the following page, "and deepprying into evolutionary questions which everywhere existed amongscientific men in his early days was naturally communicated to a ladborn of a scientific family and inheriting directly in blood andbone the biological tastes and tendencies of Erasmus Darwin. "

I confess to thinking that Mr. Allen's account of the influenceswhich surrounded Mr. Darwin's youth, if tainted withpicturesqueness, is still substantially correct. On an earlier pagehe had written:- "It is impossible to take up any scientific memoirsor treatises of the first half of our own century without seeing ata glance how every mind of high original scientific importance waspermeated and disturbed by the fundamental questions aroused, butnot fully answered, by Buffon, Lamarck, and Erasmus Darwin. InLyell's letters, and in Agassiz's lectures, in the 'Botanic Journal'and in the 'Philosophical Transactions, ' in treatises on Madeirabeetles and the Australian flora, we find everywhere the thoughts ofmen profoundly influenced in a thousand directions by this universalevolutionary solvent and leaven. 

"And while the world of thought was thus seething and movingrestlessly before the wave of ideas set in motion by these variousindependent philosophers, another group of causes in another fieldwas rendering smooth the path beforehand for the future champion ofthe amended evolutionism. Geology on the one hand and astronomy onthe other were making men's minds gradually familiar with theconception of slow natural development, as opposed to immediate andmiraculous creation. 

. . . 

"The influence of these novel conceptions upon the growth and spreadof evolutionary ideas was far-reaching and twofold. In the firstplace, the discovery of a definite succession of nearly relatedorganic forms following one another with evident closeness throughthe various ages, inevitably suggested to every inquiring observerthe possibility of their direct descent one from the other. In thesecond place, the discovery that geological formations were notreally separated each from its predecessor by violent revolutions, but were the result of gradual and ordinary changes, discredited theold idea of frequent fresh creations after each catastrophe, andfamiliarised the minds of men of science with the alternative notionof slow and natural evolutionary processes. The past was seen ineffect to be the parent of the present; the present was recognisedas the child of the past. "

This is certainly not Mr. Darwin's own account of the matter. Probably the truth will lie somewhere between the two extreme views:and on the one hand, the world of thought was not seething quite sobadly as Mr. Allen represents it, while on the other, though "threeclasses of fact, " &c. , were undoubtedly "brought strongly before"Mr. Darwin's "mind in South America, " yet some of them had perhapsalready been brought before it at an earlier time, which he did nothappen to remember at the moment of writing his letter to ProfessorHaeckel and the opening paragraph of the "Origin of Species. "

CHAPTER XIV--Darwin and Descent with Modification (continued)

I have said enough to show that Mr. Darwin claimed I to have beenthe originator of the theory of descent with modification asdistinctly as any writer usually claims any theory; but it willprobably save the reader trouble in the end if I bring together agood many, though not, probably, all (for I much disliked the task, and discharged it perfunctorily), of the passages in the "Origin ofSpecies" in which the theory of descent with modification in itswidest sense is claimed expressly or by implication. I shall quotefrom the original edition, which, it should be remembered, consistedof the very unusually large number of four thousand copies, and fromwhich no important deviation was made either by addition orotherwise until a second edition of two thousand further copies hadbeen sold; the "Historical Sketch, " &c. , being first given with thethird edition. The italics, which I have employed so as to catchthe reader's eye, are mine, not Mr. Darwin's. Mr. Darwin writes:-

"Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I CANENTERTAIN NO DOUBT, AFTER THE MOST DELIBERATE STUDY ANDDISPASSIONATE JUDGMENT OF WHICH I AM CAPABLE, THAT THE VIEW WHICHMOST NATURALISTS ENTERTAIN, AND WHICH I FORMERLY ENTERTAINED--NAMELYTHAT EACH SPECIES HAS BEEN INDEPENDENTLY CREATED--IS ERRONEOUS. Iam fully convinced that species are not immutable, but that thosebelonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendantsof some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner asthe acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants ofthat species. Furthermore, I am convinced that natural selection"(or the preservation of fortunate races) "has been the main but notexclusive means of modification" (p. 6). 

It is not here expressly stated that the theory of the mutability ofspecies is Mr. Darwin's own; this, nevertheless, is the inferencewhich the great majority of his readers were likely to draw, and diddraw, from Mr. Darwin's words. 

Again:-

"It is not that all large genera are now varying much, and are thusincreasing in the number of their species, or that no small generaare now multiplying and increasing; for if this had been so it wouldhave been fatal to MY THEORY; inasmuch as geology, " &c. (p. 56). 

The words "my theory" stand in all the editions. Again:-

"This relation has a clear meaning ON MY VIEW of the subject; I lookupon all the species of any genus as having as certainly descendedfrom the same progenitor, as have the two sexes of any one of thespecies" (p. 157). 

"My view" here, especially in the absence of reference to any otherwriter as having held the same opinion, implies as its most naturalinterpretation that descent pure and simple is Mr. Darwin's view. Substitute "the theory of descent" for "my view, " and we do not feelthat we are misinterpreting the author's meaning. The words "myview" remain in all editions. 

Again:-

"Long before having arrived at this part of my work, a crowd ofdifficulties will have occurred to the reader. Some of them are sograve that to this day I can never reflect on them without beingstaggered; but to the best of my belief the greater number are onlyapparent, and those that are real are not, I think, FATAL TO MYTHEORY. 

"These difficulties and objections may be classed under thefollowing heads:- Firstly, if species have descended from otherspecies by insensibly fine gradations, why do we not everywheresee?" &c. (p. 171). 

We infer from this that "my theory" is the theory "that species havedescended from other species by insensibly fine gradations"--that isto say, that it is the theory of descent with modification; for thetheory that is being objected to is obviously the theory of descentin toto, and not a mere detail in connection with that theory. 

The words "my theory" were altered in 1872, with the sixth editionof the "Origin of species, " into "the theory;" but I am chieflyconcerned with the first edition of the work, my object being toshow that Mr. Darwin was led into his false position as regardsnatural selection by a desire to claim the theory of descent withmodification; if he claimed it in the first edition, this is enoughto give colour to the view which I take; but it must be rememberedthat descent with modification remained, by the passage just quoted"my theory, " for thirteen years, and even when in 1869 and 1872, fora reason that I can only guess at, "my theory" became generally "thetheory, " this did not make it become any one else's theory. It ishard to say whose or what it became, if the words are to beconstrued technically; practically, however, with all ingenuousreaders, "the theory" remained as much Mr. Darwin's theory as thoughthe words "my theory" had been retained, and Mr. Darwin cannot besupposed so simple-minded as not to have known this would be thecase. Moreover, it appears, from the next page but one to the onelast quoted, that Mr. Darwin claimed the theory of descent withmodification generally, even to the last, for we there read, "BY MYTHEORY these allied species have descended from a common parent, "and the "my" has been allowed, for some reason not quite obvious, tosurvive the general massacre of Mr. Darwin's "my's" which occurredin 1869 and 1872. 

Again:-

"He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met, " &c. (p. 185). 

Here the argument evidently lies between descent and independentacts of creation. This appears from the paragraph immediatelyfollowing, which begins, "He who believes in separate andinnumerable acts of creation, " &c. We therefore understand descentto be the theory so frequently spoken of by Mr. Darwin as "my. "

Again:-

"He who will go thus far, if he find on finishing this treatise thatlarge bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained BYTHE THEORY OF DESCENT, ought not to hesitate to go farther, and toadmit that a structure even as perfect as an eagle's eye might beformed BY NATURAL SELECTION, although in this case he does not knowany of the transitional grades" (p. 188). 

The natural inference from this is that descent and naturalselection are one and the same thing. 

Again:-

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed whichcould not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slightmodifications, MY THEORY would absolutely break down. But I canfind out no such case. No doubt many organs exist of which we donot know the transitional grades, more especially if we look tomuch-isolated species, round which, according to my THEORY, therehas been much extinction" (p. 189). 

This makes "my theory" to be "the theory that complex organs havearisen by numerous, successive, slight modifications;" that is tosay, to be the theory of descent with modification. The first ofthe two "my theory's" in the passage last quoted has been allowed tostand. The second became "the theory" in 1872. It is obvious, therefore, that "the theory" means "my theory;" it is not so obviouswhy the change should have been made at all, nor why the one "mytheory" should have been taken and the other left, but I will returnto this question. 

Again, Mr. Darwin writes:-

"Although we must be extremely cautious in concluding that any organcould not possibly have been produced by small successivetransitional gradations, yet, undoubtedly grave cases of difficultyoccur, some of which will be discussed in my future work" (p. 192). 

This, as usual, implies descent with modification to be the theorythat Mr. Darwin is trying to make good. 

Again:-

"I have been astonished how rarely an organ can be named towardswhich no transitional variety is known to lead . . . Why, ON THETHEORY OF CREATION, should this be so? Why should not nature havetaken a leap from structure to structure? ON THE THEORY OF NATURALSELECTION we can clearly understand why she should not; for naturalselection can act only by taking advantage of slight successivevariations; she can never take a leap, but must advance by theslowest and shortest steps" (p. 194). 

Here "the theory of natural selection" is opposed to "the theory ofcreation;" we took it, therefore, to be another way of saying "thetheory of descent with modification. "

Again:-

"We have in this chapter discussed some of the difficulties andobjections which may be urged against MY THEORY. Many of them arevery grave, but I think that in the discussion light has been thrownon several facts which, ON THE THEORY OF INDEPENDENT ACTS OFCREATION, are utterly obscure" (p. 203). 

Here we have, on the one hand, "my theory, " on the other, "independent acts of creation. " The natural antithesis toindependent acts of creation is descent, and we assumed with reasonthat Mr. Darwin was claiming this when he spoke of "my theory. " "Mytheory" became "the theory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand thefull meaning of that old canon in natural history, 'Natura non facitsaltum. ' This canon, if we look only to the present inhabitants ofthe world is not strictly correct, but if we include all those ofpast times, it must BY MY THEORY be strictly true" (p. 206). 

Here the natural interpretation of "by my theory" is "by the theoryof descent with modification;" the words "on the theory of naturalselection, " with which the sentence opens, lead us to suppose thatMr. Darwin regarded natural selection and descent as convertibleterms. "My theory" was altered to "this theory" in 1872. Six lineslower down we read, "ON MY THEORY unity of type is explained byunity of descent. " The "my" here has been allowed to stand. 

Again:-

"Again, as in the case of corporeal structure, and conformably withMY THEORY, the instinct of each species is good for itself, but hasnever, " &c. (p. 210). 

Who was to see that "my theory" did not include descent withmodification? The "my" here has been allowed to stand. 

Again:-

"The fact that instincts . . . Are liable to make mistakes;--that noinstinct has been produced for the exclusive good of other animals, but that each animal takes advantage of the instincts of others;--that the canon of natural history, 'Natura non facit saltum, ' isapplicable to instincts as well as to corporeal structure, and isplainly explicable on the foregoing views, but is otherwiseinexplicable, --ALL TEND TO CORROBORATE THE THEORY OF NATURALSELECTION" (p. 243). 

We feel that it is the theory of evolution, or descent withmodification, that is here corroborated, and that it is this whichMr. Darwin is mainly trying to establish; the sentence should haveended "all tend to corroborate the theory of descent withmodification;" the substitution of "natural selection" for descenttends to make us think that these conceptions are identical. Thatthey are so regarded, or at any rate that it is the theory ofdescent in full which Mr. Darwin has in his mind, appears from theimmediately succeeding paragraph, which begins "THIS THEORY, " andcontinues six lines lower, "For instance, we can understand, on thePRINCIPLE OF INHERITANCE, how it is that, " &c. 

Again:-

"In the first place, it should always be borne in mind what sort ofintermediate forms must, ON MY THEORY, formerly have existed" (p. 280). 

"My theory" became "the theory" in 1869. No reader who read in goodfaith could doubt that the theory of descent with modification wasbeing here intended. 

"It is just possible BY MY THEORY, that one of two living formsmight have descended from the other; for instance, a horse from atapir; but in this case DIRECT intermediate links will have existedbetween them" (p. 281). 

"My theory" became "the theory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"BY THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION all living species have beenconnected with the parent species of each genus, " &c. We took thisto mean, "By the theory of descent with modification all livingspecies, " &c. (p. 281). 

Again:-

"Some experienced conchologists are now sinking many of the veryfine species of D'Orbigny and others into the rank of varieties; andon this view we do find the kind of evidence of change which ON MYTHEORY we ought to find" (p. 297). 

"My theory" became "the theory" in 1869. 

In the fourth edition (1866), in a passage which is not in either ofthe two first editions, we read (p. 359), "So that here again wehave undoubted evidence of change in the direction required by MYTHEORY. " "My theory" became "the theory" in 1869; the theory ofdescent with modification is unquestionably intended. 

Again:-

"Geological research has done scarcely anything in breaking down thedistinction between species, by connecting them together bynumerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this not having beeneffected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the manyobjections which may be urged against MY VIEWS" (p. 299). 

We naturally took "my views" to mean descent with modification. The"my" has been allowed to stand. 

Again:-

"If, then, there be some degree of truth in these remarks, we haveno right to expect to find in our geological formations an infinitenumber of those transitional forms which ON MY THEORY assuredly haveconnected all the past and present species of the same group in onelong and branching chain of life . . . But I do not pretend that Ishould ever have suspected how poor was the record in the bestpreserved geological sections, had not the absence of innumerabletransitional links between the species which lived at thecommencement and at the close of each formation pressed so hardly ONMY THEORY" (pp. 301, 302). 

Substitute "descent with modification" for "my theory" and themeaning does not suffer. The first of the two "my theories" in thepassage last quoted was altered in 1869 into "our theory;" thesecond has been allowed to stand. 

Again:-

"The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appearin some formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists . . . As a fatal objection TO THE BELIEF IN THE TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, havereally started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal TO THETHEORY OF DESCENT WITH SLOW MODIFICATION THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION"(p. 302). 

Here "the belief in the transmutation of species, " or descent withmodification, is treated as synonymous with "the theory of descentwith slow modification through natural selection; "but it hasnowhere been explained that there are two widely different "theoriesof descent with slow modification through natural selection, " theone of which may be true enough for all practical purposes, whilethe other is seen to be absurd as soon as it is examined closely. The theory of descent with modification is not properly convertiblewith either of these two views, for descent with modification dealswith the question whether species are transmutable or no, anddispute as to the respective merits of the two natural selectionsdeals with the question how it comes to be transmuted; nevertheless, the words "the theory of descent with slow modification through theordinary course of things" (which is what "descent with modificationthrough natural selection" comes to) may be considered as expressingthe facts with practical accuracy, if the ordinary course of natureis supposed to be that modification is mainly consequent on thedischarge of some correlated function, and that modification, iffavourable, will tend to accumulate so long as the given functioncontinues important to the wellbeing of the organism; the words, however, have no correspondence with reality if they are supposed toimply that variations which are mainly matters of pure chance andunconnected in any way with function will accumulate and result inspecific difference, no matter how much each one of them may bepreserved in the generation in which it appears. In the one case, therefore, the expression natural selection may be loosely used as asynonym for descent with modification, and in the other it may not. Unfortunately with Mr. Charles Darwin the variations are mainlyaccidental. The words "through natural selection, " therefore, inthe passage last quoted carry no weight, for it is the wrong naturalselection that is, or ought to be, intended; practically, however, they derived a weight from Mr. Darwin's name to which they had notitle of their own, and we understood that "the theory of descentwith slow modification" through the kind of natural selectionostensibly intended by Mr. Darwin was a quasi-synonymous expressionfor the transmutation of species. We understood--so far as weunderstood anything beyond that we were to believe in descent withmodification--that natural selection was Mr. Darwin's theory; wetherefore concluded, since Mr. Darwin seemed to say so, that thetheory of the transmutation of species generally was so also. Atany rate we felt as regards the passage last quoted that the theoryof descent with modification was the point of attack and defence, and we supposed it to be the theory so often referred to by Mr. Darwin as "my. "

Again:-

"Some of the most ancient Silurian animals, as the Nautilus, Lingula, &c. , do not differ much from the living species; and itcannot ON MY THEORY be supposed that these old species were theprogenitors, " &c. (p. 306) . . . "Consequently IF MY THEORY BE TRUE, it is indisputable, " &c. (p. 307). 

Here the two "my theories" have been altered, the first into "ourtheory, " and the second into "the theory, " both in 1869; but, asusual, the thing that remains with the reader is the theory ofdescent, and it remains morally and practically as much claimed whencalled "the theory"--as during the many years throughout which themore open "my" distinctly claimed it. 

Again:-

"All the most eminent palaeontologists, namely, Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, E. Forbes, &c. , and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, &c. , have unanimously, oftenvehemently, maintained THE IMMUTABILITY OF SPECIES. . . . I feel howrash it is to differ from these great authorities . . . Those whothink the natural geological record in any degree perfect, and whodo not attach much weight to the facts and arguments of other kindsbrought forward in this volume, will undoubtedly at once REJECT MYTHEORY" (p. 310). 

What is "my theory" here, if not that of the mutability of species, or the theory of descent with modification? "My theory" became "thetheory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"Let us now see whether the several facts and rules relating to thegeological succession of organic beings, better accord with thecommon view of the immutability of species, or with that of theirSLOW AND GRADUAL MODIFICATION, THROUGH DESCENT AND NATURALSELECTION" (p. 312). 

The words "natural selection" are indeed here, but they might aswell be omitted for all the effect they produce. The argument isfelt to be about the two opposed theories of descent, andindependent creative efforts. 

Again:-

"These several facts accord well with MY THEORY" (p. 314). That "mytheory" is the theory of descent is the conclusion most naturallydrawn from the context. "My theory" became "our theory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"This gradual increase in the number of the species of a group isstrictly conformable WITH MY THEORY; for the process of modificationand the production of a number of allied forms must be slow andgradual, . . . Like the branching of a great tree from a singlestem, till the group becomes large" (p. 314). 

