E3 ^^^^^S1^E3^^^^^^E3 Marine Biological Laboratory Library Woods Hole, Mass. Presented by Uie Ronald Press Co* ^^ew York July, 1969 E3 S r^ Evolution: The Ages and Tomorrow G. MURRAY McKINLEY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE RONALD PRESS COMPANY • NEW YORK Copyright, ©, 1956 by The Ronald Press Company All Rights Reserved The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 56-10927 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To human self-appraisal on a basis of verifiable knoioledge Preface A knowledge of evolution is necessary to any under- standing of the natural world and, above all, of man and his position in that world. For man, in his mind and moral life, as well as in his body, is a product of the evolutionary process and can be understood only in the light of its principles. We learn of one aspect of man when we trace the evolu- tion of his mind. The account of this development pro- ceeds from the vague awareness of unicellular creatures, past the blind alleys of instinct which find their furthest extension in the social insects, to the intricate nervous sys- tem and complex mind of modem man. We know more about ourselves, too, when we learn that physical fitness was not the sole determinant of survival. Cooperativeness, or Darwin's "mutual aid," developed simultaneously with physical fitness and has been an equally important factor in determining which of nature's myriad experiments were successful. Even the simplest creatures benefit from associa- tion with their fellows, and all animals exhibit some form of social organization. Social cooperativeness, with the tech- niques of transmitting experience which it eventually de- veloped, evolves slowly to its expression in man's civiliza- tions and his moral life, and is absolutely essential to high-level consciousness and intellect. Man is the first creature equipped to gain sufficient understanding to influence his own evolution. As soon as that fact is realized, a knowledge of the evolutionary forces that have formed him assumes the highest priority. Through a knowledge of evolution man may properly cen- VI PREFACE ter his thinking about himself. If there is to be hope for the highest possible unity of mind and nature, man must 'deliberately and intelligently shape his future; to do so he must understand his evolutionary past. After thirty years of studying evolution, trying always to gather into the story evidence of over-all progress and even purposeful striving toward greater understanding, I now find it difficult to credit properly all the many sources for the material in this book. I can single out some of the works that influenced my study but not all of them. I know that I am very much indebted to the essays of Julian Hux- ley, and to his writing on evolution with H. G. Wells in the Science of Life. G. G. Simpson and E. W. Sinnott have also guided me, and although I have never had the pleasure of meeting them, I feel that I know them well. I suppose they would be hesitant to go as far as I do in assigning purpose, as an innate characteristic, to the over-all process of the universe; but I have always felt, and never more strongly than now, that no other interpretation of the record was possible, regardless of where such an in- terpretation might lead us. I think that the book defends my position; but even if the argument were shown to be in- adequate for the present, I suppose my emotions would hold me to the concept. I am not sure when I first became aware of the impor- tance of Giordano Bruno and his behef in an actual unity of matter and mind, but it was a long time ago. It seemed to me then, and the conviction has grown through the years, that the metaphysics of Bruno and Spinoza would some day clear the air of all the foggy ideas that confuse us. As an evolutionist I felt that here were concepts that would not be foreign to the process, and that feeling has been strengthened in recent years since I have come to know my friend, Oliver L. Reiser. This philosopher, whose writings on scientific humanism and on pantheism as a world philosophy (see Chapter 16) are well known, has very greatly in- PREFACE VU fluenced me. I have come to have the philosophical faith that my views on evolution carry meaning and promise, and that eventually science and philosophy will demonstrate beyond all doubt that the unitary nature of the evolutionary process is a fact. I am greatly indebted to my friend, Dr. Florence M. Teagarden, for her great patience in reading the manu- script, for her counsel on my statements about psychology, and for her many helpful suggestions in all parts of the book. G. Murray McKinley Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania July, 1956 Contents CHAPTER 1 The Organizing Drive of Evolution 2 Physical Background of Evolution 3 Beginnings of Life . 4 Genes in Control . 5 Plant and Animal Progression 6 Man 7 The Importance of Social Life 8 The Civilizations of Man 9 The Origins of Mind 10 Development of Mind in Animals 11 Instinct 12 Conceptual Thought 13 The Trends of Evolution 14 The Threat of Overpopulation 15 Danger of Declining Intelligence 16 Evolution and Ethics 17 The Goal of Evolution . Bibliography .... Index page 3 11 23 35 44 S6 70 85 108 120 136 158 176 189 203 215 234 250 265 IX 75369 -^r 1 = Evolution : The Ages and Tomorrow V 1 The Organi^jng Drive of Evolution Man is an evolving tip of a cosmic process— a complex, sentient expression of an evolution that began as an energy- ripple in the underlying space-time unity. It is man's priv- ilege for a moment, however ephemeral, to look back w^ith some understanding on the long and hazardous way he has traveled, a way that has led through the evolution of the universe, from subatomic mass-energy forces to the four- dimensional continuum which progressively reveals itself as the spiral galaxy, the sun and the earth, amoeba and man. It was Albert Einstein who gave us in his unified field the- ory the tentative support of science for the concept of a coalescing unity of all the basic phenomena of the physical universe. Einstein saw that matter and energy are one, but it was Giordano Bruno in the sixteenth century who was the first of the modems to think of mind and nature as one, on the basis of the unity and universality of substance. Bruno paid for his boldness by being burned alive at the order of the Roman Inquisition— killed "as mercifully as possible and without the shedding of blood." With his very great imagination, Bruno was able to take hold of the results of the early sciences of the Renaissance and combine them into a complete system of the universe, a system surprisingly 4 evolution: the ages and tomorrow close to the letter and spirit of modem science. To Bruno, ... all reality is one in substance, one in cause, one in origin; . . . every particle of reality is composed inseparably of the physi- cal and the psychical. The object of philosophy, therefore, is to preserve unity in diversity, mind in matter, and matter in mind; to find the synthesis in which opposites and contradictions meet and merge; to rise to that highest knowledge of the universal unity which is the intellectual equivalent of the love of God.* In our day the trend of evidence in the physical sciences has led steadily toward a unification of our concepts of the physical universe, and there seems little doubt now that all may be revealed as the expression of one universal field. A simplicity that would have been unbelievable to the nine- teenth-century physicist is replacing the surface complexity of nature. This infinite mechanism which we call the cosmos ap- pears to be a self-operating complex of innumerable lesser mechanisms, bound together and operationally controlled by lawfully ordered principles. It is self-sufficient, not a passive, inert machine operated by an outside agent. There is no Prime Mover unmoved. The operator is an integral part of the mechanism; or better, the mechanism itself is the operator. This natural mechanism does not need an external djinn to tell it how or when to produce a volcano or a galactic system or a man. Its products may be material or- ganized in various ways, or differing manifestations of en- ergy, or matter transformed into energy, or energy into matter— endlessly changing patterns and products in a won- derfully intricate and imaginatively creative scheme. The universe has been and is evolving. My purpose in this book is to place man, his mind, and his moral life in a proper relationship with the other configurations of the four-dimensional continuum. Only in this century has it become possible to marshal scientific evidence for the con- cept of the unity of mind and matter. We begin to see * Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1926) , p. 166. ORGANIZING DRIVE OF EVOLUTION 5 clearly that on the basis of over-all evolution, inorganic and organic, no other concept seems acceptable. Certainly no form of fundamental dualism has any place in this universe. Evolution is one of the great and rather completely dem- onstrated principles of science. As a process, evolution has not only formed the physical universe but has also gradu- ally, imperceptibly, out of a vague and diffuse awareness, brought into existence endless and varied organisms. Some organisms eventually became better and better equipped to know and to understand. It will be my object to show that the mind of man is an expression of this process; or, differ- ently phrased, that the innate psychical quality which is one with the material universe finds a high-level expression in man's mind. Man is a very recent arrival on the scene of an organic evolution that stretches back on this earth to the unimagi- nable remoteness of more than 2,000,000,000 years. The newness of man and the speed with which he has finally evolved is of deep significance if we are to understand him and his problems. It is nearly meaningless to speak of mil- lions of years of animal evolution and then to add that man, as Homo sapiens, is only some several hundred thousand years old. To set up a conceivable perspective, compare all this vast stretch of time, some 2,000,000,000 years (the es- timated age of the oldest rocks) to one calendar year— Jan- uary 1 to midnight, December 31. On this scale, life begins to appear vaguely in February in the form of microscopic units not yet fully cellular. Even in early April there are only unicellular organisms in the waters of the earth; and not until late May do the first primitive backboneless ani- mals, the invertebrates, appear. At the halfway mark on July 1, there are still no multicellular plants and no back- boned animals, the vertebrates, and the land is utterly barren and waste. During the summer, land plants appear and quickly spread into moist places. Invertebrates and finally vertebrates crawl furtively out of the water to exploit the 6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow shadow and substance of early mosses and ferns. Evolution is gaining momentum, but not until September are the dry upland meadows of the earth covered with grasses and flowering plants and deciduous trees. Monstrous reptiles, as in a frightful nightmare, appear and disappear in the fall; and a magnificent and very rapid spread of the warm- blooded and very brainy mammals and birds begins. The primate monkey races ahead of all other mammals and the promise of man is in the air. All through Decem- ber the primates diverge, but it is not until near the last week of the year that the great apes appear. Now the rumor of man is very strong; near-men are being rushed forward by an evolution that is moving at a tremendously accelerated pace. Then, on the last day of the year, December 31, just some four hours before midnight, man appears, walking gracefully erect and equipped with sensitive, marvelously dexterous hands that are free to become the investigating and limitlessly adaptive tools of a great brain. An hour, or so, later he makes tentative efforts at social life, but it is not until the last minute of the year that his first civilization is organized. The long record of life on this earth would seem to show how slowly and with what desperate gambles and fatal losses nature finally resolves fundamental problems. This is something we must examine very closely, particularly where it concerns man's social evolution. Once a basic problem has been solved, nature has been able to move for- ward at ever-increasing speeds. Obviously, the main prob- lems of man's social evolution have not yet been fully solved, but there is no reason to suppose that their solution is beyond the power of the process. How nature solved these difliculties for some one lucky organism, and why there are always countless others that fail along the way, are questions of great importance to the evolutionist, who sees the over-all fact of evolution but has only a limited vision of the "how" or the mechanics of the ORGANIZING DRIVE OF EVOLUTION 7 process. In the classical view of evolution it seemed appar- ent that, on the whole, plants and animals fit the place in which they live. They are fitted to their surroundings by adaptations which, under the guiding action of Darwin's natural selection, in some way confer biological advantage upon them— "the survival of the fittest." In the more modem view, as will be brought out, the geneticist sees a controlling mechanism arising out of the origin of the hereditary deter- miners, the genes, which become solely responsible for all organisms, past and present, through an eon of structural change or mutation, guided by adaptive selection. Trial and error characterize the situation— not intelligent direction from within or without. Orthodox evolutionists emphasize the mechanical aspects of the process and fail to find any design or purpose. And, indeed, from most points of view they are justified. The tremendous scale and terrible ruthlessness of the destruction of endless kinds of organisms, the blind and seemingly vicious struggle, the countless fail- ures ending in "dead ends" and extinction, the rough going, and the obviously unsentimental nature of reality have all made a deep impression on the serious student of evolution. Only some physical scientists, philosophers and theologians, and wishful thinkers have been able in their almost complete ignorance of biology to ignore these facts of nature. Any review of the varieties of organisms on this earth and their history would necessarily bring out evidence that pur- pose in the paleontological record is difficult to visualize on purely scientific grounds. It would seem necessary to as- sume extra-terrestrial forces, to set up dualistic explanations such as a personalized God, or a Bergsonian "elan vital," or the telefinalism of most theology. Biological scientists who are deeply familiar with the organic history of this earth have been unwilling to assume the very awkward position of placing the burden of life's gallant struggle on the shoul- ders of such omnipotent supernatural forces. They would not feel comfortable, knowing that the divine guidance had 8 evolution: the ages and tomorrow failed so often and so miserably. Looked at in its details, * 'nature is seldom mild." The over-all waste is staggering to the imagination of frugal man. Hideous parasites and loath- some diseases, insect larvae which devour living prey ever so slowly from the inside, female spiders that enjoy eating their mates in the very act of reproducing new life, brainless degenerate forms, the basic "dog eat dog" of the animal world, "man's inhumanity to man," and economic cannibal- ism are all a part of a nightmare which is not easily shaken off on the morning one sets out to assign purpose to evolu- tion. Nevertheless, it is my strong conviction— call it a philo- sophical faith, if you wish— that very definitely there is purpose in the universe. I shall try to show in this book that awareness and intelligence, as well as mere survival, are the ends that evolution is pursuing. Indeed, the psychical qual- ity that Bruno thought existed as one with every particle of the universe is seeking consciousness through evolution. I understand purpose as nonanthropomorphic. I see purpose as an innate characteristic of mind in matter-energy sub- stance, as much a descriptive item as any other that an analy- sis of the nature of the space-time continuum may reveal. I see purpose realized only if and when increasingly critical configurations evolve; and I see an eternal striving toward the realization of these configurations. In the evolution of conscious understanding, nature must blindly seek all pos- sible situations, await the synthesis of endlessly complex in- gredients, suffer failure more often than success, and, per- haps, eternally fall short of the ultimate. To assign such characteristics to the mind in matter- energy substance is no more strange than to say that the carbon atom is of a certain nature and is capable of forming exceedingly complex substances when and if the proper conditions arise. This is not to assume that the carbon atom must be directed by individual divine guidance; and yet we are assigning purpose to this atom when we review its be- ORGANIZING DRIVE OF EVOLUTION 9 havior in the formation of its multiplicity of combinations. Such is the nature of carbon, we do not know why; such is the nature of mind in matter-energy, nor do we know why. In the following chapters we will briefly review the ac- cumulating knowledge that man's body, mind, and morals have evolved out of his animal ancestry. The evidence is excellent, and even the most orthodox evolutionist would probably be willing to admit that with this growing fund of knowledge man can introduce purpose into his segment of the universe on a finite scale. It could then be said that evo- lution has "attained" purpose. I feel that a careful study of the evidence supports the larger contention that nature can and will, wherever and whenever the conditions permit, evolve high-level intellect— higher or lower than on this earth, as each situation allows. However blindly nature seeks, by her incredible thoroughness she will eventually find the way to the top of the permissible levels in any situation. Because of this belief, I do not feel that I should be accused of holding teleological views; for, to me the goal of evolution is "an ever receding goal," unattainable even finitely, and I hope that a careful reading of my theme and the data supporting it will clear me of such charges. Cer- tainly, I should be cleared of the charge of reading into na- ture any such meaning as telefinalism. The limitations set against the evolutionary process can be critical at any level, and these conditions will be empha- sized in the following pages. The configurations necessary to success become increasingly intricate and special. This is the great problem for man. For, even with the appearance of man, top-level organism that he is, a cooperative society of understanding individuals, each with naturally strong and lasting qualities of good will, must be evolved before there can be a full expression of the mind potential. Man cannot infer from any part of the evolutionary rec- ord that his ultimate success is assured. On the contrary, it is probable that he will fail unless he can consciously use the lo evolution: the ages and tomorrow laws that may be learned in an ever-closer study of the over-all evolutionary process. As the record seems clearly to indicate, without the use of the awareness and intelligence that the evolutionary process is seeking, the process itself remains a bhnd, uncertain gamble. Man must turn to nature and face up squarely to whatever the reality may be, even though it may mean that he must control the number and quality of his own kind, that he must give up his inherited superstitions and wickedly willful delusions, his dogma, and his psychological blind spots. He must know himself and nature, of which he is a part. Surely he need not always be a "cow'rin, tim'rous beastie," not daring to face up to the cosmic plowman. 2 Physical Background of Evolution The fundamental unity of the universe has become more and more apparent since the turn of the century. Quantum mechanics and relativity with its concepts of the equiva- lence of matter and energy and the indivisibility of space and time have given physicists a description of this unity in terms of mathematical relationships. In spite of the definitely limited senses of perception with which man is equipped, a picture of the universe, however tenuous and wraithlike, is beginning to appear; and the order that runs through this picture is something on which all minds can concur. From relatively few, fundamental subatomic particles the great variety of physical substance is built up, first into the 92 natural elements, hydrogen to uranium, then into molec- ular combinations of greater and greater complexity. We know that the basic theories of the evolution of the elements are sound since it has already been possible to duplicate some of the processes involved. The splitting of the uranium atom and the synthesis of helium from hydrogen in the fire of this explosion, however menacing it may be to man, is nevertheless incontestable proof of his assumptions. The na- ture of the subatomic microcosm is now partially revealed, and Einstein's unified field theory is expected, along with other attacks on the problem, to reveal still more. This II 12 evolution: the ages and tomorrow microcosm, together with the revelation of something of the vast geography of the universe and the distribution of galaxies all apparently rushing away from each other into deep space, places before us an awe-inspiring picture. The earth is reduced to a "cosmic pebble" in one of millions of island universes, each with billions of stars— a pebble, how- ever, that is of tremendous importance in the evolution of the mind in matter-energy substance. It is only on the earth and in similar situations in the universe that a high-level ex- pression of mind is possible. The necessary conditions are exceedingly peculiar— so much so that, perhaps, only a few comparable situations occur in a whole galaxy of stars. In our own solar system only the earth is so favored, although there may be some possibility of low forms of life on Mars. Questions as to the origin of the earth are of high interest and are a matter of concern to our theses: one would not wish to confine the evolution of the mind to a few scattered locales in an infinite waste. The "riddle of the universe" is, perhaps, the most difficult problem of science and will not easily be solved. Was the universe formed "catastrophically" when all the matter in space, after being concentrated in one superatom, exploded outward in a holocaust of billions of degrees temperature? A universe finite in time and in space; born yesterday to die tomorrow. Or, is it cyclic, being bom to die to be bom again— matter concentrating to explode to be concentrated again endlessly? A cosmos such as this reminds one of the intensely cyclic religion of the Hindus who see Brahman exhaling and in- haling the universe eon after eon. Or, has it always been somewhat like its present form, changing only locally in an endless birth and death of gal- axies, suns, and earths— an eternal succession of stages upon which the drama of life may be played for awhile? This hypothesis is the more pleasing philosophically since it does not involve the dire prediction based on the second law of PHYSICAL BACKGROUND OF EVOLUTION I3 thermodynamics that through the degradation of energy, running downhill to a final heat death, the universe will eventually die. For many, speculation concerning the cosmos is fascinat- ing. The cosmologist, amateur or professional, is awed by the vast sweep of the star systems, the inconceivable dis- tances, the gigantic proportions, and the organization that does appear out of what at first seems to be a star-scattered chaos. A review of theories concerning the stars and their history, however, is very liable to be confusing because of the great differences of opinion among the astronomers who concern themselves with this problem. The fact is that the "riddle of the universe" is still very much a riddle. Mod- em equipment like the great 200-inch reflector at Palomar and, above all, the new giant radar telescopes hold real promise for a future solution. But let us briefly review some theories that are tentatively held in our day. Even the problem of the origin of one of the "cosmic pebbles" we call the planets is diflicult, for, an examination of the earth itself gives little information except that the ground substance is common to the universe. The origin took place in the remote past, not less than 3,000,000,000 years ago, a period of time that is only a little less than the age of the universe in its present form. Theories are not lacking, but possibly none is entirely satisfactory. In the eighteenth century Buffon led off by finding place in one of his more than two score volumes of the Histoire naturelle for a description of the formation of the solar system as the result of a collision between the sun and what he called a "comet," meaning, however, a large soHd body. He thought that this collision engendered various-sized bits of stellar matter which were thrown off at the moment of impact to form the planets, all set in motion in the same plane and in the direction of the sun's rotation about its own axis. In 1796 Laplace criticized Buffon's views and proposed the theory that the planets were produced by the sun itself as 14 evolution: the ages and tomorrow the result of an explosion which threw part of its atmosphere far out into space. He thought that the planets condensed from this gas (the so-called nebular hypothesis) and their motions were the result of the sun's original revolution around its own axis. Analysis eventually revealed difficulties in the Laplace hypothesis, at least as expressed by its author, and at the turn of the twentieth century science returned to Buif on's idea of a two-parent collision. The modern collision hypothesis, formulated independ- ently by Sir J. H. Jeans, T. C. Chamberlin, and F. R. Moulton, assumes that the planets are the result of a giant tidal wave raised on the surface of the sun by the near- approach of another star. In this theory tidal action is sub- stituted for Buifon's direct collision, largely because the former is more probable. Many years of careful analysis by the authors of this theory have shown it to be capable of ex- plaining most of the characteristics of the solar system, but it is not all-inclusive. Some of its failures may be fatal to the theory, and in recent years modifications have been pro- posed that begin to pile theory on theory, always a sign of weakness. H. N. Russell has proposed that before the en- counter with the passing star, the sun was a twin star. Such twins are common enough in the heavens, but the develop- ment of this modification has not appeared to be of much help to the original theory. All critics have pointed out that collisions or near-colli- sions between stars would be exceedingly rare— in fact, so rare in the present form of the universe as to make worlds such as ours almost unique in a whole galaxy of stars. If the universe is expanding, a concept which will be discussed later, near-collisions would have been much more common some 3,000,000,000 years ago when the stars were closer together; but this assumption would tend to set up planetary systems of nearly all the same age, a condition not too de- sirable in in evolutionary process where one might long for an eternal succession of worlds. PHYSICAL BACKGROUND OF EVOLUTION I5 In 1943, C. von Weizsacker, after a study of recent infor- mation concerning the distribution of matter outside the stellar bodies, set up a theory which, in a modified form, re- turns to the Laplace hypothesis. He thinks that when the sun was formed by the condensation of interstellar matter, a very large part remained on the outside as an envelope from which the planets were formed. Development of this theory is very ingenious and shows great promise although it does not explain the formation of the sun itself. Also, the theory has the added advantage of making it almost certain that planetary systems surround nearly every star in the universe. Still more recently, F. L. Whipple has taken this same information concerning the distribution of interstellar mat- ter and has developed what he calls the dust cloud hypothe- sis, which attempts to explain the origin of the whole solar system, the sun, and its planets. Whipple's explanation fits into the modem pattern of astrophysics and may be the be- ginning of our real understanding of the formation of the stellar bodies. From an evolutionary point of view the the- ory is most interesting, since it would produce innumerable planets of all ages— born and still unborn in an endless series. The vast masses of highly dispersed dust which are scattered in space have been one of the highlights of recent astronomi- cal discovery. These great clouds, which are composed of hydrogen, helium, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and other ele- ments, are now known to be undergoing a coalescing proc- ess. The elements enter into combination to form minute dust particles which are slowly forced into larger and larger aggregates by gravity and the pressure of light from sur- rounding stars. Whipple has worked out a very convincing mechanics of light pressure and finally of gravity to show how eventually, after upwards of a billion years, these huge dust clouds condense to the point where pressure produces the heat necessary to start the atomic fire of a sun. The planets are formed by gravitational eddies which appear i6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow in the cloud just before its final collapse. Dust clouds of all sizes— some of the smaller ones being just at the point of final condensation— have been found all over our galactic system. In fact, it is now known that there is actually more matter outside the stars than within. Apparently, the universe in its present form is still evolv- ing new stars and new planets— new localities without num- ber where evolution, undiscouraged by failures elsewhere, may explore again and again every possible variation in an eternal striving toward understanding. Although the con- ditions necessary for the appearance of conscious under- standing are extremely special, it is assumed that among the great number of planets, star-scattered in a galaxy, a few do offer sufficient opportunity for life. Modem astronomy is lavish with size and number, even when speaking tentatively in terms of the finite— of millions upon millions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. It was a great year for science when, in 1924, Edwin Hubble with his 100-inch reflector first resolved the galaxy, Andromeda Nebula. A great deal has been learned about the macrocosm since that year: the chemical composition of the stars, mostly hydrogen; the source of stellar energy, a nu- clear reaction building hydrogen into helium; the kinds and sizes and distribution of the stars; the kinds and sizes of the vast galaxies of space. A cosmologist can now take this growing knowledge, along with all the related advances, and begin to piece together a system of the universe. One of the most sensational of all cosmologies is the con- cept that the universe is exploding, an idea that has risen out of the discovery by V. M. Slipher and Edwin Hubble that spectral lines of light from the galaxies show a shift to the longer wavelengths (red shift), as though this were a Dop- pler effect and the galaxies were receding at great speeds. Einstein had originally assumed on the basis of his equations that the universe is finite: a closed, four-dimensional, spher- ical structure. His was a static cosmos. The Abbe Lemaitre PHYSICAL BACKGROUND OF EVOLUTION I7 showed that such a static universe would be unstable and, along with W. de Sitter, postulated a cosmos constantly ex- panding outward in all directions. The advocates of this theory think that the universe was born some 4,000,000,000 years ago when all the matter now scattered in space was exploded after being concentrated in one superatom. George Gamow tells a breathless story of this moment- neutrons, electrons, protons madly milling in a holocaust of billions of degree temperature, exploding outward as the heat reaches the critical point; then in a brief hour of evo- lution all the elements, beginning with hydrogen, being formed. The red shift would tend to confirm the expanding universe concept, provided it can be shown that the shift is not due to the degradation of light in its long journey through the space-time continuum or to the operation of unknown physical laws. One of the programs assigned to the new 200-inch reflector at Palomar is the study of this situation. Some years ago E. A. Milne proposed a new doctrine which he called kinematic relativity, whereby he attempted to explain the phenomenon of the expanding universe with- out appeal to the idea of a curved, finite space. Many feel that this theory is, like Einstein's general relativity, one of the truly great imaginative doctrines of all time. In Milne's universe, as considered in one time-frame, galaxies are in mutual recession from each other; and, as measured from any particular galaxy, the others are receding in such a manner that the farther away they are, the greater the speed of recession. The galaxies, as described in this time-frame, came into existence at a "point-singularity" zero time (crea- tion) and from that moment on have been expanding. In another time-frame and in hyperbolic space this same uni- verse can be interpreted differently by changing the mode of clock-graduation. In this second time-frame the galaxies will appear stationary with reference to each other, there will be no point of origin, and the universe will be infinite i8 evolution: the ages and tomorrow in time and space. Milne's mathematics applied in detail in- dicate that electron revolution was slower a long time ago; that is, the planetary electron in the hydrogen atom, for instance, takes less time to revolve now than formerly. By reasoning through the Bohr theory of atomic spectra, Milne concluded that the light emitted by atoms in the galaxies in the far distant past was of longer wavelength than that emitted here on earth at present. It is thus that he explains the shift toward the red in the light of galaxies which are millions of light-years distant. Sir Arthur Eddington thought that the universe is forever expanding and will eventually be dispersed so remotely as to cease to be an entity. It was Eddington who applied the second law of thermodynamics (entropy) to this situation and came to the conclusion that all the energy of the uni- verse is being dissipated, and that some day there would exist only a vast, cold deadness (heat death). Few, if any, cosmologists have ever liked this prediction, but it is some- what difficult to explain away. Escape from the heat-death concept lies in the direction of Einstein's equations of the equivalence of mass and energy. It is unreasonable to sup- pose that this equivalence will not eventually be found to work both ways in the universe. Perhaps the key to this reciprocal convertibility of matter and energy is at hand in some of the recent investigations concerning the role of "mesons" in the subatomic microcosm. These energy en- tities come into existence for only a ten-thousandth of a second and are continually being born and reborn. They explode with bursts of energy that are thousands of times greater than those which come from the disintegration of atoms. Robert Oppenheimer thinks that possibly the mesons manifest the "pulse beat" that is necessary to hold the uni- verse together. Perhaps they are a binding connection be- tw'een the underlying field energy of the unmanifest cosmos and the reality of the manifest mass-energy continuum, a part of the creative force in the universe. PHYSICAL BACKGROUND OF EVOLUTION 19 Richard Tolman overcomes the difficulty of heat death by using the Lemaitre assertion that the repulsion of the original explosion is opposed by the attraction of the group- ing of matter in space, and concludes that the cosmos will expand outward only until the attraction and repulsion forces balance. Then, he thinks, the universe must fall back in upon itself with increasing speed until another superatom is formed— a cosmos expanding and contracting through eternity. x\nother cosmos that is spectacularly self-sufficient and endless has recently been proposed by Fred Hoyle and R. A. Lyttle. They, too, were impressed by the new knowl- edge that the greater part of the matter in the universe is outside the stars. In their cosmos, space is filled with very thin hydrogen which is gravitationally unstable and grad- ually forms clouds that drift for billions of years, eventually massing into nascent galaxies. They think that clots form within the great gas masses, clots which pack denser and denser under gravitational forces until atomic fires produce the suns. Once formed, these suns undergo a varied devel- opment, depending on how much gaseous cloud material is left in the system. If a sun passes through great masses of gas, it gathers, as Lyttle's mechanics shows, more and more material which forces it to bum its hydrogen at a spend- thrift rate. These are the steel blue giants of the heavens burning out (turning their hydrogen into helium) in less than a billion years. With no hydrogen left, such stars begin to contract, spinning faster and faster and getting hotter and hotter until fantastic temperatures are reached. When free neutrons appear, there is a sudden formation of heavy elements (iron, uranium, etc.). These nuclear reactions ab- sorb energy and the star collapses, releasing so much gravi- tational energy that the outer layers fly off in a tremendous explosion, a stellar flare-up which astronomers call a super- nova. After the great explosion a white dwarf remains— dim, dense, and burned out. 20 evolution: the ages and tomorrow Thus, Hoyle and Lyttle set up their cosmos with an ex- planation of the origin of whole galaxies, and they continue with an outline of mechanics which gives some promise of helping to understand the history of the stars and their planets. In fact this ambitious theory takes into account nearly all known cosmic phenomena. They believe that planets are formed when one member of a binary system blows up to produce a nova, a phenomenon which is known to occur in our galaxy about every 250 years. They develop ingenious mechanics for this planetary subtheory which seems to explain quite well some of the unusual features of our solar system, not the least of which is the concentration of heavy elements in the planets and not in the sun. Our sun, these cosmologists point out, is a stable, conservative hydro- gen burner; that is, the energy generated is balanced by the energy radiated. This will go on for some ten bilHon more years before our sun will begin to flare up as a nova and finally consume its inner planets including the earth. Hoyle and his colleagues, Bondi and Gold, think that the expand- ing universe concept is wrong because the galaxies are re- ceding from each other much too fast. Their calculations, based on the speed of the outer galaxies, would give a time for the original explosion that would make the whole uni- verse younger than some of its stars and our planet. Bondi and Gold assume that the universe is actually in a "steady state" and that the recession of the galaxies is due to the con- stant addition of new matter, about one atom of hydrogen to one gallon of space every 200,000,000 years. These as- tronomers do not, at present, try to explain the constant and regular appearance of hydrogen in the cosmos. They do assume, however, that as space stretches to the limit the outer galaxies, then apparently racing at the speed of light, spill out of the system and disappear— a cosmos in which equilibrium is maintained by the synthesis and annihilation of matter in equal quantity. The organizing force that cre- ates hydrogen is a main enigma of the cosmos. PHYSICAL BACKGROUND OF EVOLUTION 21 From an evolutionary point of view this Hoyle-Lyttle universe, with its eternal synthesis and annihilation of mat- ter, is attractive. New configurations in the space-time con- tinuum are constantly appearing: new galaxies, new stars, new planets, new life. Also, this theory escapes, at least in part, the philosophical difficulty of starting the universe off under conditions totally different from those prevailing at present. To some, however, all the theories so far discussed will be unsatisfactory because of their space and time limita- tions. Perhaps it is necessary to turn back to Giordano Bruno for a more satisfactory philosophical concept— to a timeless, infinite universe containing an endless number of worlds. Modernized, the Bruno concept appears as a hierarchic structure of galaxies and supergalaxies. This hierarchic con- cept is credited by E. Finlay-Freundlich to Lambert who thought that matter is combined and distributed, first to form galaxies, then the galaxies are combined to form super- galaxies, then super-supergalaxies, and so on to infinity. Al- though no one seems to have developed this concept beyond a general initial statement, it has intriguing possibilities. It is said that an infinite amount of matter in an infinite space would show the required finite values of gravitational forces (Einstein's equations) in each element of volume. Finlay- Freundlich points out that such a universe would be static as far as the large-scale redistribution of matter is con- cerned; and he argues that a hierarchic universe is an ex- panding universe, since the transition to a space of infinite volume has to be done by exhausting an infinite number of concentric shells all centered around the observer. It would not be surprising if the 200-inch telescope at Palomar would bring out a definite picture of supergalaxies. O. L. Reiser, with the help of B. G. H. Vanderjagt, has worked out a cosmos which he believes is free from both time and space difficulties, one in which the hierarchic idea of Lambert would be acceptable. His concept gives us a 22 evolution: the AGES AND TOMORROW cosmos eternal in time and infinite in space; and nature pre- serves a balance between the amount of matter present in the manifest universe of particles and the amount of field energy of the unmanifest universe which lies outside all special space-and-time coordinate systems. His is a cyclical but nonrepeating universe within which evolution "on all levels of matter, life and mind is taking place under the in- fluence of Guiding Fields." These, then, are some of the theories by which science is attempting to solve the riddle of the universe. However, in spite of the uncertainties that science faces, there is the reasonable assurance that certain basic relationships are now known. Einstein's special theory of relativity which dem- onstrated the equivalence of matter and energy and his gen- eral theory of relativity which showed the indivisibility of the space-time continuum have already withstood the criti- cal testing of his fellow physicists. Einstein's unified field theory has yet to be tested. If, in the future, it stands and its equations can be made to cover the laws of quantum me- chanics, the main enigma of the subatomic world may be re- solved. As Lincoln Barnett points out, the composition of matter, the structure of the elementary particles, gravita- tional and electromagnetic force, electric charge and field, space and time will all be related in a deep underlying unity. There is also the reasonable certainty that the substance of the body of the universe and the life which occurs upon it have originated through the evolution of the subatomic world— that microcosm of complex nuclei surrounded by trembling musts of electrons from which the chemical ele- ments are formed. Out of molecular combinations of greater and greater complexity these elements of the universal sub- stance, as will be shown in the following pages, continue a natural synthesis through to the highest forms of life in body, in mind, and in morals— a synthesis from the sub- atomic to the atomic to molecular levels and on to man. 3 Beginnings of Life To dress the stage so that life as we know it may appear, is the work of a very special series of evolutionary processes. Life's habitat must be exceedingly well placed and favored as to the physical and chemical configuration: it must not be too near nor too far from solar radiation; it must not be too large nor too small; it must have large and easily ac- cessible quantities of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxy- gen, besides a score or more other elements like calcium, phosphorus, iron, iodine, and so forth. There must be water for the colloids and emulsions of the living substance; in the millions of degrees of temperature of the sidereal universe there must never be in life's habitat a range long sustained above the boiling point or below the freezing point of water; and there must be evolved eventually, if high-level mind is to appear, the forest and the upland meadow and the ocean of the atmosphere. The distance of a planet from its sun will be the main factor determining its surface temperature. In our solar system. Mercury is much too close and is bathed in a fiery furnace of radiation, the surface temperature of the sunny side being high enough to melt lead. Jupiter is too far out; it is a frozen world more than a hundred and fifty degrees colder than ice. The same holds for all the outer planets of our system, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. None of these could be the abode of any life we can imagine. Venus, Earth, and Mars are situated at more or less favorable dis- 23 24 evolution: the ages and tomorrow tances, and they are the right size, which is equally impor- tant. If a planet is too small, as is our moon for instance, it will never be able to hold an atmosphere; if it is too large, as is Jupiter, it will hold all the light gases present at its birth, a condition eventually leading, together with other factors, to an atmosphere in which hydrogen predominates along with methane (marsh-gas) and ammonia. The elements most necessary for life will likely be present at the origin of a planetary system since they are all in the cosmos. The four important ones are carbon, hydrogen, ni- trogen, and oxygen; but the greatest of these is carbon. Mat- ter becomes alive through the inexhaustible "genius" of this element with its unique and infinite combinations and, as has been shown by H. F. Blum, through the unique "fitness" of the others to combine with it. No other element possesses car- bon's wide range of properties, although silicon is similar to a limited degree. Chemistry is just beginning to visualize fully the immense and endless Complexity of the compound molecules which have carbon as a basis; and biology is justi- fied in assuming that life wherever found in the universe would be in essence of the carbon configuration. Water is the medium of life and it must be present as a liquid, not as ice or steam exclusively. The building blocks of protoplasm are joined with, and in the presence of, water; and all the complexity of the configuration of life is possible only in the narrow temperature range of liquid water. This can be a critically limiting factor for the appearance of life, since in our solar system only the earth has the "cool, clear water" in and out of which high life forms can emerge. The over-all complex of environment is always the limiting factor. Venus is the right size and is not too near the sun, yet it is wholly a desert world with no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. All the land is a "dust bowl" beaten by unrelenting tornados at insufferable temperatures. Great clouds of dust swirl high into the carbon dioxide atmosphere. Obviously, no life whatever is possible there. BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 25 Mars possesses some water vapor but no surface water. On occasion, small white clouds of water vapor appear high in the very thin atmosphere at the equator and are more or less permanent over the poles. Yellow dust clouds appear more frequently and are sometimes very large and persist for weeks. Mars is an exceedingly dry planet with tempera- tures ranging daily at the equator from well below freezing at night to 50 degrees F. or so at noon. The very thin at- mosphere may contain some oxygen, a sign that there has been and still is limited plant growth. The seasonal greenish markings on the planet are generally taken to confirm this. However, D. B. McLaughlin contends that these markings indicate volcanic activity and that the changes of color are due to the reaction of atmospheric carbon dioxide and vol- canic ash distributed by seasonally prevailing winds. In Mc- Laughlin's view. Mars is a world where the stage for the appearance of life is about to be set by the release of suffi- cient water through volcanic action. This, of course, con- trasts with the view of others that Mars is a dying world gradually losing the last of its atmosphere. In any case, at the present time the only possible life there is of a very low kind, probably something like our lichens. The atmosphere of the earth is the result of a long evolu- tion. It is doubtful if any atmosphere at all remained after the hot, molten mass of our globe was individualized. Either the gases of the air were boiled away by being too close to the contracting mass of our nascent sun (the dust cloud hy- pothesis), or they were lost due to the high molecular ac- tivity of the gases. There is general agreement that we start our history on a globe of molten magma without any appre- ciable atmosphere. The cooling magma evolved water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases but no great quantity of free oxygen or nitrogen. Jeffreys suggests that the water vapor was released when the silicates, which had been hold- ing it, soHdified. One of the main sources of oxygen was the production of glucose (sugar) in plants by the combination 26 evolution: the ages and tomorrow of water and carbon dioxide, encouraged by chlorophyll, locking up the energy of sunlight (photosynthesis). Oxy- gen was probably also produced in the stratosphere, accord- ing to Malcolm Dole, by photochemical and ionization activity from oxides of carbon and nitrogen. Nitrogen, too, was introduced to the atmosphere by the activity of plants. By the time of the formation of the solid crust, the atmos- phere of the earth was chiefly carbon dioxide and steam; and the latter was raining water onto the hot rocks to form the oceans. Our earth is rich in water, but it could have been too rich. A greater quantity would have forever submerged the land and hence the highly active and intelligent land forms of life would not have existed here. From the record it is permis- sible to say that no high-level intellect can evolve as a marine form; and again we find that psychic evolution in any given situation is dependent on increasingly critical circumstance. The stage is set and the drama of life begins, not with any orchestral fanfare or flourish, but imperceptibly, grad- ually, and naturally, molecule by molecule, following the laws of structure and relationship that apply throughout the whole universe. The special role in which the element carbon has been cast is soon apparent, and the hydrocarbons (compounds of carbon and hydrogen) appear. Even some of the complex compounds of this group are found in meteorites and in the dust of interstellar space. They were formed on the earth even before the hot rocks had cooled, through metallic carbides (carbon and metals) changing to hydrocarbons in a reaction with hot steam. Hydrocarbons are organic substances and are produced in association with life; they are the primary compounds. J. B. S. Haldane points out that ultraviolet radiation, now cut off by the ozone of the stratosphere, penetrated to the surface and greatly aided this synthesis. In the classical scheme of A. I. Oparin nitrogen enters as nitrides of iron or calcium or BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 27 aluminum or magnesium, easily and rapidly formed in the cooling substrate. Acted upon by the dense water vapor, these nitrides produced ammonia (nitrogen and hydrogen) ; or carbides reacting with nitrogen formed cyanamides which combined with the hot steam to form ammonia as one of the products. The formation of nitrides and ammonia and of carbides and hydrocarbons is the first step in the evolution of the living, a step that is being taken in the atmosphere of the stars. With water vapor the hydrocarbons form alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, and organic acids; and with ammonia these substances give rise to amines and amides. All these compounds are the raw materials of life, and they must have literally rained into the swelling seas on our early earth. Our chemists of today can take these compounds and synthesize them into innumerable complex organic sub- stances; there is no reason to suppose that nature could not have done as much, easily and quite without outside help. In the organic synthesis which begins at this point, in the laboratory or in nature, the carbon atoms are joined in longer and longer chains (condensation) ; organic molecules are held in union by an atom of oxygen or nitrogen (poly- merization); and there is oxidation through the action of the hydroxyl ion of water. Sugars, an energy source of the organism, slowly formed in the sunlight, even in nature, from formaldehyde (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen) long be- fore the evolution of chlorophyll. Fats— also made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and a great energy storehouse for the organism— were easily synthesized from long-chain hydrocarbon acids and glycerol. Glycol (the double al- cohol), finally forming, split its groups: one to be oxidized to form an acid, the other to react with ammonia to form an amine; and the amino acids appeared. With the advent of the amino acids (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen) the real building blocks of proteins and hence eventually of protoplasm are present and the next-to- 28 evolution: the ages and tomorrow the-last step is in preparation. Amino acids combine to form proteins in a complex "peptide linkage." The acid group of one amino acid reacts with the amino group of another, leaving an acid and amino group free, a condition that leads to indefinite repetition and the enormous molecular weight and complexity of the proteins. The modern chemist has no difficulty synthesizing the amino acids and can even pro- duce a "protein-like" substance; but the great complexity of the true protein is too much for his present techniques. All this activity in the early seas, as Oparin has worked out, was producing colloids of greater and greater com- plexity, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in profusion. Elec- trically active groups of opposite charge appeared, mutually precipitating to form droplets of a complex mixture called a coacervate, which absorbs water on its surface to form membranes and hence is a primitive beginning of individ- uality. The formation of these membranes, which are essen- tial to the birth of an organism, can be studied by the chemist in various inorganic and organic colloids. Living protoplasm is a colloidal solution of various organic sub- stances, complex emulsions consisting of minute electrically charged particles suspended in water and held apart by the repulsive forces between the charges. In pure water which is a poor electrical conductor, the particles of an inorganic colloid (gold, for instance) are held apart by the repulsive charges. If salt is added and the conductivity of the water is increased, the particles will begin to lose their charges and will form larger and larger aggregates until the gold is precipitated out of the colloid. The same precipitation will occur if two gold colloids of opposite charge are mixed. There is a very marked difference in the behavior of an organic colloid. In this case the molecules of the carbon compound have such a strong affinity for water that the colloidal particles always gather around themselves con- centric layers of water molecules which form a "water membrane." If salt is added to a gum arable colloid, the gum BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 29 arable does not precipitate out (coagulate) as does gold be- cause the water membrane around each minute particle pre- vents it from losing its charge. For the same reason, if two organic colloids of opposite charge are brought together, the particles begin to attract each other but they cannot fuse. Instead, a jelly-like, semifluid substance (coacervate) is formed. Many investigators have studied the properties of these coacervate droplets, and the analogies to living protoplasm are obvious. Like life, these droplets can grow by absorbing various substances dissolved in the surround- ing medium; and, like life, some droplets of this kind can increase in size to certain limits and then divide. It would seem, then, that coacervates are a link between the inorganic and organic worlds. In the seas of our early earth their ap- pearance signaled the beginning of the evolution toward "being alive." Each coacervate droplet was individualized and was on its own. Now enters the Darwinian principle of "selection." Each droplet was growing by absorbing the chemical substances dissolved in the surrounding water. At this stage of "not- yet-life" there must have been tremendous variation in the droplets, and any that were advantageously gifted would have tended to survive at the expense of the less fortunate— a principle that still holds throughout the whole kingdom of hfe. Soon, favored droplets reached the sizes where fis- sion was necessary to increase the surface area for absorp- tion (because of the ratio of surface area to volume of a sphere). Thus, at still microscopic levels we have the fore- runners of the first living cell, a difficult and long drawn-out stage of evolution. "Life" at the virus level now appears. These ultra-micro- scopic nucleoproteins of which we have heard so much in recent years are, under the older definitions, neither life nor not-life. They are truly borderline, and with their discovery the last vestige of the dualism of inorganic versus organic went out of biology. We see clearly now that there is one 30 evolution: the ages and tomorrow continuous synthesis throughout all nature— from the sub- atomic to the atomic to the molecular to man. Haldane, who has recently applied E. A. iMilne's theory of kinematical relativity to the problem of the origin of life, thinks that all the early stages of the synthesis were long delayed, awaiting the evolution of a sufficiently high energy release from molecular transformation. We do know that the first half of geological time on this earth, some 1,000,- 000,000 years, passed before life was able to reach definite multicellular complexity. Haldane thinks that the virus level of evolution was very long delayed and that the viruses made repeated efforts to reach the cell stage, where they could be immersed in a suitable nutrient solution, before they were finally successful. Chemical reactions in that early day did not yield energy rapidly enough to overcome diffusion. Haldane points out that even today some cells, particularly bacteria, leak badly and grow best in cultures of heavy population. Whatever the cause may have been, there is no doubt that the organization of the first true cell was one of na- ture's most difficult problems, and its solution one of her greatest triumphs. The appearance of the first true cell can be dated to some extent. Geology records definitely that the earliest Pre-Cambrian rocks (about 1,800,000,000 years ago) show little or no sign of photosynthesis, the plant ac- tivity that produces free oxygen. After the appearance of the first cells, photosynthesis probably evolved in a few mil- lions of years, and the sedimentary rocks begin to show pre- dominantly ferric iron (produced by free oxygen). This would be about 1,500,000,000 years ago. Once the develop- ment of photosynthesis was perfected, nature had the vast potential of the energy of sunlight for the future of evolu- tion. Organisms use light directly or eat organisms that do. Viruses and genes (hereditary determiners) are self- reproducing systems. They were probably formed from coacervates which acquired enzymes (fennenting agents) BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 3I and later became self-reproducing or autocatalytic. Such self -reproducing catalysts or enzymes are well known to the chemistry of today. In the early seas the first autocata- lytic substance would have had a very great advantage and would have soon dominated the situation. In modem or- ganisms, including man, the self-duplicating chromosomes with their many hereditary determiners, the genes, are still carrying on this autocatalytic activity. It was W. M. Stan- ley in 1935 who first succeeded in crystallizing a virus, the tobacco mosaic. He obtained a chemically pure nucleopro- tein, which can be stored indefinitely and yet will produce the tobacco mosaic disease if placed on the tobacco leaf. Viruses have also been photographed by the new electronic microscope. Although we know viruses now only as para- sites, that does not exclude the possibility that there may be free-living forms. We simply have no way at present of determining them except by their effects (disease produc- tion). One very remarkable characteristic of all viruses is their high mutability; they undergo apparently spontaneous molecular rearrangement or chemical change of some sort (mutation) which alters their effects. In their mutations, ultramicroscopic size, and general chemical nature, they are like the genes of heredity; the similarity is most striking. One can assume that the first primitive cells were the re- sult of the assembling of genes to form aggregates, later differentiation and mutation leading to an hereditary con- trol through the formation of independently existing chro- mosomes. Some of today's most primitive bacteria are at this stage. The addition of protoplasm and the retention of the chromosome in a nuclear body would produce the first complete cell, the process being controlled throughout by the mutating genes. This assumption is strongly supported by the study of modern bacteria and of the hereditary determiners of all organisms from the most primitive to man. Before the advent of the first primitive cells, nature was dependent entirely on the "food material" in the me- 32 evolution: the ages and tomorrow dium; coacervates and viruses could not synthesize, they could only absorb. The true organism, on the other hand, can synthesize or build up its protoplasm from simpler chemical configurations. These syntheses are the work of enzym.es, which the true organism possesses and which are absolutely necessary to its development. We now have a degree of certainty that genes control this biosynthesis. In certain primitive forms (the red bread mold, for instance), N. H. Horowitz, H. J. Teas, and M. Fling have shown that the synthesis of substances needed by the organism is produced in a series of successive steps, each step being the specific action of a gene. Even in the human being, as A. E. Garrow and others were able to show, cer- tain metabolizing failures are traceable to a simple gene de- fect; and many other instances are available in the literature. In the origin of early living forms, the power to synthesize became of paramount importance. Oparin assumed that the first organisms found a large supply of organic substances of all kinds in the waters. There had been a long period of slow energy storage in the ancient seas, probably through some 500,000,000 years. At first, organisms were able to find all the chemicals required for their simple needs ready at hand; but a time came when the supply was exhausted. In fact, we assume that today the spontaneous generation of pre-life substances is not likely since present-day living forms are constantly, and with exceeding thoroughness, searching out and devouring any organic material. When the first supply of energy substances was exhausted, most of the early organisms perished, and it is at this point that something like a truly "living organism" appears. These living organisms had learned to synthesize their own building blocks and with these to construct their bodies. Horowitz has given us a possible way in which this was accomplished. He was able to show that in the red bread mold at least seven different genetically controlled enzymes are necessary for the synthesis of an amino acid, BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 33 arginine. Horowitz thinks that the organism evolved ways of acquiring these enzymes in somewhat the following man- ner: the primitive organism needs a substance A, abundant in the medium, as are also B and C, from which A could be synthesized in the presence of an appropriate enzyme. As long as A is plentiful in the environment, it makes no differ- ence whether there is an enzyme for its synthesis or not. Sooner or later, however, the growing population uses up the A substance, which was originally built up in the an- cient seas through slow abiotic processes. Thus, when A is nearing depletion, those organisms which have an enzyme for the production of A from B and C will have a very great selective advantage and will replace the original nonsyn- thesizing types. This is a pre-adaptation situation which oc- curs again and again in the course of evolution. Thus, an enzyme has become a part of the heredity of the organism. Later, B might be synthesized from D and E by the proper enzyme; then, when B becomes scarce, the enzyme will have selective value; and so on. There is no reason why an organism could not continue, through gene mutation, to acquire all the enzymes necessary for its needs. The genes that are controlling these evolutionary ad- vances are probably giant nucleoprotein molecules which act in some template-like manner to direct the synthesis of specific proteins. The gene acts as a model. It is self -repro- ducing and is able to direct the synthesis of replicas of itself, and it serves as a model in the formation of non-genic units of corresponding specificity. Most likely, for every enzyme in the physiology of the organism there is a gene, an entity of very great molecular complexity able to undergo muta- tion without losing stability and being transmitted from generation to generation through the reproductivity of the organism. These are not mere speculations, for in all science there is no theory more thoroughly sound than the theory of the gene— a theory that is basic to all biology. Continuity resides in the gene, the unit of living substance. The genes 34 evolution: the ages and tomorrow that were evolved in the early seas more than a billion years ago have been floated down to our time on a river of ger- minal plasm, projecting in each succeeding age endless and varied individuals, changed and changeless, new and old, from the naked genes of life's origin to the fully clothed fauna and flora of our day. It is well to be reminded again that however advanced and intelligently active the life of our day now is, it began more than 2,000,000,000 years ago in the newly forming seas— imperceptibly, gradually and naturally, molecule by molecule, following the laws and relationships that apply throughout the universe. Hydrocarbons and ammonia, the primary compounds in the evolution of the living, literally rained out of the skies of those ancient days. With water vapor the hydrocarbons formed alcohols and organic acids; these, in turn, reacting with ammonia formed amines and amides, which are the definite forerunners of that which became the building block of life, the amino acids. Fats and sugars were synthesized in those early seas long before any truly living organism appeared. Organic colloids arose which had the peculiar property of forming "water skins" around the particles and, hence, came to the level of the first individualized entity— the co- acervate. From coacervates which took on enzymatic char- acteristics and later became self-reproducing there arose, in all probability, the viruses and genes. Genes associated to form the first chromosomes, and the chromosomes sur- rounded themselves with protoplasm to form the first cells. The real unit of life, the gene, became the center of organ- ization of all that was to be passed on— centers around which the mechanism of evolution operates. 