®I|e ^, '^, 1|tU pbrarg

QH50T
T5

It"

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

S02664256 V

Date Due

25My43I/IE

9M!62Z

JAlfl 1964

QP307

,T5 m^^Q^p^oHj J. A.

Thft Fiyfit-^-^ nf ^nimatfi —

TITLE

natar^-^

DATE DUE

25IVI* 43

:^f/0

BORROWERS NAMt

feZ3^

..^c^ ^1^7

THE SYSTEM OF
ANIMATE NATURE

THE GIFFORD LECTURES DELIVERED IN

THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS

IN THE YEARS 1915 AND 1916

g) BY

J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., LL.D.

Professor of Natural History m the University of Aberdeen

X

IN TWO VOLUMES
Vol II

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1920

CoPYRionT. 1920
BT

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

5CI)e eumn & 9eltun Company

BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BAHWAV NEW JtRSKV

CONTENTS

PART II.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE REALM OF ORGANISMS.

LECTURE XI.

PAGE

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 353

§ 1. A Question of Terms, 353— § 2. The Evolution of Organ-
isms Contrasted with Inorganic Genesis, 356 — § 3. Organic
Evolution Contrasted with the History of Human Societies,
359— §4. Definition of the Concept of Organic Evolution, 360
— § 5. May Evolution Have Been a Process of Analytic Sim-
plifying, not of Synthetic Complexifying?, 361— § 6. The
Logical Validity of the Evolution Formula, 367— § 7. Diffi-
culties in the Way of Concrete Evolution Theory Lead to
Hypotheses of Transcendental Underpinning, 370 — § 8. In
What Sense Is Organic Evolution Continuous?, 373 — §9. In
What Sense Is Organic Evolution Progressive?, 375.

LECTURE XII.

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 383

§ l.The Origin of Organisms upon the Earth, 383— § 2. The
Nature of the First Organisms, 387 — § 3. Establishment of
Diverse Types of Cellular Organisation, 388— § 4. The Diver-
gence of Green Plants, 389— § 5. The Making of Bodies, 390—
§6. The Divergence of the Sexes, 391— § 7. Progressive Dif-
ferentiations and Integrations, 392 — § 8. Rise and Progress
of Backboned Animals, 394— § 9. The Ascent of Man, 397—
§ 10. General Impressions of Animate Evolution, 397.

LECTURE XIII.

ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION: VARIATION . . 407

§ 1. The Central Problem of etiology Is the Origin of Heri-
table Variations, 407 — § 2. Variations Distinguished from
Modifications, 408 — §3. Discontinuous Variations (or Muta-
tions) and Continuous Variations (or Fluctuations), 410 —
§4. Problem of the Origin of Variations, 415— § 5. Correla-
tion of Variations, 424— § 6. Theory of Temporal Variations,
425— § 7. Evidences of Definiteness in Variability, 426— ■§ 8.
Germ-cells as Implicit Organisms, 428.

lii

9/^7

H-

c-

StKtt

iv CONTENTS

LECTURE XIY.

PAGE

DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION; SELECTION . . 439

§ 1. Selection the Central Idea in Darwinism, 439 — § 2. Logi-
cal Objections to Darwinism, 440 — § 3. Sentimental Recoil
from Darwinism, 441 — § 4. Changes in Selection Theory since
Darwin's Day, 443 — § 5. Scientific Critique of Selection
Theory, 451— § 6. Subtlety of Selection Theory, 454— § 7.
Sexual Selection, 456— § 8. Selection, 466— § 9. Selectionist
Interpretations and the Argument from Design, 468.

LECTURE XV.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE: HEREDITY . . .477

§ 1. Definition of Heredity, Inheritance, Nurture, Develop-
ment, 478 — § 2. Heredity a Condition of Evolution, 480 —
§ 3. Modifications and Heredity, 483 — § 4. The Organism as
a Historic Being, 484 — § 5. Nature and Nurture, 494 — § 6.
The Other Side of Heredity, 495— § 7. Heredity and Per-
sonality, 498.

LECTURE XVI.

THE EVOLUTION OF MIND AND MIND IN EVOLUTION . . 607

§ L Of the Fact of the Evolution of Behaviour There Is No
Doubt, 507 — § 2. Difficulty of Understanding the Process,
508 — § 3. Provisional Sketch of the Evolution of Behaviour,
510— § 4. The Efficiency of Mind in Everyday Life, 520—
§ 6. The Evolutionary Efficiency of Mind, 525.

LECTURE XVIL

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 545

§ 1. Differentiation and Integration as Standards of Progress,
545— § 2. The Probable Phylogeny of Man, 546— § 3. Man's
Solidarity with the Primate Stock, 551 — § 4. Man's Unique
Position, 552 — § 5. Factors in the Ascent of Man, 556 — § 6.
Human Evolution Contrasted with Animal E\'X3lution, 559 —
§ 7. In What Sense May It Be Said that Nature Is Crowned
in Man?, 565.