"My theory" became "the theory" in 1869. We took "my theory" to bethe theory of descent; that Mr. Darwin treats this as synonymouswith the theory of natural selection appears from the nextparagraph, on the third line of which we read, "On THE THEORY OFNATURAL SELECTION the extinction of old forms, " &c. 

Again:-

"THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION is grounded on the belief that eachnew variety and ultimately each new species, is produced andmaintained by having some advantage over those with which it comesinto competition; and the consequent extinction of less favouredforms almost inevitably follows" (p. 320). Sense and consistencycannot be made of this passage. Substitute "The theory of thepreservation of favoured races in the struggle for life" for "Thetheory of natural selection" (to do this is only taking Mr. Darwin'sown synonym for natural selection) and see what the passage comesto. "The preservation of favoured races" is not a theory, it is acommonly observed fact; it is not "grounded on the belief that eachnew variety, " &c. , it is one of the ultimate and most elementaryprinciples in the world of life. When we try to take the passageseriously and think it out, we soon give it up, and pass on, substituting "the theory of descent" for "the theory of naturalselection, " and concluding that in some way these two things must beidentical. 

Again:-

"The manner in which single species and whole groups of speciesbecome extinct accords well with THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION"(p. 322). 

Again:-

"This great fact of the parallel succession of the forms of lifethroughout the world, is explicable ON THE THEORY OF NATURALSELECTION" (p. 325). 

Again:-

"Let us now look to the mutual affinities of extinct and livingspecies. They all fall into one grand natural system; and this isat once explained ON THE PRINCIPLE OF DESCENT" (p. 329). 

Putting the three preceding passages together, we naturally inferredthat "the theory of natural selection" and "the principle ofdescent" were the same things. We knew Mr. Darwin claimed thefirst, and therefore unhesitatingly gave him the second at the sametime. 

Again:-

"Let us see how far these several facts and inferences accord withTHE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION" (p. 331)

Again:-

"Thus, ON THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION, the main factswith regard to the mutual affinities of the extinct forms of life toeach other and to living forms, seem to me explained in asatisfactory manner. And they are wholly inexplicable ON ANY OTHERVIEW" (p. 333). 

The words "seem to me" involve a claim in the absence of so much asa hint in any part of the book concerning indebtedness to earlierwriters. 

Again:-

"ON THE THEORY OF DESCENT, the full meaning of the fossil remains, "&c. (p. 336). 

In the following paragraph we read:-

"But in one particular sense the more recent forms must, ON MYTHEORY, be higher than the more ancient. "

Again:-

"Agassiz insists that ancient animals resemble to a certain extentthe embryos of recent animals of the same classes; or that thegeological succession of extinct forms is in some degree parallel tothe embryological development of recent forms. . . . This doctrineof Agassiz accords well with THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION" (p. 338). 

"The theory of natural selection" became "our theory" in 1869. Theopinion of Agassiz accords excellently with the theory of descentwith modification, but it is not easy to see how it bears upon thefact that lucky races are preserved in the struggle for life--which, according to Mr. Darwin's title-page, is what is meant by naturalselection. 

Again:-

"ON THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION, the great law of thelong-enduring but not immutable succession of the same types withinthe same areas, is at once explained" (p. 340). 

Again:-

"It must not be forgotten that, ON MY THEORY, all the species of thesame genus have descended from some one species" (p. 341). 

"My theory" became "our theory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject MY WHOLE THEORY" (p. 342). 

"My" became "our" in 1869. 

Again:-

"Passing from these difficulties, the other great leading facts inpalaeontology agree admirably with THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITHMODIFICATION THROUGH VARIATION AND NATURAL SELECTION" (p. 343). 

Again:-

The succession of the same types of structure within the same areasduring the later geological periods CEASES TO BE MYSTERIOUS, and ISSIMPLY EXPLAINED BY INHERITANCE (p. 345). 

I suppose inheritance was not when Mr. Darwin wrote consideredmysterious. The last few words have been altered to "and isintelligible on the principle of inheritance. " It seems as thoughMr. Darwin did not like saying that inheritance was not mysterious, but had no objection to implying that it was intelligible. 

The next paragraph begins--"If, then, the geological record be asimperfect as I believe it to be, . . . The main objections TO THETHEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION are greatly diminished or disappear. Onthe other hand, all the chief laws of palaeontology plainlyproclaim, AS IT SEEMS TO ME, THAT SPECIES HAVE BEEN PRODUCED BYORDINARY GENERATION. "

Here again the claim to the theory of descent with modification isunmistakable; it cannot, moreover, but occur to us that if species"have been produced by ordinary generation, " then ordinarygeneration has as good a claim to be the main means of originatingspecies as natural selection has. It is hardly necessary to pointout that ordinary generation involves descent with modification, forall known offspring differ from their parents, so far, at any rate, as that practised judges can generally tell them apart. 

Again:-

"We see in these facts some deep organic bond, prevailing throughoutspace and time, over the same areas of land and water, andindependent of their physical condition. The naturalist must feellittle curiosity who is not led to inquire what this bond is. 

"This bond, ON MY THEORY, IS SIMPLY INHERITANCE, that cause whichalone, " &c. (p. 350). 

This passage was altered in 1869 to "The bond is simplyinheritance. " The paragraph concludes, "ON THIS PRINCIPLE OFINHERITANCE WITH MODIFICATION, we can understand how it is thatsections of genera . . . Are confined to the same areas, " &c. 

Again:-

"He who rejects it rejects the vera causa of ordinary generation, "&c. (p. 352). 

We naturally ask, Why call natural selection the "main means ofmodification, " if "ordinary generation" is a vera causa?

Again:-

"In discussing this subject, we shall be enabled at the same time toconsider a point equally important for us, namely, whether theseveral distinct species of a genus, WHICH ON MY THEORY HAVE ALLDESCENDED FROM A COMMON ANCESTOR, can have migrated (undergoingmodification during some part of their migration) from the areainhabited by their progenitor" (p. 354). 

The words "on my theory" became "on our theory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"With those organic beings which never intercross (if such exist)THE SPECIES, ON MY THEORY, MUST HAVE DESCENDED FROM A SUCCESSION OFIMPROVED VARIETIES, " &c. (p. 355). 

The words "on my theory" were cut out in 1869. 

Again:-

"A slow southern migration of a marine fauna will account, ON THETHEORY OF MODIFICATION, for many closely allied forms, " &c. (p. 372). 

Again:-

"But the existence of several quite distinct species, belonging togenera exclusively confined to the southern hemisphere, is, ON MYTHEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION, a far more remarkable case ofdifficulty" (p. 381). 

"My" became "the" in 1866 with the fourth edition. This was themost categorical claim to the theory of descent with modification inthe "Origin of Species. " The "my" here is the only one that wastaken out before 1869. I suppose Mr. Darwin thought that with theremoval of this "my" he had ceased to claim the theory of descentwith modification. Nothing, however, could be gained by calling thereader's attention to what had been done, so nothing was said aboutit. 

Again:-

"Some species of fresh-water shells have a very wide range, ANDALLIED SPECIES, WHICH, ON MY THEORY, ARE DESCENDED FROM A SINGLESOURCE, prevail throughout the world" (p. 385). 

"My theory" became "our theory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"In the following remarks I shall not confine myself to the merequestion of dispersal, but shall consider some other facts whichbear upon the truth of THE TWO THEORIES OF INDEPENDENT CREATION ANDOF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION" (p. 389). What can be plainer thanthat the theory which Mr. Darwin espouses, and has so frequentlycalled "my, " is descent with modification?

Again:-

"But as these animals and their spawn are known to be immediatelykilled by sea-water, ON MY VIEW, we can see that there would begreat difficulty in their transportal across the sea, and thereforewhy they do not exist on any oceanic island. But why, ON THE THEORYOF CREATION, they should not have been created there, it would bevery difficult to explain" (p. 393). 

"On my view" was cut out in 1869. 

On the following page we read--"On my view this question can easilybe answered. " "On my view" is retained in the latest edition. 

Again:-

"Yet there must be, ON MY VIEW, some unknown but highly efficientmeans for their transportation" (p. 397). 

"On my view" became "according to our view" in 1869. 

Again:-

"I believe this grand fact can receive no sort of explanation ON THEORDINARY VIEW OF INDEPENDENT CREATION; whereas, ON THE VIEW HEREMAINTAINED, it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands would be likelyto receive colonists . . . From America, and the Cape de VerdeIslands from Africa; and that such colonists would be liable tomodification; the principle of inheritance still betraying theiroriginal birth-place" (p. 399). 

Again:-

"With respect to the distinct species of the same genus which, ON MYTHEORY, must have spread from one parent source, if we make the sameallowances as before, " &c. 

"On my theory" became "on our theory" in 1869. 

Again:-

"ON MY THEORY these several relations throughout time and space areintelligible; . . . The forms within each class have been connectedby the same bond of ordinary generation; . . . In both cases thelaws of variation have been the same, and modifications have beenaccumulated by the same power of natural selection" (p. 410). 

"On my theory" became "according to our theory" in 1869, and naturalselection is no longer a power, but has become a means. 

Again:-

"I BELIEVE THAT SOMETHING MORE IS INCLUDED, and that propinquity ofdescent--the only known cause of the similarity of organic beings--is the bond, hidden as it is by various degrees of modification, which is partially revealed to us by our classification" (p. 418). 

Again:-

"THUS, ON THE VIEW WHICH I HOLD, the natural system is genealogicalin its arrangement, like a pedigree" (p. 422). 

"On the view which I hold" was cut out in 1872. 

Again:-

"We may feel almost sure, ON THE THEORY OF DESCENT, that thesecharacters have been inherited from a common ancestor" (p. 426). 

Again:-

"ON MY VIEW OF CHARACTERS BEING OF REAL IMPORTANCE FORCLASSIFICATION ONLY IN SO FAR AS THEY REVEAL DESCENT, we can clearlyunderstand, " &c. (p. 427). 

"On my view" became "on the view" in 1872. 

Again:-

"The more aberrant any form is, the greater must be the number ofconnecting forms which, ON MY THEORY, have been exterminated andutterly lost" (p. 429). 

The words "on my theory" were excised in 1869. 

Again:-

"Finally, we have seen that NATURAL SELECTION. . . EXPLAINS thatgreat and universal feature in the affinities of all organic beings, namely, their subordination in group under group. WE USE THEELEMENT OF DESCENT in classing the individuals of both sexes, &c. ; . . . WE USE DESCENT in classing acknowledged varieties; . . . And Ibelieve this element of descent is the hidden bond of connectionwhich naturalists have sought under the term of the natural system"(p. 433). 

Lamarck was of much the same opinion, as I showed in "Evolution Oldand New. " He wrote:- "An arrangement should be consideredsystematic, or arbitrary, when it does not conform to thegenealogical order taken by nature in the development of the thingsarranged, and when, by consequence, it is not founded on well-considered analogies. There is a natural order in every departmentof nature; it is the order in which its several component items havebeen successively developed. " {195a} The point, however, whichshould more particularly engage our attention is that Mr. Darwin inthe passage last quoted uses "natural selection" and "descent" asthough they were convertible terms. 

Again:-

"Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain thissimilarity of pattern in members of the same class by utility or thedoctrine of final causes . . . ON THE ORDINARY VIEW OF THEINDEPENDENT CREATION OF EACH BEING, we can only say that so it is . . . THE EXPLANATION IS MANIFEST ON THE THEORY OF THE NATURALSELECTION OF SUCCESSIVE SLIGHT modifications, " &c. (p. 435). 

This now stands--"The explanation is to a large extent simple, onthe theory of the selection of successive, slight modifications. " Ido not like "a large extent" of simplicity; but, waiving this, thepoint at issue is not whether the ordinary course of things ensuresa quasi-selection of the types that are best adapted to theirsurroundings, with accumulation of modification in variousdirections, and hence wide eventual difference between speciesdescended from common progenitors--no evolutionist since 1750 hasdoubted this--but whether a general principle underlies themodifications from among which the quasi-selection is made, orwhether they are destitute of such principle and referable, as faras we are concerned, to chance only. Waiving this again, we notethat the theories of independent creation and of natural selectionare contrasted, as though they were the only two alternatives;knowing the two alternatives to be independent creation and descentwith modification, we naturally took natural selection to meandescent with modification. 

Again:-

"ON THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION we can satisfactorily answerthese questions" (p. 437). 

"Satisfactorily" now stands "to a certain extent. "

Again:-

"ON MY VIEW these terms may be used literally" (pp. 438, 439). 

"On my view" became "according to the views here maintained suchlanguage may be, " &c. , in 1869. 

Again:-

"I believe all these facts can be explained as follows, ON THE VIEWOF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION" (p. 443). 

This sentence now ends at "follows. "

Again:-

"Let us take a genus of birds, DESCENDED, ON MY THEORY, FROM SOMEONE PARENT SPECIES, and of which the several new species HAVE BECOMEMODIFIED THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION in accordance with their divershabits" (p. 446). 

The words "on my theory" were cut out in 1869, and the passage nowstands, "Let us take a group of birds, descended from some ancientform and modified through natural selection for different habits. "

Again:-

"ON MY VIEW OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION, the origin of rudimentaryorgans is simple" (p. 454). 

"On my view" became "ON THE VIEW" in 1869. 

Again:-

"ON THE VIEW OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION, " &c. (p. 455). 

Again:-

"ON THIS SAME VIEW OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION all the great factsof morphology become intelligible" (p. 456). 

Again:-

"That many and grave objections may be advanced against THE THEORYOF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION, I do notdeny" (p. 459). 

This now stands, "That many and serious objections may be advancedagainst THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION THROUGH VARIATIONAND NATURAL SELECTION, I do not deny. "

Again:-

"There are, it must be admitted, cases of special difficulty ON THETHEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION" (p. 460). 

"On" has become "opposed to;" it is not easy to see why thisalteration was made, unless because "opposed to" is longer. 

Again:-

"Turning to geographical distribution, the difficulties encounteredON THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION are grave enough. "

"Grave" has become "serious, " but there is no other change (p. 461). 

Again:-

"As ON THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION an interminable number ofintermediate forms must have existed, " &c. 

"On" has become "according to"--which is certainly longer, but doesnot appear to possess any other advantage over "on. " It is not easyto understand why Mr. Darwin should have strained at such a gnat as"on, " though feeling no discomfort in such an expression as "aninterminable number. "

Again:-

"This is the most forcible of the many objections which may be urgedAGAINST MY THEORY . . . For certainly, ON MY THEORY, " &c. (p. 463). 

The "my" in each case became "the" in 1869. 

Again:-

"Such is the sum of the several chief objections and difficultieswhich may be justly urged AGAINST MY THEORY" (p. 465). 

"My" became "the" in 1869. 

Again:-

"Grave as these several difficulties are, IN MY JUDGMENT they do notoverthrow THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATIONS" (p. 466). 

This now stands, "Serious as these several objections are, in myjudgment they are by no means sufficient to overthrow THE THEORY OFDESCENT WITH SUBSEQUENT MODIFICATION;" which, again, is longer, andshows at what little, little gnats Mr. Darwin could strain, but isno material amendment on the original passage. 

Again:-

"THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION, even if we looked no further thanthis, SEEMS TO ME TO BE IN ITSELF PROBABLE" (p. 469). 

This now stands, "The theory of natural selection, even if we lookno further than this, SEEMS TO BE IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE PROBABLE. "It is not only probable, but was very sufficiently proved longbefore Mr. Darwin was born, only it must be the right naturalselection and not Mr. Charles Darwin's. 

Again:-

"It is inexplicable, ON THE THEORY OF CREATION, why a partdeveloped, &c. , . . . BUT, ON MY VIEW, this part has undergone, " &c. (p. 474). 

"On my view" became "on our view" in 1869. 

Again:-

"Glancing at instincts, marvellous as some are, they offer nogreater difficulty than does corporeal structure ON THE THEORY OFTHE NATURAL SELECTION OF SUCCESSIVE, SLIGHT, BUT PROFITABLEMODIFICATIONS" (p. 474). 

Again:-

"ON THE VIEW OF ALL THE SPECIES OF THE SAME GENUS HAVING DESCENDEDFROM A COMMON PARENT, and having inherited much in common, we canunderstand how it is, " &c. (p. 474). 

Again:-

"If we admit that the geological record is imperfect in an extremedegree, then such facts as the record gives, support THE THEORY OFDESCENT WITH MODIFICATION. 

" . . . The extinction of species . . . Almost inevitably follows onTHE PRINCIPLE OF NATURAL SELECTION" (p. 475). 

The word "almost" has got a great deal to answer for. 

Again:-

"We can understand, ON THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION, mostof the great leading facts in Distribution" (p. 476). 

Again:-

"The existence of closely allied or representative species in anytwo areas, implies, ON THE THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION, thatthe same parents formerly inhabited both areas . . . It must beadmitted that these facts receive no explanation ON THE THEORY OFCREATION . . . The fact . . . Is intelligible ON THE THEORY OFNATURAL SELECTION, with its contingencies of extinction anddivergence of character" (p. 478). 

Again:-

"Innumerable other such facts at once explain themselves ON THETHEORY OF DESCENT WITH SLOW AND SLIGHT SUCCESSIVE MODIFICATIONS" (p. 479). 

"Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight tounexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain numberof facts, WILL CERTAINLY REJECT MY THEORY" (p. 482). 

"My theory" became "the theory" in 1869. 

From this point to the end of the book the claim is so ubiquitous, either expressly or by implication, that it is difficult to knowwhat not to quote. I must, however, content myself with only a fewmore extracts. Mr. Darwin says:-

"It may be asked HOW FAR I EXTEND THE DOCTRINE OF THE MODIFICATIONOF SPECIES" (p. 482). 

Again:-

"Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief thatall animals and plants have descended from some one prototype . . . Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organicbeings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from someone primordial form, into which life was first breathed. "

From an amoeba--Adam, in fact, though not in name. This lastsentence is now completely altered, as well it might be. 