4 Genes in Control From the naked genes of life's origin to the fully clothed fauna and flora of today is a vast stretch of time during which these hereditary determiners were undergoing end- less multiplications, modifications, additions, deletions, and intricate associations. It is not merely a poetic turn of phrase in biology to speak of the continuity of the germinal plasma. There is a river of life flowing along the line of time, and countless kinds of individuals in a succession of increasing variety and complexity have been projected for an "hour or two" along the river shore as ephemeral and incidental events. Nature does not show great concern for individuals, nor even for whole races of individuals. Her concern seems to be for the life stream itself; this she spreads and pushes forward into every nook and cranny on our earth, striving for whatever possibility may prevail. Through this living stream of genes, nature is seeking consciousness and understanding. Nature does not seem to have any preconceived idea of where or under what condi- tions high-level understanding may be achieved. Her method is to thrust life blindly into all possible situations, even into the great depths of the ocean where it must necessarily be restricted, or out into the driest deserts where thirst is an everlasting problem, or far into the frozen tundra where there is no warmth. The individual units of life, the genes, which are solely responsible for the many and varied organisms past and 35 36 evolution: the ages and tomorrow present, are themselves undergoing random changes— muta- tions which may or may not be of use and benefit to the organism. Trial and error characterize this situation, not intelligent direction from within or without. The organism is the sum total of its genes and reacts to the limiting en- vironment in which it finds itself as the genes dictate. If the hereditary control is a happy one, the organism will enjoy the protection of the Darwinian selection; if the heredity is an unhappy combination, ultimate extinction is its fate. There is, then, a two-factor process at work here: the genes which are associated to form an organism; and the environ- ment which will determine, not only survival, but the de- gree of success. The meaning of these blind selective forces in the evolution of mind-matter will be examined later; for the present, the character and behavior of the genes are of interest. The physical basis of heredity, and hence of evolution, is the chromosome and its complex of genes. The mechanism is flexible in that it undergoes changes at the same time that it offers relative stability. There is no evidence whatever for any other mechanism. It is true that genetics, the science of the genes, has not solved all the problems that crop up in a study of the evolutionary process; but it has made a dis- tinct and very definite beginning. In the first place the thread-like bodies we call the chromosomes, which are car- ried in all cells, are classifiable in the usual sense of the term "reality"; the brick and stone buildings in which we live are no more real. These chromosomes are the only living bond between parent and offspring, whatever the kinds of organisms. This we know for a certainty. The genes are arranged in single file on the threads of the chromosomes, and the whole mechanism is distributed with great qualita- tive and quantitative accuracy to the daughter cells of any division. Many high school and college students have been shown or have studied with the microscope the divisions and distribution of the chromosomes. The theory of the gene is GENES IN CONTROL 37 supported by the reality of a visual picture all the way up to and including the germ cells of man. The gene, as has been mentioned, is a giant nucleoprotein molecule of extreme complexity. Although it is ultramicro- scopic in size, it has probably been seen recently by investi- gators using the electron microscope; and there are situa- tions in nature, notably the giant chromosomes of certain glands in flies, where ordinary microscopy indicates the position of the gene. It is fundamentally a long-chain mole- cule, probably in extended form, and the chemist now has some idea of its structure. It is apparent that the duplication of a given gene, it being so enormously complex, could hardly be expected to be forever perfectly accomplished each time the gene divides. Almost any change that occurs would alter the way in which the gene acts on the organism. This, possibly, is the manner in which mutations are pro- duced although we cannot as yet be sure. We do know that outside influence, like cosmic rays, X rays, heat, chemicals, etc., although effective in increasing the rate of gene muta- tion, are apparently not the primary cause. And we also know that although we often use the word "random" in re- ferring to these changes, they are, of course, limited to the possibilities of a particular gene's chemical configuration. These mutations, however they may be brought about, are effective in ultimately changing the structural, physio- logical, and behavioral pattern of the organism. Changes may be beneficial or definitely harmful, even lethal, or they may be quite valueless adaptively. A mutation may occur which, although of no particular value at the moment, is later very useful when environmental factors change; and the unhappy converse can also be true. These are pre-adap- tational mutations. Organisms with sufficiently flexible genes, or with useful pre-adaptational mutations already in their make-up, have been the successful forms when the restless environment changed. Through the mutational changes which are occurring within the organism and the 38 evolution: the ages and tomorrow environmental forces which are making the selective deci- sions, we get the basic evolutionary procession. Perhaps mutations are nothing more than nature's failure to dupli- cate a given gene perfectly, something the chemist already anticipates and hopes to direct in specific ways. Or, perhaps, there is some underlying control of the process which es- capes our notice. In any case, these changes to a molecule, the irreducible unit of life, are fundamental to all that hap- pens, not only in evolution, but in all the biological sciences. There is a tremendous body of literature dealing with the genetics of all kinds of organisms, including man, to support this view. The primary source of variation is, then, the mutation of the gene. In any given species, only a relatively few genes of the total number controlling the individuals need be under- going change, yet the possibility of new structural, physio- logical and behavioral traits is enormous. For instance, in the little fruit fly, whose genetics has been so thoroughly inves- tigated, it is estimated by F. A. Shull that there are about 6,000 genes or 3,000 pairs and, if only one per cent of these are undergoing change, the possible number of new com- binations of genes in the whole species is the incredible total of more than 200,000 billion. And this is only in the sim- plest possible case. A great many gene and chromosome factors later add to these possibilities. In the first place, genes often have multiple effects on the organism. A single gene may be effective in controlling several characteristics at one and the same time; or many genes may cooperate in producing a single characteristic. Chromosomes occur in pairs, hence genes are paired; and there is often a multiplic- ity of alternative genes (alleles) in the population at a given location on a pair of chromosomes. A member of a pair of genes may be either dominant or recessive or blend with its allele. It is apparent that all this would add greatly to the already staggering figure given above. But that is not all, for nature has many ways of increasing variation. GENES IN CONTROL 39 Whole chromosomes with their long complement of in- dividual genes undergo changes by doubling or tripling, and so on, the basic number of threads (diploidy, triploidy, etc.). Such wholesale addition of chromosomes is like adding more decks in a game of cards, as in canasta. This type of hereditary change has sometimes been of value to man in his food plants (wheat, for example), and it is al- ways an additional factor in producing variation. Sometimes a part of a chromosome is transferred to another part of the same chromosome or even to another chromosome. Finding themselves in a different allelic situation, the blocks of genes involved can produce very marked changes in the organism. At other times there is an inversion of a block of genes when the chromosomes are paired, a condition that again brings new reactions of the genes into play. Also, at times, an irregularity can occur when a chromosome is added, making a trisonic combination. There are indications, too, that sometimes chromosomes are joined; and frequently the paired threads are interchanged (cross-over) at the time of germ cell formation. All these chromosome changes or ab- errations, along with basic mutation, have been effective in evolution, making the theoretical possibilities for variation practically unlimited. The endless variety of life has been made necessary by the endless means for change. In the literature of biology today some 1,000,000 species of ani- mals and about 250,000 species of plants have been de- scribed; perhaps this is half the total number now existing. Sexual reproduction is the agency by means of which the hereditary complex of a population can be thoroughly shuffled in each generation. The union of germ cells to pro- duce offspring from two different individuals has been a tremendous factor in evolution. Without sex, in fact, life on this earth would still be at levels hardly higher than worms. We know that sexual reproduction evolved slowly and finally became nearly universal among both plants and animals. In this process offspring receive the chromosomes 40 evolution: the ages and tomorrow and their complement of genes from two different individ- uals who are very unlikely to possess identical hereditary sets. Thus, there is in nature not only the means by which new hereditary determiners may appear, but also a mech- anism by means of which they may be shuffled and distrib- uted. The problem of applying all these factors to the process of evolution is enormously complex and difficult, but at no time is there ever any justification for the use of any mech- anism in explanation which does not operate through the genes and chromosomes. The forces involved act on in- dividual organisms, but the effects work out within asso- ciated groups of individuals or populations, and over great stretches of time. In recent years a new science of popula- tion genetics has been developed by J. B. S. Haldane, R. A. Fisher, and Sewall Wright, employing its own language and mathematics and dealing in a much more promising way with the evolutionary complex. The older idea of "struggle" and "survival" was too in- dividualized. In the early post-Darwinian days the phrases "the struggle for existence" and "the survival of the fittest" were overemphasized— the lone animal dying in the losing battle with its enemy or rival. It was never the intention of Darwin or his scientific followers, however, that these phrases should find their way into ethics and politics. Nor did Darwin think only of "fitness" as physical prowess and pugnaciousness. He knew that factors must be carefully analyzed in any given case and that the helpfulness of one animal for another of its kind (mutual aid) was a part of fitness. Struggle, survival, and fitness on an individual basis do not apply in a too literal sense of the words. Natural selection favors very broadly those individuals having the most offspring, which usually means those best adapted to a particular habitat in which they find themselves. It is obvious that adaptation is approximate, never perfect. Ad- aptation is the orienting principle which guides the random i GENES IN CONTROL 4I hereditary changes into adaptive channels through differ- ential reproduction. The modern concept of evolutionary change is based on studies of this differential situation, shifting gene frequen- cies in the population, new proportions and new combina- tions of the genetic factors involved. In this concept, selec- tion does not minutely work over every mutant in the species. It will eliminate or favor some, but there will always be changes of a more or less minor nature which remain largely untouched. Favored genes will tend to spread in the population; and in this sense selection is a positive force in nature, not purely negative as was once claimed by its critics. It is very important to remember, particularly since this review is brief, that the characteristics of an organism as an integrated whole depend on the combined effects of many genes, not on the action of one gene, and that there are endless ways in which the combined effects can vary. The population geneticist points out that in the parental population the frequency of the genes involved in a given combination will be governed by natural selection and will differ in effect according to many factors involving muta- bility and size of groups of individuals. Some species are much less mutable than others, at least as observed at pres- ent. There are organisms which have undergone little change in the past 250,000,000 years; the starfish is an ex- ample. Other species are much more variable— man, for instance. Obviously, there is a degree of mutability necessary to change, and this is the situation in most organisms. The real factor, then, is size of population. Theoretically, an indefi- nitely large population, where breeding is completely at random, will become stable. Variation will occur but the variability will tend toward fixed and permanent ratios, and evolution will cease. Actually, no populations are ever of unlimited size; and interbreeding cannot be purely random over the whole population, for localized situations are 42 evolution: the ages and tomorrow bound to appear. Mutant and chromosome changes arise, selection acts, and evolution is on the move. The effective- ness of the adaptational selective factors and mutational change will be most fully realized in a population of just the right proportions. The ideal seems to be a fairly large pop- ulation which is broken up into smaller breeding groups with some interchange between groups by cross-breeding. This is the common case. Very small populations endanger the organism and selection may be ineffective due to the purely random nature of the mutant changes. This, in a manner of speaking, is the crux of the whole population ex- planation—a group must be large enough to show gene drift by differential reproduction. Isolation, geographic or other- wise, is a potent factor in speeding up evolution, provided the isolated groups do not remain too small. Various sizes and situations have been analyzed in this new genetics of population, and many of the inadaptive and nonadaptive puzzles of evolution have been clarified. Add to these statistical studies the possibility that the usual small mutations (micromutations) are sometimes aided by sudden large changes (macromutations) which appear at times in the species and, all things considered, we have a basic and flexible explanation of the evolutionary record. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the main evolutionary problem has been solved; only the details remain to be worked out, details such as those which T. Dobzhansky reviews in his Genetics and the Origin of Species. Throughout all these studies the observation is commonly made that the vast forces operating in evolution work both for and against the organism. Obviously nature does not control the trends in any idealistic manner. Mutation can become rampant and literally destroy the organism through the accumulation of undesirable characteristics; or, as a con- verse, the heredity may be so inflexible as to destroy the organism when environmental conditions change. This lat- ter has probably been a common cause of extinction. Failure GENES IN CONTROL 43 is more common than success, as the record of the past shows. Even natural selection is not necessarily beneficial. Many species, after having overcome the enmity of other species and after having adjusted to the physical environ- ment, find themselves in a struggle with their own kind. This intra-species competition in some cases leads to defi- nitely harmful trends. The existence of such a paradox in nature is of the utmost significance to man, because of all organisms man is the most completely free of all struggle save that within his own species. And he alone is gifted with the inventiveness to make competition of man against man a thoroughly annihi- lating struggle. 5 Plant and Animal Progression At this point, I must make my position as clear as possible. I have already stated that there is progress in evolution, that nature is seeking awareness and intelligence as well as mere survival. This is an assumption of purpose in evolution and is bound to be challenged by biologists who fail to find any purpose in the process and even very little progress. I have tried at the very beginning of this book to anticipate this objection which is certain to occur to the serious student of evolution. Progress and purpose are not easily read into the evolutionary record, as was pointed out in Chapter 1. On the contrary, it is difficult to shake off the impression that evolution goes out of its way to be unnecessarily wasteful, brutal, and chaotic. Nevertheless, in this and the following chapters, I shall try to draw from the factual knowledge of the sciences of life evidence for the assumption of purpose in evolution— nonanthropomorphic purpose as an innate characteristic of the mind in matter-energy substance. It is purpose in that organisms seek objective knowledge of the habitat in which they live through the development of ever more efficient sense organs and better brains to interpret the sensory im- pressions. It is purpose in that life is not simply a blind vegetative complex of chemistry, but a natural psychical quality or force striving with every device it can possibly 44 • PLANT AND ANIMAL PROGRESSION 45 invent to gain knowledge and understanding. And, is not this what man does in all his disciplines of science? An effort has been made to stress the point that the ex- pression of the mind in matter-energy potential depends on an ever increasing complex. Nature has no way to drive directly toward realization. Each advance, it should be made clear, is more difficult and more unlikely than the last. In most situations in the universe, realization seems to be impossible, or only low-level expression is permitted. In some favored situations, as on our earth, high levels may ap- pear; but even here increasing restrictions may block the purposefulness of the process. And in all situations, the con- figurations necessary for high expression are finite in time and pass away. It is with man's entry on the scene that a consciousness of the whole process of evolution may bring the highest con- figuration into existence. Indeed, it must be some situation such as man and his society presents that will permit the nearest approach possible. Even if purpose were not innate in the evolutionary process, an organism such as man with the capacity for long-range planning could introduce a purposeful direction. This is the only way, it would seem, in which nature can produce high levels of understanding; that is, by evolving a suitable body and brain and social organization— a society of mutually helpful, intelligent be- ings without fear or prejudice and willing to accept all facets of nature as their methods of understanding reveal them. This human configuration will be examined more fully later; for the present, general and specific examples of progress in evolution are of interest. Many, if not most, of the changes which have occurred in evolution could hardly be called progress, some being actually retrogression and degeneracy. Parasites which have abandoned the free hfe in favor of security and easy food in some animal's intestinal tract undergo evolutionary re- versal, losing brain and even muscular structure. Only the 46 evolution: the ages and tomorrow earnestly awake may gain understanding. In spite of all the standing still, the retrogression, and degeneracy, there is an obvious general over-all trend which can be legitimately called progress in the sense that it brings about in the or- ganism a greater measure of control over its environment. Add to this the progression toward greater independence and sensitivity and the final appearance of rising levels of understanding, and the word "progress" takes on real mean- ing. In plants the progression has been toward a higher effi- ciency in the exploitation of the chemistry of the waters, the air, and the soil; and, above all, in the storage of the energy of sunlight. Our world is a green jewel, but it is only recently in the geological sense that it has taken on this useful and lovely aspect. It is now some 1,600,000,000 years at least since the origin of the first cell which was capable of carrying on photosynthesis, the point at which plant and animal cells diverged from their common ancestor, leaving to this day primitive forms which are not clearly classifiable as either the one or the other. The plant took on the whole burden of "fixing" the basic chemistry of life, and animals became forever dependent directly or indirectly upon plants. Plant evolution was exceedingly slow in its early progres- sion. According to the record, when more than 800,000,000 years had passed, there were still no advanced multicellular plant types, and fife was still confined to the waters. After the opening of the Cambrian period of the era of ancient life (the Paleozoic), the basic problem of cellular associa- tion to form multicellular organisms, with division of labor, was solved, and plants projected a stem above the water. The invasion of the barren lands began. Rich premiums were offered by nature for the land invasion. The ocean of the air was far richer in carbon di- oxide than the waters, and minerals in almost unlimited quantity were there for the taking. Certainly, the exploita- PLANT AND ANIMAL PROGRESSION 47 tion of these land and air resources was a forward step in progress. In a relatively short time the plant evolved through a moss-like stage to ferns. Mosses have no true leaves or roots and no conducting tubes (vascular tissue). In the ferns nature completed the invention of the leaf, that marvelous photosynthesis or sugar laboratory, sent roots down into the soil in search of water and minerals, and set up conduct- ing tissue in a two-way traffic from root to leaf. At this time, some 600,000,000 or more years ago, there were vast, shallow, inland seas and swamps, and the ferns spread in an explosively rapid adaptive radiation. Like the moss, the fern reproduced by spores and by union of sperm and egg. In both the moss and fern the sperm had to swim through water to reach the tgg; hence they were and still are con- fined to moist places for the sexual stages of their reproduc- tion. This restriction kept plants away from the drier up- land regions of the continental land masses. Today our world presents a panorama of grasses and flowering plants and trees; they were made possible only after nature, in what would seem to be very definitely a progressive step, devised means by which dry sperm (pol- len) could meet the dry egg in the ovary of a flower. How exceedingly difficult this step was, is shown by the record of the rocks and by intermediate forms still living. For several hundred million years nature made tentative efforts, most of them failures, to reach the upland regions; and, with final success, the evolution of the plant was complete, ex- cept for variations of detail. This occurred in the Mesozoic or middle life era, some 150,000,000 years ago. On the basis of an increasing efficiency in the means of exploiting chem- ical and energy sources as fully as possible, the history of the evolution of plants has been progressive. In animals the progression has been, in the over-all sense, a truly magnificent parade of advancing forms— in each age new organisms better equipped than previous ones for the exploitation, enjoyment, and understanding of their habitat. 48 evolution: the ages and tomorrow Here the criterions of progress can be based on the control over the environment, the degree of independence of the organism, and, above all, the increase of efficiency and total capacities of the nervous system. All else is incidental. The problem of multicellular organization was solved much more quickly in animals than in plants. In fact, by the open- ing of the Cambrian period (about one billion years ago), while plants were still below the true multicellular level, animals had already evolved the main primitive representa- tives of animals without a backbone, the invertebrates. The first primitive vertebrate, the group to which man belongs, appeared at about the time that plants had evolved a moss-like stage. Living today are many intermediate forms in the long phyletic (major kind) series from the amoeba to man, and it is impossible to survey this series without being impressed with the progress that is demonstrated. The fos- sil record fills in here and there to make the series even more impressive. Some primitive types that may still be similar to the first multicellular forms are with us today: the semi- multicellular sponges, and at yet more primitive stages those relics, the Volvox colonies or the lowly blastula (hollow ball) of our fresh water ponds. The jelly fishes, the corals, and hydra, with their bodies organized in two tissue layers folded inward to form a double-walled cup (gastrula), are very active and numerous today; and yet they must be quite close to the originator of the well-established multi- cellular plan. And, more remarkable still, their plan is re- peated and well set up in the embryos of animals all the way up to and including man. Here in these simple animal forms is the beginning of a wonderful series of nature's "inventions" which are to ap- pear either in the embryonic or in the adult life of all higher animal forms. Nature's "gadgets" are passed along. The flat- worms take over the double-walled cup with its outer pro- tective-sensory tissue and its inner digestive layer, utilize a third tissue in between, flatten it all out, and change the PLANT AND ANIMAL PROGRESSION 49 symmetry to a plan of mirror images along a median axis (so-called bilateral symmetry). Nature found this plan very good, and it is carried through to man who is, indeed, very handsome bilaterally. Bilateral symmetry placed one end of the animal in a forward position and, more than anything else, was responsible for the beginning of a brain. In the flatworms it is a ganglion with longitudinal and lateral con- necting nerves. Roundworms take over all the gadgets of the fiatworm but establish a posterior opening to the diges- tive system; and we have the "tube-within-a-tube," bilateral plan of the higher animals, man included. Annelid worms break up the tube in segments and add locomotor append- ages based on the physics of the lever, namely, two rows of bristles very cleverly manipulated. A heart and circula- tory system is added and the primitive beginnings of an excretory system appear. The nervous system is improved. This animal, of which the earthworm is a slightly degener- ate representative, already represents basically the systemic plan of higher forms. "Man," someone has said, "is a worm with accessories." The Arthropoda (jointed foot), of which the insect is a fabulously successful representative, are glorified worms. They have put joints in the locomotor appendages; have fused the segments into a head, thorax, and abdomen; have redistributed the now rather complete list of internal organs for greater efficiency; and have added to the over-all and proportionate size of the nervous system. Some of this group have developed incredible powers of instinctive be- havior, a situation that will be examined later. Somewhere above the level of flatworms there appears a strange group called the Echinodermata, the spiny-skinned animals, of which the starfish is an example. These forms, which may have originated from ancestral types close to those of man, represent nature's inexhaustible genius for invention. Although they are connected with other inver- tebrate groups through their bilateral larval stages, they are 50 evolution: the ages and tomorrow very peculiar radial forms as adults. Their locomotor sys- tem, which is unique in the animal kingdom, is a closed hydraulic device of great ingeniousness, especially adapted to outlast the shell-closing muscles of an oyster; and they also possess a control over external parasites that other ani- mals might well envy. This control is an arrangement of double-pronged pincers all over the skin, so set up as to pinch off any organisms which try to establish themselves. These two inventions have never been used by any other organisms. The Mollusca, too, are slightly peculiar. In derivation they are close to the worms, but they have been able to take a modified body plan and develop it into very successful organisms— clam, snail, octopus, and squid. The primitive representatives of all these forms had ap- peared at, or soon after, the opening of the Paleozoic era, some 800,000,000 years ago. During the Paleozoic era many of them followed the plants out onto the land and some very nearly completed their evolution. In the meantime the vertebrates appeared. The first ver- tebrate fossil in the record is a crude, armored, fish-like form, called ostracoderm, hardly prophetic of the great destiny of the backboned animals. This fossil probably gives us the type that was quite close to the ancestral origin of the rest of the vertebrates. It was one of the cyclostomes (round mouth), some primitive unarmored representatives of which are still with us, namely, the lamprey and the hagfish. In a study of the origins of the vertebrates we find another living relic, a worm-like animal called Balaiioglossus. Authorities agree that the vertebrates were most probably evolved through forms similar to Balanoglossus and the ostraco- derms, but there is disagreement as to earher original types. There is some evidence for the theory of annelid sources, but there is the stronger possibility that the group to which we belong branched off the ancestral line that also led to the echinoderms (or starfish). PLANT AND ANIMAL PROGRESSION §1 In the vertebrates, nature solves the vexing problem of body support by inventing an internal, living skeleton which can grow with the animal and can be articulated into greater flexibility than any previously known. The inver- tebrate skeleton, as in the insect, is a dead outside structure; it is not flexible in growth and sets up restrictions in the life cycle. In primitive forerunners of the vertebrates, like the lamprey, the skeleton is a long rod of stiff tissue running almost the full length of the body. It is this rod-like struc- ture (notochord) which, in later vertebrates, is replaced by the backbone. In all the embryos of vertebrates, including man, the notochord is formed before the true skeleton ap- pears, a repetition of an ancestral condition. Basically, the vertebrates take over the segmentation of the annelid-arth- ropod line, the tube-within-a-tube body-plan, the primitive kidney system which they at once improve upon in an ascending series, and bilateral symmetry, besides embryonic stages such as the blastula and gastrula. A more or less new characteristic of the vertebrates is the development and arrangement of gills for taking oxygen out of the water. Gills are highly eflicient devices and so much a part of the race that, even in the land forms like man, they are elaborately repeated in the embryo only to be torn down later and made over into other structures such as the bones of the middle ear, cartilage for the windpipe, arteries to the brain, and so forth. Another basic characteristic is a dorsal, tubular nerve cord, the structure from which the vertebrates develop their incomparable nervous system. Almost at once the improve- ments in the nervous system appear. Here in the evolution of the brain is a still inexhaustible source of progress. Early in the ancestry of fish two centers of correlation were set up, one for sensory knowledge, the other for the coordina- tion of motor action; and the two centers were united by nerve connections. Present-day fish are at this stage. Then the evolution of a new region begins, the cerebral hemi- §2 evolution: the ages and tomorrow spheres, which are superimposed upon the previous two re- gions. Gradually, up through reptiles and mammals to man these cerebral bodies take on greater and greater mass and complexity until they are larger than all the rest of the nervous system put together. As will be brought out later, it is the invention of sensory apparatus and the improvement of the vertebrate brain, as well as the organization of asso- ciation areas in the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres, that have led to the self -consciousness and the conceptual proc- esses of man. This is progress. In the evolution of other structures in the vertebrates, the sharks and true fishes set the pattern. The skeleton is estab- lished with two girdles, shoulder and hip, and is calcified in such a manner as to leave living cells within and to provide for future flexibility. The amphibian (the frog and salaman- der are modern examples) crawls out on land by the middle of the Paleozoic era, some 500,000,000 years ago, and then the land vertebrates begin their relatively rapid and very spectacular evolution. Besides lungs for breathing air and other internal structures, the great invention of the am- phibian was the five-fingered limb. The monkeys, great apes, and finally man make the greatest use of this limb. To pick up objects and to observe them was, as will be shown later, an important factor in the learning of the primates. It set up a correlation between hand and eye that led to in- creased awareness and finally to greater educability. The potential flexibility of the Rve fingers of the amphibian an- cestor is realized, when proper control evolves, in the piano virtuosity of man. The reptile adds to its general amphibian structure an embryonic sack called the amnion, an invention that has freed the reptiles, birds, and mammals from the seasonal return to water for reproduction. This sack, which is left behind at birth, surrounds the embryo early in development and floats it in a liquid medium with the salt concentration of the seas from which the land vertebrates were derived. PLANT AND ANIMAL PROGRESSION 53 The bird is a very glorified reptile, still retaining the scales and beak and claws, but adding enormously to the freedom of the individual by the development of warm blood and feathers and almost perfect adaptation to flight. Warm blood and constant body temperature maintained by physiological activity of great complexity is, except for the brain itself, the greatest of all nature's inventions. It gives to the bird and mammal a considerable control over, and independence of, the environment. Their movements are much more free, and the potential for high-level intelli- gence is enormously increased. In fact, taking the brain of the apes and man as an example, one can readily see that such a high-level organ could not function properly in a body which was subject to the usual daily climatic fluctua- tions of temperature which is the experience of all cold- blooded organisms. Mammals evolved warm blood inde- pendently of birds from a different reptilian ancestor. They very definitely improved on all previous methods of em- bryonic development by the invention of the placental membrane, a foetal-maternal contact which very greatly reduced the hazards of reproduction. A structural survey of the main kinds of plants and ani- mals could be expanded in any degree of detail into many volumes, since every body system shows a general progres- sive evolution on the basis set up in this chapter. It is true that one organism is not necessarily higher because it is said to be more complex. On the basis of complexity, and in re- gard only to the digestive system, cud-chewing cattle with their four stomachs are higher forms than man. Various criteria for comparison have been proposed by proponents of progress in evolution: adaptation, dominance, specializa- tion, power of expansion, approximation to man, and so forth. However, the standards set above— especially, in- crease in independence and sensitivity and the final appear- ance of rising levels of understanding— are believable and workable. 54 evolution: the ages and tomorrow Progress, however, is not to be claimed as common to all manifestations of life. In the details of the record of the rocks and in the modern world there are endless examples of retrogression and degeneracy. On the basis of creation by divine guidance these innumerable cases of the reverse of progress are not explainable; but, if we keep in mind the nature of the mechanics of evolution, random mutation oriented by blind environmental factors, we see the picture differently. These are the trial-and-error failures that nature suffers in the nonanthropomorphic seeking for mind-in- matter expression. Nor can progress be said to continue indefinitely in any one general line of evolution. If understanding is the real criterion, then only man, at present, has been favored by a continuous progression; all or most other forms of life would seem to have already entered inescapable blind al- leys. The headless echinoderms, whose ancestral line may have long since ceased to progress, are probably much too fixed in their germinal characteristics to adapt to any but the conditions in which they now find themselves. The molluscs are defective in their general organization, and one would not expect higher kinds of life to evolve in the future from these creatures. Insects and most other arthropods are eliminated by being too limited in size and too specialized. Perhaps some generalized intermediate forms in the line from lower worms to arthropods are in a position to evolve progressively. Man may have come from such a line, but it was a very long time ago. Of the vertebrates, only the warm-blooded forms would seem to have an immediate chance of quickly reaching higher levels, since they have the necessary control over the environment. Birds, how- ever, have already eliminated themselves by adaptation to flight which necessitated reduction of brain-weight along with the rest of the body and has led to overspecialization. They are at the end of their evolution. Man has been better off in solving the problem of flight intellectually instead of PLANT AND ANIMAL PROGRESSION §^ adaptively. Most of the mammals have gone in for some kind of one-sided specialization, as the grass-feeders like the horse, or the carnivores like the big cats. Primitive mam- mals, such as the monotremes (e.g., the duckbill platypus) and the marsupials (e.g., the kangaroo) are definitely too inferior in their methods of reproduction and have prob- ably overstayed their time on this earth. There remains only the primate group, monkeys, great apes, and man. Of course, most of these are in the trees and very thoroughly adapted to such a life. They still have the generalized characters of teeth and limbs and to some ex- tent the correlation between hand and eye; but one would assume that they would have to come down out of the trees to progress to new levels. Perhaps some change in climate which would drive them out of the trees by taking the trees out from under them would be the stimulus needed. Some such event probably happened in man's history long before he became human. There are some ground primates like the baboons that might be in a position for a real advance, but on the whole nothing is promising in the whole primate line below the level of man. Man alone, it then appears, is the only organism in a posi- tion to carry evolution forward at this time. If he fails and finally disappears, there would be a very long delay before another reached his level; and it is quite possible, even deemed certain by some, that no other form would arise to replace him in the time that the earth will yet last. The re- sponsibility is great and must be accepted by man con- sciously and with full knowledge of his past evolution and true nature. He cannot assume that all will be well because he is the favored child of a Supreme Creator. 6 Man Giordano Bruno was one of the earliest modem thinkers to insist that man, to be understood, must be looked upon as a part of nature. With him, and later with Spinoza and Darwin, an objective conception of man as part of the ani- mal kingdom developed. We are careful today to maintain this point of view but at the same time to be reminded, sub- jectively, of the distinctive aspects of man's individuality. Man is classifiable as an animal, but an animal of unequaled personality— not new or different in kind, but of superlative degree. His origin is obviously one with the mammals; he is a primate of the primates— in structure, a ground ape. These comparisons can be carried to the highest degree of mor- phological and physiological detail. It goes without saying, of course, that man's real nature and position in the animal kingdom could not be determined by the study of structure and metabolism alone, and this is actually true of all organ- isms. Individual behavior and social relationships are always important to know. Who could arrive at an evaluation of the ant or honeybee through the study of body structure alone? It is quite apparent in the complete comparison of man with other organisms that the evolutionary process has reached in man the highest level yet reached on this earth. But it is of the greatest importance in emphasizing this that we do not lose sight of man's origins. A knowledge of his origins and relationships and, particularly, of the reasons for 56 MAN 57 the accelerated rate at which he has completed the final stages of his evolution may lead to a conscious control of his destiny. Man is far out in front of other organisms in the con- scious enjoyment of understanding, and yet he is very much a "Johnny come lately." In the whole stretch of 3,000,000- 000 years man, as Homo sapieiis, has been here less than one million years. Even his earliest separation from the line of ancestral apes is comparatively recent, probably not more than 30,000,000 years ago. As visualized in Chapter 1 by the condensed perspective representing all organic time in one calendar year, man's ancestral branching off from the ape ancestor did not occur until near the last week of the year. He became fully human only four hours before mid- night on the last day of the year. He is the incredible prod- uct of an enormously accelerated evolution— so much and so thoroughly accelerated that man's physical evolution is very close to being complete. Man, a bipedal-bifocal ape, has completely freed his hands, and therein lies the beginning of his success. Freed from locomotor restraints, these marvelously dexterous or- gans, coming under the guidance of a concurrently devel- oping brain, language, and tradition, have become so thor- oughly adaptive that man now has no need whatsoever of any other kind of organic evolution. If he desires or needs to adapt to new situations, he need only build a machine. He travels in and upon the waters, he flies through the air, he burrows underground, without waiting for the extremely slow genetic evolution of fins and gills or wings or digging claws. He risks nothing in the way of specialization. He re- mains unencumbered and generalized in his structure and habits, by far the freest organism on earth. It has been his personal achievement to add enormously to his seeing and hearing and hence to his knowing. It is man's knowledge of reality that is now evolving, not the blind adaptive fum- blings of genetic evolution. 58 evolution: the ages and tomorrow How did all this come about? In the fossil record which will be reviewed shortly we get some definite help in an- swering the question, but to a certain extent we have to guess what it was that caused in man alone of all primates the original full bipedality and upright posture. Man's pres- ent condition, his hairlessness, his clothing, his carnivorous- ness, and his linearity, as anthropologists see it, strongly indicate that his proto-human ancestors were adapted to tropical surroundings and were caught off base by the Pleistocene ice ages. The fossil record would seem to sup- port this assumption. He survived because he had freed his hands and his ego expanded through their manipulations, aided by truly stereoscopic eyes and the deep curiosity- drive of his ape heritage. Apparently, man was not forced out of his original home in the trees by any recession of the forests due to the uplift- ing of the Himalaya Mountains, as was once supposed. Hooton's sly remark that any ape could swing himself through the trees faster than a forest could recede has not helped this cataclysmic theory. It would seem that man, like the present gorilla and to some extent the chimpanzee, simply became too heavy for easy monkeyshines on the trapeze. Also, he possibly came down for dietary reasons, as is also the case of the gorilla and the chimpanzee. The belief that man was originally a tree-dwelling ape is forced upon anthropologists by his general body structure, the shape of the human foot and hand, and by his social and sexual inclinations, as well as his instincts, not the least of which is the hand grasping reflex of the newborn baby. The chief difference in man's descent from the trees and that of other apes is that he refused to revert to an awk- ward four-footed gait, and thus he freed his hands. Happily, in the fossils of bones from South Africa we now have a clear record of a man-like ape, along the line of man or a side branch, which walked erect using the hands as man now does. This fossil also shows how changes in the hip MAN 59 bones and in the foot gave to man the ease and grace of a truly upright posture. Only a few decades ago it was charged by the critics of the animal origin of man that only vacuous theories con- cerning his origin could be presented because the fossil rec- ord was entirely inadequate. Such may have been the case at the turn of the century, but it is certainly not true at present. Now human fossils number in the hundreds, com- plete skeletons in some cases and parts of females, males, and young. The primates in general, being forest-dwellers where in the wet surroundings flesh and bones alike are destroyed quickly, have left such a poor record (the chimpanzee and gorilla hardly none) that it is rather amazing we have so much for man. The record is more than enough to prove man's derivation from an ape-like stock; it is not enough to set up a family-tree of ascent. It may be that we will never have a sufficient record for an exacting study of all human connections in which the answer to the question of modern racial differences would be fully satisfactory to all investi- gators. Such a thorough study can actually be made on some fossil records, notably that of the plains animals like the horse. Here under the dry, dusty conditions of the habitat, bones were easily fossilized, and the record is very abundant. We do not need, however, many more records for man than we have, since our real concern is to realize fully that man is a part of an evolutionary process in which all the cosmos is involved. We now have in the fossils of man-apes from Africa what appears to be a real subhuman link with the anthropoid stock. These fossils began to appear about 1925 when Ray- mond Dart received a small skull that had been blasted out of a quarry near Taungs in South Africa. Dart thought that this skull was definitely intermediate between apes and man. Most scientists thought he had made a blunder. They felt that, since the skull was that of a youngster and since even today the skulls of infant apes and man show greater sim- 6o evolution: the ages and tomorrow ilarities than appear in adults, Dart's claim was not sup- ported by the evidence. Robert Broom studied the skull at firsthand and came to the conclusion that it was one of the most important fossil finds ever made— a real "missing link." The discussion went on for years and would still be going on except that, beginning in 1936, Broom and his assistants began to unearth in the same region of South Africa fossil after fossil of these man-apes (male and female adults). Dart had called his find Australopithecus africanus (south- ern ape of Africa) . Broom had not only found more fossils of this type but also discovered two more similar forms which he called Fie sianthr opus (close to man) and Paran- thropus (man-like). All three of these man-apes have been placed in a family now called the Australopithecines. The Taungs region of Africa is an area of limestone caves, and these apes were using the caves for shelter some 1,000- 000 years ago. In skeletal structure, except for the head, they are close to man. In this remarkable series of fossils are bones of the hip complex which show that these apes walked erect with their hands free. They had the bodies of man, although smaller, and the heads of apes. The teeth are quite like those in man, even to the canines which are so pronounced in the modern apes. They seem to have had diet preferences sim- ilar to man's, being partly carnivorous. Only the brain was lagging behind, another of the many examples of the un- evenness of evolution. The brain capacity is well below the lowest level of even the most primitive pre-man. It is above that of modern apes; and the frontal region, which in mod- em man is concerned with the powers of memory and reason, is better developed. Furthermore, although small, the brain is encased in a skull showing characteristics dis- tinctly similar to those of primitive man, such as the Rhode- sian man. As the case stands at present these higher primates were near-human, except for their small brains. They ran on their hind feet and probably used unfashioned stick and MAN 6l Stone tools to dig out moles and hares and kill small baboons. There is fossil evidence that they probably used striking weapons since the broken bones of small baboons are taken in the fossil matrix. It would seem that these man-apes were already mentally above the level of all other primates. Dart believed that at least one of the types (Australopithecus prometheus) found in this series used fire for roasting food and for warmth. Broom thought that these ape-men and the human line branched off from the anthropoids some 25,000- 000 or more years ago. One of the Australopithecines may have been close to the line of the ancestor of modern man. In this same general region at Swartkrans, one of Broom's assistants, J. T. Robinson, has recently dug out evidence of a giant ape-man larger than the modem gorilla. The fossil is associated with the remains of extinct giraffes and saber- toothed tigers. Broom thought that this giant, in spite of its unusual size, had characteristics which are distinctly hu- man. If so, it is not the only giant in the pre-human record. In 1941 G. H. R. von Koenigswald found a fossil {Megan- thropus) near Trinil on the island of Java, which indicates a giant with essentially human traits. This fellow was as large or larger than the modern gorilla. Again, in China, this time from the indication of molar teeth alone, there may have existed at some time in the past a giant weighing pos- sibly as much as 800 or 900 pounds. Such weight is in no way strange, because the fossil records of many reptiles and mammals and even birds show numerous instances of gigan- tic forms which branched off the family tree. Nature ex- plores all possibilities but finally settles into a well-balanced size relationship; excessive bulk is in the end more harmful than good. There is the physiological possibility that the present average for man is about the best and that he is now unlikely to evolve to any greater or lesser bulk. The island of Java, where Koenigswald's giant was found, was the first spot on earth to yield a fossil of early pre -man when, in 1891, Eugene Dubois discovered the now 62 evolution: the ages and tomorrow famous Java man {Fithecanthropiis erectzis, walking-erect ape-man). Many years later Koenigswald added to the Du- bois find several other fossils of the same form. It is now agreed that the Java man is the earliest and most primitive of all human fossils yet found, dating about 500,000 years ago. Java man was indeed primitive; he may not have known the use of fire; did not use fashioned weapons; prob- ably did not use even the most primitive of languages; had a cranial capacity and a low vaulted skull distinctly less than in modern man. From caves near Peiping, China, comes another group originally called Sinanthropiis by the discoverer, Davidson Black, but now classified in the same genus as Java man. This Chinese find, dating some 450,000 years ago, is very rich- bones from 40 different individuals, almost head to toe coverage. A chinless species like Java man, the Chinese form is slightly more advanced than his cousin from Java. We know definitely that this primitive man used fire, seemingly, according to the records, for the purpose of cooking the long bones and heads of his fellows. This is the first clear record of the use of the source of power with which our modem civilization was built. The day is now dawning when the source of power will be nuclear fission, not fire; and, for whatever it may indicate, it may be remarked that the first use of the new power was to cook hundreds of thousands of our fellows at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Many other human fossils are listed in the literature: Heidelburg man from Europe, of an age nearly comparable to Java and China man; the Swanscombe skull from Eng- land, at least 250,000 years old; the Steinheim and Galley Hill skulls from Germany, both unusual and about 100,000 years old; and finally Neanderthal man. Remains of Nean- derthal man {Homo neanderthalensis) have been found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. As a type he was only a half-step below modern man, a thick-skulled, chinless, massive jawed, huge-handed savage, with heavy brow ridges, a large, flat- MAN 63 tened head, and probably very dull wit. The fossils of Neanderthal man, the earliest dating some 200,000 or more years ago, are so abundant and so widely distributed that some feel that he must have been directly ancestral to mod- ern man. In his latter days he was contemporary with the direct forerunners of Homo sapiens, Cro-Magnon man and others; but he does not seem to have contributed much, if anything, to the general characteristics of present-day man. As this brief summary of the record indicates, the anthro- pologist has a considerable body of material to work with. He has long ago definitely determined that man and the anthropoids separated by branching off from a common ancestral line; and, as new fossils are found, he will gradu- ally piece together the evolutionary story. At the present moment all the known fossils, except the Australopithecines of Africa, are relatively near modem man, and most of them will probably be classified eventually in the same genus. Homo. Broom was not far wrong when he declared the South African find to be the greatest of all time. It gives us a picture of the first incipient stages of our rise above the level of the apes, a rise that leads finally to the most unique of all human characteristics, conceptual thought. Some will try to use this fossil record of man to promote their own racial prejudices and to establish a multiphcity of racial origins, with the imphcation that there is distinction and superiority involved. Actually, the record at present is insufficient for any purpose involving the study of races. The vexing racial problem must be approached historically and genetically. At the dawn of recorded history we find man distributed widely but thinly over the earth as a poly- typical species. There had been long semi-isolation with modifications in the prehistoric period, but the differences which arose were not profound enough to produce any breakup of the species. The incessant cross-breeding between groups, even in early man, has prevented any drift toward an emergent 64 evolution: the ages and tomorrow species. As the evolutionist sees it, man is not "radiating adaptively." He has not built any bodily specializations. He is, as was pointed out earlier in this chapter, depending on his hands; and functionally, hands are exactly alike in all the so-called races. Even in the recorded changes and minor perfectings, like increasing round-headedness and vertical posture, there are no true racial distinctions. What are con- strued as races are statistical inferences from the individ- ually inherited pattern of a common germ plasm. Genetically, man is one species; and the fact that he is one of the most variable of all species does not alter that state- ment. The chromosome record and interbreeding record clearly shows complete germinal compatibility. There are no mutually infertile groups in man. Genetically, man has had a peculiar history. The usual con- ditions of isolation and variation produce new species, new genera, new families. There is no question that man started in the direction of species change immediately after his origin some 1,000,000 years ago, but his rising intelligence and restlessness drove him far afield. Many animals show tendencies toward mass migration, but in man it becomes an irresistible urge in the mass and in small groups. In his later history, prompted by the desire to trade or discover or find food or escape his enemies, he spread out all over the world, so that now he is the most widely distributed species on earth. The genetic differences encountered in the races of man are all of rather minor proportions— mutations of a common genetic complex. The cross between the Negro and the white is an example. In color the cross produces a dilution called mulatto and two pairs of genes only are involved. A mating of two mulattos will produce shades from black to white inclusive. An examination of the pigment producing these shades reveals that a melanin substance is common to whites as well as blacks— the identical pigment laid down in varying degrees of concentration. In this instance there has MAN 6^ been a mutation of the two pairs of genes controlling the distribution of pigment to produce the white. It is Mende- lian recombination that has generated such diversity in man, but mostly it is only a "skin deep" diversity. What we as- sume to be great differences have been imposed upon the races by language, religion, and custom. Modern anthropology is quite unequivocal in rejecting the idea that living races represent stages in the development of man— that there are lower races which are the survivors of early human physical evolution. From a physical point of view there are no living "lower races." One is not closer to fossil Java man than any other although there are, of course, differences in levels of culture. Considered objectively, no one race is a complex of what might be said to be "ad- vanced" human physical traits. It might be argued that there are advanced traits in that certain specializations are more human than they are pre-human or ape. For instance, since primates in general are dark-skinned and dark-eyed it might be assumed that the Negroids are more primitive than Cau- casoids, particularly the blonds of the latter race. However, if this one trait is used in argument, the rebuttal can easily somersault the debate by pointing out that the long thigh- bone of present man, as contrasted with the short femur of Neanderthal man and the still shorter femur of the gorilla, is an advanced human trait. In this case there is a progressively longer femur found in some races, including the white, but the Negro has undoubtedly the longest femur of all humans. The profuse hair of the whites, particularly some represen- tatives, is a primitive trait by the same argument. Can the Nordic, someone has asked, be complacent about his blue eyes and creamy white skin at the same time that he hides the fuzzy forest on his chest and scrapes away at the stubble on his face? Few arguments can be more ridiculous than the old one about evolutionary superiority. For every case cited, a reversal can be easily found. The truth of the matter is that, even taking only a very few traits out of an almost 66 evolution: the ages and tomorrow endless choice, no human race has a monopoly on advanced traits, nor is any one free of primitive traits. Homo sapiens was evolved through the operation of natu- ral selection, but it is doubtful if selection in the biologi- cal sense is now a great factor. Man has so thoroughly upset the ordinary selective mechanism in his populations that, in spite of his high variability, no natural control over the pro- gression is likely to operate as it once did. In the first place, his social environment has become so complex and is evolv- ing so rapidly as practically to cancel any hope of a desirable genetic drift as far as our civilization is concerned. Civiliza- tion is only 6,000 years old, a mere 250 or so generations in man's reproduction; in such a limited succession little could be expected. The Industrial Revolution, with all its vexing problems of excessive nationalism and complex economies, has taken place in less than 15 of man's generations. He- redity is operating, but the results will not be measurable in any time that our present societies are likely to last. Man will most probably remain near his present biological level for many millennia to come. He must find other means be- sides natural genetic change to aid in his progress. As has already been stated in another connection, a voluntary and conscious control over his destiny is necessary. Practically all who have studied the evolutionary record are in agree- ment that the need is pressing, but opinions differ widely as to the means. Some would advocate a return to separate uniformity of type— resegregate the races, as though such a program were mechanically possible, on the false assump- tion that purity of race is desirable. Others would speed up the melting of the races into one, disregarding the possibility of disharmonious combinations. To some, religion is the answer; to others, a wide variety of political control. The problems will be considered later, but it is rather obvious that at our present level of knowledge of the gene complex in man and of the social sciences, little beyond personal bias is involved in the proposals made. MAN 67 It would seem definitely advisable, however, that man do nothing that would interfere with the natural variability of his germ plasma. This, in addition to the mutations which may occur in the future, could in the long run produce for the benefit of some future civilization the necessary flexi- bility of the hereditary pattern that would make more likely the voluntary solution of the social problem. At present, most men are simply not sufficiently gifted with an innate desire to cooperate to make the fundamental solution easy. It should be noted that nature is not always selecting toward rugged individuals. In many instances the selective pressure in a society has been toward altruism. It is true that natural selection is as likely to be retrogressive as progressive, but man is still a very young species and an optimist might be pardoned if he looks forward hopefully for desirable natural changes. Certainly, if man retains too high a degree of rugged individualism, if his innate selfishness is not curbed voluntarily or involuntarily, he cannot progress much be- yond his present level. In the meantime some evolutionists feel there is another factor at work, a factor which is peculiar to man only, namely, a sort of "inheritance of acquired social characters." It is better expressed, I think, as the "transmission of ac- quired social characters." E. W. Sinnott, C. H. Wadding- ton, G. G. Simpson, and others before them have considered this possibility. Most students of organic evolution reject the Lamarckian doctrine of acquired characters in inherit- ance and, as has been noted in Chapter 4, orient adaptation through the interplay of genes in populations, guided by se- lection. The idea of "acquired social characters," however, has taken a strong hold on these men who think Lamarck's hypothesis has possibilities if applied to man's society. Lamarck, the only really important predecessor of Dar- win, thought that the production of new organs and new parts of an organism resulted from "new needs and desires," and from the new movements and evolvements which these 68 evolution: the ages and tomorrow needs and desires started and maintained— a concept of will- ing and desiring and fulfillment. He pointed out that the use of an organ brought about development, and that disuse re- sulted in degeneration. He thought that any modifications produced by needs and uses in the organism during its life- time would be passed on to its offspring with cumulative results over a period of time— the inheritance of acquired organic characters. To Lamarck, the environment acted di- rectly on the organism or through its nervous system; and his whole thesis is and has been a comfort to the environ- mentalists. Endless discussion and experimental study have been applied to the concept of inheritance of acquired organic characters, the critical principle of the whole hy- pothesis, without producing any uncontested positive evi- dence, Lysenko and the Russian school to the contrary not- withstanding. The thesis suffers from the paucity of real evidence, a condition that results from the much more satis- factory and promising way the evolutionary problem can be attacked by the geneticist who sees mutations arising at ran- dom and without any reference to needs and desires. In organic evolution, then, the Lamarckian assumption would definitely not seem to apply; but it is possible that in the evolution of man's society, where knowledge and learned activities are important, the transmission of acquired social characters is a factor. The inheritance of learninor is dis- tinctly limited in all animals, except man, to the immediate generation. Higher animals show the beginnings of tradition in that offspring learn from parents, but the transmission never bridges more than one generation. In man, however, what is passed on acquires an independent existence, form- ing a tradition that can be endlessly improved in quality and increased in quantity. Here is a new evolution carried for- ward by language, spoken and written— a supplement to the evolution carried forward by the germinal plasma. This evolution by cumulative traditions, as well as the adaptiveness of his hands has given to man his dominant po- MAN 69 sirion among organisms. It has improved his weapons and tools. It has increased his understanding through the accu- mulation of the knowledge of past individuals. In the evolu- tion of high-level mind such social continuity by cumula- tive tradition would be absolutely necessary; and there is no doubt that the tremendous acceleration of man's latter evo- lution has been due solely to his finding means to record and pass on the knowledge of his generation. It is this power to pass on a heredity of knowledge which quickly becomes available to all individuals in the population that is poten- tially so different from germinal heredity. Genetic heredity is greatly restricted in space and time and in the limited numbers of individuals within a population which receive the changed determiners. Organic evolution operates slowly in a population of interbreeding groups. The new social evolution may be said to operate, as G. G. Simpson ex- presses it, in "interthinking groups." Like the organic groups, they are set off in geographical units and in social organiza- tions involving nationality, language, custom, and religion. Man, then, is undergoing a two-phase evolution, the older organic and the newer social evolution. In the latter, the poetry of the Lamarckian approach may well be read into the record. The needs and desires of the individual are ele- ments rising to consciousness to become factors in the fu- ture social transmission of the race. Later this situation will be examined more fully, but it is obvious that the new evo- lution could, hke natural selection, progress or retrogress. The social institutions of man which have failed are already numerous in the record, and the control mechanism of evo- lution by social characters is no less complex than by genes. Indeed, there is nothing in the whole evolutionary record that guarantees man any special favors. The goal of evolution is not man. He is not the ultimate organism. But through him may be visualized something of the promise of the evo- lution of the spirit-matter substance in its progression toward conscious understanding. 