LECTURE XVIIL

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 573

§ 1. Difficulties in the Way of a Religious Interpretation of
Animate Nature, 573 — § 2. Extinction of Highly Specialised
Types, 574 — § 3. Imperfect Adaptations, 575 — § 4. Disease,
576— §5. Parasitism, 578— § 6. Cruelty of Nature, 585—
§ 7. Senescence and Death, 589 — § 8. Apparent Wastefulness,
594— § 9. A Balanced View, 596.

CONTENTS V

LECTURE XIX.

PAGE

THE CONTROL OF LIFE: LESSONS OF EVOLUTION . . 603

§ L The Idea of the Controllability of Life, 603— § 2. Hered-
ity the First Determinant of Life, 606 — § 3. Nurture the
Second Determinant of Life, 607 — § 4. Selection the Third
Determinant of Life, 612 — § 5. Importance of Correlating
Organismal, Functional, and Environmental Betterment, 619
— § 6. Dangers of False Simplicity or Materialism, 620 — § 7.
Science for Life, 625.

LECTURE XX.

VIS MEDICATRIX NATURAE 631

§ L Biological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature, 631 —
§ 2. Psychological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature,
633 — § 3. Correspondence in Animate Nature to our Ideals
of the True, the Beautiful, and the Cood, 634 — § 4. Humanist
Value of the Study of Animate Evolution, 640 — § 5. Scientific
Description of Animate Nature not Inconsistent with Reli-
gious Interpretation, 649.

PART 11.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE REALM
OF ORGANISMS.

LECTURE XI.
THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION.

LECTURE XL
THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION.

§ 1. J. Question of Terms. § 2. The Evolution of Organisms Con-
trasted with Inorganic Genesis. § 3. Organic Evolution Con-
trasted with the History of Human Societies. § 4. Definition
of the Concept of Organic Evolution. § 5. Mag Evolution
Have Been a Process of Analytic Simplifying, not of Synthetic
Complexifying? §6. The Logical Validity of the Evolution
Formula. § 7. Difficulties in the Way of Concrete Evolution
Theory Lead to Hypotheses of Transcendental Underpinning.
§8. In What Sense Is Organic Evolution Continuous? §9.
In What Sense Is Organic Evolution Progressive?

There are two fundamental biological questions : What are
living creatures, statically and dynamically, intact and in all
their parts?; and, How have they come to be as they are,
individually and racially? In the preceding ten lectures
we have been concerned with organisms as they are ; we pass
now to the problem of their evolution. Our general aim
remains: — to state the outstanding results of a scientific
study of Animate Nature, so that it may be seen whether
they are conformable with other results of human experience.
We do not argue from the empirical facts to any transcen-
dental conclusion, for that is bound to be bad argument We
try to state the facts.

§ 1. A Question of Terms.

It must be confessed that the study of organic evolution
has been hampered by a plethora of words and a dearth of
facts. This is not unnatural, for the idea of testing evolu-

353

354 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

tionarj hypotheses concretely is hardly older than Darwin,
and the shortness of human life is discouraging to experi-
mentation with organisms. The results of many years are
usually small in amount. It is only now and then that a
pioneer like Mendel is able to take a great stride, and to
give his successors a clue that enables them to take others.
Impatient therefore of the slow but sure inductive method,
naturalists are ever flying kites of hypotheses and there is
no department of science so wordy as aetiology.

On the other hand, one of the difficulties is that we have
too few words. The same word is used with many meanings,
and, like a tool put to many uses, becomes blunted and falla-
cious. So is it with the word ' evolution \

Whatever be his personal classification every one recog-
nises that there are in our world three spheres which overlap
one another. There is the cosmosphere — from the solar sys-
tem to the dew-drop, from the moon to the moonstone, from
the sea to the snow-crystal — the Domain of the Inorganic,
where formulations are in terms of matter and motion —
formulations, which, whether they exhaust the reality or not,
get close enough to it to be thoroughly reliable for practical
purposes and ventures.

Secondly, there is the biosphere, the Realm of Organisms,
where the laws of matter and motion still hold, but are no
longer exhaustive, since another aspect of reality has welled-
up, which we call life. And since even simple un-bodied
creatures go a-hunting and show purposive behaviour, we
find it difficult to separate off life from mind. We cannot
say much about plants which we do not know how to waken
from their dreams, but for the animal world we have clearly
to do in any typical case with a Body-Mind or Mind-Body.