Again:-

"When THE VIEWS ENTERTAINED IN THIS VOLUME ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, OR WHEN ANALOGOUS VIEWS ARE GENERALLY ADMITTED, we can dimly foreseethat there will be a considerable revolution in natural history" (p. 434). 

Possibly. This now stands, "When the views advanced by me in thisvolume, and by Mr. Wallace, or when analogous views on the origin ofspecies are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee, " &c. When the"Origin of Species" came out we knew nothing of any analogous views, and Mr. Darwin's words passed unnoticed. I do not say that he knewthey would, but he certainly ought to have known. 

Again:-

"A GRAND AND ALMOST UNTRODDEN FIELD OF INQUIRY WILL BE OPENED, onthe causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on theeffects of use and disuse, on the direct action of externalconditions, and so forth" (p. 486). 

Buffon and Lamarck had trodden this field to some purpose, but not ahint to this effect is vouchsafed to us. Again; -

"WHEN I VIEW ALL BEINGS NOT AS SPECIAL CREATIONS, BUT AS THE LINEALDESCENDANTS OF SOME FEW BEINGS WHICH LIVED LONG BEFORE the first bedof the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to becomeennobled . . . We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurityas to foretell that it will be the common and widely spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups, which will ultimatelyprevail and procreate new and dominant species. "

There is no alteration in this except that "Silurian" has become"Cambrian. "

The idyllic paragraph with which Mr. Darwin concludes his bookcontains no more special claim to the theory of descent en bloc thanmany another which I have allowed to pass unnoticed; it has been, moreover, dealt with in an earlier chapter (Chapter XII. )

CHAPTER XV--The Excised "My's"

I have quoted in all ninety-seven passages, as near as I can makethem, in which Mr. Darwin claimed the theory of descent, eitherexpressly by speaking of "my theory" in such connection that thetheory of descent ought to be, and, as the event has shown, was, understood as being intended, or by implication, as in the openingpassages of the "Origin of Species, " in which he tells us how he hadthought the matter out without acknowledging obligation of any kindto earlier writers. The original edition of the "Origin of Species"contained 490 pp. , exclusive of index; a claim, therefore, more orless explicit, to the theory of descent was made on the averageabout once in every five pages throughout the book from end to end;the claims were most prominent in the most important parts, that isto say, at the beginning and end of the work, and this made themmore effective than they are made even by their frequency. A moreubiquitous claim than this it would be hard to find in the case ofany writer advancing a new theory; it is difficult, therefore, tounderstand how Mr. Grant Allen could have allowed himself to saythat Mr. Darwin "laid no sort of claim to originality orproprietorship" in the theory of descent with modification. 

Nevertheless I have only found one place where Mr. Darwin pinnedhimself down beyond possibility of retreat, however ignominious, byusing the words "my theory of descent with modification. " {202a} Heoften, as I have said, speaks of "my theory, " and then shortlyafterwards of "descent with modification, " under such circumstancesthat no one who had not been brought up in the school of Mr. Gladstone could doubt that the two expressions referred to the samething. He seems to have felt that he must be a poor wriggler if hecould not wriggle out of this; give him any loophole, however small, and Mr. Darwin could trust himself to get out through it; but he didnot like saying what left no loophole at all, and "my theory ofdescent with modification" closed all exits so firmly that it issurprising he should ever have allowed himself to use these words. As I have said, Mr. Darwin only used this direct categorical form ofclaim in one place; and even here, after it had stood through threeeditions, two of which had been largely altered, he could stand itno longer, and altered the "my" into "the" in 1866, with the fourthedition of the "Origin of Species. "

This was the only one of the original forty-five my's that was cutout before the appearance of the fifth edition in 1869, and itsexcision throws curious light upon the working of Mr. Darwin's mind. The selection of the most categorical my out of the whole forty-five, shows that Mr. Darwin knew all about his my's, and, whileseeing reason to remove this, held that the others might very wellstand. He even left "On my VIEW of descent with modification, "{203a} which, though more capable of explanation than "my theory, "&c. , still runs it close; nevertheless the excision of even a singlemy that had been allowed to stand through such close revision asthose to which the "Origin of Species" had been subjected betraysuneasiness of mind, for it is impossible that even Mr. Darwin shouldnot have known that though the my excised in 1866 was the mosttechnically categorical, the others were in reality just as guilty, though no tower of Siloam in the shape of excision fell upon them. If, then, Mr. Darwin was so uncomfortable about this one as to cutit out, it is probable he was far from comfortable about the others. 

This view derives confirmation from the fact that in 1869, with thefifth edition of the "Origin of Species, " there was a stampede ofmy's throughout the whole work, no less than thirty out of theoriginal forty-five being changed into "the, " "our, " "this, " or someother word, which, though having all the effect of my, still did notsay "my" outright. These my's were, if I may say so, sneaked out;nothing was said to explain their removal to the reader or callattention to it. Why, it may be asked, having been consideredduring the revisions of 1861 and 1866, and with only one exceptionallowed to stand, why should they be smitten with a homing instinctin such large numbers with the fifth edition? It cannot bemaintained that Mr. Darwin had had his attention called now for thefirst time to the fact that he had used my perhaps a little toofreely, and had better be more sparing of it for the future. The myexcised in 1866 shows that Mr. Darwin had already considered thisquestion, and saw no reason to remove any but the one that left himno loophole. Why, then, should that which was considered andapproved in 1859, 1861, and 1866 (not to mention the second editionof 1859 or 1860) be retreated from with every appearance of panic in1869? Mr. Darwin could not well have cut out more than he did--notat any rate without saying something about it, and it would not beeasy to know exactly what say. Of the fourteen my's that were leftin 1869, five more were cut out in 1872, and nine only were allowedeventually to remain. We naturally ask, Why leave any if thirty-sixought to be cut out, or why cut out thirty-six if nine ought to beleft--especially when the claim remains practically just the sameafter the excision as before it?

I imagine complaint had early reached Mr. Darwin that the differencebetween himself and his predecessors was unsubstantial and hard tograsp; traces of some such feeling appear even in the late SirCharles Lyell's "Principles of Geology, " in which he writes that hehad reprinted his abstract of Lamarck's doctrine word for word, "injustice to Lamarck, in order to show how nearly the opinions taughtby him at the beginning of this century resembled those now in vogueamong a large body of naturalists respecting the infinitevariability of species, and the progressive development in past timeof the organic world. " {205a} Sir Charles Lyell could not havewritten thus if he had thought that Mr. Darwin had already done"justice to Lamarck, " nor is it likely that he stood alone inthinking as he did. It is probable that more reached Mr. Darwinthan reached the public, and that the historical sketch prefixed toall editions after the first six thousand copies had been sold--meagre and slovenly as it is--was due to earlier manifestation onthe part of some of Mr. Darwin's friends of the feeling that wasafterwards expressed by Sir Charles Lyell in the passage quotedabove. I suppose the removal of the my that was cut out in 1866 tobe due partly to the Gladstonian tendencies of Mr. Darwin's mind, which would naturally make that particular my at all times more orless offensive to him, and partly to the increase of objection to itthat must have ensued on the addition of the "brief but imperfect"historical sketch in 1861; it is doubtless only by an oversight thatthis particular my was not cut out in 1861. The stampede of 1869was probably occasioned by the appearance in Germany of ProfessorHaeckel's "History of Creation. " This was published in 1868, andMr. Darwin no doubt foresaw that it would be translated intoEnglish, as indeed it subsequently was. In this book some accountis given--very badly, but still much more fully than by Mr. Darwin--of Lamarck's work; and even Erasmus Darwin is mentioned--inaccurately--but still he is mentioned. Professor Haeckel says:-

"Although the theory of development had been already maintained atthe beginning of this century by several great naturalists, especially by Lamarck and Goethe, it only received completedemonstration and causal foundation nine years ago through Darwin'swork, and it is on this account that it is now generally (though notaltogether rightly) regarded as exclusively Mr. Darwin's theory. "{206a}

Later on, after giving nearly a hundred pages to the works of theearly evolutionists--pages that would certainly disquiet thesensitive writer who had cut out the "my" which disappeared in 1866--he continued:-

"We must distinguish clearly (though this is not usually done)between, firstly, the theory of descent as advanced by Lamarck, which deals only with the fact of all animals and plants beingdescended from a common source, and secondly, Darwin's theory ofnatural selection, which shows us WHY this progressive modificationof organic forms took place" (p. 93). 

This passage is as inaccurate as most of those by Professor Haeckelthat I have had occasion to examine have proved to be. Lettingalone that Buffon, not Lamarck, is the foremost name in connectionwith descent, I have already shown in "Evolution Old and New" thatLamarck goes exhaustively into the how and why of modification. Healleges the conservation, or preservation, in the ordinary course ofnature, of the most favourable among variations that have beeninduced mainly by function; this, I have sufficiently explained, isnatural selection, though the words "natural selection" are notemployed; but it is the true natural selection which (if sometaphorical an expression is allowed to pass) actually does takeplace with the results ascribed to it by Lamarck, and not the falseCharles-Darwinian natural selection that does not correspond withfacts, and cannot result in specific differences such as we nowobserve. But, waiving this, the "my's, " within which a little rifthad begun to show itself in 1866, might well become as mute in 1869as they could become without attracting attention, when Mr. Darwinsaw the passages just quoted, and the hundred pages or so that liebetween them. 

I suppose Mr. Darwin cut out the five more my's that disappeared in1872 because he had not yet fully recovered from his scare, andallowed nine to remain in order to cover his retreat, and tacitlysay that he had not done anything and knew nothing whatever aboutit. Practically, indeed, he had not retreated, and must have beenwell aware that he was only retreating technically; for he must haveknown that the absence of acknowledgment to any earlier writers inthe body of his work, and the presence of the many passages in whichevery word conveyed the impression that the writer claimed descentwith modification, amounted to a claim as much when the actual word"my" had been taken out as while it was allowed to stand. We tookMr. Darwin at his own estimate because we could not for a momentsuppose that a man of means, position, and education, --one, moreover, who was nothing if he was not unself-seeking--could playsuch a trick upon us while pretending to take us into hisconfidence; hence the almost universal belief on the part of thepublic, of which Professors Haeckel and Ray Lankester and Mr. GrantAllen alike complain--namely, that Mr. Darwin is the originator ofthe theory of descent, and that his variations are mainlyfunctional. Men of science must not be surprised if the readinesswith which we responded to Mr. Darwin's appeal to our confidence issucceeded by a proportionate resentment when the peculiar shabbinessof his action becomes more generally understood. For myself, I knownot which most to wonder at--the meanness of the writer himself, orthe greatness of the service that, in spite of that meanness, heunquestionably rendered. 

If Mr. Darwin had been dealing fairly by us, when he saw that we hadfailed to catch the difference between the Erasmus-Darwinian theoryof descent through natural selection from among variations that aremainly functional, and his own alternative theory of descent throughnatural selection from among variations that are mainly accidental, and, above all, when he saw we were crediting him with other men'swork, he would have hastened to set us right. "It is with greatregret, " he might have written, "and with no small surprise, that Ifind how generally I have been misunderstood as claiming to be theoriginator of the theory of descent with modification; nothing canbe further from my intention; the theory of descent has beenfamiliar to all biologists from the year 1749, when Buffon advancedit in its most comprehensive form, to the present day. " If Mr. Darwin had said something to the above effect, no one would havequestioned his good faith, but it is hardly necessary to say thatnothing of the kind is to be found in any one of Mr. Darwin's manybooks or many editions; nor is the reason why the requisitecorrection was never made far to seek. For if Mr. Darwin had saidas much as I have put into his mouth above, he should have saidmore, and would ere long have been compelled to have explained to uswherein the difference between himself and his predecessorsprecisely lay, and this would not have been easy. Indeed, if Mr. Darwin had been quite open with us he would have had to say much asfollows:-

"I should point out that, according to the evolutionists of the lastcentury, improvement in the eye, as in any other organ, is mainlydue to persistent, rational, employment of the organ in question, insuch slightly modified manner as experience and changed surroundingsmay suggest. You will have observed that, according to my system, this goes for very little, and that the accumulation of fortunateaccidents, irrespectively of the use that may be made of them, is byfar the most important means of modification. Put more brieflystill, the distinction between me and my predecessors lies in this;--my predecessors thought they knew the main normal cause orprinciple that underlies variation, whereas I think that there is nogeneral principle underlying it at all, or that even if there is, weknow hardly anything about it. This is my distinctive feature;there is no deception; I shall not consider the arguments of mypredecessors, nor show in what respect they are insufficient; infact, I shall say nothing whatever about them. Please to understandthat I alone am in possession of the master key that can unlock thebars of the future progress of evolutionary science; so great animprovement, in fact, is my discovery that it justifies me inclaiming the theory of descent generally, and I accordingly claimit. If you ask me in what my discovery consists, I reply in this;--that the variations which we are all agreed accumulate are caused--by variation. {209a} I admit that this is not telling you muchabout them, but it is as much as I think proper to say at present;above all things, let me caution you against thinking that there isany principle of general application underlying variation. "

This would have been right. This is what Mr. Darwin would have hadto have said if he had been frank with us; it is not surprising, therefore, that he should have been less frank than might have beenwished. I have no doubt that many a time between 1859 and 1882, theyear of his death, Mr. Darwin bitterly regretted his initial error, and would have been only too thankful to repair it, but he couldonly put the difference between himself and the early evolutionistsclearly before his readers at the cost of seeing his own system cometumbling down like a pack of cards; this was more than he couldstand, so he buried his face, ostrich-like, in the sand. I know nomore pitiable figure in either literature or science. 

As I write these lines (July 1886) I see a paragraph in Nature whichI take it is intended to convey the impression that Mr. FrancisDarwin's life and letters of his father will appear shortly. I canform no idea whether Mr. F. Darwin's forthcoming work is likely toappear before this present volume; still less can I conjecture whatit may or may not contain; but I can give the reader a criterion bywhich to test the good faith with which it is written. If Mr. F. Darwin puts the distinctive feature that differentiates Mr. C. Darwin from his predecessors clearly before his readers, enablingthem to seize and carry it away with them once for all--if he showsno desire to shirk this question, but, on the contrary, faces it andthrows light upon it, then we shall know that his work is sincere, whatever its shortcomings may be in other respects; and when peopleare doing their best to help us and make us understand all that theyunderstand themselves, a great deal may be forgiven them. If, onthe other hand, we find much talk about the wonderful light whichMr. Charles Darwin threw on evolution by his theory of naturalselection, without any adequate attempt to make us understand thedifference between the natural selection, say, of Mr. PatrickMatthew, and that of his more famous successor, then we may knowthat we are being trifled with; and that an attempt is being againmade to throw dust in our eyes. 

CHAPTER XVI--Mr. Grant Allen's "Charles Darwin"

It is here that Mr. Grant Allen's book fails. It is impossible tobelieve it written in good faith, with no end in view, save to makesomething easy which might otherwise be found difficult; on thecontrary, it leaves the impression of having been written with adesire to hinder us, as far as possible, from understanding thingsthat Mr. Allen himself understood perfectly well. 

After saying that "in the public mind Mr. Darwin is perhaps mostcommonly regarded as the discoverer and founder of the evolutionhypothesis, " he continues that "the grand idea which he did reallyoriginate was not the idea of 'descent with modification, ' but theidea of 'natural selection, '" and adds that it was Mr. Darwin's"peculiar glory" to have shown the "nature of the machinery" bywhich all the variety of animal and vegetable life might have beenproduced by slow modifications in one or more original types. "Thetheory of evolution, " says Mr. Allen, "already existed in a more orless shadowy and undeveloped shape;" it was Mr. Darwin's "task inlife to raise this theory from the rank of a mere plausible andhappy guess to the rank of a highly elaborate and almost universallyaccepted biological system" (pp. 3-5). 

We all admit the value of Mr. Darwin's work as having led to thegeneral acceptance of evolution. No one who remembers averagemiddle-class opinion on this subject before 1860 will deny that itwas Mr. Darwin who brought us all round to descent withmodification; but Mr. Allen cannot rightly say that evolution hadonly existed before Mr. Darwin's time in "a shadowy, undevelopedstate, " or as "a mere plausible and happy guess. " It existed in thesame form as that in which most people accept it now, and had beencarried to its extreme development, before Mr. Darwin's father hadbeen born. It is idle to talk of Buffon's work as "a mere plausibleand happy guess, " or to imply that the first volume of the"Philosophie Zoologique" of Lamarck was a less full and sufficientdemonstration of descent with modification than the "Origin ofSpecies" is. It has its defects, shortcomings, and mistakes, but itis an incomparably sounder work than the "Origin of Species;" andthough it contains the deplorable omission of any reference toBuffon, Lamarck does not first grossly misrepresent Buffon, and thentell him to go away, as Mr. Darwin did to the author of the"Vestiges" and to Lamarck. If Mr. Darwin was believed and honouredfor saying much the same as Lamarck had said, it was because Lamarckhad borne the brunt of the laughing. The "Origin of Species" waspossible because the "Vestiges" had prepared the way for it. The"Vestiges" were made possible by Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin, andthese two were made possible by Buffon. Here a somewhat sharperline can be drawn than is usually found possible when defining theground covered by philosophers. No one broke the ground for Buffonto anything like the extent that he broke it for those who followedhim, and these broke it for one another. 

Mr. Allen says (p. 11) that, "in Charles Darwin's own words, Lamarck'first did the eminent service of arousing attention to theprobability of all change in the organic as well as in the inorganicworld being the result of law, and not of miraculousinterposition. '" Mr. Darwin did indeed use these words, but Mr. Allen omits the pertinent fact that he did not use them till sixthousand copies of his work had been issued, and an impression beenmade as to its scope and claims which the event has shown to be noteasily effaced; nor does he say that Mr. Darwin only pays these fewwords of tribute in a quasi-preface, which, though prefixed to hislater editions of the "Origin of Species, " is amply neutralised bythe spirit which I have shown to be omnipresent in the body of thework itself. Moreover, Mr. Darwin's statement is inaccurate to anunpardonable extent; his words would be fairly accurate if appliedto Buffon, but they do not apply to Lamarck. 