7 The Importance of Social Life The evolution of societies of animals is inevitable. The underlying and innate organizing potentials of the mind- matter substance, as I see it, extend to the grouping and evolving of cooperative individuals wherever and whenever conditions will permit, just as there is a natural tendency at the unicellular level to seek higher configurations in multi- cellular organisms. It would seem that social organization is necessary, not only for mere survival, but also for the reali- zation of rising levels of awareness and intelligence. Cer- tainly, it is the association of cooperative individuals carry- ing forward by language an accumulating tradition which has endowed man with his high-level understanding. The mind of present-day man is the product of this accumulating tradition through contact with his fellows, past and present. No solitary, noncooperative animal could possibly possess the higher levels of mind. And even in the best of situations, as we see them on this earth, it is obvious that the ideal so- ciety has yet to evolve. In social, as in organic evolution, na- ture is seeking and striving but has no preconceived or direct way to reach the goal. She can and does fail at any level. The naturalness with which animals fall into various so- cial patterns is apparent from the record of research. W. C. Allee, who has spent a distinguished lifetime in the study of social tendencies in animals, concludes that there exists a 70 THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 7I "widespread, fundamental automatic cooperation which has survival value." He found a "substratum of social tendencies that extends throughout the entire animal kingdom. From this substratum social life rises by the operation of different mechanisms and with various forms of expression until it reaches its present climax in vertebrates and insects."* While still a graduate student in zoology, Allee was directed toward his Hfe's work when he found unmistakable evi- dence of group attraction in lowly isopods, relatives of the crayfish; and during a long life in which he has studied the social attributes of many kinds of animals he writes that he has never encountered a single asocial organism. Nor has anyone else. The social tendencies extend from the lowest to the highest. A distortion of Darwinism has led many writers in vari- ous fields to underestimate his emphasis on the "mutual aid" factor in evolution. They are too impressed with the sur- vival value of rugged individualism; they tend to interpret fitness in terms of physical aggressiveness only. Darwin was fully aware of the survival value of social instincts, senti- ments, and emotions. He pointed out that social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to exhibit a degree of sympathy, and to perform various services. Among gregarious animals, he thought, those indi- viduals which took the greatest pleasure in close association would best escape danger, while those which cared the least for their fellows, and tried to live alone, would perish in greater numbers. Even among worms this Darwinian con- tention is borne out. Allee found that worms injured by X-rays lived longer when grouped after irradiation than when left alone. Somehow the presence of their fellows lent strength to the individuals. He was unable to identify the factor, but his research, and that of many others, shows that it is there. Darwin was greatly interested in the extent to * W. C. Allee, The Social Life of Animals (New York: W. W. Nor- ton & Co., Inc., 1938), pp. 133, 274. 72 evolution: the ages and tomorrow which mutual aid exists among animals. He wrote of cases where sentinels are posted to warn feeding herds of possible danger; of herds of mammals in which the strongest indi- viduals, the males, place themselves on the outside of the massed herds when wolves attacked; of wolves which hunt in packs; of ravens and pelicans feeding their blind fellows; and of monkeys of both sexes adopting and solicitously car- ing for orphaned young. Darwin had a strong feeling that man could, if he but used his powers of reason, extend his social instincts and sympathies to his fellows of all nations and races. Prince Kropotkin's uncritical observations on mutual aid have been borne out, in principle, by the researches of the intervening years. Kropotkin saw a world of mutual aid. Wherever natural conditions were unfavorable, climate too rigorous, food too scarce, cooperation became an important factor in survival. He was correct in assuming that social life occurs on all levels and that association began with the dawn of animal life. Mutual aid, he thought, was as strong a factor in evolution as the struggle between the classes, and certainly greater than struggle and competition within a species. The "fittest" survived, but the fittest were those who had acquired habits of mutual aid. He and others saw that many adaptations in the animal kingdom are aimed at removing, as far as possible, the struggle within species- adaptations such as the storing of food by ants, the migra- tions of birds, the winter sleep which begins when food be- comes scarce. Competition in the noncooperative sense is always the easy surface observation. In most cases the observer must look carefully for the fuller behavior pattern, before the im- pression generally held now emerges that mutual aid, at least to some degree, is universal in the animal kingdom. Even in the lowest forms we sometimes see spectacular instances. So- cial amoebae of the group of slime molds ( Acrasiaceae) are individual, microscopic, single cells, living freely and inde- THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 73 pendently, feeding on bacteria and decaying vegetable mat- ter. They reproduce by fission and in great numbers. This goes on over a period of time; and then suddenly the indi- vidual amoebae stop all independent activity and begin streaming in toward centers, each center drawing toward it- self thousands of individuals. The single cells do not fuse but assemble and then move as one through the water with perfect unison. The collective colonies settle finally in a fa- vorable spot, and then a highly organized, cooperative ac- tivity begins to elevate reproductive spores into the wind. Some of the amoebae seem to be designated as stalk cells, and they take their places by piling up on top of each other. When the stalk is complete, others stream up to form a spore mass which drys and is blown to new breeding waters, where the cycle is repeated. Interesting instances at all levels in evolution, from the smallest to the largest animals, are reported in the literature. Carl E. Akeley tells of elephants in Africa stopping to help a wounded comrade by lifting him with their tusks and trunks, and of threatened herds gathering in a ring with the larger beasts forming the outer circle. In social groups there is, apparently, strength in numbers, and certainly better be- havior is brought about by the companionship. T. H. Lang- lois. Chief of the Ohio Bureau of Fish Propagation, reports that he was able to cure the bass in the Bureau's ponds of cannibalism by a change in the habitat. If the bass were placed in weedy ponds, they were partially separated from each other and tended to hide out in secluded spots, killing any unlucky intruders. The pond population took on a gangster- like psychology, and even plenty of food in all parts of the pond did not stop the cannibalism. However, if the weeds were cleared out, the fish were able to mingle freely, and, food being adequate, they swam together and ate together, but not each other. The relation of parent and offspring in developing tradi- tions that culminated in human society and the human mind 74 evolution: the ages and tomorrow has already been mentioned in Chapter 6. Sociologists and psychologists have always been impressed by the possibilities of the parent-offspring relationship, particularly in higher animals. Ashley Montagu feels that the immediate basis of the urge toward mutual aid is in this relationship— the fact that the offspring is, however short the time, dependent on the parent. He applies his hypothesis even to unicellular life where reproduction is by fission to form daughter cells. The daughter cells, he points out, owe their existence to the proper functioning of the mother cell during mitosis. They are interdependent and form the beginning of a social life. Every new individual is the result of a reproductive coop- eration, and cooperation is as basic a characteristic of life as irritability and motility. The dependence of offspring on parent in higher animals is very much more apparent, and Montagu describes in detail the effects of this relationship in the life of man. The human infant gets a social "inclination" when it comes to connect emotionally the provider with the physical satisfaction of the warmth and food which it is en- joying. And this social "inclination" is never lost. Nature reveals in the species living today all stages in the evolution of societies, from mere collections of animals to the high organization of social insects and the civilizations of man. Collections of animals around food or at water holes or along shore lines are not generally indicative of social organization; but, even in these situations, some observers have found a tendency, particularly in mixed shore birds, to establish leadership. Some would even say that no collection around any more or less permanent situation is without some organization. In any case, as Allee points out, the more closely-knit societies arise out of simple aggregations which are often, but not always, of the sexual-familial pattern. He feels certain that an underlying element of automatic mutual aid is involved, since he and others have experimentally dem- onstrated survival values for the group, however loose or unorganized. THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 75 Definite grouping is often shown although no organiza- tion is apparent. Lady beetles assemble in huge masses in the fall, sometimes completely covering rocks or logs or holes in the ground. The advantage may be in the gain in warmth, for even cold-blooded animals show some slight de- gree of temperature above the surroundings. The advantage of grouping cannot, however, explain the way the collections start. Are they started accidentally, or by leadership, or by some directing chemistry? We do not know. The process does, however, bring about grouping of members of one species. Schools of fishes form in some species, and there does not seem to be any particular advantage. Chemical studies of the water around and in such schools has never revealed any differences, and the fish change direction as a body very erratically. It seems that some of the fish that form schools join in the grouping simply because other fish of their kind are there, for companionship. Enormous swarms of insects with incredible powers of destruction have more than once endangered the very existence of man's societies. Male midges in great numbers dance in swarms, perhaps awaiting their females. Some solitary bees gather at night in groups for males only. There are butterfly species which meet night after night in the same place. Alale robins in the off-season form large flocks. Some birds migrate in large groupings, some in smaller, as in the V-shaped flights of geese. The cases are innumerable, and for many one can show little, if any, advantage. The assumption of natural, innate tendencies toward social groups is decidedly permis- sible. The lemmings of Norway are the classical example of an unexplained mass behavior in mammals. These mouse-like animals migrate periodically in hordes, eating their way across the country, crossing rivers, and finally plunging into the sea to their death. They live in the mountains of Nor- way, near the timberline, where they ordinarily produce one or two litters each summer, a rate that maintains a 76 evolution: the ages and tomorrow steady population. At irregular intervals the rate increases to three or four litters during the summer with sometimes ten or more to the litter, and the individuals of the first litter are reproducing before fall. The whole population explodes. There even seems to be at these times a greater immunity to disease. Migration starts and many move out of their mead- ows and into the surrounding forests. The high reproduc- tivity is repeated a second summer. Then the great hordes which have been produced respond to an irresistible urge and begin to move westward, even though this carries them over barren wastes, exposed to death from all sorts of predatory birds, to drowning in the rivers and fiords, and to final ex- tinction in the sea. They travel in parallel rows, and in some of the greatest migrations on record have literally choked the Norwegian streams with their bodies. This case of explosive reproduction is not unique in the kingdom of life. The tendency toward overpopulation is a characteristic of all organisms, but it is ordinarily checked by physical and biotic factors before the disastrous consequences observed in the lemming. In Chapter 14 the pressure of over- population will be examined more fully, since, according to most authorities, it constitutes a dire threat to the future of man's societies. Although the advantages of grouping are sometimes obscure, there are many instances in nature where the or- ganism gains greatly by social organization— warmth, pro- tection, food, companionship, security, enjoyment, and understanding. Quails gain warmth on cold nights by their habit of huddling together, sitting wing to wing in a circle, some birds perched on the backs of others. Our western pronghorn gains protection by grouping a dozen or more individuals and standing against wolves, the males fighting them oif . If there are too few in the group, they scatter and one is usually killed. Fishes, birds, and mammals sometimes show a very strong territorial sense, and gain control over the food supply by this kind of social organization. All ani- THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 77 mals gain companionship by even the most loosely arranged collections, and there has yet to be found a completely solitary organism. Peace and security is the reward offered the social ant which gives itself utterly to the community. Birds and mammals add the enjoyment of play and learning association to other benefits; and man gains still more through the continuity of tradition and understanding. Even the size of a group has a bearing on success or fail- ure. African observers say that about 30 individuals in a herd of elephants are necessary if the group is to survive. Birds usu- ally do much better in large aggregations. Some gulls do not lay eggs if the group is too small, and it is generally agreed that the presence of many birds is necessary as a stimulus to reproductive activity. Many kinds of animals eat more in the presence of others, and this includes monkeys and men. J. C. Welty put goldfishes in groups of four in aquaria and found that they ate more of a measured food supply and at a faster rate than if isolated. Other fishes show similar results even though the kinds chosen did not run in schools. Although there are exceptions, the general rule is that children learn better and faster in classes (if not too large) than by themselves under private tutors. As soon as the organization of a group evolves above the level of loose aggregations and becomes stratified, with divi- sion of labor, the benefits become very obvious. The co- operation becomes orderly and efficient. There are varying degrees of real organization, with the ants and other social insects at the top of the list. Birds and mammals in many cases show strong instincts toward an efficient spacing of their populations and, by control through territorial rights, eliminate much, if not nearly all, of the intraspecies com- petition that would otherwise make the economy of the species difficult. At mating-time this territorial instinct en- courages monogamy and often involves care and teaching of the young by the males, a form of family life that is cer- tainly an advance in social relations. Disease and the ravages 78 evolution: the ages and tomorrow of predators is restrained by spacing, and a pair of birds is reasonably assured of a food supply at the critical time of rearing their young. Flocks of birds stratify into a complex order of domi- nance and subordination and by this method greatly reduce what might otherwise be a chaotic intraspecies struggle. Allee has shown that a society of hens is organized into a "peck order" in which a hen has the privilege of pecking all other hens below it in the order without precipitating a fight. When a flock of hens is first established, conflict be- tween the birds breaks out and there is a degree of chaos for a time. Individual birds fight and the winners of these fights assume dominance over the losers; they may peck or, as is most often the case, merely threaten to peck the loser without remonstrance. Losers may win in fights with other individuals and soon a stratification in peck order is set up— a stratification that leads to a degree of peaceful living. Allee found that dominance depended on many factors: size, aggressiveness, the luck of battle, and so forth. One encoun- ter was usually enough to settle the question, and each bird would remember who had won and who had lost. Aggres- siveness was most important and possibly due to hormones. Some birds took a lower position in the peck order without ever putting up a fight, and younger birds usually lost to older. In the peck order we have a "social hierarchy," a con- dition we find in the societies of many other animals, includ- ing man, where there are the aggressive and the meek, a sit- uation sometimes leading to abuse. Since leadership is almost certain to exist in a social hier- archy, investigators have long been curious as to how leaders became leaders. More often than not among birds, the leader does not seem to be an individual of top rank in the peck order. When a flock of hens has been released from a pen, where dominance was established, observers have often noted that a bird of mid-social rank takes on the leadership, even though the peck order seems to remain the same. THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 79 There are many interesting leadership patterns in animals. In some mammals the physically strong are the leaders, but in others it may be an old female. The Scotland red deer herd is usually led by an old female. The males in this species sometimes challenge for leadership, but they flee when danger comes, and the old and experienced female goes back on the job. Baboons sometimes organize groups of 80 to 100 individuals. Leadership here does not seem to reside in one individual but seems to be divided among old males who flank the herd and bring up the rear when the colony is on the move. Baboons also post sentinels and are said to send out scouts. Reindeer herds of great size show considerable organization although no one individual has ever been observed to be the definite leader. Among rein- deer, quiet, weaker individuals are in the center of the herd; restless, stronger individuals in the vanguard. Certain other strong individuals are on the sides. Here there seems to be a sort of sub-leadership with a possible dominant near the head or at one side. With some mammals a jealous male, who drives all other males out of the herd, takes over and is very defi- nitely the leader. The leadership of older females in herds of red deer, and of old males among primates and others, seems to rest purely on the basis of experience and sagacity. Cer- tainly, leadership does not always go to the more pugna- cious, the stronger, or the faster. It may be that leadership or dominance in the societies of birds and mammals rests on some genetic basis; i.e., genes tending to determine such behavior. There is, however, no morphological difference by which the dominant individ- uals can be distinguished; there are no caste distinctions as with the termites and Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, and bees). In termites, distinctions between reproductive individuals and the workers and defenders of the colony are clear. The king and queen of the termites are produced genetically, probably by the usual X chromosome, but the other castes do not depend on such segregation. Eggs develop into 8o evolution: the ages and tomorrow young nymphs which may become sterile workers, or sol- diers of either sex, or reproductive individuals. When the colony is established, the presence of mature males, or fe- males, or soldiers prevents the formation of any more of these castes, and the nymphs produce only sterile workers. It is assumed that the soldiers or reproductive individuals give off some chemical substance which, when in sufficient quantity, will prevent further production of these castes. New colonies are founded by the flight of winged repro- ductive individuals which then lose their wings. Termites are essentially wood eaters, although they are themselves unable to digest wood. This is done by countless protozoa which inhabit their digestive tracts. Individuals of the colony cooperatively infect each other and the young with these protozoa at every molt. Here the benefits of the social organization are very obvious. Termites could not lead sol- itary lives. By socialization they not only gain the capacity to digest wood, but they also eventually evolve means for social protection (soldiers) and control over the environ- ment. Living today are both primitive and very advanced species of these insects which, apparently, were evolved from unspecialized ancestral forms related to the cock- roaches. Termites are of lowly origin as compared to other insects but have, nevertheless, been able to evolve complex and highly efficient social systems. The higher tropical ter- mites have an incredible talent for architecture, their nests being huge structures sculptured with such amazingly exact detail that the species can be determined by examining their housing. In the honeybee the queen and the workers are developed from fertilized eggs and are genetically alike; the drones (males) are developed from unfertilized eggs. Queens are produced by a special nutritive treatment, the egg which is to be so treated having been placed in a larger, peanut- shaped cell in the comb. The drone, although receiving the same nutritive treatment as the workers, is developed in a THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 8l thick-walled cell from an egg which the queen lays after having closed off the duct through which spermatozoa would pass. Nurse workers produce from special glands the "royal jelly," which is the basis of the nutritive control; and these workers seem to appear in large numbers when the queen cells are built. Just how this situation is controlled is not clearly known. It is known, however, that if the queen dies or is removed by an observer, the workers will start enlarging one or more cells of developing larvae and will change the food treatment to produce a queen. Perhaps there is here a sort of "social hormone" which is controlling the situation, as in the termites. Temperature and crowding are factors in determining the time of swarming when the new queens and a great number of workers and a few drones fly off to found new colonies. For this nuptial flight the queen is impregnated with a supply of spermatozoa which she retains the rest of her life, using or not using it as the conditions of the colony dictate. The state of the colony controls the production of the castes, but the actual means of supervision has so far escaped observers. The bee- hive with its clever structure and division of labor of the individuals within it (cell workers, nurse workers, honey and pollen collectors) is the product of an evolution toward a high-order control over the environment. Only in recent years have we come to realize how very special and extraor- dinary are the structural and behavioral patterns of these insect societies. In Chapter 11 on instinct, it will be important to examine the almost unbelievable talents of some of these organisms. Among ants, sterile females are divided into soldiers and workers, the latter being subdivided on the basis of size. W. M. Wheeler believed that both ants and bees evolved from ancestral wasps, and that each developed the caste system independently. He also thought that the castes in ants are the result of heredity and not of special care and feeding, as in bees and wasps. Ants are very highly social, 82 evolution: the ages and tomorrow with institutions of enslavement of other ants, organized raids to capture slaves, and with agriculture and domestica- tion of foreign species. In complexity and efficiency they are of the highest order, and not the least of their achieve- ments is their perfect government. As in other insect so- cieties, each individual is fitted by instinct and morphology to a particular activity which it carries out without fuss or fury. As we shall see in Chapter 1 1, free will and high-level understanding are perhaps sacrificed in such perfection of social control, but nevertheless these insects are not entirely without mental talents nor are they without the basic pleas- ures of life. Man may well envy their great capacity for government, even though he would never willingly sub- scribe to the rigidly instinctive means by which it is ob- tained. In the evolution of mind-matter- energy substance an excessive dependence on instinct leads the organisms which possess it into blind alleys. In the evolution of the social insects we have intermediate stages and varying degrees of the organization of societies represented in still living forms, notably in the bees. To- gether with a survey of the situation among mammals, a continuous process is revealed from the vague collections of protozoa to the elaborate societies of insects and men. There is a slow accumulation of social tendencies, nowhere show- ing a line of demarcation on the far side of which it may be said, "This is presocial." The social tendency is obvious in all animals and for that matter, to some extent even in plants. Some of these societies show a very high degree of altruism in the individual members. Instincts are evolved which pro- duce automatic and stereotyped behavior— not always desir- able from an anthropocentric point of view. Obviously, even in the evolution of societies, nature tends to drift into blind alleys. Complete altruism and the consequent loss of individuality, at least in low organisms, often lead to such perfect adaptation that there is no pressure toward evolu- tionary change. At the other extreme, no altruism in the THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 83 individual would lead to social failure. Somewhere in be- tween, with predominantly intelligent behavior, lies the suc- cessful formula. Nature has not yet found it on earth; nor does that mean she cannot find it here or elsewhere. The geneticist suggests that social organization arose through the operation of natural selection. Grouping is of use to the individuals participating; and if, as in birds and mammals, it leads to some peace and order, a survival factor is obviously involved. Peaceful animals eat more and repro- duce more. In the social hierarchy of the chickens, high- ranking cocks and hens will produce more chicks. The in- dividuals in a society possess the genes, and if these genes tend to produce responses favoring the group, the over-all survival possibility is increased. An increasingly favored group will increasingly favor the individuals within it. The attempt to establish the concept of society as a super- individual does not seem, in the opinion of some biologists, to be helpful. This is an extension of the unicellular to the multicellular to the multi-individual, wherein the social group is, at least by inference, taken to be an entity. J. S. Huxley even adds to this extension when he declares that the whole organic world is one great individual with interde- pendent parts. The inference in this mystical concept is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is based, how- ever, on our ignorance of both the whole and the parts. If we have complete knowledge of the parts, we find the whole to be their sum. Chemists, with all their present knowledge of atomic structure, will not use this concept to say, as emergent evolutionists once did, that water is more than the sum of the gases hydrogen and oxygen. They know that all the charac- teristics of hydrogen and oxygen will not be revealed until all their various unions are studied. In this case each element has the property of forming a liquid when joined with the other. F. A. Shull sums up this situation as follows: So a society is made up of its individuals. When we discover that an animal does things in company that it does not do when alone, 84 evolution: the ages and tomorrow we have merely lessened our ignorance concerning the single ani- mal. It had the property of behaving in a certain way in a society; we did not discover that property until the individual was associ- ated with other animals. For any biological evolution of a society, we shall have to look to its individual members. It is their germ cells, their genes, their mutations, their recombinations of genes, their survivals, which make a society change or not and cause it to survive or perish. Society may be good; if it is, it will help its indi- vidual members, and they will preserve or promote the society.* Some biologists, notably Ludwig von Bertalanffy, ap- proach this and all others problems in biology through a concept of "organization and wholeness considered as prin- ciples of order." According to Bertalanffy: It is not only necessary to carry out analysis in order to know as much as possible about the individual components, but it is equally necessary to know the laws of organization that unite these parts and partial processes and are just the characteristic of vital phe- nomena. Herein lies the essential and original object of biology. It calls for investigation at all levels: at the level of the physico-chemi- cal units, processes, and systems; at the biological level of the cell and the multicellular organism; at the level of the supra-individual units of life.j * By permission from F. A. Shull, Evolution, 2d ed. (New York: Mc- Graw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1951), p. 275. t Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Problems of Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1952), p. 20. 8 The Civilisations of M.an In a study of the social evolution of animal organizations other than man, one is constantly reminded of situations which appear in human society. There are definite domi- nance-subordination relationships in groups of people. The hierarchies of birds and mammals have obvious counterparts in man's society, where despotism of a more complex and thorough type often appears but is not to be condoned, however, on the excuse of an animal origin. Unlike the social insects, which depend on the fixity of instinct, man's whole evolutionary trend is toward a plasticity of intelligence. Man's societies are never likely to work with the machine-like smoothness of the ant hill; the altruistic instincts will not become completely dominant. In fact, as Haldane points out, absolute altruism is probably possible only in a caste system where there are sterile in- dividuals (such as workers and soldiers among ants) . It would appear that altruism in man will only with difficulty be in- creased beyond its present level— perhaps by the transmis- sion of acquired, favorable social characters or, more re- motely, by favorable gene mutations or, better, by proper educational indoctrination. Man's freedom from absolute control by instinct is the gift of his mammalian ancestors. There, in her seeking of conscious understanding, nature found the formula with the 85 86 evolution: the ages and tomorrow greatest promise, namely, the cerebral part of the brain, which in the mammals, nourished by rich, warm blood, takes on a greater mass than the rest of the nervous system put together. It is through the organization of association areas in the brain that nature finds expression in self-con- sciousness and, finally, in conceptual processes. The eternal striving of the mind-matter substance is rewarded here, but only if the society of organisms possessing such a brain evolves the complex, cooperative learning patterns neces- sary to high-level realization. The origin of this brain and those which preceded it is of the utmost importance to my thesis and will be given careful consideration in the follow- ing chapters. In reviewing the evolution of animal societies we have rejected, on a biological basis, the idea that social organiza- tion is the reality or the whole whereas the individuals in it are merely parts and cannot be considered as existing inde- pendently. Is the individual, then, the reality, understand- able in itself, and is society merely a collection of atomic in- dividuals? Sociologists sometimes entertain one or the other of these ideas, but it seems obvious from a review of the biology involved that neither of these views has any basis in evidence. No solitary or atomic animals are anywhere to be found at any level; all are associated in some sort of social organization, however loose it may be, and the social urge is innate and universal. Care was taken in the preceding chap- ter to make it clear that society is a system of relations be- tween individuals. The animal acts in a certain manner in as- sociation with its fellows: even in the complex interactions of insect and human societies this basic truth seems appar- ent. We have seen that the source of evolution in a society is in the individual; so, too, is the source of action. Society, then, is a field of action produced by the activities of a num- ber of individuals, as Bergson has expressed it. Some sociologists, philosophers, and historians have been strongly attracted to the idea of human societies as social or- THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 87 ganisms. They are quite earnest about the idea, readily ig- noring the biological evidence to the contrary. Oswald Spengler, the historian, writes: A civilization (Kultur) is born at the moment when, out of the primitive psychic conditions of a perpetually infantile (raw) hu- manity, a mighty soul awakes and extricates itself; a form out of the formless, a bounded and transitory existence out of the bound- less and persistent. This soul comes to flower on the soil of a country with precise boundaries, to which it remains attached like a plant. Conversely a civilization dies if once this soul has realized the complete sum of its possibilities in the shape of peoples, lan- guages, creeds, arts, states and sciences, and thereupon goes back into the primitive psyche from which it originally emerged.* Arnold J. Toynbee in his A Study of History rejected this point of view and based his whole analysis of growth in man's societies on the assumption that creative individuals and mass imitation were the sources of action in a society, a truth he had found forcibly stated by Bergson: "We do not believe in the 'unconscious' [factor] in history: 'the great subterranean currents of thought,' of which there has been so much talk, only flow in consequence of the fact that masses of men have been carried away by one or more of their own num- ber. ... It is useless to maintain that social progress takes place of itself, bit by bit, in virtue of the spiritual condition of the society at a certain period of its history. It is really a leap forward which is only taken when the society has made up its mind to try an ex- periment; this means that the sociey must have allowed itself to be convinced, or at any rate allowed itself to be shaken; and the shake is always given by somebody."t * Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, trans. G. F. Atkinson (2 vols.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), I, 153. t Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, Abridgement of Volumes I-VI by D. C. Somervill (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), pp. 211-12. This quotation is Toynbee's translation of material from Henri Bergson, Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion (48th ed.; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1946), pp. 333, 373. See also Henri L. Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality a?2d Religion, trans. R. Ashley Audra, Cloudesley Brereton, with assistance of W. H. Carter (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1935). 88 evolution: the ages and tomorrow And again: "In giving to man the moral conformation which he required to be a social animal, nature has probably done all that she was able to do for the human species. But, just as men of genius have been found to extend the bounds of the human intelligence, so there have arisen privileged souls who have felt themselves related to all souls, and who, instead of remaining within the limits of their group and keeping to the solidarity which has been established by nature, have addressed themselves to humanity in general in an elan of love. ... It is that elan itself, communicated in its en- tirety to privileged human beings whose desire it is thereafter to set the imprint of it upon the whole of mankind and— by a contra- diction of which they are aware— to convert a species, which is essentially a created thing, into a creative effort; to make a move- ment out of something which, by definition, is a halt."* The evolution of man's real community life begins with the development of village settlements some 6,000 or more years ago. Man began to emerge from the ancestral line of apes more than a million years ago, and the gradual appear- ance of Homo sapiens from the manlike humanoids can be dated about half a million years ago. We have previously stated that in terms of human generations this span of time seems extremely short. It has been only some 30,000 genera- tions since the advent of true man; some 300 generations since the first urban settlements; some 100 generations since the Greek philosophers; and only 14 generations since Gali- leo. Regretfully, we noted that in such limited numbers of generations one can expect little or nothing from the ge- netic factors which controlled man's destiny in the early formative period. Since man's present civilizations will stand or fall on other factors, one is quite willing to welcome the Toynbee idea of change through the activity of creative in- dividuals and mass imitation as one of the factors— imitation being, after all, a way by which the rank and file of animals follow dominant leadership. Eventually, social man may evolve maturity and forget his growing pains. * Ibid., p. 212; Bergson, Les Deux Sources . . . , p. 96. THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 89 Students of the social evolution of man have two ap- proaches to the problem of origins. One is through archae- ology; the other is the observation of primitive tribes living today. Tools, pottery, bones, burial mounds, and the like are helpful, but they leave many questions unanswered. These constitute, however, a very rich record of relics dating back several hundred thousand years. Vaguely in the beginning there is fire, and there are tools and weapons of unworked stone and, probably too, of wood; then after a very long time rough-worked stone is used. Gradually the techniques improve and beautifully fashioned, polished stone imple- ments appear. Still later, metals replace stone in rising levels of skill in workmanship and utility. It is all a very obvious evolution and shows, as does organic evolution, a gradual speeding-up to the greatly accelerated inventiveness of our day. Primitive tribes in various parts of the present-day world also give us some indication of the past, but again the information is incomplete. The two methods, archaeology and ethnography, taken together give us much information. Man in his formative period, the several hundred thou- sand years of the early history of the species, must have been few in number and very scattered. Originally, he was prob- ably molded to culture by the catastrophe of the ice ages. An ape became human by a long and gallant struggle with the cold of four ice ages by overcoming his natural animal fear of fire— fire, by which he not only surmounted the hardships of nearly a million years, but in which he thought he saw spirit and deity in nature, the Shining Father and the Burning Mountain. Archaeologists agree that man's posses- sion of fire is a critical distinction. Fire is a fact of prime cul- tural significance, and culture, in turn, is the unique posses- sion of the human species. The early use of fire by man is easily established by archaeological and paleontological evi- dence. It was already in use some 450,000 years ago in caves near Peiping, China, where very primitive, cannibalistic Si- nanthropus sought shelter; and its use is suspected as far 90 evolution: the ages and tomorrow back as nearly 1,000,000 years in the time of Dart's fire- making South African ape-man. Gradually, using fire for warmth and to make more palat- able the animal flesh with which he was augmenting his ancestral fruit and vegetable diet, early man conquered the cold. Anthropologists once thought it rather strange that early pre-humans added flesh to their diet, but we now know that the modern chimpanzee does just that to a limited extent (using insects and perhaps an occasional bird). The South African ape-men seem definitely to have mixed ba- boon meat in with their vegetables. Free hands guided by a brain sharpened by the chill and dangers of his day gave to early man the beginnings of his cultural inventiveness. Physical anthropologists definitely see in man a former hot climate, nearly hairless, fruit-eating ape. Man's linearity of physique is that of an ape which had not known cold, since adaptation to frigid climate usually involves the drawing of the body into a more spherical compactness and the addition of fur and fat to prevent heat loss. To survive man had to use fire and appropriate the fur of more naturally adapted animals, although he himself underwent some selective change as is shown in the short, rotund Eskimo and the "bean pole," extravagantly tall Negro of the hot Sudan. Man, it would appear, owes his present success to the pe- culiarity of climate. Had the Pleistocene ice ages not gradu- ally chilled his early world he would probably, in spite of his readiness for the trial, still be little above the level of his ape cousins. Again, the student of evolution is impressed with the great importance and uniqueness of the environ- mental configurations. An endless series of adaptive and cli- matic changes with the setting-up of trends through hun- dreds of millions of years is involved in the "accident of man." Nature, it most certainly seems, arrived finally at hu- manistic ends, but she arrived there blindly. Early in the history of the primates from the primitive lemur upward, one of those fortunate evolutionary trends THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 91 that led to man got under way. In this case it was the length- ening of the pre- and postnatal period and the stretching of the mating season to extend throughout the whole year. More than anything else, this trend evolved the close, coop- erative, and fuller family life of the great apes and man. The much looser, usually only seasonal, family life of the birds and mammals was gradually organized into a vastly impor- tant, more or less permanent relationship— not just of the "long suffering" mother and offspring, but a father-mother- offspring relationship. Accompanying this trend toward family life in the higher placental mammals was a greater economy in reproduction: fewer and fewer young needing more and more care if the species was to survive. The in- creasing helplessness of the young which culminated in the greatly lengthened postnatal period of the higher primates finally brought the male into the picture. Wood-Jones thought that the very great need of the helpless youngster was enough to explain the final acceptance on the part of the male of the paternal responsibility, but Weston La Barre thinks it was due to the male's urges and needs for a sexual outlet throughout the year. The male primate, La Barre thinks, had undergone a long genetic selection toward a permanent, nonseasonal sexual interest in the female because reproduction in the tropics-dwelling primates had adapted to the conditions of a plentiful year-round food supply and uniformity of temperature. In any case and whatever the complex of obscure causa- tive factors, the tremendously important institution of the family appeared in the monkeys and apes long before the advent of man. It is a wonderfully interlocking and progres- sive institution. Increased dependency of the infant meant increased nurture on the part of the mother and increased protection of the two by the father; sexuality and sociability were more closely interwoven; and all these relationships give rise to greater bonds of mutual aid and teachability. It is not surprising that the evolutionary rise of intelhgence in 92 evolution: the ages and tomorrow the higher primates and finally in man was so vastly accel- erated. Anthropologists seem in accord that the social organiza- tion of the earliest men must have gotten under way at levels only slightly higher than that of the gorilla— small groups of biological families, loosely associated as nomadic wander- ers. And there followed a very long period of several hun- dred thousand years of what is now called the "hunting and gathering" stage of man's social evolution. Such loosely held groups exist even today in tribes like the primitive Kalahari Bushman, Eskimos, and others. There were advantages in group living; and early man, a very weak animal, of neces- sity increased the sizes of the groups as he turned more and more to the hunt of animal flesh to augment his diet. The tendency of jealous old males to drive the young males out of the family, a trait that keeps the gorilla family small, lessened in man. Early human mothers were tending to keep their sons, as well as their daughters, with them, probably by inspiring their young with fear of their elders, particularly the ruling Old Man. The young males learned to be wary of infringing on the Old Man's rights and, espe- cially, of arousing his jealousy. The strength and the tem- pers of the elders of these early families, the anthropologists say, gave form and direction to a tradition. The young males were growing up with a knowledge that possessing the fe- males of the group was taboo to them. Even in many other mammals, especially chimpanzees, the young males are well aware of the danger they run if they poach on the dominant male's preserves. In man, fear of the Old Man was con- sciously becoming a guiding force. Young males with a dis- position to propitiate remained and groups enlarged; the young deferred to the older— a "peck order" of sorts. According to anthropologists, man learned the elements of self -suppression through taboos, one of the earliest being the taboo against incest. Here, it would seem, is the first idea of sin and the first of the repression complexes of the psy- THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 93 choanalyst. It is said that the objection to incest is purely human, but there has been some claim that other animals avoid it instinctively. In man the objection is a tradition and not instinctive, as our social agency institutions and courts of law can testify. Very likely, the next step in the evolution of human in- stitutions arose when the young men of the family began to bring home stray women, or the reverse, and probably less frequent, situation when the young women brought home stray men. Fringe individuals of both sexes are known among the apes— individuals driven out of families by quar- rels or crowded out by population pressure. A new young woman in a family was protected from the Old Man by the aggressive jealousy of the family females, who did not want an additional rival, and by the courage possession had given her mate. Probably, in the majority of cases, the Old Man found it was just more than he could handle. In any event, the successful grafting of a stranger to the group, or exog- amy, gradually came into existence. Exogamy is marriage by taking a strange mate from outside the tribe, and there are world-wide traces of this custom in primitive peoples. Out of it, say the anthropologists, arose the taboos against intercourse between mother-in-law and son-in-law and be- tween father-in-law and daughter-in-law. There are fossil reminders of exogamy in the marriage ceremonies of to- day, where age-old marriage customs introduce primor- dial taboos to protect the bride. The disturbance and excite- ment of a strange female in the family is dampened down below the level of social disruption. Among the Siberian Ostyaks the bride must not appear before her father-in-law nor the husband before the mother-in-law until they have children, and the bride must cover her face against her father-in-law throughout life. The in-law taboo is very widely spread and takes strange twists. A Zulu in Africa hides his face with his shield if he meets his mother-in-law, or throws away a mouthful of food if she passes by while he 94 evolution: the ages and tomorrow is eating. He must never mention her name. In Ceylon, the Veddah is forbidden to speak with his mother-in-law or to speak with or take food with his son's wife. Through exogamy the primordial family group began to grow toward tribal size. Increased numbers meant greater complexity and stratification, and greater possibility of sur- vival. Man was, perhaps, being forced out into the open at about this time by the gradual drying-out of the forest areas as the rain belts changed with the shifts in climate during the ice age. Man is indeed a product of a long period of adverse weather— a triumph of the mind and will in both his physical and social origin. The tribe was able to hold larger territories and defend them better than the smaller family groups. Per- haps, as in other animals, the greater numbers stimulated greater activity in food-getting and greater activity in re- production. Cooperation was needed to kill the larger ani- mals, and we have every evidence that earliest man hunted in "packs." Tribal life brought a greater moral sense, the in- dividual had to be fitted in through self-suppression. Man is not without innate capacities for the moral needs of com- munal life, and the tribal training began to bring these ca- pacities to the surface. The suppression of primate willful- ness through taboos had made possible the miracle of an economic society without differential castes and without surrender to instinctive control. Fear of the Old Man of the tribe must have been deeply impressed upon the members of these primitive societies, even before man learned to talk. H. G. Wells has so ably visualized this situation: The Old Man was the master of all the women, his place at the fire was not to be occupied by any other, his weapons were not to be touched. Forbidden things centered about the Old Man, and it is not surprising that there was a disposition to propitiate him even after death. After all he might only be asleep. (It is doubtful that early man had any understanding of death or that, even later when he came to bury his dead, he had any idea of a future THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 95 life. It is much more likely that the belief in death itself was uneasy and uncertain.) When language came, the tradition of the Old Man was strengthened and grew. Along with it, the gentler tradition of mother love and care also developed. Freud and Jung have shown us how great a role these two complexes play in our adaptation to social needs and in our ideas of the supernatural, especially in our desire to replace the imperfection of the earthly father with a perfect Heavenly Father. Fear of the Old Man, fears of animals and storms and sudden sounds and sickness, and even of the mys- tery of women were all mingled in the minds of our child- like ancestors. Children of our day are very easily made fearful of things and places and people and the unhealthy, and can readily be indoctrinated with the ideas of avoidance and repulsion. With speech, all kinds of taboos arose out of these fears, and the evolution of the religious elements in human life was under way. (The origins of language are considered in Chapter 12.) By talking together, men and women began to augment each other's fears and to exaggerate their experiences, as they still do. The idea of the unknown, the unclean, and the fearful is easily correlated with the idea of propitiation. The evil is embodied in a spirit and can be bought off by cere- mony and sacrifice, especially if there is in the tribe an indi- vidual who is older and wiser and in communication with the spirit. The pedagogic talent of man being high, these wiser individuals began to tell their fellows something of the attributes of these spirits and what to do to please them. Here was a new way to power and dominance, a "peck or- der" on a different basis and one easily established since all the common man asked was to be reassured that these men- acing things would not harm him. And so, as anthropologists see it, we have the appearance of the gods and priestcraft in the Hfe of man— a complex arising out of the tradition of the Old Man, out of sex emotions, out of desire for luck in the hunt, out of avoidance and repulsion fears, out of awe and 96 evolution: the ages and tomorrow wonder for the moon and the sun and the stars, and out of the desire for power and success through magic. Early man was confusedly seeking guidance and knowledge, aware that he needed the cooperative communal life, aware of his own weakness and limitations, and willing to follow the bolder and more cunning few, the kings and the priests. With the advent of agriculture, ceremonial life became increasingly complex as the ideas and the control of the priests and kings became more and more definite. Some an- thropologists have thought that planting arose quite natu- rally out of the association of sowing with a burial, and that the concept of special sacrifices and special sacrificial per- sons, who were killed at seedtime, was an extension of this association. And there is also the widely held theory that agriculture and planting developed from stray seeds scuffled into the dirt around campfires and living areas and that it aroused the interest, and then became the concern, of women. There were agricultural gods, a specially purified class of people, the priests, to kill these human sacrifices, and a sacramental feast in which the people ate portions of the victim's body the better to share the sacrificial benefits, as they still sometimes do symbolically in religious ritual. The greater simplicity and directness of earliest Eolithic and Paleolithic men was being replaced by a welter of su- pernatural answers to the problems of society in the Neo- lithic age. Neolithic men killed in a sadistic orgy. They killed through fear of a traditional Old Man who became a tribal god and to whom were assigned fantastic attributes of thirst for sacrificial blood. Under the guidance of their priests they sacrificed wives and slaves at the death of a chieftain; they killed to bring rain, or to stop the rains, or under any adversity; they practiced infanticide, and de- stroyed the aged; they practiced self-multilation; and they topped each year off with elaborate ceremonies and many blood victims at seedtime. They had many gods, and all had to be propitiated. THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 97 At the moment of his first conscious view of nature, man did not understand. All about him, it seemed, was mystery and hostility. The dominant leaders to whom he turned, knowing no more than he, gave him answers and a way of life through "revelation." In man's search for understand- ing he must realize that nothing is "revealed"; all that comes to him in the way of truth must be sought out and tested and retested. As Neolithic times merge into the Bronze Age the ar- chaeological record improves, and much more definite in- formation becomes available. Man buried his dead with ceremony and with artifacts to accompany him in a future life— a widespread concept by now which always promised a better life in the hereafter, however the expectations may have varied among the tribes. A real division of labor was bemnnincr as the Bronze Age neared. The dawn of agriculture and the replacement of the rough stone implements of the Paleolithic by the polished and more thoroughly fashioned tools of the Neo- lithic had no doubt started the division into various occu- pations. Anthropologists say that some persons must have been at least partially dedicated to the tilling of the soil, even though Neolithic man still hunted and took his crops in between the migrations of the hunt. Some must have been more talented and better suited to the making of the really fine, polished stone implements of these peoples; and, of course, there were the priests and the chieftains, and pos- sibly their retainers. As the Bronze Age opened and copper came into use, the division of labor became more pro- nounced. All the processes involved in the making of metal tools could not be controlled by one man, or even by one family. Trade for copper and eventually the building of larger vessels than canoes to transport it led quickly to a considerable division of the population, and real cooperation through specialized effort flourished. The earliest civiliza- tions in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys and along the Nile 98 evolution: the ages and tomorrow are dated by archaeologists as having had their beginnings more than 6,000 years ago. In the Nile valley dikes must have been built to control the river's floods, and in the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates man must have had to dig long drainage ditches in order to cultivate the soil. The towns which later appeared in the Tigris valley were built on plat- forms of reeds, showing how marshy was the locale of the earliest of all civilizations. All this adds to the certainty that there was considerable division of labor long before the first urban civilizations appeared. The earliest known villages from Mesopotamia and Egypt show definite cooperation and even control. Village sites have been found that covered several acres and in- cluded upwards of 35 families. The houses were in rows, along streets. The arrangement and the spacing of the build- ings indicate considerable agreement among the individuals involved and perhaps a planning control. As these villages grew into cities, the cooperation, division of labor, and con- trol kept pace. Man was learning the use of metals and the fashioning of many objects; his ideas and wants were in- creasing. Community specialization and stratification were well under way. The "peck order" was becoming more and more complex. Rulers and priests were turning to ceremony and ritual for the "divine right" of their dominant positions. Power was breeding the love of power, and the struggle to hold or get it was on; pretense and deception and war were used by the top-level individuals in the society, and are still being used. Trade and the need for raw materials brought conflict, the armies marched, and empires began to appear. In Mesopotamia the priests formed a corporation and ex- erted an uneasy and quarrelsome control through payments to the gods. Later, kings usurped this power, but kept the priests handy. Out of the endless conflicts of the small states in the Tigris-Euphrates valley there finally appeared, about 2500 B.C., the first empire. In Egypt temporal power arose directly out of the struggles of the clans, when, about 3000 THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 99 B.C., Menes, chieftain of the falcon clan, became the sov- ereign of all Egypt. Subsequent pharaohs developed and favored a religion with the usual temple, priests and ritual. These empires brought some sort of peace and order out of chaos, just as the establishment of a "peck order" in hens minimizes conflict. Other empires arose, humans were multiplying, territories became overcrowded, rulers and people of the favored class were too stupidly selfish and extravagant, and the struggle was renewed and renewed again. To escape overpopulation and the consequent economic impasse, man migrated to form colonies; the colonies became crowded, and people were pushed out to form new colonies, until over the whole earth there was hardly a spot without its colony. Man muhi- pHed, his man-against-man struggle was intensified, and his problems became more and more complex; and the end is not in sight. As the early civilizations began to appear in one area after another, various backward and "fossil" cultures existed right alongside them, and still do. The situation in social evolution is much as it is in organic evolution where all stages of the process are represented by intermediate forms. All over the world today there are primitive peoples who are at varying stages below the level of a true civilization. Study of these cultures is the second method by which the enigma of man's social evolution may be resolved. By the study of primitive men, civilized man may see himself as once he probably was. I One of the most primitive peoples on this earth are the Bushmen of South Africa. They may once have been almost in sole possession of the greater part of the Dark Continent, but they are now pushed back into remote, semidesert re- gions. They are segregated in clans which differ from each other considerably in language, so much so as to make their original unity questionable. They are yellow-faced and without hair on the face and body, giving a generally child- like appearance; they average only 5 feet in stature. The 100 evolution: the ages and tomorrow general features are somewhat Mongoloid, not Negroid. They live in caves on the walls of which they often inscribe a strange picture-language of extremely primitive character. Their speech, which consists of guttural croakings, half- suppressed vowels, and the clicks of the tongue against the roof of the mouth (as now used in urging on a horse), is considered a very early form of communication. It is a language of extreme simplicity, yet difficult for the modern observer to imitate due to the nature of the sound produc- tion. Bushmen, it is said, cannot count beyond the number three. Nonetheless, they have an extensive tradition of ta- boos and a mythology which they pass on orally. Their legends and fables are of transformation, and they worship the moon, holding religious rites during the rainy season. They play crude instruments and enjoy ceremonial dances. The food economy largely consists of ant eggs and roots. They hunt and fish, using bows and arrows and long sticks. Although not originally a semidesert people, they have learned to store water in ostrich egg shells under the sand and to drink it through long straws. Both sexes wear short skin aprons and skin sandals. The clans are very loosely held together without a chieftain, and there is little or no real division of labor. Although they are flesh eaters, there is no evidence that they have ever been cannibals. In fact, they seem to be very well behaved, not mingling with other peoples and asking only to be left alone. Hardly more than 10,000 to 15,000 Bushmen are said to be in existence. Once they occupied fertile areas of Africa, and their unconscious controls have operated to save them, at least for the time being, after they were driven into the barren regions in which they now live; that is, unconscious adaptation to new sources of food, storage of water, and housing. Their chil- dren are schooled prior to the tribal initiations in courage and endurance. Hottentots are also South Africans. In certain respects they seem intermediate between the Bushmen and Cauca- THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN lOI sians. They may be Bushmen who interbred with Hamitic Negroes of the north. In language they are similar to the Bushmen in that they use clicks of the tongue, but not as extensively. The Hottentots are grouped in exogamous pat- rilineal clans, a system they borrowed from more progres- sive neighbors along with a cattle economy. In patrilineal clans, a very old system, inheritance runs along the line of males. Hottentots obey simple rules of conduct which are laid down by a headman. There is no autocracy. Their re- ligion is based on the worship of mythical heroes, derived partly from the personification of natural forces producing rain. Edwin M. Loeb has given us an interesting report of these people and their neighbors, the more advanced Bantu of South West Africa. The Bantu are Negroes with a white Hamitic admixture and are divided into three divisions: a cattle-raising, nonagricultural group; an agricultural, hunt- ing, and fishing group; and the Ambo who have a versatile economy, including agriculture, hunting, fishing, and cattle- raising. All the Bantu have a clan system which controls social life, the system of the Ambo being elaborate and formerly headed by a king. Loeb finds that as the complex- ity of economic life increases the populations rise in density. The Bushmen with their extreme economic simplicity num- ber not much more than 10,000, whereas the Ambo are at least 150,000 strong. He contrasts the simple hunting leader of the Bushmen with kingship and the accompanying com- plexity of the Ambo. He finds the latter much more adapt- able and better able to adopt measures necessary for survival. The expedition of which he was a part studied one particular tribe, the Kuanyama Ambo, because this society offered a good illustration of the unconscious controls working in a primitive society. These people live in a fenced-in, corral-like "kraal," each a small city. They control their environment directly by guarding all the cattle and produce of the surrounding areas 102 evolution: the ages and tomorrow within the kraal walls. In the kraal are a husband and his 10 to 20 wives, the children, and relatives. Each wife is respon- sible for the storage and issue of some food staple. The first wife occupies the most important position and is the keeper of milk and butter and the sacred fire, which must never be allowed to go out during the life of the king or her husband, else an omen of disaster is cast over the kraal. Before the recent control of these people by Europeans they had a feudalistic system of government. At the head was a king who lived in a royal kraal surrounded by vast gardens. Here the king kept his harem, at the head of which was the queen mother and her sisters. The king's kraal was constantly being rebuilt into new patterns of stockaded mazes and labyrinths to protect his majesty from overenthusiastic brothers and nephews, potential heirs to the throne. Regi- cide was the common thing, particularly as the king grew older. The Ambo king was a rainmaker in whose person the entire welfare of the land was supposedly bound up. It was considered fatal to allow him to die a natural death. Age or sickness condemned him at once. The king was the earthly body of the god Kalunga, and was often called Kalunga. He was entrusted by the divinity with the sacred fire, the sacred water, and the sacred sheep; and these the king gave out to his people. He was the theo- retical owner of everything, including all the women. He ap- pointed noblemen to rule over districts, to whom each kraal owner looked for the right to the land. The king gained his god-like qualities on ascending the throne when he was an- nointed with the fat of a lion and ate at a cannibalistic feast a mixture of the flesh of animals and man. It was fatal to speak disrespectfully of the king, or to touch his person or his utensils. His court swarmed with courtiers and retainers, and he was every inch the iVsiatic or European monarch, a living "fossil" of the institution of kingship with divine sanction. Around him were nobility, the army, page boys, secret police and hangmen, these last a very busy group. He THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN IO3 was given absolute powers of life and death. Like all primi- tive kings he was not a lawmaker, his edicts being merely recognition of natural events and unconscious controls. By custom he was compelled personally to kill his father when he came to the throne. Overpopulation was a problem even here, in spite of ma- laria and famine following long dry periods. The success of the unconscious and conscious economic controls was so great that periodically the growing masses threatened the whole system, as has happened many times and again so acutely in our day. The Kuanyama Ambo were probably not at all conscious of this overpopulation problem, but nevertheless various unconscious controls developed to avert the danger. The king could and did from time to time order the death of all children born of unmarried mothers, and sometimes included the parents in the order, all on the ground that unnatural children were an omen of disaster. Children whose upper teeth erupted before their lower were sometimes killed for the same reason. The king could and did sometimes postpone the marriageable age of men and limit the number that could become kraal owners with a harem. Unconscious controls through punishment of the innocent, or those who had incurred the disfavor of the king and his nobles, also worked to hold down the population. In spite of all this, however, there was some degree of social justice. The matrilineal system of inheritance, which prevented a man from handing on his herds to his sons, tended to spread the wealth to nephews and more distant relatives. Accumulation of too many cattle in one man's hands was very definitely frowned upon; in fact, such a man was in grave danger from the royal court. There was a spirit of mutual aid in the proverbs of these people; parents were cared for in their old age; the sick and blind were cared for and nourished; peace and tranquility, both here and here- after, were regarded as blessings. The young people prac- ticed another unconscious control at a spring cattle cere- 104 evolution: the ages and tomorrow mony. Songs and dances in the moonlight, preceded by a period in which the young couples paired off to enact the roles of married people, gave the youngsters a chance to choose their own mates. The boys hunted and the girls cooked and set up housekeeping. In the evening a custom much like the "bundling" of the puritanical New Eng- enders of another day brought them closer together, a counterpart of American "dating, courting, and petting." Studies of primitive peoples have given the anthropolo- gists and psychologists much that is helpful in explaining many of the emotions and actions of modem man. As a society advances in its economic life it gains in control over its environment, and the population density increases. This gives the society added survival value, but there is always the problem of overpopulation which must eventually be solved. As we shall see in Chapter 14, modern societies are faced with this problem as never before in the history of the world. In man's society unconscious controls have been of value in the past. They are still at work but at levels far below the needs of modern civilizations, and one clearly sees that blind forces are not likely to resolve social problems of such present-day complexity. We have already concluded that the usual evolutionary forces will not operate fast enough to be of value in the immediate future, and that man must turn to conscious controls. Basic gregarious impulses in man and the love of his fellows are not lacking, but they are weaker than the more individualistic instincts of pugnacity and self-preservation. It would seem that the tendency to- ward mutual aid can be augmented only through educa- tional indoctrination, and then be gradually stamped into the character of man of the next few millennia by the trans- mission of acquired social characters. Through folklore and in early historic records there ap- pears an increasing consciousness of the concept of broth- erly love, but we do not find it expressed in a formalized THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN IO5 philosophy until the time of Gautama Buddha. With him, some 2,500 years ago, we find a clear and simple teaching of all that is necessary for man to know in order to resolve all his social conflicts: a man must not live for himself alone; he must not live to gratify his senses; he must not live for worldly goods; he must not desire personal immortality. Gautama tried to guide his followers along the Noble Eight- fold Path which included: right knowledge— all ideas must be examined with great care, one should not cling to super- stition (in this he anticipated the science and philosophy of a latter day) ; right intention— one must not merely intend, one must make the right effort, diligently and intelligently; right aspirations— one must desire to serve others, one must love justice; right mindfulness— one must clear the mind of petty feelings of superiority since vanity is an agent of per- sonal destruction; right rapture— the ecstasies of the devout are pointless. The original teaching of Gautama was aimed at turning the natural desires of man into cooperative channels. It en- couraged a devotion to science and art and tried to free man from petty personal jealousies and cravings for fame. Gau- tama thought that the dread of death and the futile desire for life everlasting were as base and evil as lust and avarice. He did not speak of God. He offered his followers Nirvana, serenity of soul, when and if they had overcome all base desires. Nirvana was not personal extinction, but the ex- tinction of all that was petty and evil in life. Near the time of Gautama we encounter the teaching of the Old Philosopher of China, Lao Tse, an evolutionist, pacifist, and moralist. Lao Tse taught the Way, the Reason, and the Word. He made a virtue of humility and gentle compassion. One was not to act from purely personal mo- tives. One was to recompense injury with kindness— repay "Good for Evil." Also near the time of Gautama we encounter the great Confucius, and the first clear statement of the Golden Rule, io6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow "What you do not like when done to yourself do not do to others." Confucius saw about him a world of bad leadership. He taught the necessity of benevolence and righteousness in all who were in authority. Actual and sincere application of his rules of conduct and his advice to the governing class, although given almost 2,500 years ago, would eliminate many of the evils of our day. Before and during the time of these teachers there was gradually arising among the Jews the idea of one God, Yahweh or Jehovah. Yahweh, in origin a tribal god, a jinni inhabiting and animating a volcano in Arabia, was at first the greatest of all tribal gods, then he was a god above all other gods, and, finally, the only true God. Yahweh was a jealous God and the Jews were his chosen people. It is possible, as J. H. Breasted has pointed out, that the Jews were here in- fluenced by the monotheism of the Egyptians as Moses learned of it during his education in Pharaoh's court. Among these people 2,000 years ago, there appeared an- other great teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. In spite of miracu- lous and incredible additions from time to time to the story of his life, Jesus emerges as a very great humanist. Historians have pictured him as a lean and strenuous personality, a penniless teacher, who wandered about the hot, dusty coun- try of Judea, living on whatever gifts of food came his way, and speaking to whomsoever would listen. Unquestionably he had an intense personal magnetism; he attracted followers, just as Gautama had done, and filled them with love and courage. The teaching of Jesus gave great prominence to what he called the Kingdom of Heaven which was to come through a moral and social revolution in the hearts of men. There was a political bent to much that he proposed: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God," is the way he referred to wealth. He had no patience for the bargaining righteous- ness of the church of his day. He called into question both THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN IO7 ritual and tradition. In his Kingdom there were to be no privileged classes excused from social service, no insincerity in the practice of the "law and the prophets": "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." In his Kingdom there was to be no special privilege of property or pride or precedence— no reward but love. Man has not lacked for ideas about a better society. We find them expressed even in his folklore, and he has often had the teaching and example of good men. He is quite well aware of the necessity of better and more mutually coopera- tive behavior toward his fellows. But his conscious and un- conscious fears for self and for his group make it easy to mislead him. Great thinkers have been able to envision the better society, the society of brotherly love, but their ideas are too readily befogged and altered and even lost by sel- fish interests. Perhaps part of the fault lies in a misconcep- tion of the real origin of man, and of the evolutionary trends which have produced him. As will be brought out in Chap- ter 16 on ethical process, an understanding of evolution is of the utmost importance to the development of a true Sci- ence of Man, one aspect of which would be the freeing of ethics from any background of blind, unreasoning authority. 