Thirdly, there is the sociospherc, the Kingdom of Man,

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 355

where mechanism is in many departments transcended or
sublimed, where even the science of the individual is tran-
scended, for human beings in societies behave in a way which
cannot be formulated in terms of individual Biology and
Psychology. The homing bird transcends the boomerang,
and a purely Natural History account of social activity or
social evolution leaves much out.
So we have: —

the Kingdom of Man
the Realm of Organisms
and the Domain of the Inorganic

well marked off from one another, and it seems on the face
of it likely that fallacy will result from using the same
word * evolution ' for all the processes of becoming that are
observable in these diverse fields. We hear of the evolution )
of the solar system, of scenery, of chemical elements, the
evolution of organisms, of species, of consciousness, of mind,
of man, the evolution of societary forms, of institutions, of
language, of religions, the evolution of evolution-theories.
Now the use of the same word, especially a semi-technical
word, suggests that we have to do throughout with a similar,
perhaps a continuous process. But this begs several ques-
tions. No matter how convinced we may be as to Continuity,
we must not assume that the processes that have led to the in-
organic domain being what it is are also those which account
for the becoming of organisms, or that human history is
nothing more than a continuation of organic evolution. A
staircase is continuous, but there are successive steps, and so
in evolution there seem to have been epoch-making steps of
' creative synthesis '. ." — *

The following suggestions as to terms are offered. For
the process of becoming in the inorganic domain, when there

356 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

is more or less lasting change from one form of equilibrium
to another, we might perhaps use the word genesis, and speak,
for clearness sake, of the genesis of the solar system or of
the moon. Many geologists speak of the genesis of ores and
mountain-ranges. It is clear that in the case of the solar
system, for instance, we have nothing like the succession
of generations, nothing like the sifting process, nothing like
the experimenting with existences which is so characteristic
of that sublime adventure which we call organic evolution.

In the realm of organisms let us use the word development
for the individual's becoming, for its ontogeny, for the expres-
sion of the inheritance amid appropriate nurture. Let us
keep the word evolution for the phylogeny of the race as
distinguished from the ontogeny of the individual.

Then let us keep the word history for the human King-
dom of ends, where social persons are the new actualities.

What words are used matters, perhaps, little; the point
is that fallacy may be lessened by using differential terms,
by speaking of the genesis of the solar system, the develop-
ment of the chick, the evolution of birds, and the history
of institutions.

§ 2. The Evolution of Organisms Contrasted with

Inorganic Genesis,

Looking backwards, we may say that evolution within the
realm of organisms differs from genesis in the domain of
the inorganic in three outstanding ways. First, the discrete
material systems involved are organisms, — more than
mechanisms, a differentia which implies, as we have seen,
alternatives, genuine agency, endeavour, some measure of
profitable enregistering of experiences, and in certain cases
the efficiency of what we call mind*

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 357

Secondly, the capacity of organic variation which is
distinctive of living creatures, is only adumbrated among
non-living things. A living unity, whether a full-gro\vn or-
ganism or an implicit organism (the germ-cell), gives rise
to something new. A genius is born, a mutation occurs;
this is something apart from the ubiquitous flux of weather-
ing, rusting, and the like in the inorganic world. The latter
corresponds to the wear and tear of organisms, the disintegra-
tion and ageing, the incorporation of the substance of one
creature into that of another. It is one thing to say with
the Greek philosopher " all things flow '' ; it is another to
recognise creative evolution. For an approach to organic
variation we must look to such phenomena as the change of
one crystalline form into another, or the elaboration of a
carbon compound in certain surroundings, or, nearest
of all, perhaps, the change of Uranium into Radium and
Helium.

But, third, when an inorganic material system — whether
a cloud or a mineral — changes from one form or phase to
another, it has its analogue rather in organic development
than in organic evolution. For organic evolution implies a
succession of generations, a staking of individual lives and
losing them, a sacrifice of variants and of types and even
of races, a sifting so that many who run the race and fight
the fight with success fail eventually to inherit the promises.
Even if the chemical evolutionist gives us a genealogical
tree of Radium-lead, through Radium to Uranium (with
successive losses of Helium), we have only an analogy to
organic pedigree.

It is indeed tempting to compare the conflict of forces in
the inorganic domain and the resulting equilibrium with the
struggle for existence among organisms and the resulting

358 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

adaptations, to compare both with the conflict of human races
and what may result therefrom, but it is probably more falla-
cious than useful. The similarities are at best formal, except
that in all cases — in inorganic genesis, in organic evolution,
and in social history — we are dealing with processes of
change.

We dwell on these distinctions because they are not really
easy, because they are often ignored, and because our whole
system of thought depends on our answer to the question
whether organic evolution is adequately described as a
mechanical process. In his famous article in the 9th edi-
tion of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Prof. James Sully
defined evolution as a " natural history of the cosmos, includ-
ing organic beings, expressed in physical terms as a mechan-
ical process ". We have given some reasons for regarding
this definition as scientifically unsound. The vital striving
and struggling characteristic of the realm of organisms is
something apart from and finer than even the music of the
spheres.

Let us give the contrast we are emphasising its most
generalised statement. From the purely physical point of
view — a very abstract one — the history of the world has
been and continues to be a series of re-distributions of matter
and energy. Even if we think of radium pouring forth
power like an inexhaustible fountain, we make it conform
with physical theory by speaking of the potential energy
liberated by a dissolution of the atoms. The world is like a
change-ofiice, without increase or decrease in its initial stock.
We always stand in the middle of an equation, past equalling
future. It is for the biologist to correct this partial view,
for to him the possible that grows out of the past is new
and in some measure unpredictable. The psychologist has a

THE CONCEPT OP EVOLUTION 359

similar task. M. Bergson has done great service in emphasis-
ing this truth.