Mr. Darwin continues that Lamarck "seems to attribute all thebeautiful adaptations in nature, such as the long neck of thegiraffe for browsing on the branches of trees, " to the effects ofhabit. Mr. Darwin should not say that Lamarck "seems" to do this. It was his business to tell us what led Lamarck to his conclusions, not what "seemed" to do so. Any one who knows the first volume ofthe "Philosophie Zoologique" will be aware that there is no "seems"in the matter. Mr. Darwin's words "seem" to say that it reallycould not be worth any practical naturalist's while to devoteattention to Lamarck's argument; the inquiry might be of interest toantiquaries, but Mr. Darwin had more important work in hand thanfollowing the vagaries of one who had been so completely exploded asLamarck had been. "Seem" is to men what "feel" is to women; womenwho feel, and men who grease every other sentence with a "seem, " arealike to be looked on with distrust. 

"Still, " continues Mr. Allen, "Darwin gave no sign. A flaccid, cartilaginous, unphilosophic evolutionism had full possession of thefield for the moment, and claimed, as it were, to be the genuinerepresentative of the young and vigorous biological creed, while hehimself was in truth the real heir to all the honours of thesituation. He was in possession of the master-key which alone couldunlock the bars that opposed the progress of evolution, and still hewaited. He could afford to wait. He was diligently collecting, amassing, investigating; eagerly reading every new systematic work, every book of travels, every scientific journal, every record ofsport, or exploration, or discovery, to extract from the dead massof undigested fact whatever item of implicit value might swell thedefinite co-ordinated series of notes in his own commonplace booksfor the now distinctly contemplated 'Origin of Species. ' His waywas to make all sure behind him, to summon up all his facts inirresistible array, and never to set out upon a public progressuntil he was secure against all possible attacks of the ever-watchful and alert enemy in the rear, " &c. (p. 73). 

It would not be easy to beat this. Mr. Darwin's worst enemy couldwish him no more damaging eulogist. 

Of the "Vestiges" Mr. Allen says that Mr. Darwin "felt sadly" theinaccuracy and want of profound technical knowledge everywheredisplayed by the anonymous author. Nevertheless, long after, in the"Origin of Species, " the great naturalist wrote with generousappreciation of the "Vestiges of Creation"--"In my opinion it hasdone excellent service in this country in calling attention to thesubject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground forthe reception of analogous views. "

I have already referred to the way in which Mr. Darwin treated theauthor of the "Vestiges, " and have stated the facts at greaterlength in "Evolution Old and New, " but it may be as well to give Mr. Darwin's words in full; he wrote as follows on the third page of theoriginal edition of the "Origin of Species":-

"The author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' would, I presume, saythat, after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird hadgiven birth to a woodpecker, and some plant to the mistletoe, andthat these had been produced perfect as we now see them; but thisassumption seems to me to be no explanation, for it leaves the caseof the coadaptation of organic beings to each other and to theirphysical conditions of life untouched and unexplained. "

The author of the "Vestiges" did, doubtless, suppose that "SOMEbird" had given birth to a woodpecker, or more strictly, that acouple of birds had done so--and this is all that Mr. Darwin hascommitted himself to--but no one better knew that these two birdswould, according to the author of the "Vestiges, " be just as muchwoodpeckers, and just as little woodpeckers, as they would be withMr. Darwin himself. Mr. Chambers did not suppose that a woodpeckerbecame a woodpecker per saltum though born of some widely differentbird, but Mr. Darwin's words have no application unless they conveythis impression. The reader will note that though the impression isconveyed, Mr. Darwin avoids conveying it categorically. I supposethis is what Mr. Allen means by saying that he "made all things surebehind him. " Mr. Chambers did indeed believe in occasional sports;so did Mr. Darwin, and we have seen that in the later editions ofthe "Origin of Species" he found himself constrained to lay greaterstress on these than he had originally done. Substantially, Mr. Chambers held much the same opinion as to the suddenness or slownessof modification as Mr. Darwin did, nor can it be doubted that Mr. Darwin knew this perfectly well. 

What I have said about the woodpecker applies also to the mistletoe. Besides, it was Mr. Darwin's business not to presume anything aboutthe matter; his business was to tell us what the author of the"Vestiges" had said, or to refer us to the page of the "Vestiges" onwhich we should find this. I suppose he was too busy "collecting, amassing, investigating, " &c. , to be at much pains not tomisrepresent those who had been in the field before him. There isno other reference to the "Vestiges" in the "Origin of Species" thanthis suave but singularly fraudulent passage. 

In his edition of 1860 the author of the "Vestiges" showed that hewas nettled, and said it was to be regretted Mr. Darwin had read the"Vestiges" "almost as much amiss as if, like its declared opponents, he had an interest in misunderstanding it;" and a little lower headds that Mr. Darwin's book "in no essential respect contradicts the'Vestiges, '" but that, on the contrary, "while adding to itsexplanations of nature, it expressed the same general ideas. " {216a}This is substantially true; neither Mr. Darwin's nor Mr. Chambers'sare good books, but the main object of both is to substantiate thetheory of descent with modification, and, bad as the "Vestiges" is, it is ingenuous as compared with the "Origin of Species. "Subsequently to Mr. Chambers' protest, and not till, as I have said, six thousand copies of the "Origin of Species" had been issued, thesentence complained of by Mr. Chambers was expunged, but without aword of retractation, and the passage which Mr. Allen thinks sogenerous was inserted into the "brief but imperfect" sketch whichMr. Darwin prefixed--after Mr. Chambers had been effectually snuffedout--to all subsequent editions of his "Origin of Species. " Thereis no excuse for Mr. Darwin's not having said at least this muchabout the author of the "Vestiges" in his first edition; and onfinding that he had misrepresented him in a passage which he did notventure to retain, he should not have expunged it quietly, butshould have called attention to his mistake in the body of his book, and given every prominence in his power to the correction. 

Let us now examine Mr. Allen's record in the matter of naturalselection. For years he was one of the foremost apostles of Neo-Darwinism, and any who said a good word for Lamarck were told thatthis was the "kind of mystical nonsense" from which Mr. Allen "hadhoped Mr. Darwin had for ever saved us. " {216b} Then in October1883 came an article in "Mind, " from which it appeared as though Mr. Allen had abjured Mr. Darwin and all his works. 

"There are only two conceivable ways, " he then wrote, "in which anyincrement of brain power can ever have arisen in any individual. The one is the Darwinian way, by spontaneous variation, that is tosay, by variation due to minute physical circumstances affecting theindividual in the germ. The other is the Spencerian way, byfunctional increment, that is to say, by the effect of increased useand constant exposure to varying circumstances during consciouslife. "

Mr. Allen calls this the Spencerian view, and so it is in so far asthat Mr. Spencer has adopted it. Most people will call itLamarckian. This, however, is a detail. Mr. Allen continues:-

"I venture to think that the first way, if we look it clearly in theface, will be seen to be practically unthinkable; and that we haveno alternative, therefore, but to accept the second. "

I like our looking a "way" which is "practically unthinkable""clearly in the face. " I particularly like "practicallyunthinkable. " I suppose we can think it in theory, but not inpractice. I like almost everything Mr. Allen says or does; it isnot necessary to go far in search of his good things; dredge up anybit of mud from him at random and we are pretty sure to find anoyster with a pearl in it, if we look it clearly in the face; Imean, there is sure to be something which will be at any rate"almost" practically unthinkable. But however this may be, when Mr. Allen wrote his article in "Mind" two years ago, he was insubstantial agreement with myself about the value of naturalselection as a means of modification--by natural selection I mean, of course, the commonly known Charles-Darwinian natural selectionfrom fortuitous variations; now, however, in 1885, he is all forthis same natural selection again, and in the preface to his"Charles Darwin" writes (after a handsome acknowledgment of"Evolution Old and New") that he "differs from" me "fundamentallyin" my "estimate of the worth of Charles Darwin's distinctivediscovery of natural selection. "

This he certainly does, for on page 81 of the work itself he speaksof "the distinctive notion of natural selection" as having, "likeall true and fruitful ideas, more than once flashed, " &c. I haveexplained usque ad nauseam, and will henceforth explain no longer, that natural selection is no "distinctive notion" of Mr. Darwin's. Mr. Darwin's "distinctive notion" is natural selection from amongfortuitous variations. 

Writing again (p. 89) of Mr. Spencer's essay in the "Leader, " {218a}Mr. Allen says:-

"It contains, in a very philosophical and abstract form, the theoryof 'descent with modification' without the distinctive Darwinianadjunct of 'natural selection' or survival of the fittest. Yet itwas just that lever dexterously applied, and carefully weighted withthe whole weight of his endlessly accumulated inductive instances, that finally enabled our modern Archimedes to move the world. "

Again:-

"To account for adaptation, for the almost perfect fitness of everyplant and every animal to its position in life, for the existence(in other words) of definitely correlated parts and organs, we mustcall in the aid of survival of the fittest. Without that potentselective agent, our conception of the becoming of life is a merechaos; order and organisation are utterly inexplicable save by thebrilliant illuminating ray of the Darwinian principle" (p. 93). 

And yet two years previously this same principle, after having beenthinkable for many years, had become "unthinkable. "

Two years previously, writing of the Charles-Darwinian scheme ofevolution, Mr. Allen had implied it as his opinion "that all brainsare what they are in virtue of antecedent function. " "The onecreed, " he wrote--referring to Mr Darwin's--"makes the man dependmainly upon the accidents of molecular physics in a colliding germcell and sperm cell; the other makes him depend mainly on the doingsand gains of his ancestors as modified and altered by himself. "

This second creed is pure Erasmus-Darwinism and Lamarck. 

Again:-

"It seems to me easy to understand how survival of the fittest mayresult in progress STARTING FROM SUCH FUNCTIONALLY PRODUCED GAINS(italics mine), but impossible to understand how it could result inprogress, if it had to start in mere accidental structuralincrements due to spontaneous variation alone. " {219a}

Which comes to saying that it is easy to understand the Lamarckiansystem of evolution, but not the Charles-Darwinian. Mr. Allenconcluded his article a few pages later on by saying

"The first hypothesis" (Mr. Darwin's) "is one that throws no lightupon any of the facts. The second hypothesis" (which is unalloyedErasmus Darwin and Lamarck) "is one that explains them all withtransparent lucidity. " Yet in his "Charles Darwin" Mr. Allen tellsus that though Mr. Darwin "did not invent the development theory, hemade it believable and comprehensible" (p. 4). 

In his "Charles Darwin" Mr. Allen does not tell us how recently hehad, in another place, expressed an opinion about the value of Mr. Darwin's "distinctive contribution" to the theory of evolution, sowidely different from the one he is now expressing withcharacteristic appearance of ardour. He does not explain how he isable to execute such rapid changes of front without forfeiting hisclaim on our attention; explanations on matters of this sort seemout of date with modern scientists. I can only suppose that Mr. Allen regards himself as having taken a brief, as it were, for theproduction of a popular work, and feels more bound to consider theinterests of the gentleman who pays him than to say what he reallythinks; for surely Mr. Allen would not have written as he did insuch a distinctly philosophical and scientific journal as "Mind"without weighing his words, and nothing has transpired lately, apropos of evolution, which will account for his presentrecantation. I said in my book "Selections, " &c. , that when Mr. Allen made stepping-stones of his dead selves, he jumped upon themto some tune. I was a little scandalised then at the completenessand suddenness of the movement he executed, and spoke severely; Ihave sometimes feared I may have spoken too severely, but his recentperformance goes far to warrant my remarks. 

If, however, there is no dead self about it, and Mr. Allen has onlytaken a brief, I confess to being not greatly edified. I grant thata good case can be made out for an author's doing as I suppose Mr. Allen to have done; indeed I am not sure that both science andreligion would not gain if every one rode his neighbour's theory, asat a donkey-race, and the least plausible were held to win; butsurely, as things stand, a writer by the mere fact of publishing abook professes to be giving a bona fide opinion. The analogy of thebar does not hold, for not only is it perfectly understood that abarrister does not necessarily state his own opinions, but thereexists a strict though unwritten code to protect the public againstthe abuses to which such a system must be liable. In religion andscience no such code exists--the supposition being that these twoholy callings are above the necessity for anything of the kind. Science and religion are not as business is; still, if the public donot wish to be taken in, they must be at some pains to find outwhether they are in the hands of one who, while pretending to be ajudge, is in reality a paid advocate, with no one's interests atheart except his client's, or in those of one who, however warmly hemay plead, will say nothing but what springs from mature and genuineconviction. 

The present unsettled and unsatisfactory state of the moral code inthis respect is at the bottom of the supposed antagonism betweenreligion and science. These two are not, or never ought to be, antagonistic. They should never want what is spoken of asreconciliation, for in reality they are one. Religion is thequintessence of science, and science the raw material of religion;when people talk about reconciling religion and science they do notmean what they say; they mean reconciling the statements made by oneset of professional men with those made by another set whoseinterests lie in the opposite direction--and with no recognisedpresident of the court to keep them within due bounds this is notalways easy. 

Mr. Allen says:-

"At the same time it must be steadily remembered that there are manynaturalists at the present day, especially among those of the lowerorder of intelligence, who, while accepting evolutionism in ageneral way, and therefore always describing themselves asDarwinians, do not believe, and often cannot even understand, thedistinctive Darwinian addition to the evolutionary doctrine--namely, the principle of natural selection. Such hazy and indistinctthinkers as these are still really at the prior stage of Lamarckianevolution" (p. 199). 

Considering that Mr. Allen was at that stage himself so recently, hemight deal more tenderly with others who still find "the distinctiveDarwinian adjunct" "unthinkable. " It is perhaps, however, becausehe remembers his difficulties that Mr. Allen goes on as follows:-

"It is probable that in the future, while a formal acceptance ofDarwinism becomes general, the special theory of natural selectionwill be thoroughly understood and assimilated only by the moreabstract and philosophical minds. "

By the kind of people, in fact, who read the Spectator and arecalled thoughtful; and in point of fact less than a twelvemonthafter this passage was written, natural selection was publiclyabjured as "a theory of the origin of species" by Mr. Romaneshimself, with the implied approval of the Times. 

"Thus, " continues Mr. Allen, "the name of Darwin will often no doubtbe tacked on to what are in reality the principles of Lamarck. "

It requires no great power of prophecy to foretell this, consideringthat it is done daily by nine out of ten who call themselvesDarwinians. Ask ten people of ordinary intelligence how Mr. Darwinexplains the fact that giraffes have long necks, and nine of themwill answer "through continually stretching them to reach higher andhigher boughs. " They do not understand that this is the Lamarckianview of evolution, not the Darwinian; nor will Mr. Allen's bookgreatly help the ordinary reader to catch the difference between thetwo theories, in spite of his frequent reference to Mr. Darwin's"distinctive feature, " and to his "master-key. " No doubt theBritish public will get to understand all about it some day, but itcan hardly be expected to do so all at once, considering the way inwhich Mr. Allen and so many more throw dust in its eyes, and willdoubtless continue to throw it as long as an honest penny is to beturned by doing so. Mr. Allen, then, is probably right in sayingthat "the name of Darwin will no doubt be often tacked on to whatare in reality the principles of Lamarck, " nor can it be denied thatMr. Darwin, by his practice of using "the theory of naturalselection" as though it were a synonym for "the theory of descentwith modification, " contributed to this result. 

I do not myself doubt that he intended to do this, but Mr. Allenwould say no less confidently he did not. He writes of Mr. Darwinas follows:-

"Of Darwin's pure and exalted moral nature no Englishman of thepresent generation can trust himself to speak with becomingmoderation. "

He proceeds to trust himself thus:-

"His love of truth, his singleness of heart, his sincerity, hisearnestness, his modesty, his candour, his absolute sinking of selfand selfishness--these, indeed are all conspicuous to every readeron the very face of every word he ever printed. "

This "conspicuous sinking of self" is of a piece with the"delightful unostentatiousness WHICH EVERY ONE MUST HAVE NOTICED"about which Mr. Allen writes on page 65. Does he mean that Mr. Darwin was "ostentatiously unostentatious, " or that he was"unostentatiously ostentatious"? I think we may guess from thispassage who it was that in the old days of the Pall Mall Gazellecalled Mr. Darwin "a master of a certain happy simplicity. "

Mr. Allen continues:-

"Like his works themselves, they must long outlive him. But hissympathetic kindliness, his ready generosity, the staunchness of hisfriendship, the width and depth and breadth of his affections, themanner in which 'he bore with those who blamed him unjustly withoutblaming them again'--these things can never be so well known to anyother generation of men as to the three generations that walked theworld with him" (pp. 174, 175). 

Again:-

"He began early in life to collect and arrange a vast encyclopaediaof facts, all finally focussed with supreme skill upon the greatprinciple he so clearly perceived and so lucidly expounded. Hebrought to bear upon the question an amount of personal observation, of minute experiment, of world-wide book knowledge, of universalscientific ability, such as never, perhaps, was lavished by anyother man upon any other department of study. His conspicuous andbeautiful love of truth, his unflinching candour, his transparentfearlessness and honesty of purpose, his childlike simplicity, hismodesty of demeanour, his charming manner, his affectionatedisposition, his kindliness to friends, his courtesy to opponents, his gentleness to harsh and often bitter assailants, kindled in theminds of men of science everywhere throughout the world a contagiousenthusiasm only equalled perhaps among the disciples of Socrates andthe great teachers of the revival of learning. His name became arallying-point for the children of light in every country" (pp. 196, 197). 

I need not quote more; the sentence goes on to talk about "firmlygrounding" something which philosophers and speculators might havetaken a century or two more "to establish in embryo;" but those whowish to see it must turn to Mr. Allen's book. 