9 The Origins of IS/lind We have reached the critical stage of our thesis. If mind exists without matter, if one cannot show that there is no fundamental dualism here, our whole effort to establish the unity of nature collapses. There must be continuity, not only in the evolution of the body, but also in the evolution of the mind. We have briefly reviewed evidences for the origin and development of living organisms from the sub- atomic microcosm through naked genes to man. Nowhere in all the rising levels of structural diversity and complexity did we find any line of division. Imperceptibly and grad- ually, through billions of years, nature evolved all the con- figurations of the cosmos— each configuration can be traced backward through its various levels of organization to the microcosm. It will be our purpose now to show that the human mind, however incredible and miraculous it may appear, is also traceable backward to the underlying origins of the realm of life; in short, that the human mind displays nothing other than a superlative and culminating expression of nature's striving toward conscious understanding. Living organisms, even the most primitive, act discrimi- natingly and of themselves. By degrees as they rise in the scale of life, they appear, as we interpret their movements, to feel, to perceive, and to think. All organisms respond to the environment. Even the simplest microscopic animals search for food, seize and devour their prey, flee from harm. Plants push stem and leaf up to the sunlight and roots into the soil 1 08 THE ORIGINS OF MIND IO9 and respond in other ways to the needs of their metaboHsm. The activities of man, his perception, and his thought are the culmination of the movements of a protozoan which responds to the warmth of the water, to chemical substances dissolved in the water, to hard objects in its path, to the stimulus of food, to the presence of its enemies. There is now good evidence that this lowly, microscopic organism can even learn from experience and modify its behavior accordingly. This creature and all other creatures act as they do because of three rudimentary properties of be- havior: first, receptivity, the influence of the external en- vironment upon the organism; second, response, the activity of the organism; and third, correlation, actions brought into relationship with circumstances, at first automatically and later in conscious and deliberate thought processes. Receptivity is the result of a very fundamental property of protoplasm, namely, irritability. It is a universal property of protoplasm, and without it there could be no nervous activity, no sensation, or consciousness. At first the property is very generalized and without organs of perception, but gradually it becomes more and more specialized and efficient through the evolution of sense structures. Light is one of the many phenomena in nature to which protoplasm is ir- ritable. If the naked protoplasm of an amoeba is treated with a beam of intense light, the animal first contracts the local region touched by the light and then the rest of the body, and moves as rapidly as possible into the shadow. There is no organ of sight in the amoeba, but nevertheless it is sensi- tive to variations in the light striking its habitat. Some uni- cellular organisms, like amoeba, move away from strong light, others are attracted to it. All have a degree of sensi- tivity. From this generalized irritability to light, nature has evolved many and varied receptors of which the human eye is one. In some protozoa there is a pigment spot near the forward end that is especially sensitive to light. No image is no evolution: the ages and tomorrow formed, but an animal with such pigment is well aware of fine gradations in the intensity of light. Stentor, a very beautiful trumpet-shaped animalcule, has one of these highly irritable spots near its anterior end. Stentor prefers a shadowy habitat; if it swims into the line of light, it im- mediately backs away and turns, then goes forward again. If there is a beam of light through the shadowy water, Sten- tor will avoid it by the following reaction: the animal arrives at the edge of the light and turns as it reacts to its receptor; it heads off in another direction and again reacts if it comes into the beam, thus constantly remaining in the shade. When it is in a large patch of light, it will swim straight only when its sensitized spot at the front end lies in the shadow of the body, and by this reaction it will eventually arrive in shaded waters. Euglena, which has the capacity to manufacture its own food in the presence of light, has a pigment spot which sets up a reaction the reverse of Stentor— the animal moves into and stays in the light. In some of the many-celled animals, the earthworm, for in- stance, cells sensitive to light are scattered all over the body in the epidermis; they "feel" the light, there is no "sight" involved. Soon in the rising series of animals the scattered sight- cells are brought together to form the first primitive eye, the cells being gathered into patches with nerves from each cell leading into the brain. The image formation is at first very crude, but nature's great powers of organization add im- provement after improvement in the kind and arrangement of the cells and in the complexity of the brain centers which receive the light stimulus. At first the eye can distinguish only vaguely the outline of moving objects and patches of light and shade. Here is obviously a great tool for the use and enjoyment of understanding, and, after preliminary trial, nature organizes an eye of multiple facets, the multiple images of which the brain turns into one spatial image. Some of the more advanced of these eyes, like that in the bee, are THE ORIGINS OF MIND III highly efficient and gifted organs, and more will be said of them in Chapter 11. Many modifications of these kinds of eyes are in existence; in fact, we have for study a whole evolutionary series at all stages, from a primitive pigment spot upwards. From a certain hollow kind of eye, which is a multiple arrangement of pigment cells found in lower forms, we get the camera eye of the vertebrates and man. A dimple of sensitive skin tucks itself inward to form an optical cup, the eyeball, and a focusing structure is formed over this; thus, the retina and the lens arise. Later, in higher forms, nature elab- orates on this plan, and we have the cornea and the iris and the appearance of muscles to move the eyeball and to con- trol the shape of the lens. Centers in the brain and the brain itself are all the while improving under the drive of nature's genius for organization, and it all culminates and is corre- lated in man who looks out and begins to understand even to the great depths of space. One can find similar series in the evolutionary history of other sensory organs. All start from the generalized proper- ties of protoplasm such as sensitivity to touch, to shock, to heat and cold, to vibrations in water or air, to chemical sub- stances. Each is organized by imperceptible degrees, by trial-and-error use, worked over by natural selection from a long line of genetic change and rearrangement. In the end each becomes highly efficient in giving to the higher organ- isms a greater and greater receptivity and a more complete and accurate account of the objective world about them. Here nature reaches out with every device she can possibly invent to feel, to taste, to smell, to hear, to see— the better to know. Motility is another property of protoplasm. Responses to stimuli produce an activity, a movement, a secretion, a change in blood pressure, and so on. Specialization for greater efficiency again involves the organization of particu- lar kinds of cells and organs, but the property is present even 112 evolution: the ages and tomorrow in the simplest cell. An amoeba moves about by bulging out its shapeless body into protruding "false feet" in whatever direction it wishes to go. Other cells show restless, flowing movements. In plant cells there is an endless circulation of protoplasm within the tiny cellulose boxes. It has been shown that the movements and contractions of amoeba have many properties in common with the action of a muscle cell in higher forms, including man. The two are alike in the basic chemistry of the activity, and it is apparent that the muscle cell in man has merely exploited the primitive prop- erty of contractility, or the power of drawing muscle fibers into more compact form, to the fullest extent. In higher animals, muscle cells of several types are responsible for the movements of the organism. Some are under control of the will and are called voluntary muscles; some are controlled by lower centers of the brain and are called involuntarv; and there is a special type concerned in the movements of the heart. These are very special cells with amazingly high effi- ciency in contractility. Consider the heart muscle of man set in its life-giving rhythm of contraction throughout the years; or the tremendously powerful muscles which move the wings of birds. In nature there are many intermediate kinds of muscles, and one can see an evolutionary history here starting with the unspecialized contractility of primi- tive unicellular organism and ending in the insect and man. Movement is not the only way in which an organism re- sponds to stimuh. Glands of various kinds respond, and se- cretions are released which act to change the chemistry of the body in digestive juices, hormones, perspiration, etc. Nature has used this method to produce marked changes in the behavior of animals and to protect them, as in the slime and poison glands of some amphibia and of snakes. Even a luminous secretion was discovered by nature and is used in nocturnal organisms of many kinds, usually to aid them in finding mates. Sometimes there are bizarre accessories, as in some deep sea fish which have a reflector and lens to con- THE ORIGINS OF MIND II3 centrate the light. Color change in the chameleon is an evo- lutionary use of the response property where groups of pigment under the skin are spread out or relaxed by muscles in response to stimuli from the environment. From the property of muscle contraction, strangely enough, nature has evolved on several occasions an electric battery for the offensive and defensive activity of the or- ganism. There are many variants on this invention, but the best is in an electric eel of South America, a five-foot, fresh water fish with a powerful battery running almost the full length of the body on both sides. This fellow can deliver a greater voltage than the domestic lighting system. He can kill small animals or defend himself well against larger ones. The battery is clearly a modified muscle and is an exploita- tion of the fact that in normal muscle there is a slight electri- cal charge at contraction. Even skin glands, as in the African catfish, have been modified by nature into electric batteries, again exploiting small electric potentials. Response, then, can and does occur in many ways in organisms, but it is always traceable to the original primary property in simple protoplasm. Furthermore, the exploita- tion of this property is not exclusively an animal evolution. In addition to the expected movement of roots and stem in growth, and secretory activity in general, some plants show very distinct "muscular activity." Mimosa, the "sensitive plant," is one. The stimulus of mechanical shock on the leaf of this plant causes the leaflets to fold together and the whole leaf to bend downward. The property by which receptivity and response are made to fit a given circumstance is coordination or correla- tion. We see it best demonstrated in the highly developed nervous systems of the higher animals. So incredibly com- plex and talented are these higher systems that one might suppose they could not have arisen from the simple correlat- ing properties of protoplasm. They did, however, and we have overwhelming evidences from living forms at all levels 114 evolution: the ages and tomorrow to show that evolution has carried forward and upward a simple coordinating property, bringing it out at last in the consciousness of man. In this evolution lies the strength of our mind-in-matter and matter-in-mind thesis— that all the great powers of high intellect can be traced backward through descending levels of mind to their beginnings in unspecialized, unicellular life which could and still does per- form, however slowly and primitively, the greater part of the activities which are seated in the nervous system in higher forms. It was Bergson who pointed out that we need not assume that consciousness necessarily depends on the presence of a nervous system. The nervous system has only "canalized in definite directions, and brought up to a higher degree of intensity, a rudimentary and vague activity, dif- fused throughout the mass of the organized substance."* As in the evolution of societies, there is no point at which one can arbitrarily say, "This is where the mind enters." Like all evolutionary series, there is a gradual and impercep- tible rise from primitive beginnings to the present mind of man. In this and the next three chapters it is our purpose to emphasize this oneness of the process; it is most important for us to realize that the mind of man is directly connected to, and is a part of, a continuing evolutionary process. No fundamental understanding of man is possible on the as- sumption that there is, at least in his mind, something new and special. In the simplest protozoa, as in the amoeba, the whole body can conduct impulses from a stimulated spot. The communication is slow, but it does make possible a primitive coordination from which has evolved the highly efficient conduction through nerve fibers of the higher animals. In protozoa at a somewhat higher level, as in the flagellates, there is a beginning of differentiation into a sensory region, a zone at the anterior end which is more sensitive than the * Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1911), p. 110. THE ORIGINS OF MIND II5 rest of the body. In these forms there are sometimes found such sensory organs as eyespots. In the highest protozoa, the Infusoria (the famous slipper animalcule, Parafnecium, is an example) there are specialized fibrils which act as nerves and which radiate from all parts of the tiny, microscopic body to a center, which may be the first "brain" in the animal kingdom. These fibrils are differentiated within the proto- plasm of a single cell; they are not true nerves, but they can and do give to these ciliated protozoa a surprisingly high order of coordination, and a complexity of behavior we are just beginning to appreciate. The basic behavior of Faramecium, as Jennings was able to show, is "trial and error," and we see it in its simplest form in this protozoan. It finds its way around a barrier or avoids adverse conditions in its water habitat by backing away, turning, going forward again, backing and turning until it finds the solution. There is no apparent method in the reaction. We find this trial-and-error method employed all the way up the animal scale to man, although it becomes less and less dominant. Even in man, however, as will be brought out in Chapter 12, the method is employed in estab- lishing childhood "learning sets," and later in life as well, whenever experience is unable to cope with a situation. It is the apparent method by which nature has solved the evolu- tionary problems, and it is often the method of science. Jen- nings was able to show that Faramecium does, of course, show some positive reactions. Its bacterial prey is usually found swarming together in raft-like collections of huge numbers, and when the protozoan bumps into such a large food supply it does not go through the usual avoiding reac- tions. It stops and browses around the edges until satiated. This is, apparently, not a reaction based entirely on the pres- ence of food, since Faraineciinn will momentarily respond in a similar way to roughened bits of paper or cotton. It reacts to gravity, tending to swim upwards, where it browses over floating particles. It gets its sense of up and down through ii6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow the pressure of the weight of food particles in the digestive vacuoles in its protoplasm, provided that the habitat water is slightly acid. In neutral water there is no gravity reaction in Farameciiim, indicating that here, as elsewhere on the scale up to man, the condition of the habitat has a bearing on the behavior of organisms. These simple reactions are basic in the behavior of Farauiecium, and would seem to be sufficient since it swims around in a bacterial soup. It was long thought that these protozoa had no way of profiting by experience, did not have the least rudiment of the property we call memory, were without the least degree of consciousness, and acted entirely automatically. These beliefs have been shaken recently by the results of psycho- logical experiments carried out on Varamecium and other protozoa. H. S. Jennings fed harmful substances to protozoa and found that they learned to reject them after a number of trials. J. W. French studied trial-and-error learning in Farameciwn where he introduced a factor of escape from a capillary tube; he found some evidence of improvement with practice. F. Bramstedt taught paramecia to swim in a triangular path and then placed them in a circular enclosure. He reports that they continued to swim in the triangular path for some time. If he taught first the circular and then substituted the triangular path, they continued for a time in the circular. Beatrice Gelber, in what is probably one of the best controlled of these types of studies, taught para- mecia to remain in a definite area for feeding. Under cer- tain conditions she found, and could "report with a high degree of confidence," that behavior was changed by her procedure. These and other less conclusive studies would make it seem likely that life at the level of protozoa has something of the higher talent for learning by experience. How far below the level of unicellular life the capacity for learning extends is problematic, but there is evidence that certain rhythms are acquired on some sort of vague learning pattern. In some plants, for instance, rhythms such THE ORIGINS OF MIND II7 as those of the "sleep" movements of the leaves, which de- pend on light and dark periods, can be changed experimen- tally; and the induced rhythms will continue some time after the external excitation has ceased. As to whether one can assume that any kind of conscious- ness exists in these primitive forms is, of course, another matter. In protoplasm "consciousness" may be a property of the steady state, a specific condition of an extremely delicate balance which must be maintained. There is organization. The orderly changes which go on in a cell have been de- scribed by Sir Charles Sherrington: We seem to watch battalions of specific catalysts, like Maxwell's demons, lined up, each waiting, stop watch in hand, for its mo- ment to play the part assigned to it, a step in one or another great thousand-linked chain process. ... In the sponge-work of the cell, foci coexist for different operations, so that a hundred, or a thousand different processes go forward at the same time within its confines. The foci wax and wane as they are wanted. . . . The processes going forward in it are cooperatively harmonized. The total system is organized. The various catalysts work as co- ordinately as though each had its own compartment in the honey- comb and its own turn and time. In this great company, along with the stop watches run dials telling how confreres and their sub- strates are getting on, so that at zero time each takes its turn. Let that catastrophe befall which is death, and these catalysts become a disorderly mob and pull the very fabric of the cell to pieces. Whereas in life as well as pulling down they build and build to a plan.* And E. W. Sinnott in his book Cell and Psyche adds: It is this building to a plan which is so characteristic of all life. I Such a physiological plan, refined and far more complex in the cells I of our nervous system, ... I believe is that which in man can be experienced as conscious purpose. Its roots are deep in the regu- latory behavior of protoplasm. ... It is clearly impossible, of course, to speak of conscious purpose at such a primitive level as this (protoplasm) or even of consciousness at all. From such humble beginnings, however, the consciousness which we experience so * Sir Charles Sherrington, Ma?! on His Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945), pp. 78-79. ii8 evolution: the ages and tomorrow vividly must have arisen. In some unexplained fashion there seems to reside in every living thing, though particularly evident in ani- mals, an inner, subjective relation to its bodily organization. This has finally evolved into what is called consciousness. Such an inner relationship is most evident in the sensations experienced when nerves are stimulated, its origin evidently going back to the be- ginning of the stimulus-response reaction in the simplest of living things. I ask you to consider the possibility that through this same inner relationship the mechanism which guides and controls vital activity toward specific ends, the pattern or tension set up in protoplasm which so sensitively regulates its growth and be- havior, can also be experienced, and that this is the genesis of de- sire, purpose, and all other mental activities.* And again from Sinnott's Cell and Psyche: . . . the thesis is briefly this: that biological organization (con- cerned with organic development and physiological activity) and psychical activity (concerned with behavior and thus leading to mind) are fiindamejitally the same thing. This may be looked at from the outside, objectively, in the laboratory, as a biological fact; or from the inside, subjectively, as the direct experience of desire or purpose. t It is interesting to note here how many of our leaders in physics and biology have shown a willingness to adopt the full meaning and significance of the notion of the organism, and to aid in establishing the continuity between the two sciences. The emphasis on the regulatory character of protoplasm, on its origins, and on the over-all concept of nature's drive toward organization is the beginning of a new era in science. If mind in matter-energy can, through the organizing genius of universal evolution, finally emerge as the creative imagination and philosophy of man, as evidence seems now clearly to indicate, then we must indeed revise our whole scientific outlook. The linkage of mind in matter- energy, the inseparable reality of Bruno and Spinoza, must always be uppermost in our minds. Biologists and physicists * E. W. Sinnott, Cell and Psyche (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950), pp. 55-56. t Ibid., p. 48. THE ORIGINS OF MIND II9 alike are beginning to see that life, instead of being explained by matter and energy, will eventually give a fuller and more understandable explanation of matter and energy and mind. Some philosophers and scientists (Sinnott, Schrodinger, Haldane, and Sullivan among the latter) think that organ- ization is one of the major categories in nature and may actually control matter, rather than arise from matter. These thinkers feel that the centers of organization are primary things, and that they may exist independently of the matter in which they are now individualized. Schrodinger offers the possibility that each is a part of a universal spiritual whole. Haldane asserts that the conception of organism, since it is more concrete than matter and energy concepts, must ultimately be used in the interpretation of the physical world— a biological conception turned to the use of physics. In 1933, J. W. N. Sullivan concluded his work The Lhn- itations of Science with this prediction: It is possible that our outlook on the physical universe will again undergo a profound change. This change will come about through the development of biology. If biology finds it absolutely necessary, for the description of living things, to develop new concepts of its own, then the present outlook on "inorganic nature" will also be profoundly affected. For science will not lightly sacrifice the principle of continuity. The richer insight into the nature of living matter will throw the properties of dead matter into a new per- spective. In fact, the distinction between the two, as far as may be, will be abolished. ... In order to avoid a break of continuity the notions of physics will have to be enriched, and this enrich- ment will come from biologv. We can look forward to a further synthesis. The science of mind, at present in such a rudimentary state, will one dav take control. In the service of the principle of continuitv its concepts will be extended throughout the whole of nature. Onlv so will science reach the unitv towards which it is aiming, and the difi^erences between the sciences of mind, life, and matter, in their present form, will be seen to be unreal.* * J. W. N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (New York: New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1949), pp. 188-89. Origi- nally published by Viking Press, Inc., 1933. 10 Development of Mind in Animals Nature has been more than generous in the preservation of rehcs, living forms of archaic type which give us the op- portunity to study not only the evolution of structure, but also function and behavior. Fossils of extinct organisms usu- ally show for our examination little more than skeletal structure and never the soft tissue that makes up the nervous system. It is almost wholly through the organization of the nervous system, however, that progress in evolution is meas- ured, and the importance of the living relics of evolutionary primitive types cannot be exaggerated if we are to be per- mitted our assumption that the process is oriented toward greater conscious understanding. The essential processes involved in nervous action have their roots in the general characteristics of protoplasm. In the many-celled organisms these properties finally become the specific activities of nervous tissue which is made up of highly specialized cells called neurons. In the early evolu- tion of multicellular animal types there is a gradual entry of this neuron specialization, but in plants the evolutionary trend never produced any cells specially assigned to nervous activity. Nevertheless, plants are not without sensitivity. They simply did not exploit this property of protoplasm, but gradually emphasized structure and design toward 120 DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS 121 photosynthesis and complete independence in food-getting. The plant does not discriminate in sensation and movement, but in growth. It spreads its leaves and turns them toward the sun and sends its roots into the soil— always in a certain parallelism with animal behavior. It grows in one direction and not in another, avoiding this and selecting that, much Hke animal movement; these movements are dramatically apparent when the growth is speeded up by time-lapse photography. In other words, the plant is sensitive to the placement of sunlight, of water, of minerals and of obstacles, and responds through reactions toward or away from these growth factors, just as would an animal. Efforts have been made to show a high-order conduction and sensitivity in plants, notably by Sir J. C. Bose; but the fact of the matter seems to be that little more is involved than the rude capacities of primitive cells. There is conduc- tion of stimuli from cell to cell, and in some plants this is exploited to an extent. In mimosa, the sensitive plant which has already been mentioned, there is an animal-like reaction when the leaves are touched. Contact at the leaf tip will cause the leaflets to fold together, after which the whole leaf bends away from the contact. H. S. Burr showed that this reaction is much like a nervous response, even to its electrical correlates. Certain structures in other plants like the "fly-catcher" respond in a similar way. There is, then, in plants an irritability to different kinds of stimuH, a gen- eral response accomplished without the help of specialized nerve cells. In the bodies of the higher animals there are many kinds of cooperating cells, and none is more specialized than the neuron. Conduction and sensitivity in this cell are exploited to the highest possible degree, and it is exclusively through the neuron that high order nervous reaction is possible. The beginnings of this evolution are already apparent at low animal levels. Even in the sponge, which is little more than a loose aggregation of cells, there is a sort of "neuroid trans- 122 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW mission," as Parker called it, and stimuli are carried from cell to cell producing slow reactions. In some of the colonial or semi-multicellular forms, like Vohox, which consist of hundreds of cells embedded in a jelly-like mass, there is a rather rapid cell-to-cell transmission of nervous impulses \^^hich produces remarkable coordination in the locomotor activity of these organisms. The first true nervous cell ap- pears at about the level of the coelenterates (jelly fishes, sea anemones, and hydra) where it is incorporated in special sense organs and in muscle. The cell and its arrangement is primitive, and the nervous transmission is through a net- work of diffuse and directionless nerve fibers. Stimuli travel in all directions from any one source, a situation which suits the peculiar and rather simple locomotor activity of jelly fishes, but which would produce nothing but chaotic con- vulsions in any higher animal. There is no true centraliza- tion and nothing like the real beginnings of a brain, but the three essential behavior tissues are present: some cells are specialized for detection of stimuli (light, chemical sub- stances, contact, and so on); some are connected to muscle fibers; and some are the true nerve cells and specialize in efficient conduction to, and organize the activity of, all parts of the body. Psychologists who have studied the behavior of coelen- terates find them capable of intelligent responses in the sense of an ability to learn. In the 1951 Handbook of Experi- viejital Psychology, a phylogenetic comparison is summa- rized by H. W. Nissen in which he reports the literature as showing a definite learning capacity in the coelenterates. Pieces of paper were placed on some of the tentacles of sea anemones at daily intervals. The animal would at first grasp the paper and bring it to the mouth where it was swallowed, only later to be rejected. After some few trials the paper was not swallowed, and finally the animal would not even grasp the paper in the first place. After some of the tentacles were trained, the untrained tentacles learned more quickly DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS I23 to reject the paper. The learning process here apparently involved central as well as local modifications. Above the level of the lowly coelenterates, evolution be- gins to organize a much more centralized and efficient nerv- ous system by gradually introducing central ganglia and by suppressing the diffuse nerve networks (as in the coelenter- ates) in favor of definite nerves which run like telephone wire directly from point to point. Extensive network nerv- ous systems still survive, however, in some primitive organ- isms and even in man, as in the mechanism which controls intestinal wave-like rhythms known as peristalsis. Nature also found ways gradually to speed up nerve transmission from the very slow two or three seconds per inch in a fresh water mussel to the four hundred feet per second transmis- sion in man. In the echinoderms (starfish), which may be close to the line from which the vertebrates were derived, the nervous system is still decentralized, and the same may be said to some extent of their behavior. There is a circle of nervous tissue around the mouth, and from this nerve, trunks are derived which run out in the Rve arms. There is great independence in these Rvc arms, almost as though they were five individuals springing from a common center. A single arm can act independently if cut off, even to righting itself if turned over. If the whole animal is turned over on its back, it rights itself as soon as one of the arms, by twist- ing about, gets a hold on the substratum; at that moment the other arms are inhibited in their motions by a message from the successful arm via the nerve ring around the mouth. Also on these animals there are pincer-like structures stick- ing up all over the outer surface to keep it free of ectopara- sites. These pincers are triggered through their own individ- ual reflex systems. In spite of the rather justifiable assumption that the echi- noderms are near the remote ancestral origins of man, they do not seem to show any precocious talents. Psychologists have not been successful in demonstrating learning ability in 124 evolution: the ages and tomorrow the starfish. Nissen reviews the Hterature and finds much ex- perimental work on the righting reaction, but no conclusive results. Psychologists have tried to teach the use of nonpre- ferred arms over preferred arms in the righting reaction, and have probably introduced local tissue changes instead of learning, although this change may be learning^ in a certain sense. In view of the peculiar nature of the nervous system of the starfish this sort of test would not seem to be suitable. Certainly the echinoderm is higher in its over-all structure and nervous system than the coelenterate, and the latter does definitely show learning capacity. With the advent of the lower worms, flatworm and roundworm, the process of real centralization is under way. Here at last we have animals with a "head end," developing with this end forward and evolving sense organs and mouth and brain. In the flat^^^orm we have a truly basic nervous system: a ganglion at the anterior end, a single "brain," and two longitudinal nerve cords running posteriorly and giv- ing off lateral branches. It is a bilaterally symmetrical plan, which was followed later by all the higher animals, includ- ing man. Flatworms have shown definite capacity for learn- ing. Nissen in his summary of the literature in the Handbook of Experijnental Psychology reports one series of experi- ments with these animals. They were stimulated to locomo- tion by light, being exposed to cycles of 5 minutes light fol- lowed by 30 minutes of darkness. Each time they started forward they were stopped by a tactile stimulus applied to the head end. After 25 such treatments they did not move forward during the periods of light. Extirpation of the head ganglion removed this conditioned inhibition of the crawl- ing response to light. In the annelid worms (the earthworm is a somewhat modified example) there is a two-part brain: one part in front of the mouth and the other just back of it, the two be- ing joined by a heavy nerve ring. A large double nerve trunk connects these "brains" with the posterior part of the DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS 125 body, somewhat like our spinal cord except that it lies under the digestive system instead of above. This worm is seg- mented; and in each segment there are subsidiary ganglia or "local brainlets," giving off lateral connectives, all on a bi- lateral plan. Annelid worms in their symmetry and body plan are broadly similar to the basic vertebrate plan, al- though upside down. Many students of biology have seen in the anneUd a form which branched off from the ancestral type leading to man. The theory still has some supporters although little direct evidence is available. It is clear, how- ever, that the arthropod (insects, spiders, etc.) and the anne- lid are close relatives and definitely come from a common stock. The insect is more advanced, but with a basic simi- larity in the nervous system: a two-part forebrain and a nerve-trunk with a lesser number of local ganglia. We w^ill see later how terrifically talented in instinctive behavior some of the arthropods become. The annelids, too, are not without some capacities, both in learning and instinctive be- havior. Learning capacity in the earthworm was first studied by Yerkes, who placed these animals in a narrow tube made in the shape of a T so that they would have to creep toward the crossbar. When the earthworms arrived at the parting of the ways, they could go either right or left. To the right they received an electric shock sufficiently strong to punish them mildly; to the left they escaped without punishment. At first the choice was made at random, but after a number of trials the individuals began to avoid the right turn. Fi- nally, after repeated trials the choice was nearly always to the left to escape punishment. Yerkes then moved the elec- trodes from the right tube to the left, and the experimental animals had to unlearn the former lessons. The reversal was learned faster than the original habit, meaning, perhaps, the development of prepotent responsiveness to the effective cue and the association of perception with motor response. Yerkes removed the ganglia around the mouth, and even 126 evolution: the ages and tomorrow several ganglia along the forepart of the nerve trunk, and found that the earthworm could still learn to master the T maze as long as some large proportion of the segmental ganglia were left. Like many other organisms, some of the annelids have an incredible genius for the astronomical timing of events of the cosmos. The palolo, a womi of the tropical seas near the island of Samoa, is almost as rehable as the calendar. These anneUds live on the sea floor in crannies among the rocks and coral growths. They breed in October and November and every year, faithful to the day, they appear in huge swarms at the surface of the sea for the wedding dance. With the palolo, spawning is at dawn for two days in Octo- ber and two in November. They begin to appear at the sur- face the day before the first quarter of the moon and within 24 hours are present in such enormous numbers that they color the sea a brownish indio^o. The mature sexual worms with special swimming modifications are several inches long, the males being brown and the females indigo and green. The males are terrifically agitated and pass on the excite- ment to the females in a wild, wriggling dance. Eggs in endless multiples of astronomical numbers are spawned and fertilized in the two days of breeding. Through the years the human natives of the islands have been affected by the sexual cycle of these worms, and at the October and November dates there is feasting and festival. Would anyone seriously contend that all this chemistry of excitement, this high physiological activity, and sexual stimulus of the nervous system of the palolo at the time of breeding, are not accom- panied by any degree of consciousness? The basic nervous system of the molluscs (snail, clam, octopus, etc.) is similar to that found in the segmented womis. There is a ring-like ganglion around the gullet which heads the rest of the nervous system. There are two nerve trunks, one going to subsidiary ganglia in the peculiar moUuscan foot, the other going to ganglia that control the DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS 127 activity of the viscera. Throughout this great phylum there is considerable modification, but the basic plan is always present. Nissen summarizes literature which shows that land snails learned to master the T maze in experiments some- what similar to those performed on the earthworm, in faster time than the latter did. In another conditioning test a pond snail was given double stimulations with lettuce touching the mouth (causing the mouth to open) and pressure on the foot (inhibiting the opening of the mouth). At first the pressure on the foot was prepotent over the lettuce stimulus to the mouth. After about 250 trials, the mechanical stimulus to the foot resulted in the snail opening its mouth even when the lettuce stimulus was omitted. Experimental extinc- tion could be obtained in about 1 2 trials, but reconditioning was more quickly established than in the original training. Differential conditioning has been observed in other mol- luscs. Arthropods, as has been mentioned, have basically an an- nelid nervous system. Insects, crabs, and others in this phy- lum draw the middle segmental ganglia together into a large ner\^ous mass located between the legs, forming a mid-brain which is almost as large as the forebrain. There is propor- tionately more nervous tissue and greater complexity of or- ganization in the higher arthropods than in any other in- vertebrate group, and the arthropods very definitely show this in their behavior, both in learning and in instinct. Ants, for instance, have been repeatedly found to have greater learning capacity than any other invertebrate. In fact, Nis- sen reports that to some extent they compare in intelligent behavior even with the lower mammals, and that they are undoubtedly superior to lower vertebrates. All the insects, particularly the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps), learn the shortest path through long mazes with many blind alleys, an accomplishment in which they are more proficient than some lower vertebrates. Insects can be taught to overcome and ignore strong instinctive responses. Cockroaches, for 128 evolution: the ages and tomorrow instance, react strongly to light but can be trained to remain in the lighted part of a box when given a mild electric shock in the darkened part of the box. The instinctive behavior of these animals will be taken up in the next chapter. All vertebrates possess a hollow, tubular nerve trunk, the spinal cord, running along the dorsal side of the body. At the anterior end of this spinal cord is the brain, which in the vertebrates gradually evolves a very high-order differ- entiation and complexity, far beyond any brain found among invertebrates. In general, the vertebrates show among themselves similar special sense organs, nostrils, eyes, and ears, although these have had a varied evolutionary his- tory within the group. From the central nervous system, brain and spinal cord, lateral nerves at every segment are sent off to the various parts of the body. These nerves carry impulses inward from the sensory structures and outward to muscles, glands, and so forth. The spinal cord in the ver- tebrates is a very special structure with a much more defi- nite organization than is found elsewhere. Some minor changes have occurred in the history of the ner\^e trunk in the vertebrates, but it is in the brain that this group shows a tremendous degree of evolutionary differentiation and ad- dition. It would seem that nowhere else in the whole history of life on this earth has any other structure undergone such elaborate and decisive advances as the organ which finally culminates in the brain of man. Nature, here, has been most generous in the living relics left for our study. In fact the racial series of the vertebrate brain from lower chordate animals like Amphioxus to man is the most convincingly complete and satisfactory, and at the same time important, record in the whole evolutionary process. Amphioxus, a small fish-like animal not far removed from the ancestral line leading to the true vertebrates, has an ex- tremely primitive brain, merely a slightly enlarged anterior end of the chordate dorsal, tubular nerve cord. As the true DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS I29 vertebrates appear, the brain is definitely divided into three primary regions, fore-, mid-, and hindbrain. The hindbrain, the main portion of which is the medulla oblongata, appears as a rather swollen section of the spinal cord. The medulla shows some, but not great, variation throughout the vertebrate series and, besides being a sort of motor nerve clearing house, has partial control over the functioning of internal organs. At the front part of the hindbrain is a cabbage -shaped structure, the cerebellum, of- ten called the "tree of life." The ear nerves associated with the sense of balance and of position register here, and so this part of the hindbrain has control over body position and muscular coordination. This part of the brain has had a var- ied, up-and-down history in evolution. It is large in those vertebrates which need a keen sense of position, such as fish and birds; smaller and less developed in others, such as the frog. The midbrain is primarily associated with sight. In prim- itive vertebrates the optic nerves, although they enter the brain somewhat more to the forward, pass back to small swellings on the midbrain called optic lobes. Evolution fi- nally by-passed this region; and in higher vertebrates, in- cluding man, most of the nerve fibers from the eye are sent directly to the cerebral hemispheres. Here the optic lobes are replaced by four small bodies, the "four twins" or the corpora quadrigemina. Even with these four bodies nature has varied her pattern, since in the highest vertebrates hear- ing is added to the function of the four twins. On the whole the midbrain has undergone the least evolutionary change throughout the history of the vertebrates. It is the f orebrain, chiefly, that has undergone the greatest increase in size and specialization. This part of the brain in lower vertebrates is actually and relatively quite small and has mainly to do with the sense of smell. Olfactory lobes, small swellings on the front of the forebrain, are about the only structures present in the earliest vertebrates. De-em- 130 evolution: the ages and tomorrow phasis of the sense of smell in favor of a later development of sight and hearing is a turning point in the evolution of the brain. The objective world gradually takes on greater sharpness and solidity. The cerebral hemispheres, which hold almost the whole promise and expectation of high-level conscious mind, are just back of these lobes, but are hardly more than hinted at in the earliest vertebrate brain. They are on the top side of the forebrain, and under and back of them is the thalamus, the "brain bed," which makes the con- nection with the rest of the brain. The paired eyes attach to the side of the forebrain. Originally there was a third eye on the top of the brain (still present in an archaic type of lizard), but it is now reduced to a vestige, the pineal, v/hich is found even in man. Beginning in the fishes and continu- ing up through the amphibia and reptiles to the birds and mammals, the forebrain gradually takes on functions which free the individual from the rigid control of automatic be- havior. The cerebral hemispheres assume the role of freeing be- havior and introduce a truly higher type of brain organiza- tion into animal evolution. In the higher vertebrates increas- ingly indirect and intricate channels are evolved for the control and sorting of sensations and motor stimuli. The hemispheres become larger and larger, until in the apes and man they are far more massive than all the rest of the brain put together. Cerebral areas are developed in which are seated memory, consciousness, imagination, and will; new sensations and activities are influenced by the remembered record of the past. The animal finds it easier and easier to learn new ways of life. Phyletically it is probable that the cerebral bodies took on these functions because they were originally the seat of the sense of smell, which in lower forms is the main source for knowledge of the outside world. The cerebrum is entirely associated with smell in fishes and amphibia, but in the reptiles it begins to show dif- ferentiation into a new area which is to be devoted to the DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS I3I highest type of mental activity, namely, a new covering of the hemispheres called the neopaUium. This new covering, which is proportionately so enormous in man, consists of a surface of e^ray matter or neuron cell bodies, below which is a layer of white matter, the connecting fibers of the cells. The cerebrum with its new covering developed upward, forward, and to the sides in an expansion that overshadowed the rest of the brain. Even in the lowest mammals it is al- ready large and important, and it becomes more and more so through the primates to man. The neopallium complex lies on the surface of the hemispheres, which become much folded, giving temporal, frontal, parietal, and occipital re- gions. x\dded to this device to increase surface area are the convolutions, or infoldings, which become increasingly complex as we reach the level of apes and man. In the mam- mals an examination of these cerebral convolutions will give a comparatively good indication of the intelligence of the species. Since World War I the study of patients whose brains have been injured by wounds or disease has produced a large body of information on the localization of definite human mental functions in various parts of the cerebral hemispheres. Conscious motor activities seem to be in the frontal part. There is a central groove, sulcus, which runs across the top of the brain and down the outer side of each hemisphere, in front of which are located areas definitely associated with movement of specific portions of the body from head to toes. Back of this groove are areas intimately connected with the senses. From the skin and muscles, sense impressions are led into a region just behind the central sul- cus and just across from the motor areas of the frontal lobe. At the posterior part of the hemispheres is an area devoted to vision; speech reception is localized in the temporal areas, close to the frontal region where speech is produced. An- cient senses like taste and smell, once located in olfactory lobes, are under the inner surface of the hemispheres. Stu- 132 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW dents of the human brain find "blank areas" where there does not seem to be a specific motor function. Similar areas are found in apes but are less well developed, particularly in the frontal region. Injury to these areas, although not producing any change in sense reception or movement, seems to alter the behavior and mentality of the individual. It is in these "blank regions" that most authorities assume a function asso- ciated with the highest human mental faculties. Over-all, man has the largest and most highly differentiated cerebrum; apes are next, and other mammals fall away from the top form gradually. The chief, and perhaps the only, difference be- tween man and apes is in the development of the cerebral hemispheres and in the use of the "blank areas" or associa- tion areas. As a carry-over from the distant evolutionary past, man also has in his total nervous make-up a rather diffuse set of nerves and nerve cells, the autonomic nervous system. It is this system that controls unconscious functions such as the secretions of glands, the activities and movements of the in- testinal tract, and the internal situation in general. This sys- tem consists of ganglia distributed mostly through the body cavity; here and there it is connected with the spinal nerves, but not intimately. An ancient, autonomous control of the vegetative functions, it is outside consciousness but not completely removed from the influence of higher brain cen- ters which may under the stress of environmental pressures (anxiety, fear, frustration, and so on) alter and even dan- gerously upset the proper activity of the system. The learning capacities of the vertebrates rise sharply as we approach the level of man, but they begin at levels some- what below the recorded behavior of some higher inverte- brates. Fish learn, but rather slowly. In a typical experiment with these animals a glass partition in an aquarium separated perch from their natural food, small minnows. After a great many experiences of bumping into the glass, the perch learned to suppress their attacks on the minnows, and the DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS I33 suppression continued even after the partition was removed. Reptiles, according to Nissen, are better subjects for learn- ing experiments than either fish or amphibia but they rate much below most mammals. Electric shock given at the time amphibia or reptiles snap at their food inhibits the eating be- havior. Differential conditioning has been demonstrated in arthropods, fish, amphibia, and reptiles. It hardly seems necessary to enumerate the many in- stances of clear-cut learning experiments in the higher ver- tebrates, but some consideration of the direct comparisons between monkeys, apes and man will be brought out in Chapter 12 wherein the possibility that conceptual thought occurs below^ the level of man will be examined. In evaluating the phyletic record of behavior, Nissen finds that the literature makes certain conclusions possible. In perceptual organization (i.e., sensory correlation) evolu- tion has proceeded along tw^o paths: (1) inherited percep- tual patterns or instinct, and (2) individual acquisition of perception or intelligence. Instinct reaches its highest lev- els in the insects and birds; it has receded to a large extent in the primates and man, which enjoy in turn a much wider perceptual scope than any other life forms. In lower forms, intelligence plays a very minor role but comes into its own in some birds and, of course, the mammals. Intelligence is organized in the course of experience by the inferred mech- anisms of pattern identification, the selective process, and symbolism. It is symbolism that makes possible the concep- tual thought of man; it already arises to some extent at or before the level of the primates. This evolution is very im- portant to our thesis and will be reviewed later. Nissen finds that the sensory-response, connecting proc- ess rises from lower to higher invertebrates, then is not sur- passed until the higher primates appear. He thinks that sym- bolization helps perceptual organization and makes possible a quick and thorough connection of percepts and concepts to specific responses. Central symbolic processes easily con- 134 evolution: the ages and tomorrow nect with one another and with overt responses in the higher primates, and a one-trial learning becomes the common rule. Nissen points out that with phyletic ascent the effective en- vironment expands in space and time and increases the range of behavior determinants, an expansion brought about by the animal's ability to integrate and organize. The environ- ment itself expands rapidly from generation to generation with the advent of "culture," as we have seen in the review of the evolution of human societies. Taking the summation of his review of the literature of experimental psychology as a basis, Nissen presents a tenta- tive estimate of the intelligence levels of the major subdivi- sions of the animal kingdom. The higher protozoa rise to levels comparable to the middle group of invertebrates. Ar- thropods, the insect being one of the top representatives in this phylum, rise sufficiently high in the scale to be well above the level of lower vertebrates and overlap the low- est mammals. The highest insect intelligence even matches the lowest levels of man's own order, the primates. Verte- brates other than the mammals rise to a level which is well above that of the lowest mammals and overlap slightly the lowest primate level. Mammals other than the primates reach heights of intelligence comparable to the middle group of monkeys. The highest monkeys and apes are defi- nitely at the top of the scale and are surpassed only by mod- ern man. Since we have no direct knowledge of the intelli- gence level of the primitive forerunners of man, the highest primate is placed below the lowest human on this scale. From the indirect evidence available, however, anthropolo- gists would not hesitate in placing the ancestors of man at intelligence levels represented now by high monkeys and apes, thus making it possible to establish a continuous ascent on the behavior scale from protozoa to man. On the basis of direct evidence obtained in recent years from comparative studies of the behavior of higher primates and human chil- DEVELOPMENT OF MIND IN ANIMALS I35 dren, it would seem that there is no real gap between the tw^o groups, even without considering the hypothetical in- telligence of primitive man. Some of these studies will be reviewed in Chapter 12. 