§ 3. Organic Evolution Contrasted with the History of

Human Societies.

Looking forwards now, we may recognise that organic
evolution differs from the history of human society in three
outstanding ways. (1) The variations that count among
plants and animals are changes in the germ-plasm, but the
moving and shaking of the Kingdom of Man need not be
thus restricted, as is obvious in ' revivals ' and ' revolutions ',
for instance, which arc certainly social variations. (2) The
important evolutionary registration among plants and an-
imals is in the natural inheritance, but in the Kingdom of
Man the extra-organismal or social heritage bulks largely.
(3) Among social animals there is not more than a dim
adumbration of what is characteristic in mankind, — that
a social ideal of some sort is defined, and that organisations
are formed, both on the temporal and spiritual side, to re-
alise it.

The naturalist is not disposed to agree with a too facile
exaggeration of the difference made by the fact that Man
is a social person. There is a great deal of what might
be called social tissue at pre-human levels. Especially on
the instinctive line of evolution are there quaint forms of
social organisation which command our admiration though
for ethical reasons we cannot take any imitative advantage
of their subtlety. There is amazement for us in the sterile
worker-caste in bees, in the soldier-caste among termites, in
the massacres of the superfluous, in the nutritive partnership
between many wasps and their young larvae — mothers feeding

360 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

young and young feeding mothers, in the way the tailor-
ants use their children as needle and thread!

§ 4. Definition of the Concept of Organic Evolution,

By a method of contrast, then, we are seeking to render
more precise the concept of organic evolution. It is distin-
guishable from the genesis of the solar system or of a range of
mountains, and from the history of political institutions or
social usages. Moreover, we speak of the development of
the chick, but of the evolution of birds. What more can
be said ? Organic evolution is a continuous natural process
of racial change in a definite direction whereby distinctively
new individualities arise, take root, and flourish, sometimes
alongside of, and sometimes, sooner or later, in place of the
originative stock. The domestic breeds of pigeons and fowls
are apparently the results of evolutionary change whose
origins are still with us in the Rock Dove and the Jungle
Fowl. In the Crab-Apple by the wayside, whose promise
is more obviously suggested by its flowers than by its fruit,
there is the sturdy plebeian ancestor of all the delicate aristo-
crats of the orchard ; into the unpromising wild kale by the
sea-shore we have to read back all our cabbages, cauliflowers,
and curly greens. In these and in many other cases the
original stock still persists.

It is otherwise, however, when we inquire into the origin
of creatures like the domestic horse or dog; the only certainty
is our ignorance. And this is even more emphatic when
we try to discover the pedigree of any of the great classes
of animals: Whence came mammals or birds? What was
the origin of molluscs or of insects? In many cases the
ancestral stocks are unknown ; in other cases where they
have been detected by some probability they are separated by

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 361

great gaps from their modern descendants. In general, while
there are long-lived conservative types, like Lingula, which
persist, with little change or none, from age to age, evolution
has meant replacement of old by new.

In many cases what we dimly descry is a vigorous stock
from which tentative offshoots arise, which lead to much or
to little, while the main branch grows on and, as if it were
purified, gives rise to fine fruit. Thus from the early
Primate stock there diverged oif at various levels New World
Monkeys, Old World Monkeys, small Apes and great Apes,
leaving a humanoid branch none the worse, to say the least.

In a concrete way the concept of Evolution means that
the present is the child of the past and the parent of the
future, that the present-day fauna and flora and all the sys-
tem of inter-relations have arisen in a natural knowable
way from a preceding state of afl'airs on the whole somewhat
simpler, and that from forms and inter-relations simpler
still, and so on backwards till we lose all clues in the thick
mist of life's beginnings.

" Ac in the development of a fugue," Samuel Butler said,
" where when the subject and counter-subject have been an-
nounced, there must thenceforth be nothing new, and yet
all must be new, so throughout organic nature— which is a
fugue developed to great length from a very simple subject —
everything is linked on to and grows out of that which comes
next to it in order — errors and omissions excepted.''

§ 5. May Evolution Have Been a Process of Analytic
Simplifying, not of Synthetic Complexifying?

Since the publication of the Origin of Species there
have been various outcrops of the idea that the process of
evolution may have been not by synthetic complexifying but

362 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

by analytic emancipation or exfoliation of originally complex
buds. An Italian naturalist has at great length sought to
show that reptiles evolved from birds, not birds from reptiles,
and the backboneless from the backboned, not the other way
round. This reads like a modern version of the suggestion
made by Plato in the Timseus that the whole organic world
might be formed by degradation from man who was created
first. No one has taken these heretical views very seriously,
if only for the reason that the rock record is wholly against
such an interpretation of what has occurred. A general
survey shows that amphibians appeared after fishes, and
reptiles after ampihibians, and birds after reptiles. A more
detailed survey of particular lineages, like that of horses
or elephants, shows that the earlier forms in the series are
the more generalised.