If I have formed too severe an estimate of Mr. Darwin's work andcharacter--and this is more than likely--the fulsomeness of theadulation lavished on him by his admirers for many years past mustbe in some measure my excuse. We grow tired even of hearingAristides called just, but what is so freely said about Mr. Darwinputs us in mind more of what the people said about Herod--that hespoke with the voice of a God, not of a man. So we saw ProfessorRay Lankester hail him not many years ago as the "greatest of livingmen. " {224a}

It is ill for any man's fame that he should be praised soextravagantly. Nobody ever was as good as Mr. Darwin looked, and acounterblast to such a hurricane of praise as has been latelyblowing will do no harm to his ultimate reputation, even though ittoo blow somewhat fiercely. Art, character, literature, religion, science (I have named them in alphabetical order), thrive best in abreezy, bracing air; I heartily hope I may never be what is commonlycalled successful in my own lifetime--and if I go on as I am doingnow, I have a fair chance of succeeding in not succeeding. 

CHAPTER XVII--Professor Ray Lankester and Lamarck

Being anxious to give the reader a sample of the arguments againstthe theory of natural selection from among variations that aremainly either directly or indirectly functional in their inception, or more briefly against the Erasmus-Darwinian and Lamarckiansystems, I can find nothing more to the point, or more recent, thanProfessor Ray Lankester's letter to the Athenaeum of March 29, 1884, to the latter part of which, however, I need alone call attention. Professor Ray Lankester says:-

"And then we are introduced to the discredited speculations ofLamarck, which have found a worthy advocate in Mr. Butler, as reallysolid contributions to the discovery of the verae causae ofvariation! A much more important attempt to do something forLamarck's hypothesis, of the transmission to offspring of structuralpeculiarities acquired by the parents, was recently made by an ableand experienced naturalist, Professor Semper of Wurzburg. His bookon 'Animal Life, ' &c. , is published in the 'International ScientificSeries. ' Professor Semper adduces an immense number and variety ofcases of structural change in animals and plants brought about inthe individual by adaptation (during its individual life-history) tonew conditions. Some of these are very marked changes, such as theloss of its horny coat in the gizzard of a pigeon fed on meat; BUTIN NO SINGLE INSTANCE COULD PROFESSOR SEMPER SHOW--although it washis object and desire to do so if possible--that such change wastransmitted from parent to offspring. Lamarckism looks all verywell on paper, but, as Professor Semper's book shows, when put tothe test of observation and experiment it collapses absolutely. "

I should have thought it would have been enough if it had collapsedwithout the "absolutely, " but Professor Ray Lankester does not likedoing things by halves. Few will be taken in by the foregoingquotation, except those who do not greatly care whether they aretaken in or not; but to save trouble to readers who may have neitherLamarck nor Professor Semper at hand, I will put the case asfollows:-

Professor Semper writes a book to show, we will say, that the hour-hand of the clock moves gradually forward, in spite of its appearingstationary. He makes his case sufficiently clear, and then mighthave been content to leave it; nevertheless, in the innocence of hisheart, he adds the admission that though he had often looked at theclock for a long time together, he had never been able actually tosee the hour-hand moving. "There now, " exclaims Professor RayLankester on this, "I told you so; the theory collapses absolutely;his whole object and desire is to show that the hour-hand moves, andyet when it comes to the point, he is obliged to confess that hecannot see it do so. " It is not worth while to meet what ProfessorRay Lankester has been above quoted as saying about Lamarckismbeyond quoting the following passage from a review of "TheNeanderthal Skull on Evolution" in the "Monthly Journal of Science"for June, 1885 (p. 362):-

"On the very next page the author reproduces the threadbareobjection that the 'supporters of the theory have never yetsucceeded in observing a single instance in all the millions ofyears invented (!) in its support of one species of animal turninginto another. ' Now, ex hypothesi, one species turns into anothernot rapidly, as in a transformation scene, but in successivegenerations, each being born a shade different from its progenitors. Hence to observe such a change is excluded by the very terms of thequestion. Does Mr. Saville forget Mr. Herbert Spencer's apologue ofthe ephemeron which had never witnessed the change of a child into aman?"

The apologue, I may say in passing, is not Mr. Spencer's; it is bythe author of the "Vestiges, " and will be found on page 161 of the1853 edition of that book; but let this pass. How impatientProfessor Ray Lankester is of any attempt to call attention to theolder view of evolution appears perhaps even more plainly in areview of this same book of Professor Semper's that appeared in"Nature, " March 3, 1881. The tenor of the remarks last quoted showsthat though what I am about to quote is now more than five yearsold, it may be taken as still giving us the position which ProfessorRay Lankester takes on these matters. He wrote:-

"It is necessary, " he exclaims, "to plainly and emphatically state"(Why so much emphasis? Why not "it should be stated"?) "thatProfessor Semper and a few other writers of similar views" {227a} (Ihave sent for the number of "Modern Thought" referred to byProfessor Ray Lankester but find no article by Mr. Henslow, and donot, therefore, know what he had said) "are not adding to orbuilding on Mr. Darwin's theory, but are actually opposing all thatis essential and distinctive in that theory, by the revival of theexploded notion of 'directly transforming agents' advocated byLamarck and others. "

It may be presumed that these writers know they are not "adding toor building on" Mr. Darwin's theory, and do not wish to build on it, as not thinking it a sound foundation. Professor Ray Lankester saysthey are "actually opposing, " as though there were somethingintolerably audacious in this; but it is not easy to see why heshould be more angry with them for "actually opposing" Mr. Darwinthan they may be with him, if they think it worth while, for"actually defending" the exploded notion of natural selection--forassuredly the Charles-Darwinian system is now more exploded thanLamarck's is. 

What Professor Ray Lankester says about Lamarck and "directlytransforming agents" will mislead those who take his statementwithout examination. Lamarck does not say that modification iseffected by means of "directly transforming agents;" nothing can bemore alien to the spirit of his teaching. With him the action ofthe external conditions of existence (and these are the onlytransforming agents intended by Professor Ray Lankester) is notdirect, but indirect. Change in surroundings changes the organism'soutlook, and thus changes its desires; desires changing, there iscorresponding change in the actions performed; actions changing, acorresponding change is by-and-by induced in the organs that performthem; this, if long continued, will be transmitted; becomingaugmented by accumulation in many successive generations, andfurther modifications perhaps arising through further changes insurroundings, the change will amount ultimately to specific andgeneric difference. Lamarck knows no drug, nor operation, that willmedicine one organism into another, and expects the results ofadaptive effort to be so gradual as to be only perceptible whenaccumulated in the course of many generations. When, therefore, Professor Ray Lankester speaks of Lamarck as having "advocateddirectly transforming agents, " he either does not know what he istalking about, or he is trifling with his readers. Professor RayLankester continues:-

"They do not seem to be aware of this, for they make no attempt toexamine Mr. Darwin's accumulated facts and arguments. " ProfessorRay Lankester need not shake Mr. Darwin's "accumulated facts andarguments" at us. We have taken more pains to understand them thanProfessor Ray Lankester has taken to understand Lamarck, and by thistime know them sufficiently. We thankfully accept by far thegreater number, and rely on them as our sheet-anchors to save usfrom drifting on to the quicksands of Neo-Darwinian naturalselection; few of them, indeed, are Mr. Darwin's, except in so faras he has endorsed them and given them publicity, but I do not knowthat this detracts from their value. We have paid great attentionto Mr. Darwin's facts, and if we do not understand all hisarguments--for it is not always given to mortal man to understandthese--yet we think we know what he was driving at. We believe weunderstand this to the full as well as Mr. Darwin intended us to do, and perhaps better. Where the arguments tend to show that allanimals and plants are descended from a common source we find themmuch the same as Buffon's, or as those of Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck, and have nothing to say against them; where, on the other hand, theyaim at proving that the main means of modification has been the factthat if an animal has been "favoured" it will be "preserved"--thenwe think that the animal's own exertions will, in the long run, havehad more to do with its preservation than any real or fancied"favour. " Professor Ray Lankester continues:-

"The doctrine of evolution has become an accepted truth" (ProfessorRay Lankester writes as though the making of truth and falsehood layin the hollow of Mr. Darwin's hand. Surely "has become accepted"should be enough; Mr. Darwin did not make the doctrine true)"entirely in consequence of Mr. Darwin's having demonstrated themechanism. " (There is no mechanism in the matter, and if there is, Mr. Darwin did not show it. He made some words which confused usand prevented us from seeing that "the preservation of favouredraces" was a cloak for "luck, " and that this was all the explanationhe was giving) "by which the evolution is possible; it was almostuniversally rejected, while such undemonstrable agencies as thosearbitrarily asserted to exist by Professor Semper and Mr. GeorgeHenslow were the only means suggested by its advocates. "

Undoubtedly the theory of descent with modification, which receivedits first sufficiently ample and undisguised exposition in 1809 withthe "Philosophie Zoologique" of Lamarck, shared the common fate ofall theories that revolutionise opinion on important matters, andwas fiercely opposed by the Huxleys, Romaneses, Grant Allens, andRay Lankesters of its time. It had to face the reaction in favourof the Church which began in the days of the First Empire, as anatural consequence of the horrors of the Revolution; it had to facethe social influence and then almost Darwinian reputation of Cuvier, whom Lamarck could not, or would not, square; it was put forward byone who was old, poor, and ere long blind. What theory could domore than just keep itself alive under conditions so unfavourable?Even under the most favourable conditions descent with modificationwould have been a hard plant to rear, but, as things were, thewonder is that it was not killed outright at once. We all know howlarge a share social influences have in deciding what kind ofreception a book or theory is to meet with; true, these influencesare not permanent, but at first they are almost irresistible; inreality it was not the theory of descent that was matched againstthat of fixity, but Lamarck against Cuvier; who can be surprisedthat Cuvier for a time should have had the best of it?

And yet it is pleasant to reflect that his triumph was not, astriumphs go, long lived. How is Cuvier best known now? As one whomissed a great opportunity; as one who was great in small things, and stubbornly small in great ones. Lamarck died in 1831; in 1861descent with modification was almost universally accepted by thosemost competent to form an opinion. This result was by no means soexclusively due to Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species" as is commonlybelieved. During the thirty years that followed 1831 Lamarck'sopinions made more way than Darwinians are willing to allow. Granted that in 1861 the theory was generally accepted under thename of Darwin, not under that of Lamarck, still it was Lamarck andnot Darwin that was being accepted; it was descent, not descent withmodification by means of natural selection from among fortuitousvariations, that we carried away with us from the "Origin ofSpecies. " The thing triumphed whether the name was lost or not. Ineed not waste the reader's time by showing further how littleweight he need attach to the fact that Lamarckism was notimmediately received with open arms by an admiring public. Thetheory of descent has become accepted as rapidly, if I am notmistaken, as the Copernican theory, or as Newton's theory ofgravitation. 

When Professor Ray Lankester goes on to speak of the "undemonstrableagencies" "arbitrarily asserted" to exist by Professor Semper, he isagain presuming on the ignorance of his readers. Professor Semper'sagencies are in no way more undemonstrable than Mr. Darwin's are. Mr. Darwin was perfectly cogent as long as he stuck to Lamarck'sdemonstration; his arguments were sound as long as they wereLamarck's, or developments of, and riders upon, Buffon, ErasmusDarwin, and Lamarck, and almost incredibly silly when they were hisown. Fortunately the greater part of the "Origin of Species" isdevoted to proving the theory of descent with modification, byarguments against which no exception would have been taken by Mr. Darwin's three great precursors, except in so far as the variationswhose accumulation results in specific difference are supposed to befortuitous--and, to do Mr. Darwin justice, the fortuitousness, though always within hail, is kept as far as possible in thebackground. 

"Mr. Darwin's arguments, " says Professor Ray Lankester, "rest on thePROVED existence of minute, many-sided, irrelative variations NOTproduced by directly transforming agents. " Mr. Darwin throughoutthe body of the "Origin of Species" is not supposed to know what hisvariations are or are not produced by; if they come, they come, andif they do not come, they do not come. True, we have seen that inthe last paragraph of the book all this was changed, and thevariations were ascribed to the conditions of existence, and to useand disuse, but a concluding paragraph cannot be allowed to overridea whole book throughout which the variations have been kept to handas accidental. Mr. Romanes is perfectly correct when he says {232a}that "natural selection" (meaning the Charles-Darwinian naturalselection) "trusts to the chapter of accidents in the matter ofvariation" this is all that Mr. Darwin can tell us; whether theycome from directly transforming agents or no he neither knows norsays. Those who accept Lamarck will know that the agencies are not, as a rule, directly transforming, but the followers of Mr. Darwincannot. 

"But showing themselves, " continues Professor Ray Lankester, "ateach new act of reproduction, as part of the phenomena of hereditysuch minute 'sports' or 'variations' are due to constitutionaldisturbance" (No doubt. The difference, however, between Mr. Darwinand Lamarck consists in the fact that Lamarck believes he knows whatit is that so disturbs the constitution as generally to inducevariation, whereas Mr. Darwin says he does not know), "and appearnot in individuals subjected to new conditions" (What organism canpass through life without being subjected to more or less newconditions? What life is ever the exact fac-simile of another? Andin a matter of such extreme delicacy as the adjustment of psychicaland physical relations, who can say how small a disturbance ofestablished equilibrium may not involve how great a rearrangement?), "but in the offspring of all, though more freely in the offspring ofthose subjected to special causes of constitutional disturbance. Mr. Darwin has further proved that these slight variations can betransmitted and intensified by selective breeding. "

Mr. Darwin did, indeed, follow Buffon and Lamarck in at once turningto animals and plants under domestication in order to bring theplasticity of organic forms more easily home to his readers, but thefact that variations can be transmitted and intensified by selectivebreeding had been so well established and was so widely known longbefore Mr. Darwin was born, that he can no more be said to haveproved it than Newton can be said to have proved the revolution ofthe earth on its own axis. Every breeder throughout the world hadknown it for centuries. I believe even Virgil knew it. 

"They have, " continues Professor Ray Lankester, "in reference tobreeding, a remarkably tenacious, persistent character, as might beexpected from their origin in connection with the reproductiveprocess. "

The variations do not normally "originate in connection with thereproductive process, " though it is during this process that theyreceive organic expression. They originate mainly, so far asanything originates anywhere, in the life of the parent or parents. Without going so far as to say that no variation can arise inconnection with the reproductive system--for, doubtless, strikingand successful sports do occasionally so arise--it is more probablethat the majority originate earlier. Professor Ray Lankesterproceeds:-

"On the other hand, mutilations and other effects of directlytransforming agents are rarely, if ever, transmitted. " ProfessorRay Lankester ought to know the facts better than to say that theeffects of mutilation are rarely, if ever, transmitted. The ruleis, that they will not be transmitted unless they have been followedby disease, but that where disease has supervened they notuncommonly descend to offspring. {234a} I know Brown-Sequardconsidered it to be the morbid state of the nervous systemconsequent upon the mutilation that is transmitted, rather than theimmediate effects of the mutilation, but this distinction issomewhat finely drawn. 

When Professor Ray Lankester talks about the "other effects ofdirectly transforming agents" being rarely transmitted, he shouldfirst show us the directly transforming agents. Lamarck, as I havesaid, knows them not. "It is little short of an absurdity, " hecontinues, "for people to come forward at this epoch, when evolutionis at length accepted solely because of Mr. Darwin's doctrine, andcoolly to propose to replace that doctrine by the old notion sooften tried and rejected. "

Whether this is an absurdity or no, Professor Lankester will do wellto learn to bear it without showing so much warmth, for it is onethat is becoming common. Evolution has been accepted not "becauseof" Mr. Darwin's doctrine, but because Mr. Darwin so fogged us abouthis doctrine that we did not understand it. We thought we werebacking his bill for descent with modification, whereas we were inreality backing it for descent with modification by means of naturalselection from among fortuitous variations. This last really is Mr. Darwin's theory, except in so far as it is also Mr. A. R. Wallace's;descent, alone, is just as much and just as little Mr. Darwin'sdoctrine as it is Professor Ray Lankester's or mine. I grant it isin great measure through Mr. Darwin's books that descent has becomeso widely accepted; it has become so through his books, but in spiteof, rather than by reason of, his doctrine. Indeed his doctrine wasno doctrine, but only a back-door for himself to escape by in theevent of flood or fire; the flood and fire have come; it remains tobe seen how far the door will work satisfactorily. 

Professor Ray Lankester, again, should not say that Lamarck'sdoctrine has been "so often tried and rejected. " M. Martins, in hisedition of the "Philosophie Zoologique, " {235a} said truly thatLamarck's theory had never yet had the honour of being seriouslydiscussed. It never has--not at least in connection with the nameof its propounder. To mention Lamarck's name in the presence of theconventional English society naturalist has always been like shakinga red rag at a cow; he is at once infuriated; "as if it werepossible, " to quote from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, whose defenceof Lamarck is one of the best things in his book, {235b} "that sogreat labour on the part of so great a naturalist should have ledhim to 'a fantastic conclusion' only--to 'a flighty error, ' and, ashas been often said, though not written, to 'one absurdity themore. ' Such was the language which Lamarck heard during hisprotracted old age, saddened alike by the weight of years andblindness; this was what people did not hesitate to utter over hisgrave, yet barely closed, and what, indeed, they are still saying--commonly too, without any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, butmerely repeating at second hand bad caricatures of his teaching. 

"When will the time come when we may see Lamarck's theory discussed, and I may as well at once say refuted, in some important points, with at any rate the respect due to one of the most illustriousmasters of our science? And when will this theory, the hardihood ofwhich has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from theinterpretations and commentaries by the false light of which so manynaturalists have formed their opinion concerning it? If its authoris to be condemned, let it, at any rate, not be before he has beenheard. "

Lamarck was the Lazarus of biology. I wish his more fortunatebrethren, instead of intoning the old Church argument that he has"been refuted over and over again, " would refer us to some of thebest chapters in the writers who have refuted him. My own readinghas led me to become moderately well acquainted with the literatureof evolution, but I have never come across a single attempt fairlyto grapple with Lamarck, and it is plain that neither IsidoreGeoffroy nor M. Martins knows of such an attempt any more than I do. When Professor Ray Lankester puts his finger on Lamarck's weakplaces, then, but not till then, may he complain of those who try toreplace Mr. Darwin's doctrine by Lamarck's. 