11 Instinct In this and the following chapter we will examine the two axes or paths along which nature traveled in evolving the perceptual organization necessary to occupy and suc- cessfully exploit the orderly, objective world of space and time; namely, the inherited perceptual patterns (or instinct) and the individual acquisition of perception (or intelli- gence). The second, which finally culminates in the con- ceptual thought of man, has led life to much higher levels than the first, which is best represented by the instincts of insects like the ant and the bee. We must, however, guard against the assumption that either has evolved independently of the other, or that either is the sole controUing force in any animal whether an amoeba or a man. And we must also guard against the assumption that nature cannot evolve high-level "concepts" along the instinct axis. This smug claim of man to absolute uniqueness has been destroyed once and for all by the incredible talents shown by bees in inventing and using a language of their own. Before Darwin's time "instinct" was usually defined as an urge or impulsion, and the term is still sometimes used in that general sense, particularly when discussing instinctive behavior in man. The modern use of the word "instinct" is defined by Whyte as behavior controlled by organized processes resulting from stabihzed heredity forms. In con- trast, behavior is called intelligent when it is facilitated by individually learned responses to particular situations. From 136 INSTINCT 137 time to time, controversy has raged in psychology over these two terms and over the appropriate methodology of study; but in recent years, as some authorities have pointed out, the conflict is resolved in a psychology that seeks to understand behavior in terms of the inner feelings and thoughts of an animal. The two may be studied at one and the same time, provided the study is confined to animals at the same evolutionary level. Instinct, as has already been noted, plays the major role in animals other than mammals. The lower down on the scale of life we go, the greater is the role of instinct; but it must be repeated that at no time is instinct to be consid- ered in absolute control. In the same sense as we ascend the scale, intelligence becomes more and more important; but, again, even in man, intelligence is not in complete command of the situation. On the contrary, there are many drives in man that, at least under the definition of instinct as impul- sion, do not fall within any list of intelligent traits. William McDougall enumerated as instinctive in man the following: fright, escape, pugnacity, curiosity, repulsion, self-display, submission, sex, acquisitiveness, parental love, gregarious- ness, hunting, imitation, and play (by children). Psycho- analysts have used the term "wish" somewhat in the sense of "instinct"; and various classifications have been proposed for their list: ego; sex and herd; attraction, repulsion, and aggression; and so on. Psychologists are convinced that emotion and instinct are closely tied together, but do not agree on how. It is clear, however, that in all organisms, whatever their level, there are always powerful impulsions from within which urge the animal toward action— action which may be guided by such measure of intelligence as may be displayed. Obviously, here is material that can be worked over by natural selection. In analyzing this complex of instinct and intelligence, psychologists distinguish at least three main evolutionary stages of animal behavior. The stages are connected by 138 evolution: the ages and tomorrow transitional forms, and practically all are still represented by living animals. The earliest hypothetical origins of the first stage go back to inanimate matter. We have already reviewed the evolu- tion of the living from the nonliving and have found that it is possible to picture a continuous synthesis from the sim- plest chemical compounds to the enormously complex con- figurations of the earliest living entities, such as the genes. There is, however, no clear line of biological demarcation between animate and inanimate. The same is apparently true in the behavior phase. Biologists begin to pick up di- rect information on the behavior of living organisms at the precellular level of viruses and genes and find a gradual rise in the capacity of response through primitive bacteria to unicellular animals. Faramecium is well within the first stage in the evolution of behavior, and it might be of interest to review some of the capacities of life at this level. The external world to this microscopic organism is a series of formless stimuli, prob- ably much like the stimulus of smell is to us. Faramecium^ s world is only very vaguely a world of objects, not "round and firm and fully packed," but rather of individually sep- arate stimuli which do not give it a clear sense of "things" and probably very little sense of space. To it, time is ex- tremely limited; but, since it does have a vague capacity for learning (see Chap. 9), the past is not entirely blotted out in the narrow present in which it lives. The first stage in the evolution of behavior is, then, a nearly timeless, spaceless world of stiinuli, with just the be- ginnings of the capacity for perceiving two stimuli united into one experience, such as "seeing" an object as round and hard. It is a dim world, but one is justified in describing it as "not without some degree of consciousness." Most of the lower animals are at this level, and some, notably the jelly fishes, have been shown to have some capacities for learning (see Chap. 10). Learning means profiting by ex- INSTINCT 139 perience and involves memory; where there is memory, there is some kind of consciousness. One is willing to admit that at this level, where the quality of all stimuli is monoto- nously the same (judged by response), consciousness is an ephemeral obscurity; but it is emergent consciousness, nev- ertheless. The second stage in the evolution of behavior gradually appears in the worms. Theirs is a world of definite objects, occupying space and having size and shape and degrees of solidity. With their limited sensory equipment worms are able to "visualize" something of the framework of their environment, but space and time are still very circum- scribed. Light is interpreted as heat on the body, and the knowledge of objects is limited to contact. Nevertheless, worms have a definite spatial sense of right and left and, as we have noted, are capable of learning a T maze. With the advent of image-forming eyes instead of the sensitized pigment of the lower forms, the world suddenly expands, especially with the gradual evolution of a brain more capable of linking other senses, such as touch and smell and hearing. This is to become the world of the third stage— a world of space and time, infinite and eternal, and of cause and effect and orderliness of construction. The in- sects and vertebrates begin to occupy the fringes of this world. Some definitely move toward a substantial posses- sion of the world of space and time, but it remains for man to explore it fully. This chapter examines the instinct phase by which ani- mals attempt to occupy the expanding world stage. In the higher vertebrates, particularly man, instinct is rarely ma- chine-like; it is a flexible response in regard to the situations which call it up and to the manner of meeting them. In man the impulsion of fear or anger compels a general reaction to a general situation; it is a highly flexible complex of re- sponses. In insects one sees instinct in its truest sense, in some cases almost completely inflexible, called up specifi- 140 evolution: the ages and tomorrow cally and with specific responses in a predetermined se- quence. These specific responses strike the human observer as being beautifully adapted to certain conditions in the in- sect's life, but sometimes they default badly when condi- tions are changed, even though a faint glimmer of intelli- gence might save the situation. The "inborn tricks" of the insect make its life easier under the normal conditions which called forth the adapta- tion, but they are useless or even dangerous in new situa- tions. On the other hand, the greater reliance of the verte- brate on learning by experience, bitter or not, opens up a far greater range of adaptive possibility. Under ordinary circumstances the faults of fixed instinctive patterns are not troublesome to the organism, but they can sometimes ap- pear very glaringly and ridiculously faulty to the human experimentalist. Fabre describes the behavior of the digger wasp Sphex which hunts crickets. Sphex brings a paralyzed cricket to her burrow, she leaves it on the threshold, and enters for a moment to look the place over, then emerges and drags the cricket in. While one of these wasps was inside, Fabre moved the cricket a few inches awav from the door. The wasp emerged, found the same cricket after a moment or two, dragged it back up to the edge of the burrow, left it, and entered. Fabre again moved it a few inches away. x\gain the wasp found it, dragged it back to the edge of the bur- row, left it, and entered. Again and again Fabre moved the cricket and observed the same results. Apparently the in- stinct demands a sequence of drag the cricket to the door, enter and look the place over, emerge and haul the cricket in— a cogwheel-like arrangement of successive actions, each setting off the next and tolerating little variation. In a cir- cumstance like this the wasp does finally, after repeated tri- als, drag the cricket straight into the burrow. The Peckhams describe another typical case of a rigid, sequence instinct in one of the spider-hunting wasps, which INSTINCT 141 always hangs its prey in the crotch of a grass plant and then digs a burrow. If an unparalyzed spider is substituted, the wasp will have nothing to do with it, but will fly off in search of another, paralyze it, hang it in a crotch, and start to dig another burrow. Apparently the sequence calls first for the hunt of a spider in natural places, not in the crotch of a grass plant; the placing of the paralyzed victim in the crotch, which then releases the digging reaction; and fi- nally the dragging of the spider into the burrow. There are innumerable cases in the hterature which illustrate the un- reasoning nature of instinct, but probably the most famous is the observation of the grub-feeding instinct of the worker wasp. In this instance, a w^orker wasp was imprisoned with a grub (young wasp) of its own species without any food. Unable to find any food and driven by its instinct to feed the young, the worker bit off the hind end of the grub and offered it to the front end. Even in vertebrates, instinct sometimes takes this same rigid turn. The marvelous capacity of the bird for long distance migrations, flights from pole to pole in some cases^ the crossing of trackless oceans with perfect navigation, the great skill of nest-building— all without guidance or teachincT— often obscure in our minds the less desirable facets of their behavior. In their relation to offspring, birds show little reason or memory and still less foresight. If a pair of birds is robbed of all their young, they will be greatly agi- tated, the whole paternal instinct being then frustrated. If one and only one of the young fledglings is left in the nest, the parent birds will show no concern whatever for the missing ones. If one of the young birds dies in the nest, the parents throw it out as though it were a stick. If one is ill, the parents will deliberately neglect it, instead of giving it particular attention. The parental instinct among birds seems to be set off purely by a gaping mouth and squa\\'king cry, as has been easily shown by the experimentalist. The gape and the squawk are the stimuH necessary to the paren- 142 evolution: the ages and tomorrow tal feeding reactions. Without these stimuli the bird simply ceases to act like a parent; there does not seem to be any of the grief and distraction that memory produces in some mammalian parents. The strangeness and, from an anthropomorphic point of view, undesirability of some of these instincts can probably be best illustrated by bird parasitism, such as that of the cuckoo. The tgg is laid in the nest of another species, often the hedge sparrow, where it hatches in double quick time. The embryonic development has been hurried by evolution so that the young cuckoo v/ill be ahead of the host fledg- lings. As soon as it is hatched, the cuckoo begins to evict everything in the nest, eggs or fledglings, acting automati- cally, not willfully, under the control of an instinct with a thoroughly established sensory and brain pattern. The back of the young cuckoo is slightly hollowed out and highly sensitive. The continued touch of any object there will produce a frantic reaction which drives the cuckoo backward and upward to the edge of the nest where ordi- narily the object is dumped out of the nest. In the mean- time the parent birds offer no objection or give any sign that the tragedy has the least effect upon them. Here is a gaping mouth to feed, and their instinctive, parental com- plex is fully satisfied. From the human point of view there is much in instinc- tive behavior we can justly feel is highly undesirable, but we are not justified in condemning all instincts. As we have seen, nature is striving blindly through trial and error, gene and chromosomal variation, guided by natural selection, to explore all possible avenues of evolution. Looking back from a higher level, we feel that there have been too many failures, too many instances of ugly conflicts aided and abetted by the very behavior forces which, if the process is to succeed, will eventually bring life to higher levels of peace and understanding. We can only repeat again that nature seemingly knows no way to drive directly toward INSTINCT 143 any goal; each forward step is always at the cost of many failures; and the necessary configurations for success be- come more and more intricate. Nature, then, must explore more and more avenues of evolutionary trial before solv- ing each new complex, herself driven by the deeply under- lying organizers of mind-in-matter and matter-in-mind. There are many highly desirable instincts, as the following pages will show; nor is it to be assumed that the evolution- ary axis toward inherited perceptual patterns is itself doomed to failure. On the contrary, there is every reason to assume that some instinctive drives and capacities, per- haps beyond anything we can now imagine and tempered, of course, by intelligence, are necessary to the high-level expression of mind— of this, more in Chapter 12. Instincts appear in a much better light in the behavior of some insects which form cooperative communities with the storage of food and the beginnings of a real economic life. Incipient stages of sociality where parents remain to help their young are known in several orders of insects, but it is only in the Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, and bees) and the Isoptera (termites) that a high-order social organization is accomplished. The ants are the most specialized and in many respects the most successful, especially since all ants are socialized— not, however, as a single species as in man, but in more than 3,500 distinct kinds, each now evolving in its own way and incapable of interbreeding. There is fantastic variation in the ant group, particularly in size, where the larger types outweigh the smaller four or five thousand times. There are ants with formidable grinding mandibles, others with swords and battle axes for war, others with leaf cutting scissors, some with huge heads, some with tiny heads, some with long bodies, some with short bodies, and so on. From species to species they have varied the body along a line leading to the evolution of tools, not made, but grown into the body structure. They are equipped with instincts which give them full use of these tools without a learning 144 evolution: the ages and tomorrow process; moreover, the various castes are as diverse in behav- ior as they are in structure. In short, there is a completely instinctive, inborn division of labor. In Chapter 7, something of the life cycle of these social insects was briefly outlined; but the over-all capacity of their instincts is of further interest, especially the manner in which these instincts organize and unify economic and social life. There is no education or training among ants, in spite of the fact that the individual's social duties require considerable skill. Once the shroud-lilie covering of their pupal stage is removed by their nurses and they have flexed their unused muscles, they are automatically ready for their life's work. Each is equipped with the tools and the instincts to do a thoroughly competent job of nest-building, nursing, tending domesticated stock, fighting, and food-gathering. In the social insects, economic life is based entirely on the direct exchange of food. Ants exchange the contents of their crops, one ant soliciting another by a gentle stroking with its antennae. The liquid is pumped up through the gullet from what Forel called the "social stomach," a common storehouse open to any who may need the contents. Harm- less dyes introduced into the food of ants and griven to a few individuals can be easily seen through the thin skin of the "social stomach" and can be followed through the com- munity as one ant shares its food with another. In a few days traces of the dye will have spread throughout the whole commonwealth. Ants apparently have a well-developed sense of taste and, it would seem, enjoy very much this mul- tiple interchange of food. Food-getting in ants is generally a sort of foraging for any bits of food (living or dead) that they can find; but there are also specialized types that carry on an economy based upon domestication of plants or animals, the only in- stance other than man where this occurs. iVorricultural ants have special workers which climb trees and cut out bits of leaves. The leaf bits are held aloft over the rather large INSTINCT 145 worker's back and carried home, where they are chopped up by a smaller, second kind of worker and smoothed out into beds on which a certain leaf mold is grown. These beds are constantly attended: undesirable fungi are weeded our, the beds are manured with the ants' own excrement, and there is even a system of underground ventilating shafts for proper aeration. Agricultural ants so treat this particular fungus that it never comes to full fruiting but grows in such a pecuHar way that it produces little knob-like heads, and it is upon these that the ants depend almost entirely in their basic food economy. When the queen of this farmer group is preparing to leave the nest on the nuptial flight, she takes some of the fungus along with her, carrying it in a special pocket in the floor of her mouth. At the end of the flight, now^ fertilized and alone, she digs a little chamber, sheds her wings, and then voids the fungus on the floor of the chamber. She tends it until the grubs hatch and feeds it to them until they pupate. Upon emerging from the pupa and without any teaching, the newborn workers hurry out after bits of leaves, spread out a rich bed for the future fungus garden, tend it carefully; soon there is a numerous society organized on a sound economic basis. In some of the dry countries of the world there is a species of ant which collects grain and stores it carefully. Long ago King Solomon was impressed with their industry and fore- sight. These ants have undergone considerable modification, the soldiers having been demilitarized into animated flour mills. Their jaws have been organized for crushing and grinding hard grain— something the ordinary workers can- not do. The latter chew up the finely broken grain, making a paste which they mold into cakes and set out in the sun to dry. Also found in some dry regions is the honeypot, one of the most bizarre of all ants. The workers of this species bring back to the nest the sweet secretions of insects (aphids) which they feed to specialized neuters of the colony called 146 evolution: the ages and tomorrow repletes. These repletes have so modified and enlarged their gullet or crop that it can be swelled to the size of a pea. At the end of the wet season the repletes hang themselves from the ceiling of the underground cellars, and the workers pro- ceed to fill them full of the aphid honey dew. For months afterward the repletes can be tapped by any worker, and the colony is kept alive through what would otherwise be a season of famine. Among the ants there are many variations on this theme of molding the structure of the individual so that it becomes a tool of the whole community; even the young grubs are sometimes modified and used for work in the common cause in a sort of child labor. Ants have also exploited other ani- mals in a close parallel to man's domestication of cattle be- cause they can transform inedible grass into milk and meat. Ants have no sucking mouth parts, only biting, and hence they are unable to get at the rich nutritive saps of the plant world about them. Aphids and coccids, which normally feed on plant juices, are domesticated by some species of ants. Both these insects are wasteful in their feeding;- and do not digest all the hquids they take from plants; some of it oozes out in the form of sweet droplets. It is this character- istic, particularly in the aphids, which is so highly exploited by ants. Some species of ants are content to merely lick up the sweetened drops which are deposited around feeding aphids; other species catch the drops as they ooze from the sap-eater's body; and still other ants actually "milk their cows" by caressing them with their antennae. The last are the most specialized. Some excavate underground rooms around roots and set their cows out to pasture. Ants even tend the aphid eggs through cold weather and set them out on plants to hatch in the spring. Just as man does, some build little wood-pulp stables for their cows, not in the main ant house, but off to the side connected by a covered passage. iVnts have also closely paralleled man's enslavement of man, even to organized ant raids to capture ant slaves. And some INSTINCT 147 ants have been so thoroughly adapted to the institution of slavery they cannot feed themselves, but must be fed by slaves. Modern observers of ant societies have turned up so many parallels to human society that one may well wonder how human is the ant, how ant-like the human? Formerly it was thought that the ant's Hfe was all work and no play; the ant was the real "eager beaver" of the animal world. "Go to the ant thou sluggard" it now appears would as likely as not show just another sluggard. D. W. Morley finds that ants spend many hours just sunning themselves and lolling around, or they play much like human youngsters by stag- ing mock battles and wrestling matches. When waking up from a siesta they stretch their six legs and open their man- dibles in a wide yawn. It now appears that actually most ants have to be "stirred up" or "urged on" by individuals who look like the other ants physically but seem to differ psycho- logically. These few nervous "go getter" ants, called "ex- citement centers," are the real leaders of the colony. When something has to be done, they go at it furiously and seem to be able to spread their own excitement throughout the w^hole colony so that soon all is bustling activity for awhile. Removal of these few eager workers, observers say, slows the Hfe of the colony down to such an extent that it may disintegrate. Except for humans, ants are the most successful organisms on earth, and, like humans, have no serious enemy except their own kind. Ants wage all kinds of war against other ants: raids for food, for territory, for slaves, and for what would seem to be just plain prejudice and hate. And yet it has been shown that young unconditioned ants from hostile colonies can be mixed together in a peaceful colony, just like human youngsters of different ancestry who have not been indoctrinated with parental hate. The instincts which control the complex activity of com- munal life in the insects have evolved through intermediate 148 evolution: the ages and tomorrow stages. Instincts are like functional organs and have been pro- duced through mutational and other genetic changes by nat- ural selection. In ants all intermediate steps of this evolution have been lost, but in the bees there are many living repre- sentatives of earlier stages from the entirely solitary to the highly communal. There are bees with no trace of social life other than seasonal gregarious associations. In these species the females store up food and then deposit their eggs on the food pile, leaving the grubs to hatch out and take care of themselves. The next step is seen in Halictus and related species where the original female remains in the spring of the year with the first eggs which she has laid on a food pile. The eggs hatch out finally and the young bees go about the business of collecting food and rearing more young. There is a sort of colony life without division of labor that lasts all summer. In the fall, however, the loose social group breaks up completely, and the females that survive the winter must start the cycle all over again. Bumblebees are just above this level in their organization. Communal life is for one season only, but there are the be- ginnings of a division of labor, and more specifically differ- entiated instincts are evolving. The colony is started in the spring by a female which has survived hibernation. She digs an underground nest with a few rude cells in which she lays a number of eggs, after having made up a food pile of pollen and honey. The food supply for each set of eggs is inade- quate even though the lone female works overtime, adding to each ceil such stores as she finds. The grubs develop into stunted and sterile neuters, because the gonads in bees need good nutrition for full functional development. The neuter workers at once solve the problem of food supply. They sally out in search of honey and pollen, and soon the future grubs receive all and more than is necessary for full-size, fertile development. In this way, as the season goes on, all transitions between sterile workers and fertile queens are produced. As the summer ends there are plenty of the fe- INSTINCT 149 males to carry on the species now milling about the nest. Males are produced toward the end of the season. The fe- males are fertilized, and then the winds of autumn at first chill and then finally kill all the individuals in the nest except the queens who are somehow, at least in some numbers, able to resist the rigors of winter. Here we see foreshadowed the characteristics of the hive-bees. The bumblebee worker is not yet equipped with the structures and specific instincts of the famous and highly talented hive bee, but there is a beginning. The bumblebee works crudely in wax and in cell construction; the honey storage is very limited; the whole nest is clumsily maintained; no individual is very highly specialized; but, nevertheless, this form represents a step very similar to that which must have been taken long ago in the evolution of the hive bee. We can be doubly sure of this surmise since further gradations to the fullness of social life are available for study from the living relics. We need not list in this survey each known gradation, although nature has again been generous in leaving inter- mediate stages through which our understanding of be- havior may be increased. The hive bee is a marvelous insect, and space allotted to recounting its accomplishments will be well used, particularly since it is now established that hive bees have a highly developed talent for the sign and even the symbolism we call language, the trait that psychologists say is necessary for true conceptual thought. The ant nest and the beehive are similar in many respects —workers work for the community, the queen lays eggs, males are sacrificed in the fall. In the beehive, however, only one queen is tolerated. Also, among bees there is a unique community temperature, maintained in spite of the fact that the individual bee is cold-blooded. When the outside tem- perature falls below about 55 degrees F., bees become very restless; they take a meal of honey and then form an active crawling mass of individuals, those on the outside and inside constantly exchanging places. It is a remarkable device and 150 evolution: the ages and tomorrow works within wide variations of outside temperature. In spring, for the better development of the grubs, bees keep the hive at blood heat, 95 degrees. On hot days certain bees take over the task of creating a current of air through the hive; this they do by standing at the door and beating vigor- ously with their wings. There have been many books and short articles published from time to time on the honeybee; but undoubtedly the great classic of our time on the behavior of an insect is Bees, Their Vision, Chemical Senses, and Language, by Karl von Frisch. With great patience and lifelong perseverance this Bavarian zoologist has given us many new facts about bees and has corrected many old errors. Von Frisch's method has been to mark the individual bees with dabs of bright paint on various parts of the body, and then to follow their individual activity from the "cradle to the grave." In this way and using specially built glass hives, von Frisch has observed intimately the life and behavior of the bee. In a single colony, where there may be 30,000 workers, the division of labor is not rigidly apportioned among in- dividuals whose lifetime is spent doing a single job, as in ants. On the contrary, there is a succession of jobs which a single individual performs, one after the other, as it grows older. Queens carry on reproductive activity exclusively throughout a rather long Hfe (upwards of five years), but the workers have instincts for doing a variety of different jobs as they grow up. Beyond their possible duty of fertiliz- ing a queen, males (the drones) are superfluous and do nothing, being killed or dying of starvation in the fall of each season. The sterile workers (females) live about fiYQ weeks as actively winged adults. Their whole life cycle includes three days as an tgg, six days as a growing grub, twelve days as a resting pupa, and about five weeks as a winged adult. In this short but incredibly active adult life there are, in turn, three main periods. During the first ten days the bee INSTINCT 151 remains in the dark of the hive tending the young. Through- out this first period the bee depends on the sense of touch and smell. Gradually during the second period, which ex- tends from about the tenth to the twentieth day, the eyes come into play, and, after having worked on the wax cells, building and cleaning them, the bee becomes a guard at the main gate of the hive. Just as the second period comes to a close short flights are taken into the open. The third period, from about the twenty-first day until death, is spent mainly in collecting honey and pollen. Each worker is equipped not only with the instincts necessary for its work, but also with structural gadgets such as mandibles, antennae cleaners, pollen basket, comb, wax cutter, and so forth, all built into the body and legs. Von Frisch and others have been able to follow the whole life cycle of the worker rather intimately. Upon emerging from its pupa, the young adult gnaws open the thin wax lid of its cell, drys itself out, and within an hour is busy clean- ing out cells from which other bees have hatched. The worker cleans the cells with saliva, for it is only after this treatment that the queen will lay an tgg in the cell. In the first three days the bee works and rests, taking life at a lei- surely pace; and, if it is cold outside, it will add to its cell- cleaning duties by hovering over the grubs, giving them the warmth of its body. Soon the nursing instinct takes over; at about the fourth day the bee begins feeding the older grubs with honey and pollen from the hive storehouse. Very young grubs cannot digest raw pollen and so the worker, about six days after having pupated, undergoes a salivary glandular change that makes it possible for it to break up and mix a kind of pollen "milk" w^hich it feeds to the young. This is one of the few cases in nature that paral- lels the maturing milk glands of the human mother. In four more days the swollen salivary glands shrink and the worker begins new activities. She takes nectar from returning for- aging workers and pumps it into honey-storage cells. She 152 evolution: the ages and tomorrow packs pollen tightly into pollen cells and removes dirt and debris from the cells and hive in general and carries it out- side. With wax glands now fully developed she carries on a marvelously controlled building and repair activity, math- ematically precise and architecturally perfect. She knows how to build special cells for the queen and drone; and even though there are many workers milling about in any one corner of the construction, everything fits in perfectly. Gradually desisting from this work, she stands guard at the door of the hive for a couple of days. And now comes the great moment. The nearly three- weeks-old worker becomes restless and begins to take short flights into the open country, farther and farther each time, storing up a photographic memory and navigating by the sun with the sure genius of a high-level instinct. She be- comes exclusively a food gatherer, bringing back nectar and pollen and delivering it up to her younger workers. Two weeks and a little more of this and she is very old. Her flights become shorter and more infrequent, she sits about the hive a great deal; and finally she dies in the sixth week of her winged age. Her corpse is transported out of the hive by her sister workers and thrown away. Von Frisch has given us a new insight into the degree of development of the sense organs of the bee and of the per- ceptual organization as a whole. The big compound eyes are very eflicient organs of sight, being so rounded and well placed on the head that the bee can see above, below, front, and back at one and the same time. Built into these eyes is a device which permits the bee to determine the direction in which the light of the sky is polarized, and with this device the bee can tell the direction of the sun even when it is not directly visible. (Seen directly, sunlight vibrates transversely in all directions to the same extent. When scattered by at- mospheric particles, the light of the sky vibrates more in one direction than another. Man determines this by a prism device.) The bee's eyes see color somewhat differently than INSTINCT 153 those of man. Red is not visible as such to the bee but is seen as a tone of gray; at the other end of the visible spec- trum, however, the bee sees ultraviolet, to which human eyes are blind. In addition to violet the bee clearly distin- guishes blue, blue-green, and yellow. The fact that the bee, one of nature's most active plant pollinators, cannot see red explains the rareness of exclusively red flowers. Von Frisch was able to demonstrate that bees can quite definitely distinguish betw^een a solid pattern and a broken one. Their sense of smell is not keen but is equal to that of man. Bees depend on sight to find the flower, but once alighted on it, they can detect the delicate perfumes which lead to the nectar cup. Most flowers have a "scent spot" that the bee feels for with its antennae, on which are located the organs of smell. In taste bees are sensitive to the quality of the nectar— a Rvq per cent sugar solution is of no interest because such weak nectars would spoil in the hive before they could be brought up to the high concentration of stor- age honey. A solution of about 20 per cent sugar is satisfac- tory, but it takes upwards of 40 per cent to make the bee really excited about its find. Once the flower is found, a scout bee sucks up some of the nectar and then marks the flower (stakes out a claim) with its own very strong scent gland located on its abdomen. Then she heads straight back to the hive to tell of her discovery, and von Frisch has been able to demonstrate very thoroughly that the "telUng" is completely and accurately carried out. The returning^ scout bee can tell her sister workers what kind of flower contains the honey treasure, how rich it is, in what direction it lies, and how far away. Could a human messenger, for all his language, tell more? As soon as the scout bee enters the hive other foraging bees gather around, particularly if the scout shows excitement. They caress her with their antennae. In this way they get the scent of the flower from the incoming scout's body and will know what to look for. At the same time workers receive the nectar 154 evolution: the ages and tomorrow load which the forager has brought back, and the degree of richness of the find is at once apparent. If the find was an exceptionally good one, the excitement of the returning bee spreads quickly, especially since she begins a dance which will be the more agitated the better the find. Up to this point a psychologist would deny that a true language is involved, and that has been the impression of biologists in general un- til recently. In fact, it has been stated repeatedly up to a few years ago that below the level of man there was no true lan- guage capable of describing objects or concepts— even the apes. Von Frisch's bees have dispelled that notion; nor is it likely to return, since von Frisch's statements have already been verified in o-eneral. The returning bee climbs up a section of the wax comb and begins a stylized dance. If she dances on the same spot, whirling to the right and then to the left (round dances), she is telling her sisters that the flower she visited is near by, not more than 50 yards or so away. In this dance she does not give the direction, but just indicates proximity. Other food gatherers hurry out and circle around the hive, their height of flight giving them sufficient coverage of the terrain to find the flower quickly. The dancing bee moves to an- other section of the hive and repeats her round dance, again and again if the find was a good one. If the source of the nectar is beyond 50 yards or so from the hive, the returning bee does an entirely different dance whereby she tells the other foragers not only the direction, but also the distance of the flower. This is what von Frisch calls a tail-wagging dance. The bee is on the side of the comb; she runs a short distance in a straight line wagging her abdomen from side to side very rapidly; at the end of the run she then turns full circle to the left, runs forward again, turns full circle to the right, and repeats this pattern over and over again. The dance will be most vigorous if the sugar content of the nectar is high; at 40 per cent or better the bee will be very agitated. The dancer tells the other INSTINCT 155 food gatherers the location of the find in reference to the position of the sun by the direction of the short run she makes between each full turn, and she gives the distance by the number of times the dance cycle is repeated. If she runs straight up the honeycomb between turns, she indicates that the foragers should fly directly toward the sun to find the flower. If in this dance she makes 9 or 10 complete cycles in the short period (usually about 15 seconds) during which she "speaks" at any one place, she indicates that the find is about 100 yards away. After having completed the proper number of turns needed to indicate the distance, the dancer will move to another part of the hive and repeat the per- formance. Von Frisch found that the number of com- plete cycles diminished in proportion to the distance so that at something over 1,000 yards there were only four com- pleted cycles, and at distances more than 6,000 yards there were only two. If the dancer runs straight down the comb, she indicates that the food gatherers must fly directly away from the sun. If the dancer heads off to the left of the verti- cal, say 60 degrees, then the find is 60 degrees to the left of the sun; if she heads downward 120 degrees from the verti- cal, then the find is 120 degrees to the right of the sun, and so on. Von Frisch found that there was surprising accuracy in this language of direction; workers who interpreted it were seldom off more than 1 5 degrees. ] Moreover, von Frisch found that if he watched the dances of incoming scout bees which were going to a fixed feeding place over a period of several hours, the direction of the straight part of the dances was not constant but changed with the earth's rotation— in other words, kept pace with the sun. In fact, it was this observation that led him to the conclusion that the dances indicated the direction of the feeding place with reference to the sun. It must be remembered that under normal circumstances the bee enters a hive that is completely dark. She cannot perceive the di- rection of the sun once she enters; but somehow nature has 156 evolution: the ages and tomorrow evolved for her the instinct which directs her to rely on gravity: straight up a vertical wall is against gravity and is substitute for directly into the sun; straight down is with gravity and away from the sun; and so on. Von Frisch finds it very remarkable that heading toward the sun should cor- respond to movement against gravity. He would like, as no doubt would all students of evolution, to examine this situa- tion in more primitive bees where the origin of this behavior may be revealed. The honeybee, now that a capacity for language has been shown, provides a very fertile field for biological psychology, especially since we have living today almost all intermediate evolutionary stages. Even on cloudy days von Frisch found that bees could still tell accurately where the sun was located and dance correctly on returning to the hive. He made elaborate tests of this ability to orient even when the sun was behind clouds and came to the conclusion that the bee was able to analyze polarized light. In recent years he has beautifully demonstrated this with the use of special polarizer equip- ment with which he can fool the bee into making mistakes. He has shown that the facets of the bee's eyes are able to analyze the light and that the nervous system can properly assign the position of the sun on the basis of this analysis. It might be added here that in the more or less unnatural case where a returning scout bee finds itself on a horizontal sur- face and can see the sun or some section of the sky, it will dance as usual; but this time it will set the straight part of the dance directly toward the flower. One can only speculate on the interesting question. How would it feel to be born with nerve-machinery that makes it possible to react purposefully and with assurance to com- plex situations prior to any experience and without educa- tion? What would it feel like, for instance, to be able to construct a honeycomb— the cells accurately hexagonal, perfectly dovetailed, double-plated, geometrically beautiful, and all without teaching? What would it be like to fly INSTINCT 157 homeward to a pinpoint over the horizon, laden with rich treasure, agitated by the success of the search, naturally and easily orienting to an invisible sun, fully the master of the mathematics of navigation and the conversion of angles to the vertical, to receive the excited attention of the multitude and to orive and tell of the treasure in an abandon of altru- ism? The answer is that I don't know, but it will never be possible for me to believe that there is no degree of pleasure here for this lowly scout bee and no consciousness of a job superbly done in the service of its fellows. The honeybee uses a real abstraction when she indicates a direction by rela- tion; and this abstraction is apparently a symbol, just as the word "bee" is our symbol for this brilliant little animal. It is one of the few, if not the only, undisputed cases of an ani- mal other than man being able to communicate an abstrac- tion such as direction or distance. The bee, then, is capable of behavior which psychologists describe as concept forma- tion and in which man excels above all other animals. This characteristic of high-level mind will be discussed in the next chapter, where it will be important to remind ourselves that even in the immensely complex symbolizing process of human thinking, man is not absolutely unique. 12 Conceptual Thought Learning is a phenomenon which occurs at all levels in the animal kingdom. Psychologists now see that in the higher animals, the vertebrates, there is no behavior, except- ing possibly the simple reflexes, that is entirely free from some learning. In man, learning is a pre-eminent character- istic largely unrestricted by factors, such as the rigidity of instinct, that make it difficult for the insect to modify its behavior through experience. W. T. Herron compares the relative advantages and disadvantages of the learned versus the instinctive modes of behavior where the comparison is most vivid; that is, between the human species, using chiefly learning, and the social insects, using chiefly instinct, as modes through which they achieve adaptation. Learned behavior, he finds, is much more adaptable to changing en- vironments than instinct, and the new modes of adaptation can be handed on to offspring more quickly and can be much more readily cumulative, especially at the level of man. On the debit side, however, learning requires long in- dividual tutorial periods and is subject to the inefficiencies of bad memory, to neurotic conflicts, and to the formation of bad habits, all in contrast to the sureness and uniformity of instinct. Here again nature seems to "come up" against the re- stricting difficulties that arise as the evolutionary configura- tions become more and more complex. It would seem that in the drive toward greater understanding the evolution of 158 CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 159 learned behavior was an immensely promising step, but not necessarily the final step that must be taken. The most recent studies of learning in animals, especially in the primates, have been so designed as to bring out the capacity which the psychologists call concept formation. By and large this term would involve no more than the abil- ity to generalize to a particular characteristic of stimuli varying in multiple ways (examples will follow)— an ability that can be demonstrated in animals even below the level of the mammals. Psychologists usually, however, make a dis- tinction at the level of man which postulates a symbolizing (or language) process as necessary to conceptual thought. There is considerable difference of opinion as to how fine this distinction should be drawn. In a very narrow sense linguistic responses are limited or doubtful in any animal other than man. Nissen in his review of the situation points out that it may be more proper to look at language as a symptom or indicator of symbolism, not its necessary con- dition. In this case degrees of conceptual thought can be demonstrated in many animals, the bees and rats and mon- keys and apes, at least. Psychologists would be in agreement with the statement that conceptual thought does not appear suddenly at the level of man but must be anticipated by in- gredients which are increasingly present in forms below his level. Early philosophers suggested that the mind developed merely through an idea-and-experience association, but it has been apparent for the past century that this was not an adequate explanation. John Locke had discarded the as- sumption, supported particularly by theologians, that ideas (faith and morals, for instance) were inborn and categori- cally declared that all our knowledge came from experience and through the senses— "nothing in the mind except what was first in the senses." Some modern philosophers and psychologists suggest that the brain is not passive in learning but develops organizations which facilitate the process. i6o evolution: the ages and tomorrow Arnold Gesell thinks that the mind Hke the body has a definite morphogenesis, that the beginnings of the hfe of the mind are an extension of the embryonic growth which created it— again the idea of organization as a principle of order. One school of psychology describes learning purely in terms of trial and error, a blind search for an accidental solution. At the other extreme there are still a few psycholo- gists who hold that it is innate insight that reveals relation- ships to the mind. H. F. Harlow has summarized the experimental approach to the learning problem in primates. Among other activities, Harlow and his associates made a comparative study of both rhesus monkeys and nursery-children, two to five years old. In these experiments, of course, the psychologists controlled the entire learning history of the animals they used, and they set out to determine whether monkeys had the ability to solve a problem by insight after a trial-and-error training. The first experiments were simple discrimination tests. The monkeys were placed before two objects which differed in shape, size, and color. Picking up the right object meant a reward of food placed under it. Each time the two objects were placed before the subject the food reward was under the same object, but they were shifted about at random in different trials until the monkey learned to pick the right one. The experiments were continued and varied by using many pairs of objects. When first faced with this test, the monkeys fumbled about entirely by trial-and-error; but as they solved one after the other they began to get an insight into the situation. Soon, if the monkey picked up the correct object the first time, it would rarely make a mistake the second time. It would shift its choice at once if it picked up the wrong object the first time. Some of the subjects learned to respond almost perfectly to this kind of test. From this and similar tests Harlow concludes that trial and error and insight are not different capacities but are different phases CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT l6l of one long continuous process. They represent an orderly and gradual unfolding of a learning and thinking process. Children between the ages of two and five were chosen because they had had a minimum of previous training and were given these same tests. Most of the children made many errors and only gradually learned to solve the prob- lem in one trial. The author found that children learned more rapidly than monkeys but that they made the same mis- takes. There were cases where the smartest monkey learned more rapidly than the dullest child. This kind of progressive learning leads to the formation of a "learning set." Here an organized set of habits is learned which enables the subject to deal effectively with each new problem of a particular kind. An animal finally ac- cumulates many learning sets in the trial-and-error solution of problems which face it throughout its hfe. A great host of sets may furnish the human mind with its raw material. In the same series of experiments monkeys and children were trained in much more complex problems, one being a switch-over of the above. An attempt is made in this type of reversal to confuse the subject; the previously correct ob- ject is now the incorrect object. Again, errors by both the monkeys and children are numerous, but gradually the er- rors decrease until finally at the first reversal trial there is a perfect performance: a single failure will lead the subject to shift from the object which had been previously rewarded many times to the object which has never before been re- warded. Subjects were also offered a choice of three objects, two of a kind and one odd (say, two building blocks and a funnel) , and it was the odd that was rewarded. After picking the odd funnel had been learned the problem was reversed: two funnels and one block are used, the reward now being in the block. In time the animal learns the subtle distinction that the shape of the object is not important, but rather its relation to the two other objects. It learns to "think" of i62 evolution: the ages and tomorrow oddness (which is a concept) . Monkeys and children were tested in a series of "oddity" problems with the surprising result that the monkeys did somewhat better than most of the youngsters. Long experience with monkeys has shown that they retain their learning sets for more than a year and will learn a tough problem all over again in a very few trials, although originally it may have taken them weeks to master the situation. The ability was found to be similar to the quick relearning of the human. All these studies and many others have convinced Har- low and his associates that there is no inborn ability to solve problems without fumbling. The ability is gradually learned through trial-and-error experience; there is no innate insight that has anything to do with learning in animals or children. This is the assumption of psychologists in general. Augusta Alpert, working with bright nursery-children, has shown that they typically go through a trial-and-error process be- fore solving problems involving the use of tools, some failing repeatedly. Eunice Mathieson also found no cases of natural insight in children when carefully tested with tool problems. Originally the theory that animals may show innate in- sight arose out of the studies Wolfgang Kohler made on the behavior of chimpanzees. He found that some individuals were able, without learning, suddenly to solve problems where they were forced to use long sticks to reach bananas on the roof of their cage. Kohler had used adults in some of his experiments, animals that had spent part of their lives in the jungle, and the use of sticks was probably not new to them. At the famous Yerkeys Laboratory of Primate Bi- ology many tests similar to those carried out on chimpanzees by Kohler have been made which did not corroborate the Kohler claim of innate insight. When the whole life history of the experimental animal is known (in this case they were born in captivity), it invariably follows that a new problem is solved by trial-and-error. Some chimpanzees are smarter than others, but all must learn the hard way. Others have CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 163 tried to corroborate the Kohler claim of sudden insight without learning, but with no success. One of the most dramatic concept-formation studies ever made at levels below the human was done by B. Weinstein. He taught monkeys to recognize differences and similarities, just as in some intelligence tests that are given to children. In this training nine objects were placed before the monkey; his problem was to pick out all that were identical with a sample which was handed to him and to leave the rest on the tray. After prolonged training some monkeys were able to solve an even more difficult situation. In this case the animals were taught to respond to a symbol and then to select all objects of a given color. For instance, the monkey was handed an unpainted triangle as a sign to select all red ob- jects, or an unpainted circle as a sign to pick out all blue objects. Monkeys and children alike find this difficult. Weinstein had one monkey, a sort of rhesus genius, who learned to respond almost perfectly. Harlow and others have also been able to show a capacity to identify symbols with particular learning sets at levels be- low man. They trained monkeys to respond to signs in the form of differently colored trays holding three test objects, for instance, a red U-shaped block, a green U-shaped block, and a red cross-shaped block— two alike in form and two alike in color. When these objects were shown on an orange- colored tray, the monkeys had to choose the green block, the odd color, to be rewarded. When the same objects were shown on a cream-colored tray, the monkeys had to pick the cross-shaped block, the odd form, in order to receive a reward. The color cue of the tray was finally mastered by these monkeys, some making the correct choice trial after trial. Here, in a sense, is a response to a simple sign language. These monkeys, particularly the Weinstein genius, show an amazing ability to conceptualize or categorize. The Weinstein monkey could conceptualize red and blue to stimuli which had no physical characteristic common to any 164 evolution: the ages and tomorrow of the choice-objects. Also, Weinstein so painted the choice- objects that only a small area was of the appropriate color, the rest being other colors. In this case the subject was ac- tually able to make a choice by not responding to stimuli that lay outside the category, as contrasted to the usual test of this kind where the animal is taught to respond positively to one of the test stimuli. Harlow finds this a much more precise and rigid criterion of concept-formation than any previously apphed to subhuman behavior, being, like human concepts, exclusive as well as inclusive. Harlow and other psychologists are convinced that the experimental data now available in the literature clearly show that animals, human and subhuman, must learn to think. The capacity does not appear spontaneously but is the result of a very long and complex learning process— the accumulation of learning sets. The learning set hypothesis gives us a mechanism or principle by which we can explain thinking. Psychologists outline the course that learning takes some- what as follows: At the lowest level the individual draws upon unlearned responses or previously learned habits, and as his experience accumulates he discards habits which do not help in the solution of a task and retains and establishes useful habits. At each successive level the individual tries out different types of response to solve a given task, and finally, after having solved many problems of a given kind, he de- velops the organization of responses in patterns designed to meet each particular situation. These are the learning sets, and by extension through the organizing activity of the mind, still more complex combinations of patterns are set up to solve increasingly intricate problems— a process of or- ganizing simple sets into complex units and these into still higher combinations, and so on. At the highest level of organization these learning sets be- come innumerable and are interlocked in an incredible com- plexity, a hierarchy that can be manipulated with such ease CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 165 as to give the impression that the brain is innately inspired. Language in the human plays a very important part in the thinking process. Words are signs or stimuli which bring to the fore particular learning sets best suited to the solution of a given problem. The human "talks" while he thinks, re- viewing ways of attacking a given situation, and so fixed is this habit that there is a disinclination on the part of some to admit that there can be any conceptual thought without lan- guage. That animals other than man can and do use symbols or signs to identify appropriate learning sets has already been brought out, but there remains to describe one more series of studies of apes that should be of interest since the re- sponses approach more closely to the general character of the human than anything thus far reviewed. At the Yale Laboratories of Primate Biology, John Wolfe trained six young chimpanzees to respond to poker chips as symbols or temporary substitutes (like money) for food and other re- wards. Wolfe used a specially built slot machine which au- tomatically delivered one ripe grape each time a poker chip was dropped into the slot. Each of the six individuals was taught how to m.ake what was called the "Chimp-O-Mat" deliver the grape. A six-year-old male. Moos, who possessed strong imitative talents, actually caught on after seeing the experimenter drop just one chip into the machine which, of course, immediately delivered a grape into the food cup. Moos, without hesitation, took a chip which was proffered and dropped it into the slot; then put his hand in the cup and waited for the grape, an unusual but not unique perform- ance. Prior to the beginning of this series, white poker chips had been given to the six chimps as toys. They paid little or no attention to them at the time, but as soon as they learned that they could obtain food with these chips their whole at- titude changed, much as would a group of humans if some objects they thought worthless were suddenly found to be coin of the realm. As the teaching progressed, both poker l66 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW chips and brass slugs were given to the chimps. The brass slugs could be dropped into the slot but no grape was de- livered, and in a matter of a few days the six apes were well aware of this and left them strictly alone. Every time a mix- ture of chips and slugs was tossed into the cage there was a mad scramble for the chips, but once the chimps learned that slugs would not deliver a grape they never again touched them. Children at about the four-year level or less adapt easily to the importance of money but do not at first diif erentiate the relative values of coins. Wolfe was interested in finding out whether the mentality of the ape was equal to the task of dealing with coins of different value. His apes had al- ready made a sharp distinction between white poker chips and brass slugs, so he now introduced a blue chip which, when placed in the slot of the Chimp-O-Mat, delivered two grapes. In time the chimpanzees seemed to realize the differ- ence, for they would take the blue with twice the buying power in preference to the white, which certainly is a proc- ess of "thinking." Wolfe also wondered whether his charges could be made to work for the "chimp money." Accordingly he intro- duced a Work Machine, a device consisting of a pump handle which lifted weights. At the start of this experiment when the ape worked the handle, a grape was delivered into a cup. All the experimental animals quite willingly worked the handle even though it involved lifting heavy weights. As soon as they were familiar with the operation of the ma- chine, poker chips were substituted. After a slight uncer- tainty they began to work just as willingly for the chips as for the direct reward of a grape. When brass slugs were substituted, they would not "work"; it was either work for pay or not at all. These chimpanzees would even work the machine for chips at times when the "money" could not be spent, but would make impatient demands eventually if the delay was too prolonged. CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 167 As would be expected in a close and prolonged study such as Wolfe made of these animals, considerable indi- vidual variation went into the record. Chimpanzees differ widely in personality, probably as much as do humans. Velt would work the labor-machine only as long as he could spend the chips as soon as he earned them. He had no inter- est whatever in the accumulation of wealth. Moos, the pre- cocious member of the colony, and Bimba, a female, were quite willing to work for chips even though they could not be spent until a day or so later. iMoos was very impatient with any deficiencies in the vending machine; when he dropped a chip into the slot, he wanted immediate action and any delay infuriated him. Once he nearly broke up the machine when it failed to deliver a grape. Have we seen this kind of behavior elsewhere in the animal kingdom? Moos and Bimba were both quite money-mad and would amass great piles of poker chip wealth if left free to operate the work machine, even when extra-heavy weights were at- tached. Greed and despotism were clearly demonstrated in the behavior of these animals. When the chimpanzees lived in the same cage, dominance of one individual invariably ap- peared. Bimba was completely subdued by Bula who would appropriate all the chips thrown into the cage, no difference how many, and this in spite of the constant complaints and whining of her cage mate. Moos and his ape friends, then, readily learned to respond to poker chips as symbols and to adapt complexly to a new situation in their lives. It is from such basic capacities that man and his vastly more intricate behavior has arisen. Lan- guage is no doubt the key to his success. Anthropologists are in general agreement that language evolved in correlation with culture and was probably the necessary antecedent of culture. Ideas or generalizations are basic to even the sim- plest of human cultures, and, apparently, it is only through speech that such ideas or generalizations can be transmitted. Culture functions on the basis of abstraction, the symbolism i68 evolution: the ages and tomorrow of words, and the two augment and enrich each other. We have already seen that the power to symboKze, to abstract, is not exclusive with man; but a true capacity for language in other animals is open to question. There are many cases in nature where the sounds emitted by various animals would seem to have at least vague quali- ties of speech. Certainly, the alarm cries of birds and beasts alike carry a direct and vivid message to the hearers, as do mating cries and many others. The language extremists, however, rule these out on the basis that they do not convey objective information; they submit that the bird does not call to his mate, "I'll meet you under the clock, my love!" It has been claimed until recently that no subhuman animal even has an impulse to convey real information to its fel- lows. These claims, now that the language of bees has been interpreted, look ridiculous. They stem from the over- anxiety of some to keep man absolutely apart. If language is expected to convey not only subjective emotions, but also concrete, direct information, then the bee has a language (see Chap. 11). So also, it will be found in time, do many other animals, and probably the next to appear in the litera- ture on subhuman languages will be the ant. Most anthro- pologists will freely admit that there is enough subhuman anticipation of both speech and culture to more than fore- shadow the event when it arrives in the human. It is now almost certain that man never had a common language, but that oral communication arose in several places independently during the long isolation of the races. It is thought that some sort of sign language preceded the spoken word or, at least, was used conjointly in the communications of early man. In America all Indians were able to under- stand a common sign language of great antiquity. Sir Arthur Evans thought that it must have preceded speech and that the latter arose in isolated regions long after the end of the migrations that peopled the Americas. Palaeolithic man, if we are to judge by the cave wall drawings he left us, had a CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 169 very keen sense of form and attitude. He may have com- municated largely by gesture, depending in part on cries of alarm or anger or imitative sounds for concrete things. Max Miiller suggested three ways in which speech arose: first, by the imitation of the sounds of animals, the so-called "bow-wow" method; second, by interjections, instinctive utterances called up by sensations or feelings, the "pooh- pooh" method; third, by the natural phonetic accompani- ment of acts performed in common, which came to stand for verbs denoting the acts themselves, as heave or haul, the "yo-he-ho" method. All three theories used together explain in large part the origin of words in primitive languages, but the explanation is not all-inclusive. Otto Jespersen proposed that languages be traced backward to the earliest possible sources from which a theoretical line could be projected into the remote past. At the most primitive existing lan- guage-levels one finds very long conglomerates of sound, in contrast to the monosyllabic origin usually postulated. Early man may have been a very lively babbler, singing primitive chants, and full of meaningless chatter, perhaps not unhke the noisy chatter of many monkeys. He probably took real pleasure in just making sounds (and who would deny that man still does), and with some of these sounds he came to identify individuals, and objects in nature, and activities. He combined words and gestures, as he also still does, and may have first used the sound identified with an animal (the word as a noun) and indicated the coming and going by ap- propriate signs. It was much later that he acquired the ability to indicate action and relationship in a formal manner. That pre-man was probably a babbler, a noisy vocalizer, is indicated by his close primate cousins, particularly the gibbon and the chimpanzee. The gibbon is an incessant, high-volume loudmouth, but it is not in this alone that he is remarkable. Boutan was able to distinguish fourteen differ- ent vocalizations in gibbons: fivt for states of pleasure and lyo evolution: the ages and tomorrow well-being, four for states of displeasure and illness, four for indifferent intermediates, and one for a state of great excite- ment. Of course, these vocalizations do not have value as words, but they do convey notions of agreeable, disagree- able, of dangerous situations; they form a "pseudo-language" which informs concerning a state of mind or communicates an emotional tone. Anthropologists would say that "gibbon talk" is like a social hormone; it unifies group action. Gib- bons stamp their feet and scream with anger, and so do we. Gibbons dance about and chatter with pleasant sounds when joyful, and so do we. There is much human communication that transmits fantasy and not fact, that is emotional, that gives the feeling communication has taken place when it has not; and it is to be found in the language of some poets, ad- vertisers, politicians, philosophers, and theologians, to list but a few. Man enjoys his fantasies, his emotional vocalizing, his lan- guage of love and poetic expression. But as the modem semanticist sees it, more often than not man is led into deeply "false to fact" orientations. He has not acquired a real mastery over the usage of words or a true understand- ing of the great power they exercise over him. In many in- stances he is still close to the savage in speech, and he is still struggling to overcome the maladaptations his grammar and syntax have brought upon him. The relationship between man and his words is extremely important and will be re- viewed in Chapter 1 3 when we evaluate the contribution of semantics to man's over-all problem of finding means by which he may control his destiny and through which he may extend the horizons of knowledge. The purpose of this chapter has been to show the evolu- tionary continuity of conceptual thought. At the same time one must not overlook the tremendous degree of difference between man and other animals in the use of this power of the mind, particularly those human individuals with the ex- traordinary gift we call genius— the great mathematicians, musical composers, philosophers, and scientists. Even here, CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 171 however, one must not forget Henri Poincare's assertion that the sudden conceptual inspirations of the great creative workers appear only when preceded and followed by pe- riods of intensive study (learning). Poincare, one of the foremost mathematicians of all time, once told an audience of psychologists how the solutions to some of his theorems had come to him. In one case he had worked for 1 5 days on a problem of functions, working every day for an hour or two trying out various combinations without result. Then one evening he drank some black coffee, contrary to cus- tom, and later, wide awake, ideas crowded into his conscious mind literally colhdincr with each other. There was the solu- tion; he had only to write it out. Another time while on a trip he was taking after a period of intensive mathematical work, the solution to a complex relationship came to him quite suddenly as he was about to put foot on the step of an omnibus at a time when he was not thinking of the problem at all. The creative process he had started consciously had gone on in his subconscious mind. The intrinsic nature of the mind and its relation to cere- bral excitation, or how the brain works, is at once the most baffling and the most important problem in all science. Until there is better comprehension of the essence of the mind, there will always be limitations to the progress of philoso- phy and to our understanding of the nature of reality. One cannot overestimate the value of even partial solutions of the mind-brain problem to the concepts and knowledge of man. Psychologists know now that, except for basic reflex reac- tions of the nervous system, both human and subhuman ani- mals must learn to think. As stressed earlier in this chapter, the capacity for thought does not appear spontaneously but is the result of a very long and complex learning process— the accumulation of learning sets. In humans, language and the cultural pattern play the decisive part in the thinking process, and this complex is in no sense whatever inborn. The Oriental baby adopted by an English family learns English and all the attitudes and patterns of the Western 172 evolution: the ages and tomorrow culture. Except in physical traits, it becomes completely Western in thought and action. There were, also, many in- stances in the past where a child has been raised without hu- man teaching. In Europe and elsewhere before this century, when children were abandoned or lost in the forests and learned there the ways of animal survival, they became ani- mals in every sense of the word. Observing some of them in the eighteenth century, the great taxonomist Linnaeus could not believe that such seemingly witless brutes were born hu- man. He supposed they were some kind of gnome that man seldom sees. He even classified them as a distinct species. Homo -ferns, and described their apparent utter lack of in- terest in what went on around them, the way they rocked themselves back and forth rhythmically like a caged animal, and how their organs of speech could hardly be trained to do service. How the brain records the experience of the individual —that is, how the physiological processes in the brain cor- relate with the psychic levels of consciousness— is the puzzle of the mind-brain problem. A more or less direct attack is made by neurological scientists, but thus far their efforts have been crowned with little success. They have been un- able so far adequately to describe the neural processes in- volved in even the simplest forms of mental activity. Via the frontal attack on the problem, that is, by scientific analysis of the neural correlates of psychic experience, progress will be slow. In the meantime, however, there are the very help- ful analogies of the new field of cybernetics which examines the processes common to nervous systems and mathematical machines. Cybernetics is a word invented by Norbert Wiener to define a new field of science. It combines under one heading the study of what is generally described as thinking in the human and what is known in engineering as control and communication. Cybernetics attempts to find the common elements in the functioning of mathematical machines and CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 173 the human nervous system. Modern computing machines have become incredibly elaborate and are capable of mem- ory, association, choice, and many other brain functions. The chess-playing machine that no human chess player will ever beat is just around the corner. It becomes more and more clear as this new science of the mathematical machine advances that we can say, as Wiener does, that the human brain behaves very much like the ma- chine. The more complex problem-solving mechanisms ac- tually are giving us a better understanding of how the brain operates— even to the assumption that the nerve cell (neu- ron), which is known to carry an electrical potential, acts like the vacuum tube in the machine, and that the reception of a signal by a neuron corresponds to the "tripping" of the relay in an electric circuit. Indeed, in humans the energy of nerve stimulus is changed into electrochemical energy; fun- damentally, these electrochemical impulses flitting around in our brains constitute all that we know about the universe. In general, psychology concurs in all this. The forerunners of the great electronic calculators of our day (some have as many as 18,000 vacuum tubes and many information recordings on tape) go back to the early Chi- nese abacus, to the Lully (1235-1315) calculator, and to the famous arithmetic machine which Pascal constructed in 1642. Not until World War II, however, were the great contrivances which are capable of "thinking" developed. In these the distinguishing characteristic is the incorporation of the "feed-back" mechanism, which regulates the activities of the machine (slowing down or accelerating it) as infor- mation is fed into it during operation. As Wiener points out, this is similar to what happens when man decides to pick up a pencil. He wills the general act, and the nervous system carries it out through use of feed-back information. That is, at each instant the nervous system must know by how much the pencil is not yet picked up— the information which is fed back through the sensory system. In man a failure of the 174 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW visual and kinesthetic (muscular sense) control of the feed- back leads to what in medical circles is called "ataxia," where the individual cannot perform the act at all, or to an uncontrollable oscillation known as "purpose tremor." Basically the idea of the machine is simple. It is the prin- ciple of the digital calculator (counting on the fingers) with some devices, such as recorded information and so forth, for more complex combinations of processes. One is reminded that the four fundamental means of solving mathematical problems are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and di- vision. Along with these operations the machine can be built to respond to the basic fundamentals of logic where all com- plex propositional forms can be built out of the simple op- erations of disjunction ("or"), conjunction ("and"), nega- tion ("not"), and affirmation. Combining the two sets of arithmetical and logical processes makes possible the new synthesis, the science of cybernetics, which brings mathe- matics and logic into a simple discipline. As Leibniz and Russell envisioned, there is here a great power of proliferat- ing all manner of deductive inferences in the form of tau- tologies turned out by machines or by the brains of man. Workers in several fields of science and philosophy have found great possibilities in the analogies of cybernetics. In psychology and psychoanalysis the analogies are very help- ful in understanding both the circulating and permanent memory, anxiety neurosis, nervous breakdown, insanity, and so forth. In philosophy Pitts and McCulloch have used the analogy of the television scanning mechanism to explain how the human cortex recognizes forms as patterns of stimuli (an old problem in Gestalt psychology), and in their analysis of this function of the brain have come up with the profoundly suggestive idea of the intertranslatability of spa- tial and temporal patterns. It is F. S. C. Northrop's view of the implications of cyber- netics, however, that is the most interesting to me since his analysis offers help to the philosophy of purpose, particu- CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT I75 larly as it would apply to my assumption that one may read progress and purpose into the evolutionary record of rising levels of awareness and intelligence. The discovery that conscious voluntary actions and the brain processes through which they operate function by way of a negative feed-back mechanism (as in the picking up of the pencil) led Northrop to the conclusion that cybernetics has found a "mechanism for purpose." As he sees it, a teleological or goal-directed system (as in the human nervous system) can be a system mechanically behaving as though controlled by a negative feed-back over the goal. Thus, the time-worn argument be- tween the "mechanists" and the "teleologists" (determinism versus free choice) is, according to Northrop, a problem that is wrongly stated. He feels that both views are correct. It is all a matter of semantics as to which language one wishes to use in expressing the facts: the language of physics or the language of consciousness. Although quite different from the human brain, the elec- tronic computing machine with its permanent card and tape memory can perform many brain functions, and doubtless there are some common principles in these two kinds of op- erations. Mental acts are vital functions. A living brain en- gaged in thinking undergoes changes in electrical potentials that can be localized and accurately measured. "Brain waves" can be recorded by the oscillograph. Mental work is similar in its effects to that of any other part of the body. Mind is body specialized to a very high degree in the activities we call mental, just as muscle is body specialized to a very high degree for physical movement (see Chap. 9). Mental work is body work and the body tires when we think. Mind is not outside the body. It is "minding" body that does mental work. There is also, as has been repeatedly emphasized, the reasonable certainty that all the distinctively human mental functions, even conceptual processes, appear out of pre-ex- isting physiological functions in the course of personal and evolutionary development. 