But while a crude topsy-turvy view must be dismissed
without hesitation, some find good reason to pause before
rejecting the idea that the process of evolution may have
been analytic not synthetic. We must remember that the
concrete problem of accounting for any of the leading types of
organisms or any of the so-called big lifts in evolution is
extraordinarily difficult and very far from solution. We
must remember that it is extremely difficult to suggest a
theory of the origin of the distinctively new. We must
remember that in the cases of evolution that are nearest to us,
namely in domestic animals and cultivated plants, what is
suggested by the facts is not synthetic complexifying but
analytic simplification. We are delightedly familiar with
the range of colours in modern Sweet Peas, but have we
realised the Mendelian conclusion that these are all due to
an unpacking of the inheritance of the wild ancestor — which
was brought from Sicily at the end of the seventeenth ccn-

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 363

tury ? There is no doubt, Professor Bateson tells us, that our
cultivated Sweet Peas " have been derived from the one wild
bi-colour form by a process of successive removals ". (Pres-
idential Address Brit. Association, Australia, 1914, p. 18.)

Professor Bateson is one of the foremost living aetiologists,
and respect is due to his pronouncement that we must begin
seriously to consider " whether the course of Evolution
can at all reasonably be represented as an unpacking of an
original complex, which contained within itself the whole
range of diversity which living things present. ... As
we have got to recognise that there has been an Evolution,
that somehow or other the forms of life have arisen from
fewer forms, we may as well see whether we are limited
to the old view that evolutionary progress is from the simple
to the complex, and whether after all it is conceivable that
the process was the other way about .... At first it
may seem rank absurdity to suppose that the primordial
form or forms of protoplasm could have contained complex-
ity enough to produce the divers types of life. But is it
easier to imagine that these powers could have been conveyed
by extrinsic additions? "

Professor Bateson asks us not to think of the primordial
forms of life as necessarily very simple. We are to think of
them as richly endowed with initiatives and potentialities.
He is particularly inclined to this view because his extraor-
dinarily fine experimental work has led him to conclude that
most of the novelties that appear nowadays in garden and
breeding-pen are due to the removal of hindrances that sup-
press or mask underlying qualities. There has been an un-
packing of a crowded treasure-box and a placing of assorted
jewels in special caskets. Mr. Bateson appears to believe that
the reason why we are not all geniuses is not that we have

364 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

not got it in us, but that we cannot get it out. When the
genius emerges it is not really a new achievement that has
been made, it is that certain hindrances or inhibitors have
been removed. So the process of evolution has been a suc-
cession of liberations rather than of achievements, a succes-
sion of gains by loss.

In this interesting theory we recognise two truths: first,
that when genuine living creatures did first appear as going
concerns, they had within them the secret of a possible
glorious future (ce nest que le premier pas qui coute) ;
and second, that many apparently novel acquisitions are
due to the removal of some inhibitor or some mask or some
complexity in the hindrance. We are unwilling, however,
to accept Professor Bateson's picture as a complete one, and
that for several reasons. (1) The first is that it makes the
origin and nature of the primordial organisms too utterly
miraculous if we suppose them to have had such a rich
stock of initiatives and implications. (2) It seems to lead
to a very mechanical picture of evolution, as if it were just
an age-long unrolling of a stupendous gTamophone record.
Time is required for unrolling the record, but time does not
count for the gramophone, as it counts for the organism
which trades with it. Space is required for unrolling the
record, but space does not count for the gramophone as it
counts for the organism, which trafficks with its environ-
ment. (3) Given an artistic genius, we may assert that
all that he did in the last forty years of his life was in him
when he was twenty-one. But is this necessarily an accurate
statement? His achievements at thirty are the product of
his hereditary nature, admittedly well-expressed at his com-
ing of age, but also of what he has made of his life and his
chances, and of what society has made of him. The organ-

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 365

ism works on a compound interest principle; especially in
its mental aspect it is made as well as born. And what is
true of an explicit individual that he makes experiments in
self-expression may be true for aught we know of those
implicit, telescoped-down individualities which we call germ-
cells. In any case, we see no reason to part with the
idea of the full-grown organism as an agent that shares in
its own evolution.

In so far as Professor Bateson's view is just a paradoxical
way of saying that there is nothing evolved which was not, in
kind, originally involved; that there is nothing of lasting
value in the end which was not present, in kind, in the begin-
ning, we have no fault to find with it, provided it be clearly
recognised that it necessitates the assumption that the ances-
tral creatures had the primordia of mental as well as of
bodily organisation. If we ourselves are asked to state
how we conceive that the Primordials did embody all the
promise and potency of, say, bee-kind, or bird-kind, or man-
kind, we cannot answer, except by suggesting that the ques-
tion is not rightly put. What the Primordials embodied
was the next stage in the Systema Naturae.

But if Mr. Bateson's view implies that the apparent or-
igin of the new is illusory, that creative evolution
is a fiction, that evolution means unfolding (evolutio) not
new-formation (epigenesis), it does not seem to us to be in
accordance with the facts.