Professor Ray Lankester concludes his note thus:-

"That such an attempt should be made is an illustration of a curiousweakness of humanity. Not infrequently, after a long contestedcause has triumphed, and all have yielded allegiance thereto, youwill find, when few generations have passed, that men have cleanforgotten what and who it was that made that cause triumphant, andignorantly will set up for honour the name of a traitor or animpostor, or attribute to a great man as a merit deeds and thoughtswhich he spent a long life in opposing. "

Exactly so; that is what one rather feels, but surely Professor RayLankester should say "in trying to filch while pretending to opposeand to amend. " He is complaining here that people persistentlyascribe Lamarck's doctrine to Mr. Darwin. Of course they do; but, as I have already perhaps too abundantly asked, whose fault is this?If a man knows his own mind, and wants others to understand it, itis not often that he is misunderstood for any length of time. If hefinds he is being misapprehended in a way he does not like, he willwrite another book and make his meaning plainer. He will go ondoing this for as long time as he thinks necessary. I do notsuppose, for example, that people will say I originated the theoryof descent by means of natural selection from among fortunateaccidents, or even that I was one of its supporters as a means ofmodification; but if this impression were to prevail, I cannot thinkI should have much difficulty in removing it. At any rate no suchmisapprehension could endure for more than twenty years, duringwhich I continued to address a public who welcomed all I wrote, unless I myself aided and abetted the mistake. Mr. Darwin wrotemany books, but the impression that Darwinism and evolution, ordescent with modification, are identical is still nearly asprevalent as it was soon after the appearance of the "Origin ofSpecies;" the reason of this is, that Mr. Darwin was at no pains tocorrect us. Where, in any one of his many later books, is there apassage which sets the matter in its true light, and enters aprotest against the misconception of which Professor Ray Lankestercomplains so bitterly? The only inference from this is, that Mr. Darwin was not displeased at our thinking him to be the originatorof the theory of descent with modification, and did not want us toknow more about Lamarck than he could help. If we wanted to knowabout him, we must find out what he had said for ourselves, it wasno part of Mr. Darwin's business to tell us; he had no interest inour catching the distinctive difference between himself and thatwriter; perhaps not; but this approaches closely to wishing us tomisunderstand it. When Mr. Darwin wished us to understand this orthat, no one knew better how to show it to us. 

We were aware, on reading the "Origin of Species, " that there was asomething about it of which we had not full hold; nevertheless wegave Mr. Darwin our confidence at once, partly because he led off bytelling us that we must trust him to a great extent, and explainedthat the present book was only an instalment of a larger work which, when it came out, would make everything perfectly clear; partly, again, because the case for descent with modification, which was theleading idea throughout the book, was so obviously strong, butperhaps mainly because every one said Mr. Darwin was so good, and somuch less self-heeding than other people; besides, he had so"patiently" and "carefully" accumulated "such a vast store of facts"as no other naturalist, living or dead, had ever yet even tried toget together; he was so kind to us with his, "May we not believe?"and his "Have we any right to infer that the Creator?" &c. "Ofcourse we have not, " we exclaimed, almost with tears in our eyes--"not if you ask us in that way. " Now that we understand what it wasthat puzzled us in Mr. Darwin's work we do not think highly eitherof the chief offender, or of the accessories after the fact, many ofwhom are trying to brazen the matter out, and on a smaller scale tofollow his example. 

CHAPTER XVIII--Per Contra

"'The evil that men do lives after them" {239a} is happily not sotrue as that the good lives after them, while the ill is buried withtheir bones, and to no one does this correction of Shakespeare'sunwonted spleen apply more fully than to Mr. Darwin. Indeed it wassomewhat thus that we treated his books even while he was alive; thegood, descent, remained with us, while the ill, the deification ofluck, was forgotten as soon as we put down his work. Let me now, therefore, as far as possible, quit the ungrateful task of dwellingon the defects of Mr. Darwin's work and character, for the morepleasant one of insisting upon their better side, and of explaininghow he came to be betrayed into publishing the "Origin of Species"without reference to the works of his predecessors. 

In the outset I would urge that it is not by any single book thatMr. Darwin should be judged. I do not believe that any one of thethree principal works on which his reputation is founded willmaintain with the next generation the place it has acquired withourselves; nevertheless, if asked to say who was the man of our owntimes whose work had produced the most important, and, on the whole, beneficial effect, I should perhaps wrongly, but still bothinstinctively and on reflection, name him to whom I have, unfortunately, found myself in more bitter opposition than to anyother in the whole course of my life. I refer, of course, to Mr. Darwin. 

His claim upon us lies not so much in what is actually found withinthe four corners of any one of his books, as in the fact of hishaving written them at all--in the fact of his having brought outone after another, with descent always for its keynote, until thelesson was learned too thoroughly to make it at all likely that itwill be forgotten. Mr. Darwin wanted to move his generation, andhad the penetration to see that this is not done by saying a thingonce for all and leaving it. It almost seems as though it mattersless what a man says than the number of times he repeats it, in amore or less varied form. It was here the author of the "Vestigesof Creation" made his most serious mistake. He relied on neweditions, and no one pays much attention to new editions--the mark abook makes is almost always made by its first edition. If, insteadof bringing out a series of amended editions during the fifteenyears' law which Mr. Darwin gave him, Mr. Chambers had followed upthe "Vestiges" with new book upon new book, he would have learnedmuch more, and, by consequence, not have been snuffed out so easilyonce for all as he was in 1859 when the "Origin of Species"appeared. 

The tenacity of purpose which appears to have been one of Mr. Darwin's most remarkable characteristics was visible even in hisoutward appearance. He always reminded me of Raffaelle's portraitof Pope Julius the Second, which, indeed, would almost do for aportrait of Mr. Darwin himself. I imagine that these two men, widely as the sphere of their action differed, must have been likeeach other in more respects than looks alone. Each, certainly, hada hand of iron; whether Pope Julius wore a velvet glove or no, I donot know; I rather think not, for, if I remember rightly, he boxedMichael Angelo's ears for giving him a saucy answer. We cannotfancy Mr. Darwin boxing any one's ears; indeed there can be no doubthe wore a very thick velvet glove, but the hand underneath it wasnone the less of iron. It was to his tenacity of purpose, doubtless, that his success was mainly due; but for this he mustinevitably have fallen before the many inducements to desist fromthe pursuit of his main object, which beset him in the shape of illhealth, advancing years, ample private means, large demands upon histime, and a reputation already great enough to satisfy the ambitionof any ordinary man. 

I do not gather from those who remember Mr. Darwin as a boy, and asa young man, that he gave early signs of being likely to achievegreatness; nor, as it seems to me, is there any sign of unusualintellectual power to be detected in his earliest book. Openingthis "almost" at random I read--"Earthquakes alone are sufficient todestroy the prosperity of any country. If, for instance, beneathEngland the now inert subterraneous forces should exert those powerswhich most assuredly in former geological ages they have exerted, how completely would the entire condition of the country be changed!What would become of the lofty houses, thickly-packed cities, greatmanufacturies (sic), the beautiful public and private edifices? Ifthe new period of disturbance were to commence by some greatearthquake in the dead of night, how terrific would be the carnage!England would be at once bankrupt; all papers, records, and accountswould from that moment be lost. Government being unable to collectthe taxes, and failing to maintain its authority, the hand ofviolence and rapine would go uncontrolled. In every large townfamine would be proclaimed, pestilence and death following in itstrain. " {240a} Great allowance should be made for a first work, andI admit that much interesting matter is found in Mr. Darwin'sjournal; still, it was hardly to be expected that the writer who atthe age of thirty-three could publish the foregoing passage shouldtwenty years later achieve the reputation of being the profoundestphilosopher of his time. 

I have not sufficient technical knowledge to enable me to speakcertainly, but I question his having been the great observer andmaster of experiment which he is generally believed to have been. His accuracy was, I imagine, generally to be relied upon as long asaccuracy did not come into conflict with his interests as a leaderin the scientific world; when these were at stake he was not to betrusted for a moment. Unfortunately they were directly orindirectly at stake more often than one could wish. His book on theaction of worms, however, was shown by Professor Paley and otherwriters {242a} to contain many serious errors and omissions, thoughit involved no personal question; but I imagine him to have beenmore or less hebete when he wrote this book. On the whole I shoulddoubt his having been a better observer of nature than nine countrygentlemen out of ten who have a taste for natural history. 

Presumptuous as I am aware it must appear to say so, I am unable tosee more than average intellectual power even in Mr. Darwin's laterbooks. His great contribution to science is supposed to have beenthe theory of natural selection, but enough has been said to showthat this, if understood as he ought to have meant it to beunderstood, cannot be rated highly as an intellectual achievement. His other most important contribution was his provisional theory ofpan-genesis, which is admitted on all hands to have been a failure. Though, however, it is not likely that posterity will consider himas a man of transcendent intellectual power, he must be admitted tohave been richly endowed with a much more valuable quality thaneither originality or literary power--I mean with savoir faire. Thecards he held--and, on the whole, his hand was a good one--he playedwith judgment; and though not one of those who would have achievedgreatness under any circumstances, he nevertheless did achievegreatness of no mean order. Greatness, indeed, of the highest kind--that of one who is without fear and without reproach--will notultimately be allowed him, but greatness of a rare kind can only bedenied him by those whose judgment is perverted by temper orpersonal ill-will. He found the world believing in fixity ofspecies, and left it believing--in spite of his own doctrine--indescent with modification. 

I have said on an earlier page that Mr. Darwin was heir to adiscredited truth, and left behind him an accredited fallacy. Thisis true as regards men of science and cultured classes whounderstood his distinctive feature, or thought they did, and so longas Mr. Darwin lived accepted it with very rare exceptions; but it isnot true as regards the unreading, unreflecting public, who seizedthe salient point of descent with modification only, and troubledthemselves little about the distinctive feature. It would almostseem as if Mr. Darwin had reversed the usual practice ofphilosophers and given his esoteric doctrine to the world, whilereserving the exoteric for his most intimate and faithful adherents. This, however, is a detail; the main fact is, that Mr. Darwinbrought us all round to evolution. True, it was Mr. Darwin backedby the Times and the other most influential organs of science andculture, but it was one of Mr. Darwin's great merits to havedeveloped and organised this backing, as part of the work which heknew was essential if so great a revolution was to be effected. 

This is an exceedingly difficult and delicate thing to do. Ifpeople think they need only write striking and well-consideredbooks, and that then the Times will immediately set to work to callattention to them, I should advise them not to be too hasty inbasing action upon this hypothesis. I should advise them to be evenless hasty in basing it upon the assumption that to secure apowerful literary backing is a matter within the compass of any onewho chooses to undertake it. No one who has not a strong socialposition should ever advance a new theory, unless a life of hardfighting is part of what he lays himself out for. It was one of Mr. Darwin's great merits that he had a strong social position, and hadthe good sense to know how to profit by it. The magnificent featwhich he eventually achieved was unhappily tarnished by much thatdetracts from the splendour that ought to have attended it, but amagnificent feat it must remain. 

Whose work in this imperfect world is not tarred and tarnished bysomething that detracts from its ideal character? It is enough thata man should be the right man in the right place, and this Mr. Darwin pre-eminently was. If he had been more like the idealcharacter which Mr. Allen endeavours to represent him, it is notlikely that he would have been able to do as much, or nearly asmuch, as he actually did; he would have been too wide a cross withhis generation to produce much effect upon it. Original thought ismuch more common than is generally believed. Most people, if theyonly knew it, could write a good book or play, paint a good picture, compose a fine oratorio; but it takes an unusually able person toget the book well reviewed, persuade a manager to bring the playout, sell the picture, or compass the performance of the oratorio;indeed, the more vigorous and original any one of these things maybe, the more difficult will it prove to even bring it before thenotice of the public. The error of most original people is in beingjust a trifle too original. It was in his business qualities--andthese, after all, are the most essential to success, that Mr. Darwinshowed himself so superlative. These are not only the mostessential to success, but it is only by blaspheming the world in away which no good citizen of the world will do, that we can denythem to be the ones which should most command our admiration. Weare in the world; surely so long as we are in it we should be of it, and not give ourselves airs as though we were too good for ourgeneration, and would lay ourselves out to please any other bypreference. Mr. Darwin played for his own generation, and he got inthe very amplest measure the recognition which he endeavoured, as weall do, to obtain. 

His success was, no doubt, in great measure due to the fact that heknew our little ways, and humoured them; but if he had not hadlittle ways of his own, he never could have been so much au faitwith ours. He knew, for example, we should be pleased to hear thathe had taken his boots off so as not to disturb his worms whenwatching them by night, so he told us of this, and we weredelighted. He knew we should like his using the word "sag, " so heused it, {245a} and we said it was beautiful. True, he used itwrongly, for he was writing about tesselated pavement, and buildersassure me that "sag" is a word which applies to timber only, butthis is not to the point; the point was, that Mr. Darwin should haveused a word that we did not understand; this showed that he had avast fund of knowledge at his command about all sorts of practicaldetails with which he might have well been unacquainted. We do notdeal the same measure to man and to the lower animals in the matterof intelligence; the less we understand these last, the less, wesay, not we, but they can understand; whereas the less we canunderstand a man, the more intelligent we are apt to think him. Noone should neglect by-play of this description; if I live to bestrong enough to carry it through, I mean to play "cambre, " and Ishall spell it "camber. " I wonder Mr. Darwin never abused thisword. Laugh at him, however, as we may for having said "sag, " if hehad not been the kind of man to know the value of these little hits, neither would he have been the kind of man to persuade us into firsttolerating, and then cordially accepting, descent with modification. There is a correlation of mental as well as of physical growth, andwe could not probably have had one set of Mr. Darwin's qualitieswithout the other. If he had been more faultless, he might havewritten better books, but we should have listened worse. A book'sprosperity is like a jest's--in the ear of him that hears it. 

Mr. Spencer would not--at least one cannot think he would--have beenable to effect the revolution which will henceforth doubtless beconnected with Mr. Darwin's name. He had been insisting onevolution for some years before the "Origin of Species" came out, but he might as well have preached to the winds, for all the visibleeffect that had been produced. On the appearance of Mr. Darwin'sbook the effect was instantaneous; it was like the change in thecondition of a patient when the right medicine has been hit on afterall sorts of things have been tried and failed. Granted that it wascomparatively easy for Mr. Darwin, as having been born into thehousehold of one of the prophets of evolution, to arrive atconclusions about the fixity of species which, if not so born, hemight never have reached at all; this does not make it any easierfor him to have got others to agree with him. Any one, again, mayhave money left him, or run up against it, or have it run up againsthim, as it does against some people, but it is only a very sensibleperson who does not lose it. Moreover, once begin to go behindachievement and there is an end of everything. Did the world givemuch heed to or believe in evolution before Mr. Darwin's time?Certainly not. Did we begin to attend and be persuaded soon afterMr. Darwin began to write? Certainly yes. Did we ere long go overen masse? Assuredly. If, as I said in "Life and Habit, " any oneasks who taught the world to believe in evolution, the answer to theend of time must be that it was Mr. Darwin. And yet the more hiswork is looked at, the more marvellous does its success become. Itseems as if some organisms can do anything with anything. Beethovenpicked his teeth with the snuffers, and seems to have picked themsufficiently to his satisfaction. So Mr. Darwin with one of theworst styles imaginable did all that the clearest, tersest writercould have done. Strange, that such a master of cunning (in thesense of my title) should have been the apostle of luck, and one soterribly unlucky as Lamarck, of cunning, but such is the irony ofnature. Buffon planted, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck watered, but itwas Mr. Darwin who said, "That fruit is ripe, " and shook it into hislap. 

With this Mr. Darwin's best friends ought to be content; hisadmirers are not well advised in representing him as endowed withall sorts of qualities which he was very far from possessing. Thusit is pretended that he was one of those men who were ever on thewatch for new ideas, ever ready to give a helping hand to those whowere trying to advance our knowledge, ever willing to own to amistake and give up even his most cherished ideas if truth requiredthem at his hands. No conception can be more wantonly inexact. Igrant that if a writer was sufficiently at once incompetent andobsequious Mr. Darwin was "ever ready, " &c. So the Emperors ofAustria wash a few poor people's feet on some one of the festivalsof the Church, but it would not be safe to generalise from thisyearly ceremony, and conclude that the Emperors of Austria are inthe habit of washing poor people's feet. I can understand Mr. Darwin's not having taken any public notice, for example, of "Lifeand Habit, " for though I did not attack him in force in that book, it was abundantly clear that an attack could not be long delayed, and a man may be pardoned for not doing anything to advertise theworks of his opponents; but there is no excuse for his never havingreferred to Professor Hering's work either in "Nature, " whenProfessor Ray Lankester first called attention to it (July 13, 1876), or in some one of his subsequent books. If his attitudetowards those who worked in the same field as himself had been thegenerous one which his admirers pretend, he would have certainlycome forward, not necessarily as adopting Professor Hering's theory, but still as helping it to obtain a hearing. 

His not having done so is of a piece with his silence about Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck in the early editions of the "Origin ofSpecies, " and with the meagre reference to them which is alone foundin the later ones. It is of a piece also with the silence which Mr. Darwin invariably maintained when he saw his position irretrievablydamaged, as, for example, by Mr. Spencer's objection alreadyreferred to, and by the late Professor Fleeming Jenkin in the NorthBritish Review (June 1867). Science, after all, should form akingdom which is more or less not of this world. The idealscientist should know neither self nor friend nor foe--he should beable to hob-nob with those whom he most vehemently attacks, and tofly at the scientific throat of those to whom he is personally mostattached; he should be neither grateful for a favourable review nordispleased at a hostile one; his literary and scientific life shouldbe something as far apart as possible from his social; it is thus, at least, alone that any one will be able to keep his eye single forfacts, and their legitimate inferences. We have seen ProfessorMivart lately taken to task by Mr. Romanes for having said {248a}that Mr. Darwin was singularly sensitive to criticism, and made itimpossible for Professor Mivart to continue friendly personalrelations with him after he had ventured to maintain his ownopinion. I see no reason to question Professor Mivart's accuracy, and find what he has said to agree alike with my own personalexperience of Mr. Darwin, and with all the light that his worksthrow upon his character. 