13 The Trends of Evolution At the risk of possible repetition some of the trends that one sees in the endlessly long and tremendously varied pro- cession of evolution v^ill be reviewed here. But lest we be led astray and lose sight of the underlying unity of nature let us again be reminded that there is but one over-all trend and direction to all phenomena— that of the eternal striving of cosmic energy toward greater conscious understanding. All else is subsidiary and incidental. Organization is primary. Organization is manifested in the mind-matter substance, seeking expression as a part of a spiritual universality. It is the "principle of order" leading always, wherever possible and to whatever degree possible, to the sentient beings who alone by their interdependent and cooperative effort can bring into the universe the highest hierarchies of conscious- ness. There are many trends in evolution; one sees them at every turn. They can provide intimate and interesting stud- ies in the detail of evolution, as may easily be verified by reading Julian Huxley's Evolution, the Moderii Synthesis and G. G. Simpson's The Meaning of Evolution. Here, however, the concern is only with the broad changes that I feel have given direction to the process through which mind in matter-energy has risen to higher imaginative levels in the mind and social hfe of man; and in subsequent chapters with those minor, but sometimes troublesome tendencies, like overpopulation, which may even threaten the future exist- 176 THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION 177 ence of the societies of man. Trends are nature's long con- tinued organizing drives. Those to be discussed in this chapter include the trend toward increasing size and complexity of organisms; the trend toward greater social life, a rising func- tional interdependence and consequent necessity for mutual aid; the great trend toward cephalization (formation of a head), and finally the dominance of mental life; and one that is most peculiar to man, the trend toward neuro-linguistic pat- terns of behavior, and the consequent necessity for the use of scientific methods of reasoning and the application of the principles of semantics. At first glance it would not seem that size is a major trend of great importance; and yet increase in size, after the mi- croscopic beginnings of life, was absolutely necessary to higher levels of mind. Increase in size came not to the cell as a single unit, but through the union of cells to form organ- ized groups with an eventual division of labor. The size of the cellular unit is limited by the need of a proportionately high ratio of absorbing surface, a ratio much too high to per- mit any but minute individuals at the cellular level. These minute beings (amoeba is one) do quite well adaptively— so well, in fact, that we cannot say that man is a higher animal merely on the basis of an increased complexity in structure. Amoeba carries on all of the activities of living (metabolism) without any fuss and without calling upon elaborate gadgets and organs to help out. Respiration, circulation, locomotion, ingestion, digestion, excretion, growth, and reproduction occur within a single unit, one one-thousandth of an inch in diameter. The question has often been raised in biology as to whether one is justified in assuming that the increase in size and complexity constituted progress? In the literal sense the answer is, no. Amoeba adapts as well as man and even has certain advantages in that it is not encumbered with com- plex organ-systems that can get out of order without too much provocation. Its simple reproductive procedure, the lyS evolution: the ages and tomorrow division of one directly into two, gives it a sort of relative immortality. A piece of the original ancestor is still being handed on; whereas in man, although the germinal plasma is carried forward, the body tissue that is the living, sentient being dies after a brief existence. Why, then, did nature organize at an early period, and doggedly follow through for all of geological time, a pro- gram of trying for larger and larger organisms of greater and greater complexity? For animals the answer must be that only through the organization of a nervous system, consisting of almost countless neurons that are nourished and maintained by efficient organ systems, could high-level mind find expression. Obviously, nothing comparable to the mind of man with its endless potentials of neuron association and integration is possible in the limited volume offered by the lower forms of life. From an anthropomorphic point of view volume is so critical that nature often fails in her pur- pose in a very discouraging manner. On innumerable occa- sions some adaptive change occurs that limits the mind pos- sibility. In insects (which are not without talent, as we have seen) the adoption of air-breathing tubes and an outside skeleton fixed size at such small proportions as forever to hold in check the development of top-level intellect. In birds the adoption of feathers and, through these modified reptilian scales, the mastery of the air limited over-all size and, especially the brain case. So critical is this limitation that the bird is relegated to an inferior mental level. And similar limitations occur for most of the species that make up the animal kingdom. In plants it was the adoption of the cellulose cell wall and food-getting by photosynthesis that held them in check— held there, in fact, by nature's drive to utilize to the fullest extent the chemistry of our world, to capture and to hold the energy of sunlight for the use and advancement of animal form. The primates and finally man were, and still are, in the best position to progress mentally. At least in their highest THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION 179 representative, man, they are free of the adaptive structures which restrict over-all size and the size of the brain case be- low critical limits. In man, size has at last been adjusted to what would appear to be a happy compromise. According to the fossil record, nature explored the possibility of gigan- tic forms even in man but, as elsewhere, dropped back to something less spectacular. The need for very rich blood to nourish man's comparatively high brain requires a nicely balanced, over-all physiology, and his present average size would seem to be about the best. He is now unlikely to evolve to any greater or smaller bulk. Eddington once pointed out that man is almost precisely half-way between an atom and a star in size. Our position in respect to size and to other factors like food preference is very good; but be- fore we indulge in our usual exaggeration and begin to con- sider ourselves altogether successful, let us be reminded that the check which may be working against us is our difficulty in adapting to a truly cooperative and peaceful society. In the trend toward greater complexity we see the mar- velous organizing powers of nature at work. Steadily and progressively, as we have tried to show in this thesis, nature has combined the basic "particles" of the substrate into pat- terns of increasing intricacy-not willy-nilly, but sparingly on a plan of general forms. Nature is very wasteful with in- dividuals but quite conservative with form, having evolved all the great variety of the world from one universal drive. In Chapter 5 the basic forms of the plant and animal king- doms were briefly described. They constitute, after all, a wonderfully designed series with each form leading natu- rally, and so logically and so economically, into those which succeeded. All forms tend toward greater and greater effi- ciency of organ and system function, the better to see and to hear and to feel and to know. Out of this organizing capacity which has carried the in- animate through levels from the subatomic to the atomic to the molecular to the animate gene, and thence from the eel- i8o evolution: the ages and tomorrow lular to the multicellular to the human, has arisen the next extension, social life. Here we have a trend of immense im- portance to the evolution of the mind-matter continuum. It should be apparent now that man is nothing without his so- ciety. Indeed, it was brought out in the chapters on the evo- lution of social organization that only through some sort of cooperative life is it possible for most animals to survive. There are no asocial animals. For high-level understanding there is an absolute requirement of cooperative life, namely, mutual aid. The trend is very clearly demonstrated from the lowest to the highest strata of life (see Chaps. 7 and 8). So- cial life wanders off into many side alleys— possibly all of them blind, even that of the society of man. Obviously, the fate of man's effort toward social life is important to us, and, although a brief review of this situation is most difficult, the task will be attempted here and there in the succeeding chapters. Preceding and going along with the evolution of societies is the trend toward an increasing intimacy of relationship between parents and offspring, a relationship which begins, according to Ashley Montagu, even at the unicellular level and culminates in the very long and highly instructive post- natal life of man. Through this relationship the organism gets its immediate urge toward mutual aid, the beginning of an ethics in the animal kingdom. As was noted in Chapter 6, a new kind of evolution, the transmission of acquired social characters, enters through the parent-offspring relationship in man. This and other factors which may affect man's so- cieties will come up again in Chapter 16, "Evolution and Ethics." The great trend toward an increasing dominance of men- tal life has been carefully reviewed in Chapters 9 to 12. The two phases of this trend, instinct and intelligence, reach their highest levels in the insects and man, where the differ- ences in behavior to which the two lead are very strikingly represented. As was brought out in the review, no animal THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION l8l responds purely through instinct or intelligence; there is al- ways some mixture of the two, although the mixture is dis- proportionate. Instances of the undesirable rigidity of some instincts were pointed out. Likewise, we saw that psycholo- gists can even find objections to the learned (or intelligent) behavior of the human. Among the objections is the neces- sity of long periods of teaching for each individual in the population, an inefficient procedure which contrasts with the automatic and untutored responses of the instinctive ani- mal. This is not an idle objection, as all who teach should know. There is a great and frequently poorly remunerated burden placed on the shoulders of many individuals whose lives are dedicated to the task of human learning, and this in addition to the almost endless teaching which is carried on inside and outside the family. Even if the methodology all along the line were perfect, the years of man are short, and the knowledge to be absorbed has accumulated through the ages to incredibly vast proportions. In a lifetime, man can- not hope to cover completely even one field of human learn- ing. We all know that the methodology of education is not perfect: it does not always teach tested knowledge; and often, even in the cases where such knowledge is available, the teaching is nullified by strong emotional blocks set up by previous indoctrination in myth and dogma. The human child is born to any of hundreds of cultural differences in religion, custom, and language. Myths and dogma in the guise of revealed "truths" are often given to him. He is not taught to examine and weigh carefully all knowledge: to inspect the background of the customs of his people, to strive for a clear and concise meaning in the use of the sym- bols of his language, and to avoid superstition. He is simply indoctrinated, and the indoctrination is relatively bad the world over. Who can truly see what all this engenders? There are some, like L. L. Whyte, who see religion failing of its lofty goal of the brotherhood of man, in no way lessening war or i82 evolution: the ages and tomorrow hatred, splitting man's personality by outmoded concepts, and, finally, through insistence on truth by authority, de- stroying integrity of thought in men who lack integrity of person. Surely, man must learn to be eternally vigilant in the use and meaning of the word "truth." He must not im- pose on others through fear or favor a blind acceptance of untested beliefs and concepts. Where a principle cannot be tested, man is in nowise hurt if he withholds judgment. There is a unique and powerful stimulus to the mind in the honest search for answers to the great mysteries of the uni- verse. There is only dualistic confusion in surrender to the assumption that the mystery is above and beyond the method of enquiry. All of nature is a spiritual universality. There is no part that can be isolated from any other part, and all is in eternal transformation. The method of science has already revealed much of this universality, and science can and will continue to reveal more and more. If one claims that there is a duality here, a spiritual realm and a material one, the claim is with- out any foundation in factual evidence, as I have earnestly tried to show in the book's thesis. It would appear that theo- logians are wrong in thinking that a church could not exist if it gives up the appeal to faith in despite of reason. The theologians can, as many actually do, accept a belief in a spiritual universality, a principle inherent in all nature, not individualistic but pantheistic: a process striving for con- scious expression, a process of which they are a part. Thus they would avoid the confusion they create in most of the "faithful" when they ask for belief in the divine direction of human affairs and in the course of an individual's life. They would free themselves from the unreasonable and fantastic superstitions of their theological edifice. They would avoid for all time their conflict with reason as di- rected by honest and untiring enquiry and would them- selves become a part of an evolution of understanding as it arises out of factual objective knowledge, obtained through THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION 183 a Study of all nature, aided and abetted by knowledge gained through individual, subjective experience. They, too, could obtain truth by the only means by w^hich it may be obtained— the discipline of the methods of science. Rei- ser's dream of a "Supreme Imagination (impersonal and non- anthropomorphic)" which will "weld into one world-view the Pantheism of the Stoics, Bruno and Spinoza" is not out- side the realm of possibility. Certainly, man cannot afford to be forever confused by a multiplicity of gods and by a multiplicity of conflicting "truths." The great value of the church to mankind lies in its help toward a "way of life," in so far as this way is in keeping with the basic teachings of Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and the innate capacities for mutual aid that are a part of man's nature. We all know that the teachings of humanists, early and late, have sometimes been all but smothered under the theological edifice and ritual of the churches. In spite of their shortcomings, however, the churches have been of help in bringing to conscious level the innate nature of man, who, like all the rest of the ani- mal world, is strongly inclined toward the companionship of his fellows. That innate capacity is there to be brought out, and religion as a way of life is one of the agencies that serves to encourage and augment the inclination. No threat of Hell or promise of Heaven is necessary. The basic ethic of mutual aid is as much a part of man and all other animals as is their desire to eat and to reproduce. To be sure, in man mutual aid is not as highly developed as might be desired. It is, then, the role of religion and science alike to do all in their power to improve upon the innate capacity. Their power to improve will be increased only through a sincere facing-up to factual nature so as to know man through na- ture and not through some myth and through finding the ways and means to guide the early formative years of each individual's life into the channels of peace and understand- ing. 184 evolution: the ages and tomorrow We have said that the human child is born into any of hundreds of cultural differences and is not taught to ques- tion the beliefs of the religions of his culture, nor how to strive for a clear and concise meaning in the use of the sym- bols of his language. It is, according to the semanticists, "false-to-fact language habits" more than any other one fac- tor that retards and makes difficult the development of bet- ter human societies. These habits include verbal distortions, falsifications, improper evaluation, improper definition, and a willful orientation toward rumor, myth, and fiction in- stead of turning to the facts and abiding by them. The child is greatly influenced by the neuro-linguistic, neuro-seman- tic environment into which it is born, and it is the role of general semantics as envisioned by Alfred Korzybski to build up "sanity in education," and hence in human living. Semantics is a science of fundamental importance to man, and the neuro-linguistic factors of human behavior are be- coming of more and more interest to the psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the cultural anthropologist. In these disci- plines human experience is seen as selecting only certain stimuli out of an infinity of environmental stimuli and then organizing the experiences in behavior patterns. General se- mantics holds that the behavior patterns, and hence the se- lecting processes, are definitely related to linguistic habits and the structure of language. In Chapter 6 it was seen that in man's culture a new kind of evolution is operating, the transmission of acquired social characters. Man is able to transmit experience by means of language, spoken and writ- ten; and, because of this, as Korzybski once said, man is a "time binder." He interacts with his ancestors and descend- ants over long periods of time. The selection that will pre- vail socially through the transmission of acquired social characters could, provided man through language can trans- mit "true-to-fact orientations," bring about a greater and greater control and mastery over himself and his environ- ment. The converse is equally true: if man transmits "false- THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION 185 to-fact orientations," he is enslaved by his own neuro-lin- guistic reactions and cannot progress. Past cultures have always been a mixture of true-to-fact and false-to-fact orientations. Usually a culture has enjoyed some efficient techniques, even if it was only the hunting, fishing, and canoe-building technique of a savage people; but there has always been a body of superstition, false-to- fact orientations, erroneous notions about hygiene and dis- ease as related to gods and devils and the like, that has en- dangered the culture during epidemics and other periods of environmental adversity. In modern civilizations there is a considerable true-to-fact orientation in science, technology, and hygiene; the social and religious organization is still badly hampered by false-to-fact orientations, some of which show little promise at present that they will improve in the near future. And in the meantime we face the grave danger that a sick and superstitious orientation may use the tech- nology of the atom to destroy us. It was this situation in our societies that led Korzybski to the creation of his kind of semantics. Being himself an en- gineer, he was impressed with the great difference in lan- guage behavior between scientists and engineers at work at one extreme and the language behavior of people with strong superstitions, believers in demagogues, and psychot- ics at the other extreme. The behavior of the scientist at work is very effective and leads to explanations of world phenomena and to some control over specific situations. The language used in science is in harmony with true-to-fact orientations and to what Korzybski terms the non-Aristo- telian principles of general semantics. Particularly in recent years, scientists at work are acutely aware of the limita- tions of language, and are conscious of the need for vigi- lance and clarification, especially in the use of terms applied to different sciences. They are always testing and retesting, operationally, their judgments in an effort to in- crease meaningfulness and predictive value. They are be- i86 evolution: the ages and tomorrow coming increasingly aware of the different orders of ab- straction they use. On the other hand, semantic principles are violated by the behavior of rigid believers of supersti- tious dogma, of demagogues, and the like. Here the word is confused with the thing, orders of abstraction are mixed and get out of control, absolute and unalterable meanings are assigned to words, and so forth. The tribal shaman and the modem demagogue gain a hold over people because the nonsemantic man reacts to words as though they were facts— word magic, constantly repeated statements channel- izing reactions of people into immediate, uncritical, and au- tomatic responses. Korzybski saw in these unthinking re- actions many evils, from advertising techniques at verbal levels far above the quality of product through the persist- ent acquiescence of groups to the inevitability of war. In his Science a?id Sa?iity Korzybski set himself the task of developing means of retraining the human nervous sys- tem toward better neuro-linguistic habits and toward greater sanity. He began the organization of a new "empirical sci- ence" of man which is being continued by many of his stu- dents and followers. A day is now dawning when a true science of man, with all the promise that that may mean, will be established. Independent of the Korzybski contri- bution is the new biological mathematics of Nicolas Rashev- sky and the theory of cybernetics of Norbert Wiener. These show a definite direction that future science may take. They need not be reviewed here, but later we shall look into the arguments still put forth in some quarters, al- though rather weakly now, that one cannot develop a true science of man. Obviously, a part of our language difficulties would be eliminated if we were in possession of, and eventually adopted everywhere, a universal language. The incredible multipHcity of tongues on this earth is one of the unfortu- nate results of our early evolutionary isolation. Many would hope that the future will bring to us a universal tongue, at THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION 187 first adopted as an auxiliary to our native speech, and finally as the only world language. Perhaps it was Descartes in 1629 who first advocated this reform. He saw the need of creating an artificial, universal language to overcome the utterly illogical difficulties of the many world tongues. He did not feel, and we are still in agreement, that any one tongue would ever become universal, or that it would be desirable in view of the faults of all languages. In the same century (1661) the first attempt to set up artificially such a system was published by George Dalgamo, a Scotsman. His was an ingenious contribution to say the least, what with its subdivisions of all knowledge into 17 categories, all represented by a consonant and the further representation of subsections and sub-subsections by vowels and conso- nants alternating. Thus, every word in the language, so de- signed as to be pronounceable, denoted an object or an idea by a succession of letters calling to mind the pre-arranged sections and subsections of all knowledge. To a certain primitive extent, Dalgarno's idea and those of Descartes are the beginning of the modern theory of information and have been of use in developing modem devices and codes of communication. Since the seventeenth century some 300 international or universal languages have been proposed; and some, such as Ido, Occidental, and Esperanto have built up a considerable literature. However none has been adopted as an interna- tional tool for communication. A new one is now making its appearance, one that is rooted in many world languages. It has been given the name Interlingua and is sponsored by a scientific and educational organization, the International Auxiliary Language Association, a group which includes the Bell Telephone Co., The New York Thnes, Columbia University, the Institute of International Education, Radio Corporation of America, and many famous scientists and educators. Interlingua is not an overnight creation. The re- i88 evolution: the ages and tomorrow search for it began about 1924 and is the work of a large group of expert linguists, scientists, educators, and career diplomats. It is said to be very practical and extraordinarily- easy to learn. Troublesome grammar has been eliminated; for instance there is only one verb form in each tense, and nouns, adjectives, and verbs do not have to agree as they do in some complex languages. To an American it looks some- thing like the romance languages, Spanish or French or Ital- ian, but the gist of it can be partly understood by a begin- ner, even one who has had no previous foreign language experience. It is already in use in a few international busi- ness offices and is receiving such encouragement that there is a real hope it will "catch on" sufficiently to be widely adopted. 14 The Threat of Overpopulation The tendency of all organisms to reproduce many more young than are actually needed to replace the parents is a basic defense against the certainty that most of the off- spring will be destroyed long before they reach adult life. Nature is striving in each species to compensate for such losses as there may be, and since apparently she cannot es- timate in advance the degree of these losses, she sets the re- production drive at as high a level as possible. No organism, not even man, is exempt from this basic urge of species sur- vival. Nature has never found a way to avoid the turmoil, the struggle, and dreadful death that results from the over- pressure on the population. Ruthlessly the young are crowded out, devoured by other organisms, or destroyed by the accident of intolerable environmental conditions. Man alone of all organisms is in a position where he finds it desirable and even necessary to search out a way to con- trol this tendency and to set the birth rate, as nature has never been able to do, at such levels as will maintain a pop- ulation at just the right numbers of individuals to utilize and enjoy the world without overwhelming want and waste. In nature birth rates vary with the vulnerability of the organism, being astronomically high in animals like the oys- ter where there is a very great vulnerabihty. The female 189 190 evolution: the ages and tomorrow oyster can and does produce twenty or more million eggs in a single season. One pair can procreate, according to Lull, such numbers of offspring that, if they all survived and mul- tiplied through five generations, their shells would heap up to eight times the size of the earth! L. L. Woodruff once kept an experimental culture of Farmneckim, the slipper an- imalcule, going for many years. In the first five years and starting with one individual (these microscopic animals be- ing able to reproduce by simple fission three times in 48 hours), there was potentially brought forth a mass of proto- plasm equal to ten thousand times the volume of the earth. In only a few more years, it has been estimated, the mass of individuals, if all had survived to reproduce, would have ex- ceeded the size of the known universe and would have been reproductively exploding into outer space at the speed of light. Even the elephant which procreates only 4 or 5 young per pair in 50 years of reproductive life could, beginning with a single pair and if all offspring survived to reproduce, cover the plains of Africa with millions of individuals in a few hundred years. Of course all the young do not survive to reproduce. In fact, in a more or less stable habitat, where nature has had a chance to strike a balance between the many organisms involved, the total number of living adults remains more or less constant. And this is so in spite of the incredible pow- ers of tgg production. In some fish, for instance, a single pair may produce and fertilize 28,000,000 eggs of which only two will ever become adults, a chance of survival of one in fourteen million. Like the oyster, the fish is highly vulnerable— the eggs are eaten, the young are eaten, multi- tudes are destroyed by bacteria and fungi, the whole habi- tat boils up against them. Sometimes an organism is introduced by man or some other agency into a habitat where the death check against it is partially removed, and in these cases we often see a spectacular rise in numbers of individuals in a short time. THE THREAT OF OVERPOPULATION 191 Many of our pests, like the corn borer and the cotton wee- vil and so on, are cases in point. Nature eventually strikes a new balance and keeps the newcomer in proper check, but it often takes a long time. The English sparrow was in- troduced into the United States toward the middle of the last century and has already saturated the continent. Na- ture has probably not yet worked out a proper check against this bird. The thing to emphasize here is that the check against overreproduction is death in one form or another; and star- vation, w^here sheer numbers pack the habitat to "standing room only," is nature's last lethal gesture. Such situations do arise momentarily whenever the ordinary death check is even slightly withheld, the reproductive drive being ever ready to explode offspring into the habitat. Man is only now beginning to realize, as v/e hope to show in this chapter, that even he is not exempted from the will of nature to strike a balance between births and deaths. Long ago Darwin was deeply impressed by this tendency of all organisms to reproduce in such wild excess of mere replacement. His knowledge of field biology was intimate. He could literally feel the explosive pressure of jungle growth, and out of this feeling came eventually his theory of natural selection. He was particularly affected by the overpopulation thesis of Thomas Malthus, whose dire pre- dictions of human disaster will be revealed later in this chapter. Darwin thought that with "variation," which he took to be axiomatic in living organisms, and the tendency of "overreproduction," which brings on a "struggle for existence," there would be a "survival of the fittest." Nature, he thought, adapted organisms to their habitats through this mechanism by "natural selection." Biologists still feel that much of the Darwinian point of view is valid when supplemented by our modern genetic knowledge and by statistical studies of populations. Over- population has been a factor in the evolution of all organ- 192 evolution: the ages and tomorrow isms, but that does not mean that man need submit to this bUnd process now that he has an awareness of it. Surely, we are justified in the feehng that the evolution of intelligence is for the use of the organism finally possessing it, just as is any other adaptive trait. Man's societies were long ago involved in overpopulation when his early civilizations were finally established, since, by the more efficient economy, they encouraged an in- creased birth rate at the same time that the death rate was decreased as peace and order emerged out of chaos. Empires arose, humans multiplied, territories became too crowded, rulers and peoples of the favored class were too stupidly selfish and extravagant, and the struggle was renewed and renewed again. To escape overpopulation and the conse- quent economic impasse, peoples migrated, forming new colonies until over the whole earth there was hardly a spot without its colony. The multiplication of man was intensi- fied, and the man-to-man struggle was intensified, and his problems became more and more complex, and the end is not yet in sight. Now, as overpopulation threatens him as never before, man has nowhere to run; he must face it. Just prior to the advent of civilization there were prob- ably not more than 15,000,000 humans in the world; four thousand years later at the time of Christ there were possibly 150,000,000; by the year a.d. 1000 about 350,000,000; and now less than 50 years short of a.d. 2000 there are near 2,500,000,000 people in the world. At the present moment the rate is increasing so that this evening there are 70,000 more people in the world than there were yesterday eve- ning, some 25,000,000 or more every year. Simple arithmetic wdll show that at this rate there will be 5,500,000,000 people in the world one hundred years from now; 14,000,000,000 two hundred years from now; and the staggering total of over 44,000,060,000 in three hundred years.* Obviously, * The figures of future numbers of human individuals used in this chapter are from population estimates of various authorities as of about THE THREAT OF OVERPOPULATION 193 long before such masses are milling over the face of the earth nature will have the "standing room only" sign out, and will be exercising her most lethal weapons. There are vari- ous ways in which man, ancient and modern, has reacted to the problem of overpopulation. He has run away from it by migrating; he has gone to war to seize the lands of others; and he has reorganized his economy by increasing agricul- tural and manufacturing production. But he has never gotten at the root of the problem by reducing his own re- productive activity. Toynbee tells how the ancient Greeks responded to the ordeal of crowdingr durinor the centuries between 700 and 300 B.C. At the opening of this period Greece depended almost entirely on what she could raise at home in a varied agricultural production. As the crisis of overpopulation came upon the Hellenic peoples they reacted quite differ- ently. Corinth and Chalcis relieved the pressure of surplus num- bers by colonization. They claimed and developed new lands overseas in Sicily and Southern Italy and elsewhere and were able for a time to extend their geographical area and augment their agricultural production without chang- ing their social character. Other Hellenic states, Sparta, for instance, responded to overpopulation by attacking their neighbors. The history of the Spartans after 725 B.C. is a long ordeal of war for more than a century with the Messenians whom they finally conquered and completely enslaved, only to be themselves drawn into an unhappy period in which their social insti- tutions became rigidly, even fatally, adapted to their para- sitic dependence on the conquered peoples. The individual life of the Spartan male, from the cradle to the grave, was completely taken over by the state in its effort to exploit 1952. As this book goes to press practically all population figures for the future are being revised upward due to a combination of rising birth rates and increasing use of hygiene. 194 evolution: the ages and tomorrow and keep under control the enslaved Messenians. The whole Spartan society was "bound in misery" and was never again able to relax. The arts declined, and the life of the individual became a bleak span of long military training and dull existence in barracks. They led the "Spartan life." War and seizing the land and person of a neighbor was not in this case a good solution to the problem of overpopulation; and it is still doubtful if war ever has been a solution, in spite of the many times that conquest has been the temporary "way out" taken by an expanding people. When the population problem became acute, the states- men of Athens responded much more intelligently and averted a social revolution by gradually carrying through an economic and political revolution. Athens specialized her agricultural production and created new manufactured products for both domestic and export trade. The political institutions were remodeled to fit this situation in order to give the new productive classes a share in the economy and the government. This intensification of activity and relative efficiency of food production staved off the catas- trophe of starvation and incidently opened up a new avenue of advance for the Hellenic peoples. Arts and philosophy flourished in Athens. Of these three ways of responding to the problem of population the first, colonization, has hitherto been the nor- mal and most common one. Man simply ran away from the crowded areas; and at last in less than 6,000 years he has peopled nearly all possible places on the earth to near satura- tion. He has practically nowhere to run to now. The second method, war and conquest, is still with us but is now less likely than ever to produce a temporary solution. The third, the organization of better and more thorough food and manufacturing production, is still the hope of some who are aware of the problem and who do not want to use a fourth method, which is simply to reduce man's reproduction to levels below the overpopulation point. Populations, how- THE THREAT OF OVERPOPULATION I95 ever, are rising— exploding is the better w^ord— and the third method will eventually fail through the law of diminishing returns. Populations have already, or will soon, pass the pos- sible limits of production and technology. Then, say most of those who are aware of the problem, the fourth method, namely, birth control, must be applied or nature herself will marshal her lethal weapons against us. It was Thomas Alalthus at the opening of the nineteenth century who forcefully called attention to the danger of a world-wide population increase. He pointed out that the problem was to provide for those who were in want and that as populations increased, it became more and more dif- ficult, even impossible, for all to receive an adequate diet. He thought that man's growth in numbers was largely dependent on the supply of food, and we confirm this to a certain extent even in our day. It is true that sometimes devastating epidemics cut heavily into a population, but often these killers are more or less directly connected with food scarcity which has lowered the population's resistance to disease. For the great hordes of people in China and India one of the factors determining the death rate is the amount of food. In his day Malthus had access to only limited and inaccurate data on the problem; yet, nevertheless, he gave us the fundamentally correct view of man and his food sup- ply—a view which sets a limit to the possible world popula- tion. Malthus could not foresee the great advances in science and knowledge which were to make possible enormously greater food supplies than he could have imagined. But he did foresee that the greater the quantity of food available, the greater will be the increase of individuals in the popula- tion. He was well aware of a fact that has been verified many times since his day; namely, that well-fed humans, like any other animal, are more healthy, more resistant to disease, and more liable to reproduce. In a well-fed popula- tion the death rate falls and the birth rate rises. Here is the 196 evolution: the ages and tomorrow essential aspect of the whole population problem, and it is almost criminal to insist that science can go on forever find- ing new foods and new ways of production, always well in advance of any likely totals to which man may push his populations. Even without the other effects of science, such as lowered death rates through medicine and hygiene, the reproductive potential in man, like that of all organisms, is explosively great and can and will, if permitted, produce any astronomical numbers of individuals that one can im- agine. Medicine and hygiene remove the positive check of death to such a degree that the explosion often starts im- mediately, as will appear shortly in a brief review of the recent history of Puerto Rico and Japan. Malthus stated the basic problem one hundred and fifty years ago, and one might reasonably suppose that by now there would be a concerted effort to find ways and means of solving it. Such, however, is not the case. On the contrary there is, as students of population like R. C. Cook point out, a problem of getting even a minority in science and sociol- ogy and government to recognize that there is a problem. In America, where there is much talk of farm surpluses, it is particularly difficult to get a hearing. The fact that two- thirds of the 2,500,000,000 people in the world are insuffi- ciently nourished does not seem to register strongly with individuals who have never known starvation and have never seen it, and above all with individuals who live on one of the world's richest and least crowded continents. Euro- peans since World War II have felt somewhat the pinch of hunger, and many of their leaders are more willing now than formerly to lend an ear to the counsels of the popula- tion expert. Even in India and China, where the problem is acute and due in part to religious pressures toward large families, it has been only recently that any leaders have given the least consideration to the thought of population control. The problem is not talked of at all in Russia; and in THE THREAT OF OVERPOPULATION 197 most parts of the world, due to religious and social tradition, the problem does not even exist. And yet all the while we talk of it or remain indifferent, the global disaster foreseen so long ago by Malthus is at hand. R. C. Cook, in his book Hmnaji Fertility, The Mod- ern Dilemma, reviews the present situation and finds little or no reassurance in the claims of technologists who would feed the world with synthetic additions to an increased basic agriculture. Even if such synthetic substitutes for our beef- steaks and pies were now available in the laboratory (and of course they are not), the "mouths to consume" not only the present natural agricultural production but also any foreseeable additions through synthetics already exist. By most conservative estimates the 2,500,000,000 people of our day will be 4,600,000,000 in 2020; 9,200,000,000 in 2090; and 18,400,000,000 in 2160; and although it is conceivable that technology may solve the problem temporarily, it will eventually be smothered and defeated by the sheer weight of peoples. Students of the world situation point out that all combined sources of food at present are inadequate to meet the demands of the nearly 2,000,000,000 hungry, or seriously malnourished, or starving peoples. Cook makes it clear that a population that is outstripping its food supply brings on many evils. iVIarginal lands are forced into production at a costly loss of money and en- ergy; and more and more humans must devote their hungry lives to the food problem. The standard of living goes down to remain at subsistence levels in most of the areas of the world and at declining levels even in the wealthiest regions. Good lands are overexploited and erosion becomes an in- creasing problem, a problem that is even now world-wide. Under the pressure of excessive population, where scarcity of food and raw materials is certain to be felt, war is in- evitable. Liberal forms of government are not possible when huge masses of people are milling about in want. 198 evolution: the ages and tomorrow The literature on human populations shows the hopeless dilemma in which people find themselves under excessive crowding in such modem examples as India and China, and striking instances on a smaller scale as Puerto Rico and Japan. Puerto Rico, an island slightly larger than Long Is- land, became a United States possession at the close of the Spanish-American War. This onetime tropical paradise ly- ing in the beautiful Caribbean Sea had long been exploited ruthlessly by its Spanish conquerors. A mixed population of descendants of negro slaves and Spanish whites had, at the time of our war with Spain, become stabilized at about 1,000,000 people. Epidemics and acute food scarcity killed most of the individuals in the population long before middle age; in fact, the death rate was appalling, but it was more or less evenly offset by a very high birth rate. Puerto Rico is mountainous and less than half of its land is arable. At the time the United States took charge the natives were prac- ticing a destructive Latin-American agriculture, which is to burn out a patch of jungle, get quick crops, and in a matter of a year or two let the patch go back to jungle. Increases in the population forced more frequent burnings until now the magnificent forests of the island are gone and the land has steadily deteriorated. At the end of the Span- ish-American War the island was a shambles. Sanitation was nonexistent, few schools were operating, and the population was half-starved and had been so for years. The United States introduced sanitation, hygiene, and medicine. The economy was reorganized around sugar cane as the principal crop, and this was given practically an un- limited tariff -free export market in the United States. Fruit and rice and the usual garden vegetables, which are consumed on the island, constitute the rest of the agriculture. The island is still not industrialized to any real extent, and in the lim- ited agricultural economy there is an income distribution to about three-fourths of the Puerto Ricans of only $750 a THE THREAT OF OVERPOPULATION 199 year. The Puerto Rican depends heavily on imported foods from the United States, but the great majority of the fam- ilies do not have sufficient purchasing power to satisfy their hunger. It should have been apparent from the beginning in 1898 that, even with the stepped-up food production, there would be barely enough for all the hungry mouths. In- creased production and technology were somehow vaguely counted on to work out a solution. What actually happened was that all the modern hygiene and epidemic controls, with their great power to hold back the Malthusian death check, released still more of the fertility potential, and the popula- tion began to expand explosively. The little man of Puerto Rico might be filthy, ill, and hungry in his stinking slums, the "Little Mire" and the in- famous "La Perla," but he was never too feeble to beget himself. In 25 years the population increased to a million and a half and in 1948, just 50 years after the beginning of American guardianship, the population reached 2,200,000 —a density on this tropical isle of 645 people to the square mile. Now there is only one-third of an acre of overused arable land for each Puerto Rican. Cook tells us that at the present rate of increase the island's population will reach 4,000,000 by 1970 and there will then be 1,300 people for every square mile and only one-sixth of an acre of arable land per person. He points out that there is no w^ay now known to science or economics by means of which such a crowded mass of people in a situation like that of Puerto Rico could achieve the good life. Soon, and more severely later, starvation and disease will cut the numbers down. The magic of industrialization, now under way to a limited ex- tent, cannot be expected to stay the fate of these peoples, some observers feel. Birth control would seem to be the only hope. Recently through the setting up of clinics an attempt is being made to introduce such control, but it is not possible as yet to judge how effective it may prove to be. 200 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW In the middle of the nineteenth century the population of Japan was stabilized at about 25,000,000. The death rate was high and, apparently, was helped along in equalizing the high birth rate by widespread infanticide. By 1940 the population was about 69,000,000; and only by a very effi- cient and rapid industrialization was life possible on these relatively small islands. Japanese leaders took the "conquest of neighboring lands" as the way to alleviate the pressure. Even during World War II with all the attendant losses from atom bombs and incendiary bombs and men lost on the field of battle, the population rose by about 5,000,000. In the years between 1946 and 1949 under the control of the American Army another 6,000,000 were added, and in 1951 the population was about 82,000,000. The excess of births over deaths is now more than 1,500,000 a year and poverty is very widespread. There is almost universal mal- nutrition, and that in spite of a bridge of food ships from the United States. The once thriving silk industry of Japan has been destroyed by the invention of nylon and other syn- thetics. Most observers who have examined this situation find in it a hopeless outlook. A striking example of how hygiene can lower the death rate is furnished by the history of the application of Ameri- can hygiene in Japan. The population was treated to mass vaccination against smallpox; it was immunized against ty- phoid, given B.C.G. treatment against tuberculosis, sprayed with DDT, and so on. The death rate fell from a former high of 29 per thousand to 11.4 per thousand in 1948. In this same year the birth rate was the incredible figure of 34.8 per thousand. As an instance of the efficacy of the American methods there had been 17,800 cases of smallpox in 1946 in Japan; in 1948 there were only 29 cases. The size of a population is controlled solely by the num- ber of births and deaths. Apparently it did not occur to any- one responsible for the policies of the army of occupation that, if the death check were lowered, something should be THE THREAT OF OVERPOPULATION 20I done about births, otherwise the already dangerously large population would rise to utterly impossible levels. The Jap- anese themselves have made some gestures which inckide legalized contraceptives, sterilization, and even abortion— the last for "medical, economic and eugenic reasons." Up- wards of 125,000 abortions were legally approved in the first year of the new law; newspapers in Japan state that the actual figure is near 300,000. Still the population is increas- ing, but the realization of coming disaster is clear in the minds of many Japanese, particularly the doctors who, not liking abortion as a control, are making a real effort to bring the birth rate down by contraceptive methods. Many other instances of the dangerous overgrowth in our populations could be cited— India, China, Egypt, Italy, and even the United States, which is just entering a period of critical population expansion with some undesirable dif- ferential aspects which will be mentioned in the next chap- ter. The 1950 census for the United States recorded some 150,000,000 people, an increase over the 1940 census of nearly 20,000,000. There was a rising birth rate and a falling death rate all through the 1940's, a trend which most au- thorities believe will not be continued as sharply in the future. However, conservative estimates predict some 185,- 000,000 or more for 1970 and possibly 250,000,000 for the year 2000. If the present rate of births over deaths were to continue the population would be more than 300,000,000 by the year 2000. What this increase will do to the Ameri- can economy is not hard to guess. We, too, are to learn by experience what the crowding of Europe and Asia means in lowered standards of living and widespread misery unless some miracle of management saves us. Can it be seriously contended that American institutions will survive unaltered the pressure of definite overpopulation? Only in a few places in the world has a population been relatively and happily stabilized at a level that fits the eco- nomic situation. Sweden is probably the best example. The 202 evolution: the ages and tomorrow Swedish people have been given some education in this matter by their parhament, particularly some years ago when the birth rate was falling. In Sweden there is no il- literacy and very little poverty, which, some authorities feel, are the arch enemies of a population where hygiene is practiced. According to these observers the birth rate will fall in an intelligent, economically sound population, even though the highest-level medicine and hygiene are cutting down the death rate. Something like this happened in Swe- den, and it was this that was brought to the attention of the Swedish people some years ago by a special "baby parlia- ment." The people responded in just about the right way and the births and deaths have been balanced. Contrast this with the situation in Puerto Rico where the peon, living in abysmal poverty, wanders about begetting himself, and a well-meaning but almost equally ignorant paternalism makes every effort to save the product of his sexual activity, only to condemn it to misery, the least of which is a lifelong malnutrition. The solution is obviously indicated, and it would seem to be the most cruel sort of bigotry and superstition that would prefer poverty and famine and disease to birth control. So far in this brief review of the tendency toward over- population we have not mentioned one of its most danger- ous aspects, that of differential birth. Here, it would seem, even in our more favorably situated populations, is a hidden menace— a difference in birth ratios which tends to reduce the over-all average of intelligence in the society. This possible reversal of an age-long evolutionary trend toward higher mentality in the human deserves careful considera- tion in the next chapter. 15 Danger of Declining Intelligence At the human plane in the evolution of intelligence nature exhibits a very uneven product. So great are the differences in mental level between the lowest and the highest individ- uals in our population, and so large are the numbers of in- dividuals at low or middle levels that some students of our civilization consider this a most menacing situation, espe- cially in those societies where a differential birth rate seems to be working against the upper mental groups. The dif- ferential birth rate referred to is the possibility of an exces- sive reproduction at lower levels of intelligence and a failure of the peoples of the highest intelligence to reproduce even at group replacement rates, to the extent that in future gen- erations the general average of intelligence might be danger- ously lowered. Along with overpopulation, adverse differ- ential reproduction could be a fatal trend in man's future evolution, a trend leading him eventually into an intellectual and social blind alley. It appears from the evidence now available that among the peoples of the world the upper heritage of intelligence, the heritage of gifted individuals so necessary to the scien- tific and technological structure of our civilization, is be- coming thinner and thinner. How few the individuals of high intellect can become in proportion to the population as a whole and still permit advances in, or even hold, the 203 204 evolution: the ages and tomorrow present level of civilization is problematic. There are many- pessimists, including Ortega y Gasset, who see in this situa- tion the greatest dangers for the future of our civilization. Science, Ortega points out, succeeded in establishing itself completely only in modern times and only in Europe and America. Seers, priests, and warriors we have had with us always, but the experimental scientist is a product only of our age. To have experimental scientists calls for a rather unique and exceptional combination of circumstances, not the least of which are the highest levels of intelligence and freedom from want and the pressures of demagogues and dogma. Here again is an obstacle in the path of evolutionary progress. Science in increasing degree and quality is abso- lutely necessary to ultimate understanding. The way up- ward does not lead through theology, nor even through philosophy, for the philosopher must depend on science for the basic tightness of his insight. There is no revelation, nor does the brain secrete thought as philosophers once beheved. The differences in the innate capacity to learn, which have so great a bearing on our future, are hereditary. A large genetic component, a pattern of genes which is inherited from both parents, controls the complex organ and neuro- logical structure that establishes the potential for intelligence in the individual. Whether that potential is fully realized or not, particularly if it is of a high level, depends on environ- mental factors such as accidents to the body structure, dis- ease, malnutrition, lack of education, unfavorable eco- nomic and social surroundings, and so forth. Environment can veto but not determine intelligence. Low-level intellect cannot be made up for by high-level environment. High- level intellect can, on the other hand, be prevented by an adverse environment from reaching the potential set by the genes. Einstein needed the optimum in family surroundings, educational opportunities, and cultural friendships, which it DANGER OF DECLINING INTELLIGENCE 205 was his good fortune to have, in order that his extraordinary genius could find expression. If Einstein had been born in one of the world's slums, with all the restraints such low- level environments involve, science and philosophy would not now be the richer for his three theories, even though we grant that he would have risen well above the level of his surroundings. Again, there is a restricting complex in the evolution of high-level mentality. The fortunes of birth and later envi- ronmental stimuli become more and more critical, the higher the intellectual potential. Thus far in man's societies the indi- vidual is very inadequately protected against the whims of chance. We still do not have in most parts of the world any organized way to search out and offer optimum cultural and educational opportunities to our potential geniuses and superior talents; and even where such a search is attempted, it consists of little more than a gesture. Nor do we have in most parts of the world any real plan for eliminating the unfavorable economic and social locales that suppress high- level intellect. Slum clearance without the elimination of the economic and social conditions which produce them, and above all without the control of excessive birth rates, is not a solution. The assumption that "genius will out" in spite of all re- straints and difficulties is dangerous nonsense, especially now that population sizes are rising, making it more prob- able than ever that high-level individuals will be smothered by the sheer weight of the humanity around them. Add to this the possibility that differential ratios may even be work- ing against the birth of a genius, and we begin to realize how exceedingly difficult will be the future problems of civilization. Consider this vivid statement of the situation by Cook: Since deficiencies in environment can veto the expression of genetic potentials, it follows that improvements in the environment may accentuate rather than suppress inborn differences. In the 2o6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow sterile environment of the rural-or urban-Tobacco Road, the Newton and the half-wit may seem like brothers. But in the en- vironment which affords adequate 'royal jelly,' the Newton uses a falling apple to discover the force that holds the planets in their courses. To the half-wit, an apple can be no more than a tasty morsel, and the stars are holes in the sky, with never a link between them.