In the study of individual development embryologists
have to do with the emergence of the obviously complex from
the apparently simple. We mean by apparently simple that
the egg has no organs or tissues or the like, but all the modern
work on germ-cells points to the conclusion that for each
distinct feature in the adult there is in the germ-cell a

366 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

something which divides and persists. Thus arises what
Prof. E. B. Wilson calls the puzzle of the microcosm : '^ Is
the hen's egg fundamentally as complex as the hen, and is
development merely the transformation of one kind of com-
plexity into another " ?

We can picture a conjurer's box full of exquisite wound-up
contrivances which begin to unwind and expand one after
the other when the lid is opened. As the springs uncoil an
extraordinarily complex mass is formed which half fills the
stage. But there is no real increase in complexity, even if
the springs interlace. For a tangled skein is not more complex
than an ordered one. Now, development is much more than
this uncoiling of springs set agoing by opening the lid
of a box, for each cell into which the egg-cell divides is a
living unit and is able to relate itself in an organic way to
its neighbours, so that the final result is a dynamic system —
an active organisation — far more complex than the original
egg-cell.

What holds in the development of the microcosm is true
also in the evolution of the macrocosm. The descendants
are really more complex than the primordial ancestors, for
the process has meant a multiplication of genuine individu-
alities or agents, who relate themselves to one another or-
ganically, who enter into subtle inter-relations with their
inanimate environment, whence also new complexities spring.

A number of immigrants on a prospecting voyage take
possession of an island and in the course of centuries a
great nation is built up. All the human material in that
nation has arisen from what was in the ship, but it out-
rages common sense to maintain that the end is not more
complex than the beginning, for that is to deny to men
and women any creative agency, to pretend that inter-rela-

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 367

tions established by genuine agents do not spell new organi-
sation. This view reduces human history to the level of
a puppet-show; in short, it is a false simplicity, a ^materi-
alism '.

What biology seems justified in holding firm to is, that
there has been a frequent epigenesis or new formation, a
frequent outcrop of genuine novelties. Without insisting
on the epigenetic character of the emergence of feeling
and other forms of consciousness, we mean, in concrete lan-
guage, that there was a time when there were no insects;
they came into being, and they were new ideas. There was
a time when there were no birds ; they came into being, and
they were new ideas. It may be very naive on the biolo-
gist's part, but it does not appear likely that any argument
that being is a fixed quantity will affect his belief that in-
sects and birds were downright novelties. Evolution is
racial epigenesis — the making actual of what was only poten-
tial; but it is more, it is a series of great inventions, — in
a way, a succession of new worlds.

§ 6. The Logical Validity of the Evolution Formula.

The evolution formula is not demonstrable like that of
gravitation. It is a way of looking at things that fits, that
is luminous, that meets with no contradiction, that serves
as an organon of discovery. It is the only known scientific
way of answering the question: How has the present-day
system of Animate Nature come into being?

All the facts of botany and zoology may be used as evi
deuces of evolution if we know enough about them, and yet
their cumulative weight cannot be called strictly demonstra-
tive. This much may be said, however, that both past and
present become uncomfortably magical unless the evolution-

368 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

ary formulation be true. For how otherwise can we account,
for instance, for the twisting and moulding of the same
fundamental materials, notably bones and muscles, to make
the fore-limb of a frog, the paddle of a turtle, the wing of
a bird, the fore-leg of a horse, the flipper of a whale, the
wing of a bat, or the arm of man 1 Can these homologies,
this ^ adherence to type ' be understood save as indicating
blood-relationship ? How can we interpret the numerous
useless vestigial structures in higher animals except
as the dwindled relics of structures which were well-de-
veloped and functional in ancestral forms ? The two sets
of teeth in whalebone whales that never cut the gum, the
deeply buried representative of hip girdle and hind leg
in many Cetaceans, the hint of a third eyelid in man, are
they conceivable except as historical vestiges, like the un-
sounded letters in many words, to use Darwin's comparison,
or like the functionless buttons and buttonholes in our
clothing? What apart from evolution can be the signifi-
cance of the classifiability of organisms into varieties, species,
genera, families, orders, classes, and phyla, of the ' con-
necting links ' and ' synthetic types ' ? There seems no
alternative between a miraculous world and an evolved one
when we learn that the blood of a horse mingles harmoni-
ously with that of an ass, and a hare's with a rabbit's, while
man's blood added to any of them produces destruction
of corpuscles. Blood-relationship is not a metaphor; its
degree can be measured by a precipitate. We cannot visit
the exhibitions of pigeons and poultry, of cats and canaries,
of cabbages and chrysanthemums, of roses and apples, with-
out asking: If Man has utilised organic variability to such
purpose in a short time, what may not Nature have effected
in the course of many millions of years ? The rock record

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 369

discloses the lineage of horse and elephant, crocodile and
ammonite; it yields missing links to the sceptic; it shows
us above all that, as age succeeded age, there was an emer-
gence of nobler and nobler forms of life.