The most substantial apology that can be made for his attempt toclaim the theory of descent with modification is to be found in thepractice of Lamarck, Mr. Patrick Matthew, the author of the"Vestiges of Creation, " and Mr. Herbert Spencer, and, again, in thetotal absence of complaint which this practice met with. If Lamarckmight write the "Philosophie Zoologique" without, so far as Iremember, one word of reference to Buffon, and without beingcomplained of, why might not Mr. Darwin write the "Origin ofSpecies" without more than a passing allusion to Lamarck? Mr. Patrick Matthew, again, though writing what is obviously a resume ofthe evolutionary theories of his time, makes no mention of Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, or Buffon. I have not the original edition of the"Vestiges of Creation" before me, but feel sure I am justified insaying that it claimed to be a more or less Minerva-like work, thatsprang full armed from the brain of Mr. Chambers himself. This atleast is how it was received by the public; and, however violent theopposition it met with, I cannot find that its author was blamed fornot having made adequate mention of Lamarck. When Mr. Spencer wrotehis first essay on evolution in the Leader (March 20, 1852) he didindeed begin his argument, "Those who cavalierly reject the doctrineof Lamarck, " &c. , so that his essay purports to be written insupport of Lamarck; but when he republished his article in 1858, thereference to Lamarck was cut out. 

I make no doubt that it was the bad example set him by the writersnamed in the preceding paragraph which betrayed Mr. Darwin intodoing as they did, but being more conscientious than they, he couldnot bring himself to do it without having satisfied himself that hehad got hold of a more or less distinctive feature, and this, ofcourse, made matters worse. The distinctive feature was not due toany deep-laid plan for pitchforking mind out of the universe, or aspart of a scheme of materialistic philosophy, though it has sincebeen made to play an important part in the attempt to further this;Mr. Darwin was perfectly innocent of any intention of getting rid ofmind, and did not, probably, care the toss of sixpence whether theuniverse was instinct with mind or no--what he did care about wascarrying off the palm in the matter of descent with modification, and the distinctive feature was an adjunct with which his nervous, sensitive, Gladstonian nature would not allow him to dispense. 

And why, it may be asked, should not the palm be given to Mr. Darwinif he wanted it, and was at so much pains to get it? Why, ifscience is a kingdom not of this world, make so much fuss aboutsettling who is entitled to what? At best such questions are of asorry personal nature, that can have little bearing upon facts, andit is these that alone should concern us. The answer is, that ifthe question is so merely personal and unimportant, Mr. Darwin mayas well yield as Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck; Mr. Darwin'sadmirers find no difficulty in appreciating the importance of apersonal element as far as he is concerned; let them not wonder, then, if others, while anxious to give him the laurels to which heis entitled, are somewhat indignant at the attempt to crown him withleaves that have been filched from the brows of the great dead whowent before him. Palmam qui meruit ferat. The instinct which tellsus that no man in the scientific or literary world should claim morethan his due is an old and, I imagine, a wholesome one, and if ascientific self-denying ordinance is demanded, we may reply withjustice, Que messieurs les Charles-Darwinies commencent. Mr. Darwinwill have a crown sufficient for any ordinary brow remaining in theachievement of having done more than any other writer, living ordead, to popularise evolution. This much may be ungrudginglyconceded to him, but more than this those who have his scientificposition most at heart will be well advised if they cease henceforthto demand. 

CHAPTER XIX--Conclusion

And now I bring this book to a conclusion. So many things requiringattention have happened since it was begun that I leave it in a verydifferent shape to the one which it was originally intended to bear. I have omitted much that I had meant to deal with, and have beentempted sometimes to introduce matter the connection of which withmy subject is not immediately apparent. Such however, as the bookis, it must now go in the form into which it has grown almost morein spite of me than from malice prepense on my part. I was afraidthat it might thus set me at defiance, and in an early chapterexpressed a doubt whether I should find it redound greatly to myadvantage with men of science; in this concluding chapter I may saythat doubt has deepened into something like certainty. I regretthis, but cannot help it. 

Among the points with which it was most incumbent upon me to dealwas that of vegetable intelligence. A reader may well say thatunless I give plants much the same sense of pleasure and pain, memory, power of will, and intelligent perception of the best way inwhich to employ their opportunities that I give to low animals, myargument falls to the ground. If I declare organic modification tobe mainly due to function, and hence in the closest correlation withmental change, I must give plants, as well as animals, a mind, andendow them with power to reflect and reason upon all that mostconcerns them. Many who will feel little difficulty about admittingthat animal modification is upon the whole mainly due to the secularcunning of the animals themselves will yet hesitate before theyadmit that plants also can have a reason and cunning of their own. 

Unwillingness to concede this is based principally upon the errorconcerning intelligence to which I have already referred--I mean toour regarding intelligence not so much as the power of understandingas that of being understood by ourselves. Once admit that theevidence in favour of a plant's knowing its own business dependsmore on the efficiency with which that business is conducted thaneither on our power of understanding how it can be conducted, or onany signs on the plant's part of a capacity for understanding thingsthat do not concern it, and there will be no further difficultyabout supposing that in its own sphere a plant is just asintelligent as an animal, and keeps a sharp look-out upon its owninterests, however indifferent it may seem to be to ours. So stronghas been the set of recent opinion in this direction that withbotanists the foregoing now almost goes without saying, though fewfive years ago would have accepted it. 

To no one of the several workers in this field are we more indebtedfor the change which has been brought about in this respect than tomy late valued and lamented friend Mr. Alfred Tylor. Mr. Tylor wasnot the discoverer of the protoplasmic continuity that exists inplants, but he was among the very first to welcome this discovery, and his experiments at Carshalton in the years 1883 and 1884demonstrated that, whether there was protoplasmic continuity inplants or no, they were at any rate endowed with some measure ofreason, forethought, and power of self-adaptation to varyingsurroundings. It is not for me to give the details of theseexperiments. I had the good fortune to see them more than oncewhile they were in progress, and was present when they were made thesubject of a paper read by Mr. Sydney B. J. Skertchly before theLinnean Society, Mr. Tylor being then too ill to read it himself. The paper has since been edited by Mr. Skertchly, and published. {253a} Anything that should be said further about it will come bestfrom Mr. Skertchly; it will be enough here if I give the resume ofit prepared by Mr. Tylor himself. 

In this Mr. Tylor said:- "The principles which underlie this paperare the individuality of plants, the necessity for some co-ordinating system to enable the parts to act in concert, and theprobability that this also necessitates the admission that plantshave a dim sort of intelligence. 

"It is shown that a tree, for example, is something more than anaggregation of tissues, but is a complex being performing acts as awhole, and not merely responsive to the direct influence of light, &c. The tree knows more than its branches, as the species know morethan the individual, the community than the unit. 

"Moreover, inasmuch as my experiments show that many plants andtrees possess the power of adapting themselves to unfamiliarcircumstances, such as, for instance, avoiding obstacles by bendingaside before touching, or by altering the leaf arrangement, it seemsprobable that at least as much voluntary power must be accorded tosuch plants as to certain lowly organised animals. 

"Finally, a connecting system by means of which combined movementstake place is found in the threads of protoplasm which unite thevarious cells, and which I have now shown to exist even in the woodof trees. 

"One of the important facts seems to be the universality of theupward curvature of the tips of growing branches of trees, and thepower possessed by the tree to straighten its branches afterwards, so that new growth shall by similar means be able to obtain thenecessary light and air. 

"A house, to use a sanitary analogy, is functionally useless withoutit obtains a good supply of light and air. The architect strives soto produce the house as to attain this end, and still leave thehouse comfortable. But the house, though dependent upon, is notproduced by, the light and air. So a tree is functionally useless, and cannot even exist without a proper supply of light and air; but, whereas it has been the custom to ascribe the heliotropic and othermotions to the direct influence of those agents, I would rathersuggest that the movements are to some extent due to the desire ofthe plant to acquire its necessaries of life. "

The more I have reflected upon Mr. Tylor's Carshalton experiments, the more convinced I am of their great value. No one, indeed, oughtto have doubted that plants were intelligent, but we all of us domuch that we ought not to do, and Mr. Tylor supplied a demonstrationwhich may be henceforth authoritatively appealed to. 

I will take the present opportunity of insisting upon a suggestionwhich I made in "Alps and Sanctuaries" (New edition, pp. 152, 153), with which Mr. Tylor was much pleased, and which, at his request, Imade the subject of a few words that I ventured to say at theLinnean Society's rooms after his paper had been read. "Admitting, "I said, "the common protoplasmic origin of animals and plants, andsetting aside the notion that plants preceded animals, we are stillfaced by the problem why protoplasm should have developed into theorganic life of the world, along two main lines, and only two--theanimal and the vegetable. Why, if there was an early schism--andthis there clearly was--should there not have been many subsequentones of equal importance? We see innumerable sub-divisions ofanimals and plants, but we see no other such great subdivision oforganic life as that whereby it ranges itself, for the most partreadily, as either animal or vegetable. Why any subdivision?--butif any, why not more than two great classes?"

The two main stems of the tree of life ought, one would think, tohave been formed on the same principle as the boughs which representgenera, and the twigs which stand for species and varieties. Ifspecific differences arise mainly from differences of action takenin consequence of differences of opinion, then, so ultimately dogeneric; so, therefore, again, do differences between families; sotherefore, by analogy, should that greatest of differences in virtueof which the world of life is mainly animal, or vegetable. In thislast case as much as in that of specific difference, we ought tofind divergent form the embodiment and organic expression ofdivergent opinion. Form is mind made manifest in flesh throughaction: shades of mental difference being expressed in shades ofphysical difference, while broad fundamental differences of opinionare expressed in broad fundamental differences of bodily shape. 

Or to put it thus:-

If form and habit be regarded as functionally interdependent, thatis to say, if neither form nor habit can vary without correspondingvariation in the other, and if habit and opinion concerningadvantage are also functionally interdependent, it follows self-evidently that form and opinion concerning advantage (and hence formand cunning) will be functionally interdependent also, and thatthere can be no great modification of the one without correspondingmodification of the other. Let there, then, be a point in respectof which opinion might be early and easily divided--a point inrespect of which two courses involving different lines of actionpresented equally-balanced advantages--and there would be an earlysubdivision of primordial life, according as the one view or theother was taken. 

It is obvious that the pros and cons for either course must besupposed very nearly equal, otherwise the course which presented thefewest advantages would be attended with the probable gradualextinction of the organised beings that adopted it, but there beingsupposed two possible modes of action very evenly balanced asregards advantage and disadvantages, then the ultimate appearance oftwo corresponding forms of life is a sequitur from the admissionthat form varies as function, and function as opinion concerningadvantage. If there are three, four, five, or six such opinionstenable, we ought to have three, four, five, or six mainsubdivisions of life. As things are, we have two only. Can we, then, see a matter on which opinion was likely to be easily andearly divided into two, and only two, main divisions--no thirdcourse being conceivable? If so, this should suggest itself as theprobable source from which the two main forms of organic life havebeen derived. 

I submit that we can see such a matter in the question whether itpays better to sit still and make the best of what comes in one'sway, or to go about in search of what one can find. Of course we, as animals, naturally hold that it is better to go about in searchof what we can find than to sit still and make the best of whatcomes; but there is still so much to be said on the other side, thatmany classes of animals have settled down into sessile habits, whilea perhaps even larger number are, like spiders, habitual liers inwait rather than travellers in search of food. I would ask myreader, therefore, to see the opinion that it is better to go insearch of prey as formulated, and finding its organic expression, inanimals; and the other--that it is better to be ever on the look-outto make the best of what chance brings up to them--in plants. Somefew intermediate forms still record to us the long struggle duringwhich the schism was not yet complete, and the halting between twoopinions which it might be expected that some organisms shouldexhibit. 

"Neither class, " I said in "Alps and Sanctuaries, " "has been quiteconsistent. Who ever is or can be? Every extreme--every opinioncarried to its logical end--will prove to be an absurdity. Plantsthrow out roots and boughs and leaves; this is a kind of locomotion;and, as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since pointed out, they dosometimes approach nearly to what may be called travelling; a man ofconsistent character will never look at a bough, a root, or atendril without regarding it as a melancholy and unprincipledcompromise" (New edition, p. 153). 

Having called attention to this view, and commended it to theconsideration of my readers, I proceed to another which should nothave been left to be touched upon only in a final chapter, andwhich, indeed, seems to require a book to itself--I refer to theorigin and nature of the feelings, which those who accept volitionas having had a large share in organic modification must admit tohave had a no less large share in the formation of volition. Volition grows out of ideas, ideas from feelings. What, then, isfeeling, and the subsequent mental images or ideas?

The image of a stone formed in our minds is no representation of theobject which has given rise to it. Not only, as has been oftenremarked, is there no resemblance between the particular thought andthe particular thing, but thoughts and things generally are toounlike to be compared. An idea of a stone may be like an idea ofanother stone, or two stones may be like one another; but an idea ofa stone is not like a stone; it cannot be thrown at anything, itoccupies no room in space, has no specific gravity, and when we cometo know more about stones, we find our ideas concerning them to bebut rude, epitomised, and highly conventional renderings of theactual facts, mere hieroglyphics, in fact, or, as it were, countersor bank-notes, which serve to express and to convey commodities withwhich they have no pretence of analogy. 

Indeed we daily find that, as the range of our perceptions becomesenlarged either by invention of new appliances or after use of oldones, we change our ideas though we have no reason to think that thething about which we are thinking has changed. In the case of astone, for instance, the rude, unassisted, uneducated senses see itas above all things motionless, whereas assisted and trained ideasconcerning it represent motion as its most essential characteristic;but the stone has not changed. So, again, the uneducated idearepresents it as above all things mindless, and is as little able tosee mind in connection with it as it lately was to see motion; itwill be no greater change of opinion than we have most of usundergone already if we come presently to see it as no less full ofelementary mind than of elementary motion, but the stone will nothave changed. 

The fact that we modify our opinions suggests that our ideas areformed not so much in involuntary self-adjusting mimeticcorrespondence with the objects that we believe to give rise tothem, as by what was in the outset voluntary, conventionalarrangement in whatever way we found convenient, of sensation andperception-symbols, which had nothing whatever to do with theobjects, and were simply caught hold of as the only things we couldgrasp. It would seem as if, in the first instance, we must havearbitrarily attached some one of the few and vague sensations whichwe could alone at first command, to certain motions of outsidethings as echoed by our brain, and used them to think and feel thethings with, so as to docket them, and recognise them with greaterforce, certainty, and clearness--much as we use words to help us todocket and grasp our feelings and thoughts, or written characters tohelp us to docket and grasp our words. 

If this view be taken we stand in much the same attitude towards ourfeelings as a dog may be supposed to do towards our own reading andwriting. The dog may be supposed to marvel at the wonderfulinstinctive faculty by which we can tell the price of the differentrailway stocks merely by looking at a sheet of paper; he supposesthis power to be a part of our nature, to have come of itself byluck and not by cunning, but a little reflection will show thatfeeling is not more likely to have "come by nature" than reading andwriting are. Feeling is in all probability the result of the samekind of slow laborious development as that which has attended ourmore recent arts and our bodily organs; its development must besupposed to have followed the same lines as that of our other arts, and indeed of the body itself, which is the ars artium--for growthof mind is throughout coincident with growth of organic resources, and organic resources grow with growing mind. 

Feeling is the art the possession of which differentiates thecivilised organic world from that of brute inorganic matter, butstill it is an art; it is the outcome of a mind that is common bothto organic and inorganic, and which the organic has alonecultivated. It is not a part of mind itself; it is no more thisthan language and writing are parts of thought. The organic worldcan alone feel, just as man can alone speak; but as speech is onlythe development of powers the germs of which are possessed by thelower animals, so feeling is only a sign of the employment anddevelopment of powers the germs of which exist in inorganicsubstances. It has all the characteristics of an art, and though itmust probably rank as the oldest of those arts that are peculiar tothe organic world, it is one which is still in process ofdevelopment. None of us, indeed, can feel well on more than a veryfew subjects, and many can hardly feel at all. 

But, however this may be, our sensations and perceptions of materialphenomena are attendant on the excitation of certain motions in theanterior parts of the brain. Whenever certain motions are excitedin this substance, certain sensations and ideas of resistance, extension, &c. , are either concomitant, or ensue within a period toobrief for our cognisance. It is these sensations and ideas that wedirectly cognise, and it is to them that we have attached the ideaof the particular kind of matter we happen to be thinking of. Asthis idea is not like the thing itself, so neither is it like themotions in our brain on which it is attendant. It is no more likethese than, say, a stone is like the individual characters, writtenor spoken, that form the word "stone, " or than these last are, insound, like the word "stone" itself, whereby the idea of a stone isso immediately and vividly presented to us. True, this does notinvolve that our idea shall not resemble the object that gave riseto it, any more than the fact that a looking-glass bears noresemblance to the things reflected in it involves that thereflection shall not resemble the things reflected; the shiftingnature, however, of our ideas and conceptions is enough to show thatthey must be symbolical, and conditioned by changes going on withinourselves as much as by those outside us; and if, going behind theideas which suffice for daily use, we extend our inquiries in thedirection of the reality underlying our conception, we find reasonto think that the brain-motions which attend our conceptioncorrespond with exciting motions in the object that occasions it, and that these, rather than anything resembling our conceptionitself, should be regarded as the reality. 

This leads to a third matter, on which I can only touch with extremebrevity. 