* Modern methods of measuring intelligence began with the French psychologist Alfred Binet and his concept of "mental age." Modification and improvements of the Binet test and the establishment of the intelligence quotient (I.Q.) concept gives us a method which now, in the hands of com- petent technicians, can determine with sufficient accuracy the mental level of the individual and of a population. The I.Q. is a comparison of actual age with mental age on a scale of 0 to 200. If the actual age of a child is 12 and the mental age is 12, the I.Q. is 100, or average. If a child has an actual age of 10 years but tests only 7 years old mentally the I.Q. would be 70; in other words, the child shows only 70 per cent of the mental growth that might be expected of it. In this case the child would be rated inferior. A child of 8 years actual age giving a test score of about 10 Yj years mental age would have an I.Q. of 130 and be rated superior. How these differences in innate capacity to learn (I.Q.) are distributed in present-day populations is of high im- portance in the evolution of man's future societies. In the early formative years of man's rise from ape-like ancestors, natural selection was no doubt "working over" the genetic variations which were controlling the level of intelligence. The individual with variations toward greater alertness and intelligence had a better chance to survive and reproduce. Unfavorable variations tending to produce dull and unin- telligent individuals were prevented from accumulating in the population's "gene pool" since individuals with unde- * R. C. Cook, Human Fertility, The Modern Dilemma (New York: William Sloane Associates, 1951), pp. 274-75. DANGER OF DECLINING INTELLIGENCE 207 sirable genes were distinctly handicapped in the struggle of those early savage days. Very soon in his evolutionary history man found himself directed toward the development of intellect as a weapon of offense and defense against the adversities of the environ- ment. He did not develop powerful muscles as in the orang- utan and gorilla. He did not develop speed to outrun his enemies, nor did he develop horns or bony armor. He simply based all his strength and hope on "cunning." And to what a fabulous victory over the rest of nature this line of evolution has led him we need not enlarge upon here. On the contrary, it is important not to boast of the achievement, but to examine humbly the present situation in the light of modern trends for the possibility that the evolutionary proc- ess is being reversed, an eventuality that will in the end make the "victory" a hollow one. As an example of the distribution of intelligence among the peoples of the world, I have prepared a tabulation show- ing the intelligence levels of the 1952 population of the United States, some 153,000,000. The table is a composite; and the number of individuals at each I.Q. level is, of course, approximate, but the difference from actuality would not be great enough to change materially the over-all picture. There are several things about the distribution of intel- ligence (I.Q.) as given in this tabulation that might be of concern to the student of our society. In the first place, on the basis of ability to discover, design, and organize the complex and intricate mechanical and electrical pattern of our national economy there were in the United States in 1952 at least 112,455,000 people, average or below, who were utterly incapable of understanding or of maintaining such an economy, if the whole burden of control and op- eration should fall upon them. In other words, all these peoples, about 74 per cent of the total population, were completely dependent on the talents of the upper I.Q. groups for the continuation of our present civilization. If 208 evolution: the ages and tomorrow the ability of all the individuals of a society was no higher than the highest in this average group (I.Q. 109) only a limited, sparsely scattered, mediaeval economy would be possible. I.Q. Number in Population Classification Acade?mc Possibility Vocational Possibility 155 & up 30,600 Highest Level Advanced Graduate Potential Genius, Top-level Scientist, and Philosopher 140-154 887,400 Very Superior Graduate Professional, Techni- cal, Executive 120-139 15,147,000 Superior Technical Professional, Techni- cal 110-119 24,480,000 High Average College Technical, Business 90-109 71,910,000 Average High School Clerical, Skilled 80-89 24,480,000 Low Average 9th Grade Semi-skilled 70-79 11,475,000 Inferior 7th Grade Routine Work 60-69 3,672,000 Moron 5th Grade Unskilled Labor 50-59 765,000 Imbecile 3d Grade Simplest Labor 00-50 153,000 Idiot Special Class Unemployable Prepared from data in L. M. Terman and M. A. Merril, Measuring Intelligejice (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1937) and from the classi- fication of general ability in C. L. Pressey and Francis Robinson, Psychol- ogy and The Neiv Education (New York: Harper & Bros., 1944), p. 89. The fundamental discovery and design of our present- day science and utilities was the work of some of the more favored individuals in the highest intelligence level, I.Q. 155 and up. In 1952 there were about 30,600 people in the United States (only two-hundredths of one per cent of the total population) who had potentially this sort of ability. I say potentially because it will be only the very favored individual (favored as to a multiplicity of environmental factors) who will be able to deliver the expectation of this high-level intelligence. Our present highly technical civiliza- tion has been created by such individuals, and it cannot DANGER OF DECLINING INTELLIGENCE 209 progress without them. The very superior group, I.Q. 140- 154, with some help from the superior group, I.Q. 120-139, could probably maintain the present level of our society. Without these two groups and under the exclusive control of the high average people, I.Q. 110-119, our society would suffer some loss and undergo such simpHfications and changes that the economy would finally collapse. Now, of course, these speculations mean nothing unless there is some force at work which would limit or eliminate a major portion of the upper intelligence groups. Certainly, such a force was not operating in the early evolution of man as we have already remarked. In fact, a differential against the upper mental groups is unquestionably a modern trend and is tied up with the Industrial Revolution. In early Colonial America people with ability and means had large families (as large or larger than the less fortunate), and more of their offspring survived. It was after 1800 that the rural-urban differentials began to appear, but they did not assume dangerous proportions until the period of increased industrialization and advanced medicine and hygiene of the end of the century. That a differential force is now at work in the population of the United States and in England, and by inference elsewhere in the world, has been suspected since the 1930's when Frank Lorimer and Frederick Osborn in America and Raymond Cattell in Great Britain published their comparative studies of birth rates and intelligence. Lorimer and Osborn's work, summarized in their book Dynamics of Population reached the conclusion that it was a "moral certainty" that the I.Q. average in the United States was declining by an estimated 2 to 4 points per gen- eration. In the two decades since the book appeared there has been nothing conclusive brought forth which would change the conclusion of the authors. On the contrary, the statement has been strengthened by studies made during the intervening years, particularly those in which census data has been analyzed. 210 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW Lorimer and Osborn had used data from the 1930 census on population distribution and fertility, and had correlated them with various samplings of intelligence and economic status as compiled by other psychologists. They were able to show that there was a differential birth rate in six cate- gories of parents: unskilled laborers, agricultural laborers, semiskilled workers, skilled workers, business and clerical workers, and members of the learned professions. The dif- ferential, they concluded, was such as to lower the over-all I.Q. average about 1 point per generation. This was the minimum rate of decline shown by the over-all analysis. An examination of the differential within each class where, for instance, the more intelligent unskilled laborer had fewer children than the less inteUigent unskilled laborer indicated a larger decline than 1 point— a decline Lorimer and Osborn thought might be as large as 4 points per generation. The United States government was given official warning of the situation when a few years later the Population Com- mittee of the National Resources Committee in a report to the President called attention, partly on the basis of the Lorimer and Osborn study, to the dangerous inverse rela- tionship between intelligence and fertility— a tendency carrying "social implications of such importance that they cannot safely be ignored." Other warnings have reached Washington in the intervening years, but so far there is no sign that anyone in the government has heard them— and that, in spite of very disturbing data taken from the govern- ment's own census of 1940. Students of population have for many years been aware of the trend toward the production of fewer and fewer offspring by the more educated individuals of our society, and this was very strikingly brought out in a United States census document entitled Fopiilation: Differential Fertility y 1940. In this first nationwide survey of population replace- ment indexes it is clearly shown that there is a reverse rela- tionship between reproductive activity and educational DANGER OF DECLINING INTELLIGENCE 211 achievement. For instance, women with four years or more of college education fall far short (by minus 44 per cent) of replacing themselves, whereas women with only one to four years of grade school are doubHng their numbers. The re- port shows that high school graduates, even though they do not continue their education, fail reproductively by some minus 20 per cent to replace themselves. All plus reproduc- tive activity is carried on below the level of third-year high school, most of it at the one-to-six-year grade school level. The same survey also shows a very great difference be- tween the reproductive performance of women at the vari- ous economic levels. The reproductive gain at the lowest economic level more than doubles that segment of the pop- ulation each generation, whereas at the highest level the re- placement falls short by some minus 17 per cent. On the basis of this study, sponsored by the United States government itself, our future population will come mostly from the least educated and poorest segment of the people. Add to this the differential I.Q. studies listed above and the future prospect is not a happy one, but still no public official or churchman, or for that matter medical man or pubHc health authority, has anything but silence to offer when the prospect is called to their attention. The opposition either ignores or states categorically that the claims for I.Q. decline are not supported by the evidence. Various studies have shown that the differential birth rate which is bringing about a decline in the average level of intelligence in the United States is also operating in England and at about the same ratio. Raymond Cattell, a British psychologist, tested the I.Q.'s of all ten-year-old children in Leicester and in rural Devon and correlated these findings with the fertility rates of the actual popula- tions in these two locations. Cattell reported that the aver- age intelligence of the rural population was declining more than two I.Q. points per generation, and the city of Leices- ter population a little less than two I.Q. points per genera- 212 evolution: the ages and tomorrow tion. It was quite likely, according to Cattell, that the whole British population was declining in average intelligence at a rate of more than two I.Q. points per generation, and that the rate would tend to increase in the future. From this and other studies, notably the long-range sur- vey of population initiated in 1932 by Sir Godfrey Thomp- son, English civic leaders found reason to be alarmed. In 1942 the Churchill government appointed a 14-member Royal Commission on Population with instructions to ex- amine the facts relating to population trends, to investigate the causes and consequences of these trends, and to recom- mend measures, if any, that should be taken to influence such trends in the national interest. The Commission was com- posed of men and women from the fields of government, statistics, economics, medicine, and biology, and it invited spokesmen for professional, sociological, ecclesiastical, and technical societies to air their views and submit reports. For several years the work went on and all phases of the prob- lem were probed. Then in 1949 the Commission presented its report and the Labour Government promptly published it. The report is very frank and direct in its wording and looks squarely at the issue of quantity and quality of popu- lation. The Commission recognized the absolute necessity of controlling fertility in Great Britain; otherwise, if early twentieth-century rates of growth continued, it would mean "an increase of the population to 130 millions by the year 2000 and 460 millions by 2100." The report saw a grave danger in differential fertility rates and accepted in general the assumption of the loss in average intelligence in successive generations in these words: ". . . they all point to a rather serious drop in average intelligence with a more than corresponding increase in mental deficiency and de- crease of high intelligence (say of scholarship standard)." The Commission advocated measures to encourage people of above-average mentality to have more children but did DANGER OF DECLINING INTELLIGENCE 213 not clearly outline methods of preventing the overrepro- duction of the substandard people. The report did make it clear that any effort to equalize opportunity without cor- recting birth differentials would make matters worse. In this case, one would be lifting a desirable complex of genes out of the reproductive pool. The gifted children would be moved up the social and economic ladder and would then, if they reproduced at the present suicide rate of the higher groups, have the effect of actually speeding up the adverse selection which is lowering the over-all average of ability. In concluding its report, the Commission urged the govern- ment to be fearful of the whole population situation and to set up research facilities whereby more exact knowledge could be obtained, particularly in the phases of control. More recently in the United States there has been some optimism reflected in the statement of a special UNESCO committee in which the widely assumed negative associa- tion between intelligence and the number of children per family is questioned. This committee did not think that there is at the present moment reason for "great concern over an impending decline in intelligence." The committee did admit that there seemed to have been a tendency for peoples of high intellect to have too few children, thus pro- ducing a differential fertility which acted, at least, to keep the average intelligence from improving. The committee, however, was of the opinion that whatever the effect, it was now disappearing; that is, that people of high intellect were now reproducing more children. Other experts in population genetics insist that there is an immediate danger. Frederick Osborn is of the opinion, based on large-scale samples, that there is a definite need for measures which would give better and earlier economic security to high-intellect people and thus reduce the pres- sures favoring late marriages. Of course, among the pres- sures delaying marriage in well-endowed individuals is the long and costly education necessary for professional voca- 214 evolution: the ages and tomorrow tions and the additional time required to become established. In view of the direct relation between planned family size and economic status, and in view of the trend toward in- creasing use of fertility control by contraception, Osbom predicted that "to a far greater extent than in the past, the genetic basis of man's higher qualities of intelligence and personality will, for good or evil, be sorted out for survival bv individual choice as to births." Cook in his book Hu?nan Fertility , which is essential reading for anyone with the least concern for our society, stresses the effect of the machine age on human reproduc- tion and concludes that if the impact of all the work-saving and life-saving gadgets is to be the generation of half-wits, then the Industrial Revolution will be a failure. The present reverse pattern of human reproduction will sooner or later (in less than 100 years) "halve the present number of schol- arship ability and double the number of feeble-minded." The tragic day of the blackout of intelligence, as the genet- icists who attended the Edinburgh convention of 1939 pointed out, can be avoided not just by passing laws against birth differentials but by an aroused people becoming "fired with a determination to act to make the future safe for their children and their children's children." Cook wonders, as does the writer, whether people will act in time and will act with full knowledge of the genetics which can and would, if properly applied, make near-genius and stable emotions and good health the birthright of every child. 16 Evolution and Ethics We have reached another critical stage of our thesis. If the origin of morals is to be considered as extra natural or even supernatural; if one cannot, as we have already done with "mind and matter," show that such a dualistic point of view has no basis in evidence, the effort to establish the unity of nature fails. There must be continuity not only in the evolution of the mind-body, but also in the evolution of ethics. In surveying the evidence for the evolution of the mind-matter substance, we found that nowhere in the rising levels of this process was there any line of division; imperceptibly and gradually, through billions of years, na- ture evolved all the configurations of the cosmos. Each is traceable backward through its various levels of organiza- tion to the microcosm. This chapter maintains that man's morals, like his body and mental faculties, are traceable backward to the underlying origins of the realm of life, to the natural and innate social groupings of all organisms. In short, there is no new thing in the ethics of man, merely a superlative consciousness of the cooperative and only w^ay by which nature may reach the higher levels of under- standing. Both the moral nature of man and his mental faculties arise out of the deeply underlying organizing capacities of evolution which reveals itself as a cosmos in process, carry- ing the inanimate from subatomic levels to man and the final extension, social life. It is only in and through social life 215 2i6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow that the evolution of the mind-matter continuum can pro- gress in the conscious aspects of intellect. The highest learn^ ing and hence the highest knowledge can come only through the cooperative efforts of many individuals spread out in space and along the line of time. This principle has been stressed from the beginning, namely, that the cooperative life of mutual aid is an absolute requirement for understand-- ing. The basic ethic of the animal kingdom consists of mu- tual helpfulness, an urge for the companionship of others, and the close association through which experience is shared. It is an ethic that nature, beginning with the inti- macy between parent and offspring, strives to perfect. As an ethic it rises to high levels in the eventual organization of configurations through which the innate psychic quality of the cosmos may find a fuller expression. We may, then, judge an ethic through the criteria of the evolution of mu- tual aid and of understanding. That which leads to higher levels is relatively good; that which does not is relatively evil. Within wide latitudes the ethics of a culture have little bearing on the mere survival of that culture; hence one would feel that emphasis on the criterion of understanding is very necessary if the culture is to reach a high level. As long as there is some mutual aid and some level of unconscious and conscious controls, the culture survives. Numerous primitive societies, many with brutal and "false-to-fact" orientation, are still with us. Or, the values of a society may be exceed- ingly gentle, peace-loving to a high degree, yet so definitely stupid and fixed in patterns of superstition as hardly to be desirable. Even a great culture like that of India has survived in spite of a central doctrine of the transmigration of souls which has led its believers into the great social injustice of the "untouchable" castes and an almost complete ignoring of the problems of this world in favor of a mystical progress in the hereafter toward Brahman. EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 217 It would seem, then, that a high-level ethic must involve high-level intelligence in a natural "operational" sense; that is, the awareness and intelligence which the processes of nature are evolving must be used as a guide to the ethic. Only then will a culture become adult, giving up childish dependence on the omnipotence of the father and becoming a brotherhood of brave, intelligent men, not of frightened children. Such a culture would gradually solve its problems in the same way science progresses— by factual observation, by careful check, by maturing judgment as the mind is freed of its superstitions. (In Chapter 17 the possibilities in using the rising levels of awareness and intelligence will be ex- amined.) From the study of social groups rather extensive evidence is available that ethics at the human level, however com- plex, are an outgrowth of a basic animal response. There is hardly any better evidence for any statement in science. And yet the great majority of the peoples of the world to- day are under the dominance of the vested interests of au- thoritarian dogma— interests which insist against all reason that morals are immutable, of divine origin, and supernat- urally revealed; interests which by these assertions retain an authority that presumes to regulate the whole range of human affairs. A dangerous split is set up between the basic nature of man and his natural methods of science to dis- cover and know on the one hand, and the supernatural in- tuitive dogma of absolute morals on the other. By sincere and arduous effort science may show that much is wrong with present trends (say, birth rates and differentials), or with certain phases of morality, or with the doctrine that faith alone will solve our problems; and dogma can block any action or any further interest and investigation with a gesture. The dogmatist never seems to be aware of the fact that his tribal truths are not necessarily the truths of the tribe on the other side of the hill; or if he does, he reassures himself 2i8 evolution: the ages and tomorrow that all is superstition over there. Science has arisen for no other reason than to make a choice amidst conflicting truths or, if none be found, to continue toward the final discovery of that which is real. Science is disciplined to guard itself against deifying tradition as truth. To insist that beliefs and morality should not be challenged by doubt, is to imprison the race in eternal childhood. Some moralities are better than others in that they bring about a more desirable social and political morale and a better mobilization of physical energies, but all are bound to engender certain fears and anxieties in the minds of man. The dogmatist turns to absolute, supernatural values and an omnipotent father to escape the problem, whereas the answers and safety lie only in the continuous testing against reality, the final, su- preme court of all that is right or wrong. An individual may gain peace of mind by depending on an absolute ethical prop, but in doing so he is running out on the society in which he lives. For basic social problems are worked out not by blind adherence to absolute sanctions but by the coura- geous and intelligent testing of possibilities. Herein lies moral maturity. From the origins of the societies of animals and man (as surveyed in Chaps. 7 and 8) it seems clear that, as in all or- ganic evolution, nature has been seeking and striving for configurations on higher cooperative levels. Having no pre- conceived or direct way to reach her goals, nature failed often and on any level. In the study of animal societies the tremendous body of literature of both observation and re- search reveals: widespread, fundamental automatic cooperation which has survival value. ... a substratum of social tendencies that extends through- out the entire animal kingdom. From this substratum social life rises by the operation of different mechanisms and with various forms of expression until it reaches its present climax in vertebrates and insects.* * W. C. Allee, The Social Life of Animals (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1938), pp. 133, 274. EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 219 In the review of social evolution in the organizations of animals other than man one was constantly reminded of sit- uations which appear in human society. There are definite dominance-subordination relationships in groups of people. The hierarchies of birds and mammals have obvious coun- terparts in man's society, where despotism of a more com- plex and thorough type often appears but is not to be con- doned, however, on the excuse of animal origin, particularly since many animals have evolved patterns of cooperative equality on a high order. Unlike the social insects, which show the cooperative equality pattern through a behavior of fixed instinctive responses, man's whole evolutionary trend has been toward plasticity of intelligence. Man's societies are never likely to work with the machine-like smoothness of the ant hill. The altruistic instincts in man, it appears, will never become dominant; and it is probable that human altruism will only with difficulty be increased beyond its present level— perhaps by the transmission of favorable ac- quired social characters or, more remotely, by favorable gene mutations or, better, by proper educational indoctrina- tion. Man's freedom from the absolute control of instinct is the gift of his mammalian ancestors. In these animals nature, in her search for conscious understanding, found the formula with the greatest promise, namely, the cerebral brain which in the mammals, nourished by rich, warm blood, takes on a greater mass than all the rest of the nervous system put to- gether. Through the organization of association areas in the brain nature finds expression in self-consciousness and, finally, in conceptual processes. The eternal striving of the mind-matter substance is rewarded here, but only if the so- ciety of the organisms possessing such a brain evolves the complex, cooperative learning patterns necessary to high- level realization. In our review of the social evolution of man (Chapter 8) we briefly traced some origins of the human family and 220 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW tribe, but it might be of interest at this point to enlarge a little on the primate contributions to these origins. Man un- questionably diverged from the ape stock and ascended to his present level through ape-like ancestral forms and still clearly shows the anatomical and behavior stamp of his an- cestors. Observation of monkeys and apes shows that they tend to gather together in clans of varying size with definite territorial segregation. Some monkeys, the howlers of South America, for instance, gather in well-organized clans. C. R. Carpenter tells us that these clans seem to avoid each other and that territorial rights are on the whole respected, but that occasionally clashes do occur. In these cases the males of each group advance toward each other howling their abuse and sometimes there are brief skirmishes of biting and clawing, and then hasty retreats. Dominance in monkey so- cieties combes through conflict, with one or more males fight- ing their way to the top of the social hierarchy. As pictured by Carpenter a monkey group is a highly organized society in something like the "peck-order" arrangement of chickens. In gorillas we see something of the possible early family life of primitive man. The grouping in gorillas is on the basis of mature families: a patriarchal male, two or three wives, and youngsters. These family groups are closed associations in which the huge patriarchal male is dominant. Leadership changes eventually when either the old male dies or a son challenges him and wins. Losers in fights for dominance are turned out of the group and wander about until they are able to steal females from some neighboring family. In gorilla country observers are agreed there is peace between the varying-sized family groups. Each has a more or less definitely set-off territory. Male gorillas are said to be very ferocious if their homeland is threatened but otherwise quite amiable. They are not at all aggressive and no gorilla group, it is said, has ever been seen to attack another group. Males meeting at the edge of territories threaten each other with a show of teeth and with an awesome thunder they beat out EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 221 on their own chests, but clashes are said to be exceedingly rare. Chimpanzees, too, form family groups; but they also, at times, gather in rather large clans with loose leadership. Much of the parental care within the family in all these primates is basically like that of the human. Early human families joined to form larger groups quite naturally, following the gregarious urge common to their ancestral line. That the tendency was toward the formation of tribes with distinct territories is very clear from the pre- historic and historic record. Darwin endeavored to show that tribal life placed certain restrictions on the individual members in return for the greater capacity organization gave in obtaining food. He pointed out that in this coopera- tive unit (the tribe) the "great principle of acting for the good of the species, could hold sovereign sway." Certainly no tribe could "hold together if murder, robbery, or treach- ery were common." There must be a readiness to sacrifice for the common good; there must be courage and sympathy. Selection, he thought, would obviously work quickly and lethally against any unit the members of which were inces- santly quarreling and who lacked innate impulsions toward mutual aid. This was not new, but Darwin gave it emphasis even if some of his immediate followers did overlook it. Plato lonor ..... ^ before had pictured the harmonious society in which justice prevailed as being fit for survival. In such a society the just man lived by good intent and desire, giving the full equiva- lent of what he received, making the harmonious function- ing of the elements in himself and in the society a coopera- tive contribution to behavior. Disharmony was evil, whether between man and himself, or man and society, or man and nature. Kant had seen that there is a disposition toward so- cial behavior, that the moral sense is innate; but Kant had failed to see that the content of conscience is acquired, as Aristotle had indicated, on the basis of experience and ob- servation of life, not on theory. 222 evolution: the ages and tomorrow The claims of organized dogma for the eternal and abso- lute validity of ethics were discredited after Darwin's time by psychologists following the Freudian revolution and by anthropologists who found extreme differences in the ethical systems existing in various societies. Psychologists have been able to show that ethics depends on learning and psycho- logical conditioning, mostly during childhood. The be- havior of the adult is largely relative to these learning proc- esses, the basic "learning sets" which were discussed in the origin of conceptual processes. Anthropology documents a wide divergence in ethical systems in different societies, all more or less relative to the social structure and various en- vironmental factors. E. Westermark in his book, Ethical Relativity, gives us the picture of nature, as always, explor- ing the human social possibilities and not knowing a priori where the various controlling factors will lead her. Of the early Darwinians who took on the burden of pro- moting the ideals of evolution and selection and their social significance, T. H. Huxley was the most active. In his later life he found his ideas of ethics and of evolution in conflict. Some evolutionists of his day had taken very literally the Darwinian "struggle for existence." To these men evolu- tionary ethics involved a sort of "gladiatorial existence"— every man for himself, every group, tribe, or nation for it- self, and the "Devil take the hindmost." In certain political and economic quarters, then and even now, this gross misin- terpretation of Darwin, this brutal "tooth-and-claw" ethics found favor. Although he most ardently adopted the fact of evolution, Huxley could not bring himself as an ethical hu- man into line with what he thought were evolutionary ethics. For him, evolution had brought the physical man into existence by a tooth-and-claw struggle, a struggle in- volving "ape and tiger traits," which constituted "the essen- tial evil of the world." But as consciousness dawned in man, Huxley thought, a new ethics appeared and, becoming dominant, brought to an end the age-long physical evolu- EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 223 tion. He thought that this new ethics was intuitive and non- evolutionary. In fact, paradoxically, it was anti-evolution- ary, and man's problem was to set himself squarely against the former evolutionary process and thwart it. All the early Darwinians seem to have made the serious error of suppos- ing that man had evolved through, and had always lived in, a ^'continual state of strife, brawl, and anarchy." We know now from the nature of social responses in all animals, par- ticularly the primates, that such a "brutal Hfe" would in it- self have thwarted evolution. Even quite recently (1947) the tooth-and-claw ethics ap- pears again in modified form in the literature of morals, this time from the pen of the aged anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith in a strange book. Evolution and Ethics. Taking his lead from T. H. Huxley, Keith distinguishes an "ethical code" by which individuals relate themselves to each other within a tribe and a "cosmical code" which controls the sur- vival of the tribal institution in its relation as a whole with other tribes. He tells us that until the introduction of civi- lization man lived in small, isolated communities or tribes, each under this dual evolutionary code: Its [the tribe's] "home affairs" were under the control of the ethical code, observing the Ten Commandments, encouraging co- operation, friendliness, and sympathy. Its "foreign affairs" were in the hands of the cosmical code, taking every measure and employing physical force, if necessary, to ensure tribal independence, in- tegrity, and continuance, reversing the commandments relating to killing, stealing, and lying when such conduct was advantageous for tribal welfare. Every tribe, we may say, had its ethical core of co-operation and its cosmical crust of antagonism. Out of that crust war was born. Civilization has brought both good and evil to mankind; under its aegis the small evolutionary (tribal) units have become fused into the monstrous evolutionary units we call nations. The generations of humanity which carried mankind from a tribal to a national estate brought with them the "old Adam"— the dual evolutionary code. The ethical core has been mightily strengthened by the free diffusion of the spoken and written word. Alas, the cosmical crust has also expanded, at a rate even more 224 evolution: the ages and tomorrow prodigious than that of the ethical core; it has strengthened itself by the adoption of power politics, while modern science has armed it. We got rid of small wars by the fusion of combative tribes, only to find ourselves overwhelmed with the colossal wars of this present time.* Sir Arthur fills 240 pages with his exposition of this tooth- and-claw tribal ethics which he thinks is inherent in evolu- tion. Again, like T. H. Huxley, he contrasts human or anti- evolutionary ethics with that of evolution; but, unlike Huxley, he never faces up to which set of ethics should be followed or how they are to be reconciled. Keith tells us that he had nearly finished his book when he learned that Herbert Spencer in Principles of Ethics had anticipated his dual ethics with the "code of Amity" and "code of En- mity." Keith points out that Spencer had landed himself in an ethical crux from which there was no way out, but does not seem to have realized that his own position was no bet- ter. Here again is a failure to understand that the innate drive toward companionship forms a basic ethic. There is no more thoroughly established fact in science than the existence of this drive toward mutual aid. Its expression in any normal individual, animal or human, will depend on circumstances. In other words, ethics is both innate and experienced or learned. Keith's terrifying picture of endless intertribal con- flict and anarchy is exaggerated. Moreover, what there was of anarchy and conflict was the result of f alse-to-f act indoc- trination of the individuals within the tribe and not, as Keith insists, an inevitable and natural individual reaction. Evi- dence is also lacking for Keith's claim that our present na- tions are natural evolutionary outgrowths of the tribe. Toynbee and other historians show clearly enough from the record that our present-day nationalism with all its danger- ous aspects is quite modern, in part a product of the eco- * Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1947), p. 113. EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 225 nomics of the Industrial Revolution. The great nations of today are politically synthetic and held together by a quasi- religious indoctrination to patriotism. And, if the world is to survive, they are but a passing phase. I have given much more space to the Keith thesis than it deserves only because it is accepted, particularly for the reason that it excuses na- tionalism, in many powerful quarters of the world today. Then, too, the tooth-and-claw thesis and modifications of it, as usually interpreted, would relegate reason to the realm of limbo. It is a hopeful sign that now so many of our scien- tists and philosophers are beginning to write boldly of an eth- ics based on science and knowledge— G. G. Simpson, Julian Huxley, E. W. Sinnott, C. D. Leake, Ashley Montagu, Ber- rrand Russell, and O. L. Reiser, to name a few. This ap- proach through knowledge to the problem of ethics will come up again shortly; there are still some less promising at- tempts to establish a naturalistic ethic that should be con- sidered. Various forms of a mutual aid survival ethic have gradu- ally developed in opposition to the tooth-and-claw thesis. C. D. Leake in his version finds that "good" is based on a relationship between individuals and groups in contact with each other that is conducive to the survival of all concerned. Harmony increases the probability of survival; the greater the harmony, the greater the probability. This version grew out of the general survival ethic as originally proposed by Herbert Spencer, but it is much truer to the evolutionary process than the older tooth-and-claw version. For, it is good to survive by cooperative and harmonious means and not just by any means. It is an ethic that a modern evolutionist (e.g., Simpson) finds congruous with most ethical systems other than the tooth-and-claw, and it can be established on a naturalistic basis. There are, however, certain questionable aspects to a purely cooperative basis of survival. The highest good in this ethic would involve complete and absolute harmony, 226 evolution: the ages and tomorrow which is hardly reaHstic and definitely nonevolutionary. High-level harmony might be reached in relatively low- level organisms, a condition that could not be said to be unequivocally good. Had harmonious equilibrium been reached earlier, man would not have evolved; and it is obvi- ous that the coming of man has not brought about equilib- rium. A naturalistic (or for that matter an intuitive) ethic cannot ignore obvious factors in the evolutionary process. Mutual aid is one of the factors and a very important one, but it is not all-inclusive. In evolution there has been a vi- cious showing of tooth and claw, endless change, and the extinction of countless species and even of whole classes. Higher types have climbed ahead over the dead races that failed. Mutual aid is a basic but only partial solution of the problem of evolutionary ethics. In recent years the biological school which holds that na- ture organizes individuality at ever-increasing levels, from the single-cell protozoa to the multicellular in man to so- ciety or the state, has offered ethical implications that might be interpreted as giving biological justification for a totali- tarian ideology. This is the concept of the superindividual, the "epi-organism," an organic state as in a society of ants or a society of men, a higher whole into which the individ- uals (the ants or the men) are merged and integrated as subordinate parts. In the ethics of this conception the drive of the aggregation of organic units toward increased levels of organization is taken to be good, and it would be ethically right that individuals live only for the state. The whole argument of the social superindividual, the epi- organism, is a gross misuse of the words "individuality" or "organism." We have already rejected the point of view. In- stead of merging into a supersocial whole, individuals (par- ticularly man) actually intensify their organic individuality. It is absurd to compare the relationships of the social unit to the relationships of cells, tissues, and organs in a multicellu- lar individual like man. Even in the analogy of the beehive, | EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 227 or ant hill, the concept of the epi-organism is an extension of an interpretive principle beyond the point of validity. In the case of man, the evolutionary background of mammals and primates has been a trend toward greater individuality, very definitely away from any merging or integrating into a machine-like state. Trends in evolution are sometimes referred to as a basis on which an ethic may be established, but like the increase of organization just reviewed they are inconclusive and arbitrary. Specific and special trends are hardly likely to yield a believable ethic since many of them lead to what we have called, from an anthropocentric point of view, blind alleys. General over-all trends like increase in number and diversity of organisms would seem to have more promise, but here again difficulties arise. The concept of dynamic nature and the abundant life would assume that mere in- crease in life is good while that which brings about a de- crease is evil. In this case the ethic itself is not ethical since it would involve unlimited crowding of the habitat and even more struggle and dreadful death than ordinarily prevails. We have already pictured in our discussion of human over- population the misery that is the lot of a people when num- bers outrun subsistence. It should be obvious by now that no simple, single solu- tion will be found for the problem of a naturalistic ethic. The tooth-and-claw concept does not give us an acceptable ethic; but there have been plenty of teeth and claws in evo- lution, and higher types of organisms, even man, have climbed upward in part by this ugly means. On the other hand, pure mutual aid, although much more desirable as an ethic and closer to a true conception of the evolutionary process, is not in itself a complete solution to the problem of ethics. The various specific trends, such as we have re- viewed, offer even less hope of a solution. Rather clearly, it would seem, the search for an ethic makes a false start when it seeks some one factor as the basic and all-inclusive source. 228 evolution: the ages and tomorrow At the outset of such a search we must reaUze that a natural- istic ethic, based as it is on an unimaginably complex evolu- tionary process, will be much more relative and elusive than we had at first supposed. Like all else in nature, a naturalistic ethic will itself be evolving. It will be flexible and relative in any given situa- tion. Perhaps, as has been suggested in opening this chapter, the search will have more chance of success if we assign for the comparison of ethics the broad criteria of mutual aid and understanding, used in the spirit of Bertrand Russell's definition of morality, "the good life is the life inspired by love and guided by knowledge." I have made an earnest ef- fort in this thesis to show that greater understanding is the real trend in evolution. Beginning with the innate mind-in- matter-energy substrate of the cosmos, I have traced out an uninterrupted continuity to the body and mind of man and to his social life, and thence to his ethics. I feel that there is undeniable evidence in evolution for this concept of mind- in-matter, and for the ever-receding goal of understanding. I have not assigned to man the ultimate position in the trend toward understanding, but man does represent something of its great possibilities. I have assumed from the very nature of the infinite succession of finite cosmic and organic config- urations which evolution has brought and has yet to bring into existence that the process will eternally fall short of the goal of ultimate understanding. On this planet and at this moment there is a high-level ex- pression of the cosmic trend in the mind of man. That mind, we should have every reason to expect, can go still higher in the time it may yet exist as an organic organization, a time that may extend tens of millions of years into the future. It is becoming evident, however, that the heights to which man may now climb must be reached through a conscious control of the same process by which he has reached the present level. I have tried to make clear in this thesis that ultimately in the evolution of higher mental levels nature EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 229 must depend on a cooperative and intelligent configuration, an improved and peaceful organization in which the inter- change of experience and knowledge accumulates through science and carries the rising consciousness to higher levels of understanding. For this reason it would seem to be of the utmost impor- tance that we develop a naturalistic ethic based on a knowl- edge of all the past processes that have been at work in our evolution, and that we should sincerely face up to all that these processes may mean now and in our future. Simpson in his inspiring book, The Meaning of Evolutioji, sees this clearly when he says: Conscious knowledge, purpose, choice, and values carry as an inevitable corollary responsibility. Capacity for knowledge involves responsibility for finding out the truth and, in our social system, for communicating this. The possibility of choice brings an ethical responsibility for selection of what is right. The sense of values implies means and responsibility for decision as to what is right. Purpose confers the power and, again, the responsibility for trans- lating choice and value into right action.* Simpson's first proposition of evolutionary ethics is that the "promotion of knowledge is essentially good," a basic material ethic. He explains that "promotion" involves the acquisition of truth and its spread by communication to others. Truth is acquired through science, which is "almost alone in power to acquire knowledge." He adds a still more fundamental ethic, that of "responsibility." Here the scien- tist exercises judgment since the "very existence of science demands the value judgment and essential ethic that knowl- edge is good." The scientist must be individually responsible for evaluating knowledge and for "transmitting it as may be right, and for its ultimate utilization for good."t Simpson feels that the highest ethical standards, the great- est morality, are involved in man's personal responsibility. * G. G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New York: New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1951), p. 155. flbid.,ip. 156. 230 evolution: the ages and tomorrow Recognition of this responsibility and its proper exercise are the foundation on which human action must be based. Each individual and society as a whole must search for truth, hon- estly and without bias, always testing thoroughly. Evasion of this responsibility is morally wrong and among the "con- sequences of this morality it follows that blind faith (simple acceptance without review of evidence or rational choice between alternatives) is immoral."* In this category he would place the blind acceptance of theological doctrine or poHtical dogma. Simpson develops the evolutionary ethic, emphasizing always the relationships of responsibility, of knowledge, and of choice, and finds that the good society is one in which individual integration and welfare are not secured at the expense of others, but rather achieved by in- teractions which aid others as well as the self. Applied to the main problems of our societies, both to government and to individual lives, Simpson's ethics provide a general guide for determining right and wrong on a basis of values of suffi- ciently wide latitude to allow for diversity in personality and action and yet not so wide as to overstep ethical bound- aries or impinge unfavorably on other personalities. Reiser in his deeply sincere writings on scientific human- ism shows us that: Our supreme moral obligation is the "moral obligation to be intelligent"— the obligation to know what is going on in the world and see that social change is headed in the right direction. . . . This means that in the future ethics must be taken out of the field of tradition, authority, or revelation, and put within the field of human intelligence. . . . ethics must be freed from its theological background, so that moral issues are considered without reference to such debatable matters as the immortality of the soul or the existence of god. ... no institution subscribing to such beliefs (e.g., the Church) has the right to prescribe what attitude human beings shall take on moral issues, such as prohibitions, birth control, censorship, and so on.f *lbid.,p. 158. t O. L. Reiser, Philosophy and the Concepts of Modern Science (New York, The Alacmillan Co., 1935), pp. 305, 309. EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 231 In the scientific humanism of Reiser the person of the highest moral character is an "individual of benevolent im- pulses, or good motives, with sufficient intelligence to fore- see the consequences of his acts and choose courses of action that lead to socially beneficial results."* Every moral act has two aspects, the subjective or the motive, and the objec- tive or the consequences. The act of the highest morality is an act of the heart and intellect wherein the motive and the consequences are both good. Contrasted with this morality is the all too common act of good motive but bad conse- quences, which includes the prohibitory laws of misguided reformers. And, of course, unfortunately, there is the act that, stemming from bad motives, may inadvertently lead to good but much more often results in the harm of unbridled selfishness or hatred and uninteUi^ent action. o In recent years scientists in the fields of biology and psy- chology and engineering have tried to extend their work- able concepts to the field of the social sciences. They see no vaUd reason why ethics, culture, and symbolism cannot be studied by the scientific method. Among the attempts to find new approaches to the solution of social problems are the contributions of general semantics and dynamic homeo- stasis. Regulatory self-control and maintenance of the condi- tions of life within an organism has been called homeostasis by Walter Cannon. In the human body the delicate balances of water, sugar, salts, temperature, etc., are brought into equilibrium by compromises among multitudinous activities through the process of homeostasis. The exceedingly com- plex regulatory mechanism involves both activation and in- hibition. Its effects are often web effects with many feed- backs. It is dynamic. The concept of homeostasis has been very helpful to the physiologist and the psychologist; Wal- ter Cannon and R. W. Gerard and A. E. Emerson feel that it can offer help to the student of animal and human socie- * Ibid., p. 307. 232 evolution: the ages and tomorrow ties, too. Even though most scientists reject the idea of the social superindividual, the epi-organism, the proponents of homeostasis feel that societies can be looked upon as biologi- cal entities established by evolutionary factors, in which case there would be the analogy of the physiological ho- meostatic regulatory mechanism. In the social world the mechanism would work toward the integration of indi- viduals into the society and toward a directional evolution. They hope that the concept of homeostasis, along with other principles of science, will find at least indirect applica- tion in the study of culture and ethics. It is true that ethics arises in part from subjective feelings, but science can and does objectivize and analyze subjective data. Psychologists study and catalogue behavior that arises out of subjective emotions, emotional expressions such as fear and anger. Physiologists and psychologists know that hormones affect behavior and that emotions influence think- ing; and there is, of course, a rapidly growing knowledge of emotional or psychosomatic medicine. Scientists cannot di- vorce themselves from human emotions, but they can grad- ually discover and evaluate the relationships of objective and subjective manifestations. We are, indeed, at the thresh- old of a real science of social evolution, as a part of the gen- eral science of man— a science that will eventually analyze objectively social change with more certainty than now. The scientific humanists see the very urgent need of a synthesis of scientific thought and social action to furnish a new foundation for culture, nonabsolutist, nonacademic, nonracial, and nonsupernaturalistic. The new social struc- ture must be based on a sound growth of science and social reform working together. There must be "democracy in thinking." There must be a thorough and unbiased study of the needs of mankind, a scientific inventory of the world's resources to meet these needs, and a reorganization of social institutions where they do not contribute to the use of such resources for the basic requirements of all. And above all, EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 233 there must be a constant study and control of dangerous dif- ferential birth rates and of total numbers of individuals in the populations of the world. A decline of intelligence levels would be fatal to a high-level scientific civilization where the planning and control of engineers is so necessary. By now in our review of the evolution of an ethic it is ob- vious that the social man with his sense of companionship and conscience is no special creation coming miraculously from the hand of a Personal Supernatural Creator, but a latter-day production of an immeasurably long and natural process. Morals have no absolute values. They are a code of conduct which has developed through the early formative years of man's history to aid in group survival, and they vary widely in different peoples. The moral response is both in- nate and learned and, as in the organization of "learning sets" in the development of the individual's mind, take on complex interlocking patterns which can be manipulated with such ease as to give the impression of inspiration. The code of conduct of man's early formative period is still undergoing change and will continue to change through all his future history so that, even if science were able to estabhsh an entirely satisfactory ethical evaluation for the present moment, it would not hold in all respects at some distant day. How very important it is, then, to develop at the earliest possible moment a science of ethics, the central study of a science of man, and to keep that science always democratic and free of all authoritarianism. 17 The Goal of Evolution The passion for unity that led Giordano Bruno to defy the authority of his day must have made a deep impression upon Spinoza when, at the beginning of his studies, he en- countered Bruno's concept of the universahty of substance— a universality in which every particle of the universe is com- posed inseparably of the physical and the psychical. It was an idea of fundamental unity: all reality one in substance, one in cause, one in origin, one in God. Spinoza carried this idea of unity to the perfection of a complete intellectual sys- tem in which the configurations of the universe in all phases, including man, become recognizable as parts of the whole. He thought that the greatest good is the knowledge that the whole of nature and the mind of man are united; that the more the mind knows, the greater it understands itself and the order of nature; and the more the mind understands the order of nature, the more easily will it be able to lay down rules for itself and to liberate itself from senseless and use- less things. Spinoza's aim was a science and ethics in which man would receive the therapy of truth from the discovery of the natural order of the universe and the realization of a properly ordered life in a complete unity of nature and mind. Pursuit of knowledge was for him the road to free- dom and the only permanent happiness. Spinoza did not see 234 THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 235 the universe in process. His was a timeless concept of God- substance; but, as limited as his conception of nature was, he nevertheless saw clearly that there must be no separation of mind and matter in the mind of man. On the basis of their concept I undertook to sum up briefly the evidence now available that Bruno and Spinoza in their discernment of the eternal and infinite had touched closely upon the truth. The universe they held in such rev- erence is self-sufficient and self-contained, operationally controlled by lawfully ordered principles wherein the op- erator is an integral part of the ?7iechanis?n and this I wished to bring out by a survey of the highlights of the evolution- ary process in the sublime panorama of successive creative organizations, subatomic, atomic, molecular, on up to man. This panorama shows ever more impressively in the succes- sive stages of the rising configurations how deep and all- inclusive is nature'' s organizing capacity , as it carries through the physical continuum to organic life and the societies of many and even into the mind of man as a ^'source of new ideas, of high aspirations, of lofty flights of the creative i77t- agination; the means, indeed, by which man launches out into the deep and challenges the unknown universe^* In a review of evolution such as has been attempted in this book the conception of the organism, or the basic life prob- lem of organization, is very strongly brought to our atten- tion. There is an endless chain of organizing activities in the evolutionary process throughout both its physical and or- ganic phases. It is interesting to note how the biological principle of organization is equally applicable in other dis- ciplines, for the central problems of modern physics and chemistry are also problems of organization. Basically, the atom preserves its organization against the incessant thermal motion surrounding it. The elementary physical events are of a discontinuous nature, discrete stages differing in quan- * E. W. Sinnott, Cell and Psyche (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950) , p. 78. Italics suppHed. 