We remember, too, how Darwin on his ^ Beagle ' voyage,
which discovered a new world, was struck by the simple
fact that the modern distribution of those strange survivals,
the sloths and armadillos, was centred round the burying-
ground of the huge majority of their race. And clinching
the whole argument, though we admit that it is only pre-
sumptive, there is the embryological evidence. The em-
bryos of reptiles, birds, and mammals travel in their devel-
opment for a considerable distance along the same road,
or along approximately parallel roads, before they diverge,
each on its own path ; and in the making of organs there
is many a bend of the road very puzzling except on the
theory that the individual development is to some extent a
re-treading of the track which the race blazed in its evolu-
tion. What can be made of the gill-clefts in the region of
the neck in embryo reptiles, birds, and mammals, of no use
for breathing, of no use at all save the first, which becomes
the Eustachian tube, unless they be genuine relics of aquatic
ancestors breathing in fish-fashion?

The strength of the evolution-theory as a modal formula
of becoming is that it works well. It is a useful organon
of research. It clears things up and prompts discovery.
There is no other scientific formulation in the field. But
it is not without elements of weakness. In the first place,
we are remarkably ignorant in regard to the pedigree of
some of the most important types, such as backboned ani-
mals. This is not to be wondered at, because so many of
the great branches had begun to diverge from the genealogi-

370 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

oal tree in very ancient times, of which there is relatively
little fossil-record. In regard to some more recent origina-
tions, such as elephants and horses, the pedigree is very v^ell
known.

In the second place, apart from the general formula, little
light has been thrown on the factors at work in the establish-
ment of most of the great new departures. How little we
can say of the factors operative in the emergence of Birds
from a Saurian stock or of Man from a Primate stock!
Some people talk as if they believed that one had only to
mutter the word ' Evolution ' for difficulties to disappear.

In the third place, there is the general and central diffi-
culty that we know so very little — serious aetiology practi-
cally dates from Darwin — in regard to the causes of varia-
tion itself, on which all evolution depends.

§ 7. Difficulties in the Way of Concrete Evolution Theory
Lead to Hypotheses of Transcendental Underpinning.

The difficulty of giving a concrete account of the evolu-
tion of a phylum such as Vertebrates, or of an organ like
the eye, or of a phenomenon like migration, is great ; but
it "will probably disappear as knowledge grows. It must
be remembered, however, that the difficulty led so distin-
guished a pioneer as Alfred Russel Wallace and some others
with him to postulate the operation of spiritual influxes
at particularly critical stages in the evolution, as in the
origin of man's mathematical, musical, and artistic faculties,
or in the introduction of consciousness, or in the emergence
of organisms themselves. Wallace spoke of '' different de-
grees of spiritual influx ", as it were welling up from '' an
unseen universe — a world of spirit, to which the world of
matter is altogether subordinate ". . . . ^' A change in essen-

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 371

tial nature (due, probably, to causes of a higher order than
those of the material universe) took place at the several
stages of progress which I have indicated; a change which
may be none the less real because absolutely imperceptible
at its point of origin, as is the change that takes place in
the curve in which a body is moving when the application
of some new force causes the curve to be slightly altered "
{Darwinism, 18S9, p. 476).

Without confining ourselves to Wallace's position, let us
inquire into the theories of spiritual influx, {n) Tn some
forms they amount to a premature abandonment of the sci-
entific mode of attacking the problem. For scientific formu-
lation proposes to work with verifiable factors, and that can-
not be said of spiritual influxes operating in organic evo-
lution. We see reason for attaching much importance, to
the influence of mind in evolution, — a capacity for be-
haviour of which we cannot give a protoplasmic account,
but this is amenable to experimentation and to verification
by competent observers. (&) A spiritual influx theory is
apt to be associated with a fanciful dualism, implying two
worlds, one of which only occasionally intrudes eifcctivcly
into the other. This means an abandonment of the idea of
continuity of process. There are some who regard the
biologist's conviction of a process without gaps as an illu-
sion, who frankly avow their belief in extrinsic factors of
another order than those admitting of scientific study, which
now and again move organisms like puppets in a show; and
W^allace spoke of " a change in essential nature (due, prob-
ably, to causes of a higher order than those of the material
universe) ". This view may seem to us to break the law
of parsimony, but it would be difficult to prove it false.
What we cannot accept, however, is Wallace's assnrnncr

372 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

that on his theory the process of evolution was none the less
continuous. The Ice Age, he said, introduced new factors
into the process of earth-sculpture, but there was no dis-
continuity. But ^ spiritual influxes ' do not seem to be as
amenable to scientific treatment as glacial influences have
been. Wallace apparently thought of the material universe
being underpinned throughout by a spiritual universe, and
we have no right to object to that, but what the scientific
mind recoils from is the suggestion that a spiritual influx
occasionally operates dramatically, helping the organism over
difiicult stiles, (c) It is possible that some of those who
hold by a ^ spiritual influx ' theory mean little more than
those who are dissatisfied with a mechanistic evolutionism.
They recognise that more is involved in the evolving organ-
ism than is recognised by those who think that it can be
exhaustively summed up in terms of matter and motion.
In mankind we are sure that ideas count as a vera causa
in evolution; the question is how far biologists can discern
in animal evolution psychical factors that can be tested
and experimented with by appropriate methods. One of
the protagonists of the mechanistic interpretation of man
declares, without seeing the humour of it, that ho can
demonstrate the physiological effects of an anticipation of
an operation. A mechanistic anticipation!