Different modes of motion have long been known as the causes of ourdifferent colour perceptions, or at any rate as associatedtherewith, and of late years, more especially since the promulgationof Newlands' {260a} law, it has been perceived that what we call thekinds or properties of matter are not less conditioned by motionthan colour is. The substance or essence of unconditioned matter, as apart from the relations between its various states (which webelieve to be its various conditions of motion) must remain for everunknown to us, for it is only the relations between the conditionsof the underlying substance that we cognise at all, and where thereare no conditions, there is nothing for us to seize, compare, and, hence, cognise; unconditioned matter must, therefore, be asinconceivable by us as unmattered condition; {261a} but though wecan know nothing about matter as apart from its conditions orstates, opinion has been for some time tending towards the beliefthat what we call the different states, or kinds, of matter are onlyour ways of mentally characterising and docketing our estimates ofthe different kinds of motion going on in this otherwiseuncognisable substratum. 

Our conception, then, concerning the nature of any matter dependssolely upon its kind and degree of unrest, that is to say, on thecharacteristics of the vibrations that are going on within it. Theexterior object vibrating in a certain way imparts some of itsvibrations to our brain--but if the state of the thing itselfdepends upon its vibrations, it must be considered as to all intentsand purposes the vibrations themselves--plus, of course, theunderlying substance that is vibrating. If, for example, a pat ofbutter is a portion of the unknowable underlying substance in such-and-such a state of molecular disturbance, and it is only byalteration of the disturbance that the substance can be altered--thedisturbance of the substance is practically equivalent to thesubstance: a pat of butter is such-and-such a disturbance of theunknowable underlying substance, and such-and-such a disturbance ofthe underlying substance is a pat of butter. In communicating itsvibrations, therefore, to our brain a substance does actuallycommunicate what is, as far as we are concerned, a portion ofitself. Our perception of a thing and its attendant feeling aresymbols attaching to an introduction within our brain of a feeblestate of the thing itself. Our recollection of it is occasioned bya feeble continuance of this feeble state in our brains, becomingless feeble through the accession of fresh but similar vibrationsfrom without. The molecular vibrations which make the thing an ideaof which is conveyed to our minds, put within our brain a littlefeeble emanation from the thing itself--if we come within theirreach. This being once put there, will remain as it were dust, tilldusted out, or till it decay, or till it receive accession of newvibrations. 

The vibrations from a pat of butter do, then, actually put butterinto a man's head. This is one of the commonest of expressions, andwould hardly be so common if it were not felt to have somefoundation in fact. At first the man does not know what feeling orcomplex of feelings to employ so as to docket the vibrations, anymore than he knows what word to employ so as to docket the feelings, or with what written characters to docket his word; but he gets overthis, and henceforward the vibrations of the exterior object (thatis to say, the thing) never set up their characteristicdisturbances, or, in other words, never come into his head, withoutthe associated feeling presenting itself as readily as word andcharacters present themselves, on the presence of the feeling. Themore butter a man sees and handles, the more he gets butter on thebrain--till, though he can never get anything like enough to bestrictly called butter, it only requires the slightest moleculardisturbance with characteristics like those of butter to bring up avivid and highly sympathetic idea of butter in the man's mind. 

If this view is adopted, our memory of a thing is our retentionwithin the brain of a small leaven of the actual thing itself, or ofwhat qua us is the thing that is remembered, and the ease with whichhabitual actions come to be performed is due to the power of thevibrations having been increased and modified by continual accessionfrom without till they modify the molecular disturbances of thenervous system, and therefore its material substance, which we havealready settled to be only our way of docketing moleculardisturbances. The same vibrations, therefore, form the substanceremembered, introduce an infinitesimal dose of it within the brain, modify the substance remembering, and, in the course of time, createand further modify the mechanism of both the sensory and motornerves. Thought and thing are one. 

I commend these two last speculations to the reader's charitableconsideration, as feeling that I am here travelling beyond theground on which I can safely venture; nevertheless, as it may besome time before I have another opportunity of coming before thepublic, I have thought it, on the whole, better not to omit them, but to give them thus provisionally. I believe they are bothsubstantially true, but am by no means sure that I have expressedthem either clearly or accurately; I cannot, however, further delaythe issue of my book. 

Returning to the point raised in my title, is luck, I would ask, orcunning, the more fitting matter to be insisted upon in connectionwith organic modification? Do animals and plants grow intoconformity with their surroundings because they and their fathersand mothers take pains, or because their uncles and aunts go away?For the survival of the fittest is only the non-survival or goingaway of the unfittest--in whose direct line the race is notcontinued, and who are therefore only uncles and aunts of thesurvivors. I can quite understand its being a good thing for anyrace that its uncles and aunts should go away, but I do not believethe accumulation of lucky accidents could result in an eye, nomatter how many uncles and aunts may have gone away during how manygenerations. 

I would ask the reader to bear in mind the views concerning life anddeath expressed in an early chapter. They seem to me not, indeed, to take away any very considerable part of the sting from death;this should not be attempted or desired, for with the sting of deaththe sweets of life are inseparably bound up so that neither can beweakened without damaging the other. Weaken the fear of death, andthe love of life would be weakened. Strengthen it, and we shouldcling to life even more tenaciously than we do. But though deathmust always remain as a shock and change of habits from which wemust naturally shrink--still it is not the utter end of our being, which, until lately, it must have seemed to those who have beenunable to accept the grosser view of the resurrection with which wewere familiarised in childhood. We too now know that though wormsdestroy this body, yet in our flesh shall we so far see God as to bestill in Him and of Him--biding our time for a resurrection in a newand more glorious body; and, moreover, that we shall be to the fullas conscious of this as we are at present of much that concerns usas closely as anything can concern us. 

The thread of life cannot be shorn between successive generations, except upon grounds which will in equity involve its being shornbetween consecutive seconds, and fractions of seconds. On the otherhand, it cannot be left unshorn between consecutive seconds withoutnecessitating that it should be left unshorn also beyond the grave, as well as in successive generations. Death is as salient a featurein what we call our life as birth was, but it is no more than this. As a salient feature, it is a convenient epoch for the drawing of adefining line, by the help of which we may better grasp theconception of life, and think it more effectually, but it is a faconde parler only; it is, as I said in "Life and Habit, " {264a} "themost inexorable of all conventions, " but our idea of it has nocorrespondence with eternal underlying realities. 

Finally, we must have evolution; consent is too spontaneous, instinctive, and universal among those most able to form an opinion, to admit of further doubt about this. We must also have mind anddesign. The attempt to eliminate intelligence from among the mainagencies of the universe has broken down too signally to be againventured upon--not until the recent rout has been forgotten. Nevertheless the old, far-foreseeing Deus ex machina design as froma point outside the universe, which indeed it directs, but of whichit is no part, is negatived by the facts of organism. What, then, remains, but the view that I have again in this book endeavoured touphold--I mean, the supposition that the mind or cunning of which wesee such abundant evidence all round us, is, like the kingdom ofheaven, within us, and within all things at all times everywhere?There is design, or cunning, but it is a cunning not despoticallyfashioning us from without as a potter fashions his clay, butinhering democratically within the body which is its highestoutcome, as life inheres within an animal or plant. 

All animals and plants are corporations, or forms of democracy, andmay be studied by the light of these, as democracies, notinfrequently, by that of animals and plants. The solution of thedifficult problem of reflex action, for example, is thusfacilitated, by supposing it to be departmental in character; thatis to say, by supposing it to be action of which the department thatattends to it is alone cognisant, and which is not referred to thecentral government so long as things go normally. As long, therefore, as this is the case, the central government isunconscious of what is going on, but its being thus unconscious isno argument that the department is unconscious also. 

I know that contradiction in terms lurks within much that I havesaid, but the texture of the world is a warp and woof ofcontradiction in terms; of continuity in discontinuity, anddiscontinuity in continuity; of unity in diversity, and of diversityin unity. As in the development of a fugue, where, when the subjectand counter subject have been enounced, there must henceforth benothing new, and yet all must be new, so throughout organic life--which is as a fugue developed to great length from a very simplesubject--everything is linked on to and grows out of that whichcomes next to it in order--errors and omissions excepted. Itcrosses and thwarts what comes next to it with difference thatinvolves resemblance, and resemblance that involves difference, andthere is no juxtaposition of things that differ too widely byomission of necessary links, or too sudden departure from recognisedmethods of procedure. 

To conclude; bodily form may be almost regarded as idea and memoryin a solidified state--as an accumulation of things each one of themso tenuous as to be practically without material substance. It isas a million pounds formed by accumulated millionths of farthings;more compendiously it arises normally from, and through, action. Action arises normally from, and through, opinion. Opinion, from, and through, hypothesis. "Hypothesis, " as the derivation of theword itself shows, is singularly near akin to "underlying, and onlyin part knowable, substratum;" and what is this but "God" translatedfrom the language of Moses into that of Mr. Herbert Spencer? Theconception of God is like nature--it returns to us in another shape, no matter how often we may expel it. Vulgarised as it has been byMichael Angelo, Raffaelle, and others who shall be nameless, it hasbeen like every other corruptio optimi--pessimum: used as ahieroglyph by the help of which we may better acknowledge the heightand depth of our own ignorance, and at the same time express oursense that there is an unseen world with which we in some mysteriousway come into contact, though the writs of our thoughts do not runwithin it--used in this way, the idea and the word have been foundenduringly convenient. The theory that luck is the main means oforganic modification is the most absolute denial of God which it ispossible for the human mind to conceive--while the view that God isin all His creatures, He in them and they in Him, is only expressedin other words by declaring that the main means of organicmodification is, not luck, but cunning. 

Footnotes:

{17a} "Nature, " Nov. 12, 1885. 

{20a} "Hist. Nat. Gen. , " tom. Ii. P. 411, 1859. 

{23a} "Selections, &c. " Trubner & Co. , 1884. [Out of print. ]

{29a} "Selections, &c. , and Remarks on Romanes' 'MentalIntelligence in Animals, '" Trubner & Co. , 1884. Pp. 228, 229. [Outof print. ]

{35a} Quoted by M. Vianna De Lima in his "Expose Sommaire, " &c. , p. 6. Paris, Delagrave, 1886. 

{40a} I have given the passage in full on p. 254a of my"Selections, " &c. [Now out of print. ] I observe that CanonKingsley felt exactly the same difficulty that I had felt myself, and saw also how alone it could be met. He makes the wood-wren say, "Something told him his mother had done it before him, and he wasflesh of her flesh, life of her life, and had inherited her instinct(as we call hereditary memory, to avoid the trouble of finding outwhat it is and how it comes). " --Fraser, June, 1867. Canon Kingsleyfelt he must insist on the continued personality of the twogenerations before he could talk about inherited memory. On theother hand, though he does indeed speak of this as almost a synonymfor instinct, he seems not to have realised how right he was, andimplies that we should find some fuller and more satisfactoryexplanation behind this, only that we are too lazy to look for it. 

{44a} 26 Sept. , 1877. "Unconscious Memory. " ch. Ii. 

{52a} This chapter is taken almost entirely from my book, "Selections, &c. . And Remarks on Romanes' 'Mental Evolution inAnimals. '" Trubner, 1884. [Now out of print. ]

{52b} "Mental Evolution in Animals, " p. 113. Kegan Paul, Nov. , 1883. 

{52c} Ibid. P. 115. 

{52d} Ibid. P. 116. 

{53a} "Mental Evolution in Animals. " p. 131. Kegan Paul, Nov. , 1883. 

{54a} Vol. I, 3rd ed. , 1874, p. 141, and Problem I. 21. 

{54b} "Mental Evolution in Animals, " pp. 177, 178. Nov. , 1883. 

{55a} "Mental Evolution in Animals, " p. 192. 

{55b} Ibid. P. 195. 

{55c} Ibid. P. 296. Nov. , 1883. 

{56a} "Mental Evolution in Animals, " p. 33. Nov. , 1883. 

{56b} Ibid. , p. 116. 

{56c} Ibid. , p. 178. 

{59a} "Evolution Old and New, " pp. 357, 358. 

{60a} "Mental Evolution in Animals, " p. 159. Kegan Paul & Co. , 1883. 

{61a} "Zoonomia, " vol. I. P. 484. 

{61b} "Mental Evolution in Animals, " p. 297. Kegan Paul & Co. , 1883. 

{61c} Ibid. , p. 201. Kegan Paul & Co. , 1883. 

{62a} "Mental Evolution in Animals, " p. 301. November, 1883. 

{62b} Origin of Species, " ed. I. P. 209. 

{62c} Ibid. , ed. Vi. , 1876. P. 206. 

{62d} "Formation of Vegetable Mould, " etc. , p. 98. 

{62e} Quoted by Mr. Romanes as written in the last year of Mr. Darwin's life. 

{63a} Macmillan, 1883. 

{66a} "Nature, " August 5, 1886. 

{67a} London, H. K. Lewis, 1886. 

{70a} "Charles Darwin. " Longmans, 1885. 

{70b} Lectures at the London Institution, Feb. , 1886. 

{70c} "Charles Darwin. " Leipzig. 1885. 

{72a} See Professor Hering's "Zur Lehre von der Beziehung zwischenLeib und Seele. Mittheilung uber Fechner's psychophysischesGesetz. "

{73a} Quoted by M. Vianna De Lima in his "Expose Sommaire desTheories Transformistes de Lamarck, Darwin, et Haeckel. " Paris, 1886, p. 23. 

{81a} "Origin of Species, " ed. I. , p. 6; see also p. 43. 

{83a} "I think it can be shown that there is such a power at workin 'Natural Selection' (the title of my book). "--"Proceedings of theLinnean Society for 1858, " vol. Iii. , p. 51. 

{86a} "On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, " 1831, pp. 384, 385. Seealso "Evolution Old and New, " pp. 320, 321. 

{87a} "Origin of Species, " p. 49, ed. Vi. 

{92a} "Origin of Species, " ed. I. , pp. 188, 189. 

{93a} Page 9. 

{94a} Page 226. 

{96a} "Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. "Williams and Norgate, 1858, p. 61. 

{102a} "Zoonomia, " vol. I. , p. 505. 

{104a} See "Evolution Old and New. " p. 122. 

{105a} "Phil. Zool. , " i. , p. 80. 

{105b} Ibid. , i. 82. 

{105c} Ibid. Vol. I. , p. 237. 

{107a} See concluding chapter. 

{122a} Report, 9, 26. 

{135a} Ps. Cii. 25-27, Bible version. 

{136a} Ps. Cxxxix. , Prayer-book version. 

{140a} Contemporary Review, August, 1885, p. 84. 

{142a} London, David Bogue, 1881, p. 60. 

{144a} August 12, 1886. 

{150a} Paris, Delagrave, 1886. 

{150b} Page 60. 

{150c} "OEuvre completes, " tom. Ix. P. 422. Paris, Garnier freres, 1875. 

{150d} "Hist. Nat. , " tom. I. , p. 13, 1749, quoted "Evol. Old andNew, " p. 108. 

{156a} "Origin of Species, " ed. Vi. , p. 107. 

{156b} Ibid. , ed. Vi. , p. 166. 

{157a} "Origin of Species, " ed. Vi. , p. 233. 

{157b} Ibid. 

{157c} Ibid. , ed. Vi. , p. 109. 

{157d} Ibid. , ed. Vi. , p. 401. 

{158a} "Origin of Species, " ed. I. , p. 490. 

{161a} "Origin of Species, " ed. Vi. , 1876, p. 171. 

{163a} "Charles Darwin, " p. 113. 

{164a} "Animals and Plants under Domestication, " vol. Ii. , p. 367, ed. 1875. 

{168a} Page 3. 

{168b} Page 4. 

{169a} It should be remembered this was the year in which the"Vestiges of Creation" appeared. 

{173a} "Charles Darwin, " p. 67. 

{173b} H. S. King & Co. , 1876. 

{174a} Page 17. 

{195a} "Phil. Zool. , " tom. I. , pp. 34, 35. 

{202a} "Origin of Species, " p. 381, ed. I. 

{203a} Page 454, ed. I. 

{205a} "Principles of Geology, " vol. Ii. , chap. Xxxiv. , ed. 1872. 

{206a} "Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte, " p. 3. Berlin, 1868. 

{209a} See "Evolution Old and New, " pp. 8, 9. 

{216a} "Vestiges, " &c. , ed. 1860; Proofs, Illustrations, &c. , p. Xiv. 

{216b} Examiner, May 17, 1879, review of "Evolution Old and New. "

{218a} Given in part in "Evolution Old and New. "

{219a} "Mind, " p. 498, Oct. , 1883. 

{224a} "Degeneration, " 1880, p. 10. 

{227a} E. G. The Rev. George Henslow, in "Modern Thought, " vol. Ii. , No. 5, 1881. 

{232a} "Nature, " Aug. 6, 1886. 

{234a} See Mr. Darwin's "Animals and Plants under Domestication, "vol. I. , p. 466, &c. , ed. 1875. 

{235a} Paris, 1873, Introd. , p. Vi. 

{235b} "Hist. Nat. Gen. , " ii. 404, 1859. 

{239a} As these pages are on the point of going to press, I seethat the writer of an article on Liszt in the "Athenaeum" makes thesame emendation on Shakespeare's words that I have done. 

{240a} "Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, " vol. Iii. , p. 373. London, 1839. 

{242a} See Professor Paley, "Fraser, " Jan. , 1882, "Science Gossip, "Nos. 162, 163, June and July, 1878, and "Nature, " Jan. 3, Jan. 10, Feb. 28, and March 27, 1884. 

{245a} "Formation of Vegetable Mould, " etc. , p. 217. Murray, 1882. 

{248a} "Fortnightly Review, " Jan. , 1886. 

{253a} "On the Growth of Trees and Protoplasmic Continuity. "London, Stanford, 1886. 

{260a} Sometimes called Mendelejeff's (see "Monthly Journal ofScience, " April, 1884). 

{261a} I am aware that attempts have been made to say that we canconceive a condition of matter, although there is no matter inconnection with it--as, for example, that we can have motion withoutanything moving (see "Nature, " March 5, March 12, and April 9, 1885)--but I think it little likely that this opinion will meetgeneral approbation. 

{264a} Page 53.