236 evolution: the ages and tomorrow turn content. Some physicists, notably Schrodinger, think that organization is one of the major categories in nature and may actually control, and not merely arise from, matter. These thinkers feel that the centers of organization are pri- mary things, and that they may exist independently of the matter in which they are now individualized, each as a part of a universal spiritual whole. These concepts of organiza- tion now applied with such promising results in physics, chemistry, psychology, and philosophy, and all the biologi- cal sciences, are bringing the unity of aim in man's intellectual inquiries much nearer the day when, to repeat J. W. N, Sullivan, the "differences between the sciences of mind, life, and matter, in their present form, will be seen to be unreal." The objective of my thesis was to show that there is com- plete continuity in evidence for the contention that the mind of man is an expression of the innate psychical quality that Bruno thought existed as one with every particle of the universe. In short, the mind-matter -energy substance is seek- ing consciousness through evolution. The contention was not made that man was the goal of evolution; only, that his mind represents a high-level expression of the psychical po- tential. It has been shown throughout this account that the rising configurations of the physical phase of evolution finally set the stage on this earth for the appearance of life; and that life originated through an organic synthesis, gradu- ally and imperceptibly, following natural laws. These laws would bring life into existence everywhere in the infinite universe whenever and wherever the necessary conditions prevailed, and they would carry that life to whatever heights were possible iji each particular situation. The appearance of the main kinds of plant and animal organisms was traced through phyletic change to the advent of man. In the origin of the human body, a complete and uninterrupted con- tinuity exists from the subatomic microcosm through its physical configurations to the organic series leading to mam- mals, primates, and man. THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 237 The basic characteristics and potential powers of the hu- man mind were traced through their origin in the evolution of animal intelligence. Nowhere in the long ascent from protozoa to man could it be said, "at this point intelligence enters." Even the great powers of conceptual thought and sy^mbolism are not unique in the mind of man, for we found a lesser counterpart in the minds of other primates and even in the remarkable accomplishments of the honeybee. Man's mind, we found, is merely a superlative expression of a trend toward greater mentality. The same sort of continuity showed clearly in the evolution of man's societies and of his morals. His ethics, his social tendencies, his mentality, and his body arose imperceptibly and gradually through billions of years, evolving along with all the other configurations of the cosmos; each manifestation is traceable backward to the underlying origins of the realm of life, to the natural and in- nate organizing potentials of the mind-matter-energy sub- strate. As the survey progressed, it became apparent that the complexity of the configurations necessary for the appear- ance of the higher levels of organization was increasing at such rates as to make each additional stage less and less prob- able. It would seem that this is a critical principle in the evo- lutionary process. Beginning with the exceedingly rare characteristics necessary for a stage (namely, the earth) on which life might appear attention was called again and again to increasingly intricate configurations, each absolutely nec- essary before the next higher level could be reached. The preconditions extend all the way to man and his social life, and even then to the problematic organization of a truly peaceful and successful society. Throughout the account we found that nature, on the standard of high-level under- standing, was nearly always failing and that endless kinds of organisms were drifting toward evolutionary blind alleys and eventual extinction. Thus far nature has partially suc- ceeded here on this earth only with man. 238 evolution: the ages and tomorrow It was emphasized that nature was gropifig and striviiig toward greater understanding, exploring all possibilities and not knowing a priori how or where success would come. Nature's method is to push Hfe into every nook and cranny of the world's habitats: into the great deeps of the oceans where it must necessarily be compressed and restricted; or out into the driest deserts where thirst is an everlasting problem; or far into the frozen tundra where there is no warmth. Here as elsewhere nature apparently depends on the blind, random forces of genetic variation and natural selection for the evolution of new species— variation in the basic life units (the genes), their additions, deletions, and rearrangements, their drift in a population, and finally the guiding forces of adaptive selection. We pointed out how at many levels in the evolutionary sequence some structural or behavioral characteristic placed restrictions and limitations on the future of a particular group of organisms. Even in man we had occasion to call attention to trends which may halt his further progress, such as failure to adapt sufficiently well to social life, failure to control the total numbers and mental levels of the individuals in his populations; and even the peculiar and very high specialization of his brain where there are probably limiting factors. And, of course, all or- ganisms, whether successful or not, and even the configura- tions of the physical cosmos, are finite. Only the universe as a whole is infinite and eternal. One can assume from the record of life, especially on the basis of an over-all trend toward greater mentality, that there has been progress in evolution and that it exists in spite of the innumerable cases of retrogression and extinctions. I have argued for nonanthropomorphic purpose in the uni- verse. Purpose, as a drive toward awareness and intelligence is an innate characteristic of the ?nind-in-matter -energy sub- stance and is as much a descriptive item as any other that analysis of the nature of the space-time continuum may re- veal. Moreover, purpose is partially realized only if and THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 239 nvhen i?icreasingly critical and more and more unlikely con- -figurations evolve. I have earnestly tried to show in this thesis that one may speak of an ever-receding goal of evolution without becom- ing involved in a teleological or telefinalistic argument. I feel that there is undeniable evidence for the concept of mind-in-matter-energy, and for the ever-receding goal of understanding. I have assumed from the very nature of the rising levels of increasingly difficult complexity and of the infinite succession of finite cosmic and organic configura- tions which evolution has brought and has yet to bring into existence that the -process "will eternally fall short of any final goal. Finally, an effort was made to show that man, and man alone, is in a position to push forward a little way toward the goal and that even if there were no purpose in the uni- verse he could introduce purpose on a local and finite scale. It was brought out that there is no hope of mental progress in adherence to myth and dogma; that man must end the confusion of the multiplicity of superstitions; that he must semantically control his false-to-fact indoctrination; that he must turn to and abide by the findings of increasingly com- prehensive and exact sciences. For science in an increasing degree, quality, and honesty is absolutely necessary to higher understanding. The way upward does not lead through the- ology, nor even through philosophy, for the philosopher must depend on science for the basic rightness of his insight. It has been the contention of this thesis that man, if he is to reach the highest plateaus of intellect, must make use of the awareness and intelligence nature has with such extreme difficulty and near-failures evolved to his present level. But it was not the intent of the thesis to infer that his mere sur- vival depends on any conscious directional act on his part. iMan, as now constituted, will rather easily survive long, long after his present mammalian associates are gone. The average life of a species of mammal is somewhere between 240 evolution: the ages and tomorrow eight and ten million years, but man is very likely to multi- ply that span of time many times over before his career on this earth is over. Man has not specialized in any v^ay other than in his brain and foot. His feet will walk the earth and his brain, even though it survives only at primitive human levels, will guide his marvelously adaptive hands through to a solution of the problem of staying alive, although all his cultures may deteriorate to the stages of his early origin. A prediction of man's future, since he is to be around for so many hundreds of millions of years, is not likely to be very convincing. From a physical point of view the prob- lem of what is to come is not so difficult; but the mental and cultural future of man is quite obscured by the haze on the horizon of those far distant years. It would seem, however, that the enjoyment of the very high levels of understanding which are possible to him can come only through his own conscious knowledge and use of the process. Man's physical evolution has nearly or actually reached its end. He is not now going to sprout wings with which to fly, or fins with which to swim; he will remain generalized, and his mating instincts will very likely restrain him from the generating of monsters. He will not radiate into various distinct types but will probably fuse the slight racial differ- ences of our day into one blended race with high variability, and thus be free of the ugly prejudices that so plague us now. Anthropologists see only minor changes in man's body, at least in the next many thousands of years. The head may become more globular but not larger so long as the female pelvis remains at its present size. A. Hrdlicka thinks that man will become still more hairless with gener- ally more refined facial features, even by present standards more gently beautiful. The forehead is rising, becoming larger. We may indeed be highbrows in the future with narrow noses and more prominent chins, slightly taller more slender bodies, and somewhat longer legs and shorter arms. THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 241 The appendix will be reduced to the vanishing point, and good riddance, along with one or two ribs and perhaps the little toe. Physiologically the heart may beat faster in a body at higher temperature, and so on. But these are all minor changes of little or no value in the success or failure of man- kind. Man could, of course, select the kind of streamhned phy- sique he most preferred from any of the types now repre- sented in the world populations and segregate out a race which would breed closely to this standard; that is, if he could ever bring about an agreement on the type to be pre- ferred. Some orientals would not be too enthusiastic about adopting as a standard what to them is the overly skinny, narrow-hipped female of the western world. Man could, for instance, so control the selection as to make the glamor of the Hollywood type the standard birthright of all. It would be no more difficult than streamlining the Kentucky Derby winner; it would only take a longer time. Of course, we know that man will never breed to such physical pedigrees, and we also know that it would do him no good if he did. The problems of social and mental life would not be more easily solved because the individuals of a population were narcissistically concerned for their beauty. Population geneticists, Hke W. C. Boyd, see in future man a blending of present racial differences in which the predominant characteristics will be chiefly a contribution of the present peoples of Asia and Africa and parts of Central and South America. Europe and North America will make only a minor contribution to the make-up of this future man. The present fantastic birth rates in Asia and Africa (43 per 1,000 as compared to European averages of 19 to 22 per 1,000), along with the already disproportionate ratio of yel- low, brown, and black over white, seems to these observers to make it rather certain that future man will have brown eyes and brown skin and black, straight hair. 242 evolution: the ages and tomorrow The pressure of growing populations along with the de- pletion of resources is the real problem of the future. Will man somehow learn to live within the limits of the space and resources available to him without repeatedly suffering ex- treme disconsolation, misery, and war? No one really knows, but the trends seem now to be so fixed and the laissez-faire attitude so strong in most minds that it would not seem pos- sible to avoid disaster. At the present moment the population in many parts of the world is doubling itself in 25 to 30 years. Even in the United States, one of the most highly in- dustrialized places on earth, the rate of natural increase will double the population in about 50 years. The total world population of about 2,500,000,000 people will be doubled in 65 to 70 years, and the greatest increase will be in places al- ready much overcrowded and where poverty and hunger is common. Can we co-exist peacefully with the explosive po- tential of A-bombs, H-bombs, and C-bombs, with "haves" and "have-nots," and with enormously expanding demands for commodities to ensure that agriculture and industrial productivity will keep pace with population needs in all parts of the world? The population problem is immediate and pressing in the decades to come, but there is another long-range problem even more critical to the way of life of our industrial world, and that is the problem of vanishing resources. As popula- tions rise and as more and more areas become industrialized, the drain on the mineral resources of the earth will be in- tensified. Soon industrialization will have spread like agri- culture over the whole face of the earth. Barrino^ the com- pletely unforeseen disasters of uncontrollable disease, or lethally mutating germ plasm, or cosmic collision, man will be here for many miUions of years. Sooner or later industriaH- zation will use up all high-grade ores, and man will then be dependent on the lean raw materials of the oceans and the ordinary crystal rocks. Long before the final depletion of his high-grade mineral resources, he will have turned to THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 243 atomic and sunlight sources for his power; but in the end he will be left with sunlight only. With only extremely thin sources of minerals and enor- mously high energy requirements for their extraction, how long could man carry on a worldwide industrial civilization? Observers like Harrison Brown find the position very pre- carious. Once the high-grade ores are nearly depleted, and that day is not too far distant, any catastrophy like a world- wide atomic war, or even social fatigue of the industrial peoples, or decline of intelligence levels, or the extreme cost and energy needs of the system would cause the collapse of the industrial world, never to rise again. Some would feel that in the long run the industrial type of civilization is bound to end, it being far too complex and requiring too great a control and leadership to survive after the ore and energy problem becomes too acute. If the interlocking in- dustrial network comes to an end suddenly, the disaster to the machine civilization would be very great. Brown points out that in such a society there is little natural resistance to disease based on natural selection, too much dependence on surgery in early life, and, possibly too little natural ability of its women to bear children. The lack of food, vaccines, antibodies, and hospitals would bring enormous havoc upon such a population. It might not even survive. If and when the industrial civilization fails, the agrarian cultures which are existing at the time would have the best chance of survival. Indeed, it is most likely that the greater part of man's life on this earth will be spent in this simple, but greatly stable kind of society. The agrarian societies of that far-distant day when the industrial complex will no longer be possible will not necessarily be undesirable in their main characteristics. Perhaps they will be much like the so- cieties that existed in Europe up to 1750. In Brown's assess- ment of the situation, the ratio of available food to total population would be low. Perhaps there would be small- scale manufacturing around water power sources, but 244 evolution: the ages and tomorrow metals would be nearly nonexistent. Without metals wide- spread use of electricity would not be possible. Hygiene would be without vaccines and antibodies, but probably better sanitary knowledge would prevail than in the eight- eenth century. Death rates would be high and the birth rate would probably be as high as was biologically possible. In the societies of the far future the complex techniques of our day, being useless then, would most likely be lost, just as the engineering knowledge of the Roman Empire was lost during the Middle Ages; but that does not mean that pure science and philosophy would cease to be taught. There would probably be scholars, just as in past ages, who could keep at least a part of theoretical advanced knowledge alive and, perhaps, at advancing levels, if natural selection toward higher intelligence is again working. Of course, there is the very remote chance that man may avoid the impasse of industrial exhaustion by traveling to the stars. If he does so, he will add endlessly to the resources and situations he may exploit and will extend his destiny still more remotely along the line of time. But if he has not in the meantime examined his own nature minutely and learned to live by the laws and relationships of the cosmos, he will only repeat again and again elsewhere the mistakes and misery of his record here. It would seem that man has a better chance of avoiding the industrial impasse if he re- duces and mentally selects his future populations and if he carefully rations the future. Unfortunately, as remote as the chance of travel to the stars may be, it is a better chance than the hope that mass-man will ever learn real self-control. All that mass-man ever seems to know, if it is not something he can fight with bow and arrow, is to run away or hide be- hind mass superstitions. How long will man actually last as a species and at what mental levels? Again, no one really knows, but there is no basic reason why he should not last an exceptionally long time. Some geneticists think that man's germ plasma may THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 245 become too variable with a dangerous content of lethal genes. H. S. MuUer and others are alarmed by the rather careless use of radiation in general and by the now truly dangerous radioactive "fall out." The natural variability of man's germ plasma, it would seem to me, is not a menace, but on the contrary a possible way, however remote, in which he may eventually evolve the kind of individuals who will more readily react to social life and who will have the innate courage to seek consciously and unconsciously for answers in nature and not in superstition. There is no doubt, however, that the radioactive "fall out" of a major atomic war could produce a generation of monsters and make man's future precarious for generations to come. The end-result would depend on how widespread the "fall out" was and for how long a time, as it would take a very thorough dosing to destroy all men everywhere. The expectation would be that somewhere and somehow untouched men would survive, and natural selection would eventually eliminate the mon- sters. There are other dangers. The mental level of the man of the future, if left to the mercy of the forces now in action in our populations, may be very undesirable. There are many who do not believe that there is any birth differential working against the upper intelligence groups, as was brought out in Chapter 15. The evidence that there is a de- cline of 2 to 4 per cent per generation in average intelligence in the United States and Great Britain is good, but possibly not conclusive. In the rest of the world a similar decline could be expected under the same industrial conditions. The former force of natural selection which brought man through his primitive beginnings up to the Industrial Revo- lution on the basis of the survival of the more intelligent may still be working in many parts of the world; but as most of the world is finally industrialized it will cease to work in any real sense. This could be the greatest menace that faces civilization in the next few hundred years. Even if this birth 246 evolution: the ages and tomorrow differential is not an actuality, it still remains true that the distribution of intelligence in the present populations of the world is not safe. There are far too many individuals at aver- age or below- average intelligence levels and too few at the high intelligence levels necessary to design and discover and control the rising industrial complex. There is absolutely nothing in the present record to indicate that there will be proportionately more individuals of high intelligence in the future when they will be needed most desperately. On the contrary, what evidence there is can only be interpreted pessimistically. Here again the problem could actually be solved by man if he so desired. High intelligence could be the birthright of every individual in the population. Geneticists know the ways by which the average capacities of the brain (memory, reason, creative power, acuteness of perception, judgment, and so on) could be raised. Selection and control of matings in the same manner in which the horse breeders brought into existence the ever faster and more streamlined runners would do it. Not only could the geneticist increase the aver- age intelligence, but he could push the upper limits beyond the present levels. One cannot help but regret that man, be- ing so self-deluded, is not in a position to lift himself up. It would be so relatively easy. As always, evolution is again faced with the difficulty of the complex— seemijigly insur- mountable in this case. Again there is the ever-present haz- ard, the rising possibility of failure, and in this case at the last minute; for it is very doubtful indeed that the process can overcome the trends novo in action without the con- scious help of 772an himself. Even with man's help there is the distinct possibility that the human brain is like other highly specialized organs. It has its limitations, but at levels much higher than any yet realized in the world's history. In the future, hidden and heretofore unused faculties of the mind will no doubt be released and developed by men of science and operational philosophy through their efforts to THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 247 emancipate themselves from the tyranny of language and culture. And there may even be latent in man, although most scientists think it very unlikely, some powers of com- munication like telepathy which transcend the known hori- zons of our day. The latter possibility conjures up the pic- ture of a race with the faculty of communicating certain contents of mind without the limitations and distortions of symbols, and without the deceit and trick of the organized lie. J. B. Rhine, S. G. Soal, and others have, at least, estab- lished a hint that there is a possibility, remote as it may be, of some degree of this faculty developing in man. In the meantime, however, man has only one sure way to take the fullest advantage of the capacities of the brain he now possesses, and that is by a complete and honest appraisal of the symbols and signs of his present means of communi- cation. He must free himself from the enslavement of words. He must find the way that Socrates long ago pointed out— to "convey knowledge," not just to "convey belief without knowledge." Science and operational philosophy are now at the frontier ready to shake off the culture-tram- meled understanding of the past, to revise their dialects and their dialectics, to re-examine the linguistic background of their thinking and, for that matter, of all thinking. There is a wide and rapidly growing attack on the problem of com- munication and on the nature of man launched by students of semantics, by Wiener's analogies of cybernetics, by stu- dents of the main mind-brain problem, by the Rashevsky school of mathematical biology, by physics and psychology and the sciences of evolution, and by many scientists turned philosopher and philosophers turned scientist. A true sci- ence of man is emerging. Even with all the emphasis and knowledge that may come through this new science of man, the problems of the future will require for their solution the highest levels of un- selfishness, intelligence, and imagination. 248 evolution: the ages and tomorrow Consider that the growing efficiency and greatly stepped- up capacities of the machines of tomorrow promise astro- nomical levels of production, with fewer and fewer men to man them. In our day there is the beginning of the fully automatic factory, the production speed-up through which backward areas of the earth may be industriaHzed with only a limited number of trained men. Everywhere, in all prob- ability, the fully automatic factory will introduce very dif- ficult problems in the unemployment of peoples and in the educational and economic necessities of the growing popu- lations. It would seem that, at least in most places in the world, the social, the cultural, and the political advances and the levels of unselfishness may not be able to cope with the situation. Consider that the rapidly growing, particularized tech- niques and sciences of tomorrow will, as they have already, make it impossible in the short life span of man for the in- dividual, even of the highest intellect, to become truly fa- miliar with the knowledge of his day. The problem of spe- cialization and the narrowing of the educational programs to adapt a population to the future needs of society will not be easily resolved. One could hope for a longer life with a longer and more thorough education, and such is not out- side the realm of possibility. The complex of heredity and physiology that controls the life span of man may not al- ways be the mystery that it now is. But again, while longer life would be a boon educationally, it would add to the so- cial and overpopulation problems of the future. Consider also, as we already have, that dwindling re- sources, the demands of expanding populations, the possible decline in intelligence levels will all add still further to the problems the man of the future must solve, and it would seem very clear that his only hope lies in the direction of a free and inspired scientific and philosophical leadership. In spite of all these difficulties, however, one can envision for some distant day, when evolution comes into its own, THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION 249 a balanced society of men of the highest mind and good will, fully the masters of the machines in a stable, untrou- bled economy that is based on an equable distribution of all that man may then have, and not on the heartless, stupidly wasteful struggle of his earlier economic cannibalism. Free of the anxieties that plagued the long line of his ancestry, this future man possesses the keenest curiosities and the deepest desires to seek out and to know the complex of na- ture and his own place in the scheme. This man will feel, as Bruno and Spinoza did long before him, that truth lies in the discovery of the natural order of the universe and the realization of a properly ordered life in a complete unity of nature and mind— that in the pursuit of knowledge he finds freedom and happiness. Such a society of men who have risen to the highest knowledge of the universal unity which is the intellectual equivalent of the love of God is not outside the realm of possibiUty, for scientists in our day know that in the nature of Hf e and man and in universal evolution lies the reality to which they must turn. It is the reality by which, as I see it, mind in matter-energy is to gain the highest possible levels of understanding. Man is already far along the way the process is following, and his science and operational philos- ophy may eventually bring him out onto a new plateau of maturity where he may stand truly erect and unafraid. If he loses these guiding lights, he will slip back once more to the credulous childhood of his race and again tremble be- fore the fearful illusions dancing in the fires that warmed him through an ice age. In this section the sources which have been consulted in the writ- ing of my book are hsted. I owe something to most of them and a very great deal to some of them. In addition, the reader will find further references that may be of interest. Wherever possible, the books and periodicals chosen were selected for their accessibility and economy. Chapter 1 Barnett, Lincoln. The Universe and Dr. Einstein (Mentor Books, 1952). I was fascinated by this brilliant, readable account of the theoretical structure of the universe. It is very fine science writ- ing, understandable in spite of the difficulty of the subject, and a valid sketch of the philosophical concepts of twentieth-century science. Barnett, Lincoln. The World We Live In (Simon & Schuster, 1955). The evolutionary story is well told and wonderfully illus- trated in a valuable contribution to the dissemination of knowl- edge that first appeared in a series of Lije magazine articles be- ginning in 1952. Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution, translated by Arthur Mitchell (Holt, 1911). One of the great classics of evolutionary literature. Bruno, Giordano. See D. Singer, listed below. Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species (Modern Library, 1936) and Descent of Man (Appleton, 1875). The two nine- teenth-century books that changed the course of human thought. DuRANT, Will. The Story of Philosophy (Pocket Books, 1954; first published by Simon & Schuster, 1926). A successful attempt to popularize a difficult subject. It was Durant's desire to human- ize knowledge by centering the story of speculative thought around certain dominant personalities. Unless you are a profes- sional philosopher, you have missed a worthwhile experience by not reading this book. 250 BIBLIOGRAPHY 25I Eddington, a. S. The Nature of the Physical World (Macmillan, 1929). The book is understandable and absorbing. Einstein, Albert and Infeld, Leopold. The Evolution of Physics (Simon & Schuster, 1942). A comparatively simple and fascinat- ing discussion of the growth of ideas from early physical con- cepts to relativity and quantum mechanics. Einstein, Albert. Relativity, The Special and General Theory (Holt, 1920). Detailed but lucid; the mathematics is not too diffi- cult. Frank, Phillip. Einstein, His Life and Times (Knopf, 1947). A former colleague of Einstein gives a detailed exposition of Ein- stein's scientific contributions, along with interesting biographical and personal details. Frisch, O. R. Meet the Atoms (A. A. Wyn, Inc., 1947). An interest- ing, even amusing, popular guide to modern physics. Gamow, George. Mr. Thompkins in Wonderland (Macmillan, 1947). Principles of relativity and quantum theory are cleverly woven into a framework of narrative fiction. Hecht, Selig. Explaining the Atom (Viking Press, 1947). Written for the layman, this is one of the best expositions of the history and theory of the atom. Jeans, Sir James. The Mysterious Universe (Macmillan, 1932). Sir James was one of the first scientists to show that it is possible to write for the general reader and yet retain the authenticity of sci- ence—a classic. LoEB, L. B. and Adams, A. S. The Development of Physical Thought (Wiley, 1933). A survey course of modern physics; not fully up to date but most interesting and enjoyable and a valuable foundation for the layman. Moody, P. A. Introduction to Evolution (Harper, 1953). A good general text, brief, not difficult to read. Singer, Dorothea. Giordano Bnmo, His Life and Thought (Schu- man, 1950). Contains an annotated translation of Bruno's work On the Infinite Universe and Worlds. Wells, H. G., Huxley, J. S., and Wells, G. P. The Science of Life, 4 vols. (Doubleday, 1931). This is by far the finest popu- larization of any science I have read. The fourth volume is on evolution; the story was never better told. Weyl, Herman. Mind and Nature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934). The epistemological implications of modern physics set forth by a colleague of Einstein. Whitehead, A. N. Science and the Modern World (Mentor Books; originally published by Macmillan, 1925). Whitehead's views have exerted a very considerable influence. 252 BIBLIOGRAPHY Chapter 2 BoNDi, Herman. Cosmology (Cambridge University Press, 1954). The speculations of one of the members of the team of Hoyle, Lyttle, Bondi, and Gold, a team that has made an important con- tribution to cosmology. Bruno, G. See Singer in Chap. 1. BuFFON, G. L. L. See Gamow, The Biography of the Earth, below. Finlay-Freundlich, E. Cosviology (International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. University of Chicago Press, 1951). An impor- tant statement for the advanced student. Gives some support to the idea of an infinite universe with a hierarchic structure, such as was suggested by Lambert and much earlier in a general sense by Bruno. Gamow, George. Biography of the Earth (Mentor Books, 1948) and also The Birth and Death of the Sun (Mentor Books). In these two books Gamow, one of the best and most entertaining expositors of science, tells the story of the earth's origin and of the wide universe of stars in which our sun is but a small incon- spicuous body. Newer theories, such as that of Whipple, were not available at the time of Gamow's writing, but both books are well worthwhile anyway. See also Gamow's One Two Three . . . Infinity (Viking Press, 1947) for more recent theories. Gamow, George. The Creation of the Universe (Viking Press, 1952). The interesting and well-told story of the origin of the galaxies as the proponents of the theory of the expanding uni- verse see it. HoYLE, Fred. The Nature of the Universe (Harper, 1951; Mentor Books). Here is a most fascinating speculation concerning the nature of the cosmos. Hoyle and his colleagues, Lyttle, Bondi, and Gold, have boldly attacked every angle of the problem with all the physical and mathematical weapons available to them. Hubble, Edwin. "The Problem of the Expanding Universe," American Scientist, Vol. 30 (1942). The discovery of the "red shift" in the spectra of distant galaxies, a discovery which pre- ceded the idea of the expanding universe, is here discussed; Hubble cautions against assuming that the red shift necessarily means expansion. Jeans, Sir James. Physics and Philosophy (Macmillan, 1943). A great book. Johnson, Martin. Time, Knowledge and Nebulae (Dover, 1947). The very difficult concepts of E. A. Milne (kinematical rela- tivity) and others are reviewed. BIBLIOGRAPHY 253 Jones, H. S. Life on Other Worlds (Mentor Books, 1949). Can- vasses the possibility of life on other worlds— a very informative and interesting book with the stamp of the authority of an as- tronomer. Easy to read. Lambert. See Finlay-Freundlich, above. Laplace. See Gamow, One Tivo Three . . . Infinity, above. Lemaitre, Abbe. See Gamow, The Creation of the Universe, above. Milne, E. A. See Johnson, above. Reiser, O. L. "The Evolution of Cosmologies," Philosophy of Sci- ence, Vol. 19, No. 2 (April, 1952). A brief review of cosmologies, old and new, and an introduction to Reiser's own cyclic-creative universe. Reiser develops a theory which is free from time and space limitations. For more of Reiser see Chap. 16. Urey, H. C. The Planets, Their Origin and Development (Yale University Press, 1954). A physical chemist looks at the problem from a different point of view— a planetesimal theory (accumu- lation of dust). Considerable chemistry and mathematics. Weizacker, C. See Gamow, The Creation of the Universe, above. Whipple, F. L. "The Dust Cloud Hypothesis," Scientific American (May, 1948). Chapter 3 Baldwin, E. J. An hitroduction to Comparative Bioche?nistry (Cambridge University Press, 1940). Blum, H. F. Ti??ie's Arrow and Evolution (Princeton University Press, 1951). A critical examination of the properties of elements found in living substance and of the problem of entropy. Flanagan, Dennis (ed.). The Physics and Chemistry of Life (A Scientific American Book, Simon & Schuster, 1956). Explains life within the disciplines of the physical sciences. Haldane, J. B. S. "A New Theory of the Past," American Scientist, Vol. 33 (July, 1945). Deduces some of the consequences of Milne's theory of kinematical relativity. Horowitz, N. H. "On Evolution of Biochemical Synthesis," Pro- ceedings of the Natiofial Academy of Science, Vol. 31 (1945). Jeffreys, H. See Gamow, Biography of the Earth, listed in Chap. 2. Jerome, Alexander. Life, Its Nature and Origin (Reinhold, 1948). Oparin, a. L The Origin of Life (Macmillan, 1938; Dover, 1953). Schrodinger, Erwin. What is Life? (Macmillan, 1945). A very thought-provoking review and analysis of the problem of life by an atomic physicist. 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY Shull, F. a. Evolution, 2d ed. (McGraw-Hill, 1951). Includes a chapter on the origin of life and an understandable review and analysis of the nature and the behavior of the gene. Chapter 4 Darwin, Charles. See Chap. 1. DoBZHANSKY, Th. Genetics and the Origin of Species, 3d ed. (Columbia University Press, 1951). A critical study. Dunn, L. C. and Dobzhansky, Th. Heredity, Race and Society (Mentor Books, 1948). Easy to read. Fisher, R. A. The Gejietical Theory of Natural Selectiofi (Oxford University Press, 1930). Haldane, J. B. S. The Causes of Evolution (Harper, 1932). Morgan, T. H. See Sinnott, Dunn, and Dobzhansky, below. ScHEiNFELD, A. The New You and Heredity, rev. ed. (Lippincott, 1950). Genetics for the layman. Shull, F. A. See notes to Chap. 3. Sinnott, E. W., Dunn, L. C, and Dobzhansky, Th. Principles of Genetics, 4th ed. (McGraw-Hill, 1950). A most comprehensive text. Wright, Sewall. See Sinnott, Dunn, and Dobzhansky, above. Chapter 5 BucHSBAUM, Ralph. Animals Without Backbofies (University of Chicago Press, 1948). Many excellent pictures, very readable. Romer, a. F. Man and the Vertebrates (University of Chicago Press, 1941; also, Penquin Books). Profusely illustrated. This text should prove very interesting to the general reader. Wells, H. G., Huxley, J. S., and Wells, G. P. The Science of Life (Doubleday, 1931). The treatment of phyletic detail is such that interest is sustained all the way from amoeba to man. Wilson, Carl L. Botany (Dryden Press, 1952). A good general text. Chapter 6 Broom, Robert. "The Ape Men," Scientific American, Vol. 181, No. 5 (November, 1949). One of the discoverers of the South African fossils tells about them. BIBLIOGRAPHY 255 Bruno, G. See Singer in Chap. 1. Dart, Raymond. See Broom, above. Huxley, Julian. Ma7i in the Modern World (Mentor Books, 1949). Huxley has done more than any other biologist to bring scientific thought to the layman. This volume of essays is informative and fascinating. KoENiGswALD, G. H. R. VON. "Search for Early Man," Natural His- tory, Vol. 56, No. 1 (January, 1947). The magazine of the Museum of Natural History, New York, is available to the public and is very well worth obtaining. Krogman, W. M. "The Man-Apes of South Africa," Scientific American, Vol 178, No. 5 (May, 1948). LaBarre, Weston. The Human Animal (University of Chicago Press, 1955). Cultural anthropology into which is incorporated the insight of the Freudian psychologist. An important contribu- tion to the field. Lamarck, J. B. See Simpson, listed below. Montagu, M. F. Ashley, On Being Human (Schuman, 1950), and The Directions of Human Development (Harper, 1955). Books are helpful contributions to the development of a general science of man. Raymond, P. E. Prehistoric Life (Harvard University Press, 1947). Robinson, Th. See Broom, listed above. Simpson, G. G. The Meaning of Evolution (Yale University Press, 1949; also in Mentor Books, 1951). This book, like those of Julian Huxley, has been very helpful to students of the problems of evolution. The layman will find it readable. Sinnott, E. W. "Biological Basis of Democracy," Yale RevieWj Vol. 35 (1945). Waddington, C. H. "Human Ideals and Human Progress," World Review (August, 1946). Chapter 7 Allee, W. C. The Social Life of Ajiimals (Norton, 1938). The pioneer in research which led to specific answers to social problems. Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. Froblems of Life (Wiley, 1952). A very able analysis. Darwin, Charles. See Chap. 1. Huxley, Julian S. The Individual in the Animal Kingdom (Put- nam, 1912). Kleinberg, Otto. Social Psychology (Holt, 1940). 256 BIBLIOGRAPHY Kropotkin, p. Mutual Aid, a Factor in Evolution (Knopf, 1914). Montagu, M. F. Ashley. See Chap. 6. MoRLEY, D. W. The Ant World (Penguin Books, 1955). One of the most fascinating books one could possibly find. The fantastic world of the ant comes alive in this book. Richards, O. W. The Social bisects (Philosophical Library, 1953). Shull, F. a. See notes to Chap. 3. Wells, H. G., Huxley, J. S., and Wells, G. P. The Science of Life (Doubleday, 1931). The story of social life in the insects is one of the highlights of this work. Chapter 8 Bergson, Henri L. The Two Sources of Morality ajid Religiony translated by R. Ashley Audra, Cloudesley Brereton, with as- sistance of W. H. Carter (Holt, 1935). Bergson, Henri. Creative EvolutioJi. See Chap. 1. Confucius. The reader is referred to another Life Magazine series, "The World's Great Religions, Part 3" (April 4, 1955). Child, V. G. Man Makes Himself (Mentor Books, 1951). Man's progress through the ages, the rise of civilizations, the mastery over the environment. FoRDHAM, Frieda. Introduction to Jung's Psychology (Penquin Books, 1954). Freud, S. A General Introduction to Psychology (Pocket Books — Perma, 1955). A series of lectures Freud gave to a group of in- terested laymen. For more of Freud's thought see Hall, below. Gautama. The reader is refered to the Life Magazine series, "The World's Great Religions, Part 2" (March 7, 1955). The series is excellent and will be available as a whole or in separate reprints. GiLLiN, John. The Ways of Men (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948). Hall, C. S. A Primer of Freudian Psychology (Mentor Books, 1955). Emphasis is on the normal as opposed to the abnormal. Hooton, E. a. Up From the Ape (Macmillan, 1946). A very witty and at the same time informative book. See also Hooton's Apes, Men and Morons (Putnam, 1937). Howell, William. Mankind So Far (Doubleday, 1947). One of the best for the general reader. Combines charm and authority. Huxley, J. S. The Individual in the Animal Kijigdom (Putnam, 1912). Jones, F. Wood. Arboreal Man (Arnold, 1926). Jung, C. G. See Fordham, listed above. BIBLIOGRAPHY 257 Kroeber, a. L. Anthropology (Harcourt, Brace, 1948). LaBarre, Weston. See Chap. 6. Lao Tse. See Life Magazine series, "The World's Great Religions, Part 3," (April 4, 1955). LoEB, E. M. "The Kuanyama Ambo," Scientific American, Vol. 183, No. 4 (October, 1950). Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West, trans, by G. F. Atkin- son (Knopf, 1928). ToYNBEE, Arnold J. A Study of History, abridged by D. C. Somer- vell (Oxford University Press, 1947). This is the famous one- volume abridgment of the first six volumes of the original Toynbee work. Wells, H. G. An Outline of History (Doubleday, 1921). In this book the story of man's early history is told in a manner few, if any, have been able to equal. For the general reader this book is a "must." Yerkes, R. M. and Yerkes, A. W. The Great Apes (YaJe Uni- versity Press, 1929). A basic study by leaders in the psychological study of the apes. Chapter 9 Bergson, Henrl See Chap. 1. Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. See Chap. 7. Bramstedt, F. "Dressurversuche Mit Paramecium caudatum und Stvlonychia," Zeitschrift der Vergleichende Physiologie, Vol. 22 (1935). Cannon, W. B. The Wisdom of the Body (Norton, 1932). Driesch, Hans. The Science and Philosophy of the Orgajiism (Lon- don: Black, 1908). The classical statement of "vitalism." French, J. W. "Trial and Error in Learning in Paramecium," Jour- nal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 26 (1940). Gelber, Beatrice. "Investigation of the Behavior of Paramecium aurelia," Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, Vol. 45, No. 1 (1952). Haldane, J. B. S. Mechanism, Life and Personality (Dutton, 1914). Henderson, L. J. The Order of Nature (Harvard University Press, 1917). Jennings, H. S. The Universe and Life (Yale University Press, 1933). One of the first studies to show clearly that even protozoa are teachable. 258 BIBLIOGRAPHY Smuts, Jan C. Holism mid Evolution (Macmillan, 1926). His thesis is that to understand Hfe, Uving things must be studied as in- tegrated systems with characteristic laws of their own. ScHRODiNGER, Erwin. See Chap. 3. Sherrington, Sir Charles S. Man on His Nature (Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1945; also Anchor Books, 1954). SiNNOTT, E. W. Cell and Psyche, The Biology of Purpose (Uni- versity of North Carolina Press, 1950). An inspiring little book. See also The Biology of the Spirit (Viking Press, 1955) which sets up the premise that life and mind are unal, not dual, and that life is purposeful. Sullivan, J. W. N. The Limitations of Science (Viking Press, 1933; also Mentor Books, 1949). Although somewhat dated now it will be (or has been) an event in the life of the reader. In spite of the great difficulties of the subjects covered, this book has brought the central concepts of science to many laymen. Chapter 10 BucHSBAUM, Ralph. Animals Without Backbones (University of Chicago Press, 1948). NissEN, H. W. See Stevens, below. RoMER, A. F. Man and the Vertebrates (University of Chicago Press, 1941; also Penguin Books). Stevens, S. S. Hajidbook of Experimental Psychology (Wiley, 1951). In this handbook, H. W. Nissen reviews the literature on learning in animals. Stone, C. P. Comparative Psychology, 3d ed. (Prentice-Hall, 1951). Various authors contribute chapters to an excellent reference book, covering work on many different kinds of animals. Wells, H. G., Huxley, J. S., and Wells, G. P. The Science of Life (Doubleday, 1931). Chapter 11 Fabre, J. H. C. The Insect World (Dodd, Mead, 1949) and The Wonders of Instinct, translated by A. Teixerira and B. Miall (Century, 1918). Two classics. Frisch, Karl von. Bees, Their Vision, Chemical Senses and Lan- guage (Cornell University Press, 1950). A very important little book. It ends once and for all the contention that only man can BIBLIOGRAPHY 259 communicate detailed and specific information. See also von Frisch's The Dancing Bees (Harcourt, Brace, 1955). Kleinberg, Otto. Social Psychology (Holt, 1940). McDouGALL, William. The Riddle of Life (London: Methuen, 1938). MoRLEY, D. W. The Ant World (Penguin Books, 1955). Richards, O. W. The Social Insect (Philosophical Library, 1953). Stone, C. P. Co?nparative Psychology, 3d ed. (Prentice-Hall, 1951). Wells, H. G., Huxley, J. S., and Wells, G. P. The Science of Life (Doubleday, 1931). Whyte, L. L. See Chap. 13. Chapter 12 Alpert, Augusta. See Harlow, listed below. Beach, F. A. "Payday for Primates," Natural History, Vol. 56, No. 10 (December, 1947). Reviews John Wolfe's work at the Yale Laboratories of Primate Biology. Boutan, Louis. See Yerkes in Chap. 8. Harlow, H. F. and Harlow, M. K. "Learning to Think," Scientific American, Vol. 181, No. 2 (August, 1949). See also Stone, listed in Chap. 10. Herron, W. T. See Stone, listed in Chap. 10. Jesperson, Otto. Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin (Holt, 1922). Katz, David. Animals and Men (Penguin Books, 1953). A psychol- ogist looks at human beings and other animals and discusses the processes that lie behind behavior. Kellog, W. N. and Kellog, L. A. The Ape and the Child (Mc- Graw-Hill, 1933). A very revealing study. KoHLER, Wolfgang. The Mentality of Apes, translated by Ella Winter (Harcourt, Brace, 1931). LaBarre, Weston. See Chap. 6. Mathieson, Eunice. See Harlow, above. McCuLLocH, W. S. and Pitts, W. "How We Know Universals," Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, Vol. 9 (1947). Muller, Max. See Jesperson, above. MuNN, N. L. Psychology (Houghton Mifflin, 1951). NissEN, H. W. See Stevens, listed in Chap. 10. Northrop, F. S. C. "The Neurological and Behavioristic Psycho- logical Basis of the Ordering of Society by means of Ideas," Science,Vol 197 (1948). 26o BIBLIOGRAPHY Sluckin, W. Minds and Machmes (Penguin Books, 1954). Describes the electronic brain machines and how they work. Discusses the influence of thinking machines on modern psychology. Sperry, R. W. "Neurology and the Mind-Brain Problem," Ameri- can Scientist^ Vol. 40 (April, 1952). Weinstein, B. See Stone, listed in Chap. 10. Wiener, NoRBERT. Cybernetics (Wiley, 1948). Wolfe, John. See Beach, above. Yerkes, R. M. and Yerkes, A. W. See Chap. 8. Chapter IS Hayakawa, S. I. Language in Thought and Action (Harcourt, Brace, 1949). Huxley, Julian. Evolutioj2, The Modern Syjithesis (Harper, 1943). For the student of evolution; a very valuable work. Johnson, W. People in Quandaries (Harper, 1946). KoRZYBSKi, Alfred. Science and Sa?iity (Science Press, 1941). The beginning of a new discipline, general semantics. Lee, I. J. Language Habits in Human Affairs (Harper, 1941). A big, little book. It is another "must" for the general reader. Rapoport, Anatol. Operational Philosophy (Harper, 1953). A new and rational link between the traditional outlooks of philosophy and modern scientific ideas. Operational philosophy proposes to integrate knowledge and action. Rashevsky, Nicolas. Mathematical Biophysics, Physicomathe?nati- cal Foundatio7is of Biology (University of Chicago Press, 1938). Reiser, O. L. See Chap. 2. Simpson, G. G. See Chap. 6. Whyte, L. L. The Next Development in Man (Mentor Books, 1950). "Unitary Man" is the emphasis in this book— the w^hole man, the complete man, living in harmony with nature, and knowing himself. A book full of understanding. Wiener, Norbert. The Human Use of Human Beings (Houghton Mifflin, 1950; also Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955). The great "electronic brain" of the future may itself be one of the problems of the future. Chapter 14 Burgh, G. I. and Pendell, E. Human Breeding and Survival, Popu- lation Roads to Peace or War (Penguin Books, 1947). BIBLIOGRAPHY 261 Cook, R. C. Human Fertility: The Modern Dilemma (William Sloane, 1951). An authentic treatment of overpopulation in all its phases. Written with sincerity and missionary fervor. Easy to read. Darwin, Charles. See Chap. 1. Lull, R. S. Organic Evolution, 2d ed. (Macmillan, 1947). Malthus, Thomas R. An Essay on the Principle of Fopulation, edited by Ernest Rhys (Everyman's Library). ToYNBEE, A. J. See Chap. 8. Woodruff, L. L. FoundatioJis of Biology, 6th ed. (Macmillan, 1941). Chapter IS Cattell, Raymond. "Is National Intelligence Declining," Eugenics Review, Vol 28 (1936). Cook, R. C. See Chap. 14. Lorimer, Frank and Osborn, Frederick. Dynamics of Population (Macmillan, 1934). Ortega y Gasset, Jose. The Revolt of the Masses (Mentor Books, 1951). Of man, particularly mass man, this author says: "Lord of all things, he is not lord of himself." Read this searching analysis of our society. Pressy, C. L. and Robinson, Francis. Psychology and the New Education (Harper, 1944). Terman, L. M. and Merril, M. A. Measuring Intelligence (Hough- ton Mifflin, 1937). Chapter 16 Allee, W. C. See Chap. 7. Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture (Mentor Books, 1948). Reads as easily as most novels. You will be fascinated by this analysis of our social structure as related to primitive civilizations. Cannon, W. B. The Wisdom of the Body (Norton, 1932). Carpenter, C. R. "A Field Study of the Behavior and Social Re- lations of Howling Monkeys," Comparative Psychology Mono- graphs, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1934). Darwin, Charles. See Chap. 1. Emerson, A. E. "Dynamic Homeostasis: A Unifying Principle in Organic, Social and Ethical Evolution," Scientific Monthly, Vol. 78, No. 2, (February, 1954). 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY Huxley, T. H. "Romanes Lectures" as reprinted by Julian Huxley in Touchstone for Ethics (Harper, 1947). Keith, Sir Arthur. Evolution and Ethics (Putnam, 1946). Leake, C. D. "Ethicogenesis," Science Monthly, Vol. 60 (1945). Mead, Margaret. Growing Up in New Guinea (Mentor Books, 1953). Another interesting and revealing study of a primitive culture. Montagu, M. F. Ashley. See Chap. 6. Otto, Max. Science and the Moral Life (Mentor Books, 1949). Plato. Dialogues of Plato (Pocket Books, 1951). Reiser, O. L. Philosophy and the Concepts of Modern Science (Macmillan, 1935); also World Philosophy, A Search for Syn- thesis (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1948); and Nature, Man and God (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1951). Russell, Bertrand. Religion and Science (Holt, 1936). Simpson, G. G. See Chap. 6. Toynbee, a. J. See Chap. 8. Westermarck, E. Ethical Relativity (Paul Trench, 1932). Chapter 11 Boyd, W. C. Genetics and the Races of Man (Brown and Co., 1950). Brown, Harrison. The Challe?ige of Man's Future (Viking, 1954). The strains and stresses of the future have never been more con- vincingly presented. Bruno, Giordano. See Singer, in Chap. 1. Darwin, Sir Charles Galton. The Next Million Years (Double- day, 1953). The grandson of the author of The Origijj of Species is alarmed by the unrestrained reproductive trends in man. Hampshire, Stuart. Spinoza (Penguin Books, 1951). A general in- troduction to the teachings of the great seventeenth-century philosopher and metaphysician whose system embraces the whole range of the traditional problems of philosophy. Hrdlicka, a. "Man's Future in the Light of His Past and Present," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 68 (1929). Huxley, Jull^n. Evolution in Action (Harper, 1953). Man, ac- cording to Huxley, is the result of two thousand million years of biological evolution. He has every prospect of an equal, or even greater, span of psycho-social evolution before him. A most in- teresting discussion of actualities and possibilities. BIBLIOGRAPHY 263 KoRZYBSKi, Alfred. See Chap. 13. Langer, Susanne, K. Philosophy in a New Key (Mentor Books, 1948). Muller, H. S. a warning on the front cover of the Journal of Heredity (September, 1947). Rashevsky, N. Mathematical Biophysics, Physicomathematical Foundations of Biology (University of Chicago, 1938). Rhine, J. B. New World of the Mind (William Sloane, 1953). Partly because of his efforts to popularize the subject, and partly because of the extensive research done in his laboratory, Rhine is the most widely known experimenter in extrasensory percep- tion (ESP). This book, although written for laymen, is au- thoritative in those parts which describe experimental evidence. Along with his review of the evidence, the author gives anecdotal material, a history of the ESP controversy, and speculation about the implications and future development of this field. Riddle, Oscar. The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought (Vantage Press, 1954). Examines the popular resistance to human self- appraisal. Riddle finds that society is not actually dedicated to human purposes, but rather to supernatural purposes. Schrodinger, Erwin. See Chap. 3. SiNNOTT, E. W. See Chap. 9. SoAL, S. G. and Bateman, F. Modern Experiments in Telepathy (Yale University Press, 1954). The authors first review some of the statistical experiments in extrasensory perception (ESP) done in the United States and in Endand; they then recount in detail their own card-guessing work with two people, work which produced extra-chance results. In his introduction to the book, G. E. Hutchinson of Yale says that he "is convinced that Soal and Bateman withstand honest attack extremely wtW. Other more ingenious critics may, of course, discover loopholes; but until they do, there would seem no alternative to acceptance . . ." Spinoza. See Hampshire, above. Sullivan, J. W. N. See Chap. 9. Wiener, Norbert. See Chap. 13. Index A Study of History, 87 Acrasiaceae, 72-73 Adaptation, in hereditary changes, 40-41 Africa, birth rates in, 241 Agriculture, 96-97, 243-44 Akeley, Carl E., 73 Allee, W. C, 70-72, 74, 78, 218 Alpert, Augusta, tests, 162 Altruism among animals, 82-83 in man, 85 weakness of, 219 Amino acids, 27-28, 34 Amnion, 52 Amphibian, 52 Amphioxus, brain of, 128 Andromeda Nebula, resolved, 1924, 16 Animal and plant progression, 44-55 Animals, development of mind in, 120-35 Annelid— arthropod line, 51 Annelid worms, 49 sense of timing, 126 two-part brain, 124-25 Anthropoids, link to, 59-60 Ants, 127 agricultural, 145 behavior of, 143-47 caste system of, 81-82 division of labor in, 143-44 food-getting in, 144 grain collectors, 145 honey pots, 145-46 lolling, 147 slaves of, 146 war on other ants, 147 Ape-man, 61, 89-90; see also Primates Apes, 91, 134 Apes, great, 55 Aristotle, 221 Arithmetic machine, of Pascal, 173 Arthropods, 49, 54, 127 Asia, birth rates in, 241 Australopithecines, 60-61, 63 Australopithecus africanus, 60-61 Automation, 248 Baboons, organization of, 55, 79 Balanced society, the goal of man, 249 Balanoglossus, 50 Barnett, Lincoln, 22 Bass, cannibalism of, 73 Bees behavior of, 148-57 bumblebees, life of, 148-49 capable of concept formation, 157 caste system of, 80-81 language of, 153-57, 168 scout bees, 153-57 sense organs of, 152-56 stylized dance of, 154-56 Bees, Their Vision, Chei?tical Senses, aiid Language, 150 Beetles, lady, 75 265 266 INDEX Beginnings of life, 23-34 Behavior affected by emotions, 232 animal, three stages, 137-40 Bergson, Henri, 7, 86, 87-88, 114 Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, 84 Binet, Alfred, 206 Bipedal-bifocal ape, 57 Birds end of their evolution, 54 glorified reptiles, 53 instincts of, 141-42 large flocks of, 77 migrations of, 75, 141-42 "peck order" of, 78 size of, 178 Birth control, 195, 199, 201, 202 Birth rates in Africa and Asia, 241 of animals, 189-92 Black, Davidson, 62 Blasmla, 48 Blum, H. F., 24 Bohr, Niels, 18 Bondi, Herman, 20 Bose, Sir J. C, 121 Boutan, on Gibbon talk, 169-70 Boyd, W. C, 241 Brain cerebral hemispheres, 130-32 forebrain, 129-30 hindbrain, 129 human, compared to machine, 172-75 midbrain, 129 origin of, 86 small, of higher primates, 60-61 Bramstedt, F., 116 Breasted, J. H., 106 Bronze age, 97 Broom, Robert, 60, 63 Brown, Harrison, 243-44 Bruno, Giordano, 3-4, 8, 21, 56, 118-19, 183, 234-36, 249 Buddha, Gautama, 104-5 Buffon, G. L. L., 13 Bumblebees, 148-49 Burr, H. S., 121 Bushmen, 92, 99-100 Calculator, of Lully, 173 Cambrian period, 46, 48 Cannon, Walter, 231-32 Carbon element of life, 24 special role of, 26 Carbon atom, 8-9 Carpenter, C. R., 220 Castes, among insects, 79-82 Cattell, Raymond, 209, 211-12 Caucasoids, 65 Cell ci?id Psyche, 117-18 Cephalization, 177 Cerebral hemispheres, 51-52, 130-32 Ceremonial life, 96 Chamberlin, T. C, 14 Child, indoctrinated, 181 Children, compared to rhesus mon- keys, 160-62 China ape-man, 89-90 fossils in, 62 overpopulation in, 196, 201 "Chimp money," 166-67 Chimp-O-Mat, 165-66 Chimpanzees clans of, 221 intelligence tests of, 162, 165-67 Chromosomes, 31 basis of heredity, 36 doubling and tripling of, 38-39 Church, value of, 183 Civilizations of man, 66, 85-107 Coacervates, 28-34 Cockroaches, 127-28 Coelenterates, 122-23 Collision theory forming solar sys- tem, 13-14 Colloids, 28 inorganic, 28 organic, 28-34 Competition, intra-species, 43 Compounds, synthesis of, 27 Concept formation, of bees, 157 Conceptual thought, 158-75 Confucius, 105-6, 183 INDEX 267 Conscious control, of destiny of man, 66 Conscious understanding, progres- sion toward, 69, 176 Continuity in evolution, 236 Cook, R. C, 196-97, 205-6 Cooperate, desire to, 67 Cooperative efforts, 9, 70 {see also Mutual aid); importance of, 176, 180 Cosmos; see also Universe infinite mechanism, 4 theories concerning, 11-22 Creative individuals and mass imi- tation, 87-88 Cro-Magnon man, 63 Cross-breeding of humans, 63-64 Cuckoo, instincts of, 142 Cybernetics, 172-75, 247 Cyclical, nonrepeating universe, 21-22 Dalgarns, George, 187 Dance, of scout bees, 154-56 Dart, Raymond, 59-61, 90 Darwin, Charles, 7, 29, 36, 40, 43, 56, 71, 191, 221, 222-23 Death check, to control overpopu- lation, 190-91 Declining intelligence, danger of, 203-14 Demagogue, 186 Depletion, of resources, 242-43 Descartes, Rene, 187 Differential birth rates, 202, 203-4, 209-14, 233 Digger wasp, 140 Dobzhansky, T., 42 Dogmatist, limitations of, 217-18 Dole, Malcolm, 26 Dominance-subordination relation- ships, 219-20; see also "Peck order" Doppler effect, 16 Dorsal nerve cord, 51-52 Drones, in beehive, 80-81, 150-52 Dualism, 5, 108, 182, 215 Dubois, Eujgene, 61-62 Duckbill platypus, 55 Dust cloud hypothesis, 15-16, 25 Dynamics of Population^ 209 Earth, elements of this planet, 23-30 Echinoderms, 49-50, 54, 123-24 Economy, stable and untroubled, 249 Eddington, Sir Arthur, 18, 179 Education methods not perfect, 181 specialization in, 248 Egg, development of, 52 Egypt, 98-99, 106 Einstein, Albert, 3, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 204-5 Electric eel, 113 Electronic machine, 173-75 Elephants behavior of, 73 birth rate of, 190 size of herd, 77 Embryos, 48 Emerson, A. E., 231-32 Emotions, affecting behavior, 232 England, declining I.Q., 209, 211-13 Entropy, law of, 18 Environment, influence of, 68 on geniuses, 204-6 Enzymes, 31-33 Equivalence of mass and energy, 18 Eskimos, 90, 92 Esperanto, 187 Ethical Relativity, 111 and evolution, 215-33 based on science and knowledge, 225 naturalistic, 228-30 outgrowth of animal responses, 217 scientific approach to, 230-33 tooth-and-claw code, 222-27 Euglena^ 110 Evans, Sir Arthur, 168 Ever-receding goal, of evolution, 9, 228, 239 Evolution continuity in, 236 I 268 INDEX 'Evolution— Continued and ethics, 215-33 controlled by genes, 33 ever-receding goal, 9, 228, 239 goal of, 234-49 progression toward conscious understanding, 69 new social, 68-69 supplement to organic evolu- tion, 68 of man's mind, 237-39 organizing drive of, 3-10 physical background of, 11-22 progress in, 44-46 retrogression and degeneracy, 45-46 trends of, 176-88 two-phase, social and organic, 69 understanding necessary to free ethics, 107 Evolution, the Modern Synthesis, 176 Evolution a?id Ethics, 223 Evolutionary process, limitations of, 9 Exogamy, 93-94 Expanding universe, 13-18 Explosion theory, producing plan- ets, 13-15 Eye, development of, 110-11 Fabre, J. H. C, 140 False-to-fact orientation, 184-85, 216,239 Family life evolution of, 219-21 grows into tribe, 94-95 Old Man's influence, 92-96 trend to, 90-94 Feed-back mechanism, 173-75 Feet, of man, 49, 58-60, 240 Ferns, 47 Fertility controlling, 212-13 differential rates of, 203-4, 209- 14 Finlay-Freundlich, E., 21 Fire, use of, 61-62, 89-90 Fish, birth rate of, 190 schools of, 75 Fisher, R. A., 40 Five-fingered limb, 52 Flatworms, 48-49; see also Worms Fling, M., 32 Food supply, outstripped by popu- lation, 197 Forebrain, 129-30 Fossil record, 58-65 Fossils in South Africa, 58-60 link to anthropoids, 59-60 French, J. W., 116 Freud, Sigmund, 95, 222 Frisch, Karl von, 150-56 Frogs and salamanders, 52 Fruit fly, genetics of, 38 Galileo, 88 Galley Hill skulls, 62 Garrow, A. E., 32 Gastrula, 48 Gautama Buddha, 104-5, 183 Noble Eightfold Path, 105 Gelber, Beatrice, 116 Genes, 7, 30-34 continuity of germinal plasma, 35 favored, 41 giant nucleoproteins, 37 in control, 35-43 living stream of, 35 mutations of, 35-38 unit of life, 34 Genetic differences, in man, 63-65 GeJietics and the Origin of Spe- cies, 42 Geniuses, environmental needs of, 204-6 Gerard, R.W., 231-32 Germinal plasma continuity of, 35 natural variability of, 67 Gesell, Arnold, organization, prin- ciple of order, 160 Gestalt psychology, 174 Giant ape-man, 61 INDEX 269 Gills, of vertebrates, 51 Glands, responses of, 112-13 Goal, of evolution, 234-49 Gold, T., 20 Golden Rule, of Confucius, 105-6 Gorilla, family life of, 92, 220-21 Gramow, George, 17 Great Britain, declining I.Q. in, 209, 211-13, 245 Grouping, advantages of, 76-77 Grubs, in beehive, 151 Haldane, J. B. S., 26, 30, 40, 85, 119 Halictus, 148 Ha?idbook of Experimental Psy- chology, 122, 124 Hands adaptive, of man, 240 development of, 52 freed, beginning of man's suc- cess, 57-60 Harlow, H. F., 160-64 Heat death, 18-19 Heidelburg man, 62 Hellenic overpopulation, 193-94 Hens, society in "peck order," 78 Heredity, 42 chromosome, basis of, 36 Herron, W. T., 158 Hindbrain, 129 Hindus, religion of, 12 Hip bones, significance of, 58-60 Hiroshima, 62 Hive bee, 149; see also Bees Homeostasis, 231-32 Homo ferus, 172 Homo neanderthalensis, 62-63 Homo sapiens, 5; see also Man Honeybees, social order of, 80-81 Honeypots, 145-46 Hooten, E., 58 Horowitz, N. H., 32-33 Hottentots, 100-1 Hoyle,Fred, 19-21 Hrdlicka, A., 240 Hubble, Edwin, 16-17 Human Fertility, The Modern Di- lejmna, 197, 214 Humanism of Jesus, 106-7 scientific, 230-32 Huxley, Julian, 83, 176,225 Huxley, T. H., 222-23 Hydrocarbons, 26 Hygiene, influence on population, 198-200 Hymenoptera, 79, 127 Ice ages molds man, 89-90 Ido, 187 Implements, development of, 97-98 Incest, taboos against, 92-93 India, 216 overpopulation in, 196, 201 Individuals creative, 87-88 importance of, 83-84, 86-88 Industrial civilization, future fail- ure of, 243-44 Industrial Revolution, 66, 225 Inheritance, of acquired social characters, 67-68 Insects instincts of, 139-41 swarms of, 75 Instinct, 136-57 absolute control of man's freedom from, 85-86, 219 ants, 136 bees, 136 desirable, 143 undesirable, 142 Intelligence declining, 203-14, 245 high-level, 215-17 plasticity of, 219 Intelligence quotient, (I.Q.), 206- 12 Interlingua, 187-88 Interthinking groups, 69 average declining in U. S., 209-10 declining levels, 245 270 INDEX Interthinking groups— Continued selection and control of matings, 241, 246 tabulation for population of the U. S., 1952, 207-8 Invertebrates, 5, 48-50, 134 starfish, 49-50 Irritability, of protoplasm, 109 Japan American hygiene introduced, 200 birth control in, 201 overpopulation problem, 196-200 Java man, 61-62, 65 Jeans, Sir J. H., 14 Jeffreys, H., 25-26 Jehovah, 106 Jelly fishes, 48 Jennings, H. S., 115-16 Jespersen, Otto, 169 Jesus Christ, 183 Kingdom of Heaven, 106-7 Jews, religion of, 106 Jointed foot, 49 Jung, C. G., 95 Jupiter, 23-24 Kalahari, 92 Kalunga, 102 Kangaroo, 55 Kant, Immanuel, 221 Keith, Sir Arthur, 223-25 Kinematic relativity, 17-18 Kingdom of Heaven, as taught by Jesus, 106-7 Knowledge, accumulating, 9, 68-69 Koenigswald, G. H. R. von, 61 Kohler, Wolfgang, 162-63 Korzybski, Alfred, 184-86 Kraal, 102 Kropotkin, Prince, 72 Kuanyama Ambo clan system of, 101-3 Kalunga, 102 kraal, 102 La Barre, Weston, 91 Labor, division of, 97-98 Lamarck, J. B., 67-69 Lambert, J. H., 21 Lamprey, 51 Langlois, T. H., 73 Language, 165, 167-70 of bees, 168 role of semantics, 184-88 sign, 168-69 universal, 186-88 Lao Tse, of China, 105 Laplace, Pierre S., 13-15 Leadership among animals, 78-80 need for scientific and philo- sophical, 248-49 Leake, C. D., 225 Learning among animals, 158-75 capacities of vertebrates, 132 by experience, 1 16 compared to instinct, 158 differences in capacity, for, 204, 206-12 inheritance of, 68 Learning sets, 115, 161, 164-65, 233 Leibnitz, Gottfried, 174 Lemaitre, Abbe, 16-17, 19 Lemmings, mass behavior of, 75-76 Life at virus level, 29 beginnings of, 23-34 Limitations of Science, 1 19 Linnaeus, study of Homo ferus, 172 Locke, John, 159-60 Loeb, Edwin M., 101-3 Lorimer, Frank, 209-10 Lull, R. S., 189-90 Lully calculator, 173 Lysenko, 68 Lyttle, R. A., 19-21 McCulloch, W. S., 174 McDougall, William, 137 Machine, compared to brain, 173- 75 INDEX 271 McLaughlin, D. B., 25 Malthus, Thomas, 191, 195-97 Mammals evolvement of warm blood in, 53-55 marsupials, 55 monotremes, 55 Man a bipedal-bifocal ape, 57 a primate, 55-63 ape-man, 60-62 as social individual, product of long process, 233 carnivorous, 60 civilizations of, 85-107 conscious control over destiny, 66 continuous progression, 54 control of physique selection by, 241 cross-breeding of, 63-64 desire to cooperate, 67 development of villages, 88 evolution of, 56-69 family life, development of, 90- 94 fire, use of, 61-62 foot, development of, 58-60 fossil record of, 58-65 freedom from absolute control by instinct, 85-86 freest organism, 57 genetic differences in, 63-65 hands, freed, 57-60 instincts of, 137 Java pre-man, 61-62 late arrival in evolution, 57 most variable species, 64 only organism progressing, 55 part of nature, 56 physical evolution, 240 possible extinction, 244-45 problems of origins, 89-90 product of accelerated evolu- tion, 57 progress depends on coopera- tion, 67 recent arrival on earth, 5-6 size of, 178-79 success not assured, 9-10 tree-dwelling ape, 58 upset selective mechanism, 66 Marriage, outside of tribe, 93-94 Mars, 23-25 Mass imitation, 87-88 Mathematical biology, 247 Mathieson, Eunice, 162 The Meaning of Evolution, 176, 229-30 Mechanists, 175 Meganthropus, 61 Mendelian recombination, 65 Mental life, dominance of, 180-81 Mercury, 23 Merrill, M. A., 208 Mesons, energy entities, 18 Mesopotamia, 98 Mesozoic, 47 Midbrain, 129 Migration of lemmings, 75-76 Milne, E. A., 17-18 Mind in animals, development of, 120-35 of man, continuing evolutionary process, 5, 70, 114,237-39 origins of, 108-19 Mind-matter-energy substance evolution of, 12, 45, 114, 118-19, 176-77,215,219,236,238-39 "Missing link," 59-60 Molluscs, 50, 54 tests with T maze, 126-27 Monkeys, 6, 55 clans of, 220 family life of, 91 five-fingered limb, 52 intelligence of, 134, 163-64 Montagu, Ashley, 73-74, 180, 225 Morley, D. W., 147 Motility, of protoplasm, 111-12 Moulton, F. R., 14 Muller, H. S., 245 Miiller, Max, 169 272 INDEX Multicellular organization, 48 Mutability, necessary to change, 41-42 Mutations, of genes, 35-38 Mutual aid, 177-180 among animals, 71-74 evolution of, 215-18 innate drive toward, 224-27 Nagasaki, 62 National Resources Committee declining I.Q., 210 Natural selection of Darwin, 7, 71- 72, 83, 238 Naturalistic ethic, 228-30 Nature, moves slowly, 6 Neanderthal man, 62-63, 65 Nebular hypothesis, 13-15 Negroes, 64-65, 90, 101-3 Neolithic men, 96 Neopallium, 131 Nervous system of echinoderms, 123-24 organization of, 120 of vertebrates, 128 Neuroid transmissions, 121-22 Neurons, 120-22 Nissen, H. W., 122-24, 127, 133-34, 159 Nitrides, 26-27 Nordic, 65 Northrop, F. S. C, 174-75 Notochord, 51 Nucleoproteins, 37 Occidental, 187 Old Man, influence in family life, 92-96 Oparin, A. L, 26-28, 32 Oppenheimer, Robert, 18 Organisms, 6-8 learn to synthesize, 32 reproduce in \vild excess, 189-92 as principle of order, 160 Organization in evolution, an endless chain, 235-36 nature's drive to, 117-19 Organizing drive of evolution, 3- 10,177-80,215-16 Origins of mind, 108-19 of speech, 169 problems of, 89-90 Ortega Y. Gasset, 204 Osborn, Frederick, 209-10, 213-14 Ostracoderm, 50 Overpopulation, 242 among Bantus, 103 dangers of, 189-202 in Japan, 196-200 in Puerto Rico, 196-99, 202 in the U. S., 201 responses to, 194-95 tendency toward, 76 Overreproduction, 189-202 Oyster, birth rate of, 189-90 Paleolithic age, 96-97 Paleolithic man, 168-69 Paleozoic era, 46, 50, 52 Palolo, spawning of, 126 Palomar, giant reflector at, 13, 17, 21 Paramecium behavior of, 115-16,138 birth rate of, 190 Paranthropos, 60 Parent-offspring relationship, 180 among animals, 73-74 Parker, G.H., 121-22 Paternal responsibility, among pri- mates, 91 "Peck order," 78, 92, 95, 98, 99, 220 Peckham, Mr. and A4rs. G. W., 140- 41 Philosophical leadership, need for, 248-49 Physical background, of evolu- tion, 11-22 Pithecanthropus erectus, 61-62 Pitts, W., 174 Planets, discussion of, 23-26 Plants and animal progression, 44-45 evolution, slow, 46-47 INDEX 273 sensitivity of, 120-21 Plato, 221 Pleistocene ice ages, 58, 90 Plesianthropus, 60 Poincare, Henri, 171 Pollen, dry sperm, 47 Population genetics, 40-42 of world, 192-93, 197, 242; see also Overpopulation problem, 242 size of, 41-42 Population: Differential Fertility, 210 Pre-Cambrian rocks, 30 Pressey, C. L., 208 Primates, 6, 55 small brain of, 60-61 trend to family life, 90-94, 219-21 Progression continuous, in man only, 54 of plants and animals, 44-55 Pronghorns, 76 Protoplasm, analysis of, 28 Protozoa body conducts impulses, 1 14 learning by experience, 116 properties of, 109-13 Puerto Rico birth control in, 199 overpopulation problem, 196-99, 202 "Pulse beat" of mesons, 18 Purpose in evolution, 44-45 in mind-in-matter-energy, 238-39 in universe, 8-9 involves responsibility, 229-30 Quails, 76 Queen ant, 145 bee, 80-81, 150-52 Racial differences, blending of, 241 Radiation, dangers of, 245 Red bread mold, 32 Red deer, of Scotland, 79 Red shift, 16-17 Regulatory self-control, 231-32 Reindeer, 79 Reiser, O. L., 21-22, 183, 225, 230- 31 Relativity, theory of, 11, 17 Religion development of, 104-7 evolution of, 95 failure of, 181-82 Reproduction, of organisms, 189-92 Reptile, 133 amnion, sack, 52 Resources, depletion of, 242-43, 248 Response, of protoplasm, 109-13 Responsibility, importance in eth- ics, 229-30 Retrogression and degeneracy in rocks, 54 Rhesus monkeys, compared vv^ith nursery children, 160-62 Rhine, J. B., 247 Rhodesian man, 60 Robinson, Francis, 208 Robinson, J. T., 61 Rocks, retrogression in, 54 Roman Empire, 244 Roundworms, 49 Royal Commission on Population, 212-13 Russell, H. N. twin star collision, 14 Schrodinger, Erwin, 119, 236 Science and Sanity, 186 Science, of ethics, 230-33 Scientific humanism, 230-32 Scientific leadership, need for, 248- 49 Scout bees, 153-57 Sea anemones, 122-23 Selection, and control of matings, 241, 246; see also Natural se- lection Semantics, role of, 184-88, 247 Sexual reproduction, shuffles hered- itary complex, 39-40 2 74 INDEX Sexual urges, among primates, 91 Sherrington, Sir Charles, 117 Shull, F. A., 38, 83-84 Sign language, of Indians, 168 Simpson, G. G., 67, 69, 176, 225-26, 229-30 Sinanthropus, 62, 89 Sinnott, E. W., 67, 117-19, 225 Sitter, W. de, 16-17 Size, increase in, 177-79 Slipher, V. M., 16-17 Slipper animalcule, 115-16 Snails, 126-27 Soal, S. G., 247 Social amoebae, 72-73 Social characters, acquired in in- heritance, 67-68 Social justice, among Bantus, 103 Social life, importance of, 70-84 Social man, product of long na- tural process, 233 Social organization, necessity for, 70 Social tendencies, of animals, 70-84 Society balanced, of men, 249 with knowledge of universal unity, 249 Socrates, 247 Southern ape, of Africa, 60-61 Sparrow, English, 191 Spawning, of palolo, 126 Speech, origins of, 169 Spencer, Herbert, 224-25 Spengler, Oswald, 87 Sperm, in plants, 47 Sphex, 140 Spinoza, Baruch de, 56, 118-19, 183, 234-35 Sponges, semi-multicellular, 48 Stanley, W.M., 31 Starfish, 49-50, 123-24 Stars, galaxies of, 12-22 travel to, 244 Steinheim skulls, 62 Stentor, 110 Stimuli, patterns of, 174 Subatomic particles, 11 Subconscious mind, 171 Sullivan, J. W.N., 119,236 Superindividual, 83, 116-11 , 232 Supreme Imagination, 183 Survival of fittest; see Natural se- lection Swanscombe skull, 62 Sweden, population stabilized, 201-2 Synthesis from molecular levels to man, 22 of organisms, 32 T maze, for tests, 125-27 Taboos, in family life, 92-95 Taungs fossil, 59-61 Teas, H. J., 32 Telefinalism, 7 Teleology, 9, 175 Telepathy, 247 Terman, L. A4., 208 Termites, caste system of, 79-80 Thompson, Sir Godfrey, 212-13 Thought, conceptual, 158-75 Tigris-Euphrates, 97-98 Tolman, Richard, 19 Tooth-and-claw ethics, 222-27 Totalitarian ideology, 226 Toynbee, Arnold J., 87-88, 193-94, 224-25 Transmission, of acquired social characters, 67-68 Travel, to the stars, 244 Trends, of evolution, 176-88 Trial and error, 7, 36, 115-16, 142, 160-62 Tribal life, 94-95, 221 True-to-fact orientations, 184-86 Two-phase evolution, 69 Unconscious control, 103-4 Understanding, higher levels of, 215-17,228-30, 239-40 UNESCO, report on declining I.Q., 213 Unified field theory, 3, 11-12, 22 INDEX 275 United States declining I.Q. in the, 211, 245 population growth, 201 tabulation of intelligence levels, 1952, 207-8 Unity of mind and matter, 4-5 of nature, 176, 215 of universe, 1 1 Universal language, 186-88 unity, the goal of man, 249 Universality of substance, 234-35 spiritual, 182-83 Universe cyclical, nonrepeating, 12, 21-22 eternal succession of stages, 12-13 evolving, 4, 16 expanding, 14, 16-17 finite, 16-17 formed catastrophically, 12 in a steadv state, 20 natural order of, 249 riddle of, 12-22 self-sufficient, endless, 19-20 Vanderjagt,B.G.H., 21-22 Veddah, in Ceylon, 94 Venus, 23-24 Vertebrates, 5-6, 48-55 amphibian, 52 annelid-arthropod line, 51 Balan oglossus, 50 central nervous system of, 128 cerebral hemispheres, 51-52 dorsal nerve cord, 51-52 gills, development of, 51 ostracoderm, 50 sharks and true fish, 52 third stage, in behavior, 139 Villages, development of, 88, 98 Viruses, 29-34 Volvox colonies, 48, 122 Waddington, C. H., 67 Warm blood, importance of, 53 Wasps, 140-41 Water, as medium of life, 24 Weinstein, B., 163-64 Weizsacker, C. von, 15 Wells, H. G., 94 Welty, J. C, 77 Westermark, E., 222 Wheeler, W. M., 81-82 Whipple, F. L., 15-16 Whyte, L. L., 136, 181-82 Wiener, Norbert, 172-75, 186, 247 Wolfe, John, 165-68 Wood-Jones, F., 91 Woodruff, L. L., 190 Words, 170 Worker, in beehive, 80-81, 149- 51 Worms Annelid, 49 earthworm learning capacity for, 125 flatworm and roundworm capacity for learning, 124 second stage, in behavior, 139 Wright, Sewall, 40 Yahweh, 106 Yerkes, tests on worms, 125-26 Zulu, 93