In seeking some reconciliation of religious conviction and
the results of science various attempts have been made, like
Wallace's, " to get past the scientific position without the
danger of being taken prisoner ". In regard to the worst
of these we quote Prof. G. J. Blewett (1907, p. 53) :

" One of these attempts to ^ get past the scientific position ' is so
fundamentally bad as to deserve special mention — the endeavour to
justify belief in God by seeking to find gaps in the continuity of

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 373

nature. It is true that a God thus made manifest — made manifest
not by the greatness and harmony of nature, not by its abiding
law and continuous order, but by its rents and gaps — would be
no worthy object of religious devotion. But that is only the
beginning of the matter. Once you shatter the continuity of nature,
you shatter more than Materialism. You shatter the possibility of
all science whatever. You open up the gulf of universal scepticism,
and Materialism disappears in it, it is true, but along with it will
disappear Theism and Theology and the rational basis for every
sort of religion except two, between which men will continue to
choose according to their individual dispositions — Stoicism (as a
practical temper, not as a philosophy) and Epicureanism."

§ 8. In What Sense Is Organic Evolution Continuous?

By continuity in the process of organic evolution the biolo-
gist does not mean that there are no breaks, no leaps, no
brusque novelties. For there is a growing belief in the
importance of transilient variations or mutations. These
appear suddenly, without intergrades connecting them to
the parents. The Proteus leaps as well as creeps. But
though Professor Bateson calls them discontinuous variations,
there is no discontinuity in their emergence any more than
there is in the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butter-
fly. By continuity in evolution the biologist means that
there are no gaps, no intrusions. As Prof. W. R. Sorley
puts it (Proc. Brit. Acad., IV., 1909, p. 5) : " Each stage in
the process with all that it contains must find its explana-
tion within the universe and not in something outside."
One may say more, that each stage is the outcome of what
precedes. Whether we think of the evolution of Animate
Nature as a whole, or of particular individualities within
it, there is a twofold continuity to be recognised. There is
the flesh-and-blood linkage, the genetic ' enchainemeut des
etres', the continuous succession of immortal germ-cells in

374 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

spite of transformation of species here and extinction there
and blind alleys somewhere else. But there is also a con-
tinuity in the external staging, in the extra-organismal sys-
tematisations, in what we have called the web of life. This
is of extraordinary importance in the case of mankind;
naturalists have not allowed enough for it in the case of
animal and plant organisms.

But we must not exaggerate the idea of continuity. Both
as regards the organism and its environment of inter-relations
we have to recognise that with all the continuity there is
continual change. Birds are continuous with reptiles, but
not continuations of them, and at the time of their evolution
there was a correlated change in the genesis of the earth
which opened to birds a new world indeed.

While birds are very different from reptiles, indubitable
new ideas, it is possible to imagine how a fore-limb could
become a wing and a scale a feather, and that sort of dis-
continuity is familiar to all students of evolution. On the
other hand, it is certain, from centuries of failures, that
by no jugglery of words can we account for thinking in
terms of matter and motion. Therefore the alternatives
(1) to regard the scientific belief in evolution as in part
at least an illusion, since what comes later, e.g., thinking,
is distinct in kind from what comes earlier; or (2) to sup-
pose that the lowest animals are potentially psychical ; with,
as Sir Francis Darwin puts it (Presidential Address, British
Association, 1908), "faint copy of all we know as con-
sciousness in ourselves ". The first position is not easy, for
the evolutionary explanation is practically proved along ana-
tomical and physiological lines; the second position is not
easy, for the ^ faint copy ' becomes faint indeed when we
pass to the simplest organisms.

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 375

Here again we venture to quote from Professor Blewett's
Study of Nature and the Vision of God (1907, p. 53) :

" In insisting upon the continuity of nature, men of science have
been better theologians than the theologians themselves. If God
exists at all He is the God of all nature and of every natural law.
There are no gaps in His workmanship, no breaches of continuity
in His activity. All nature is an activity of His, and every natural
law a principle of that activity. If the theologians would be true
to theology, what they have to do is to protest, not against the
principle of continuity, but against too narrow a reading of it, and
too narrow an application of it to reality. The principle of con-
tinuity is unworthily treated if it is limited to certain physical and
chemical processes. The true field of the principle of continuity
is the total history in time, the total evolution, of the universe.
And so viewed, it is simply one way of apprehending the essential
rationality of God and of the divine action in nature and in history."

§ 8. In What Sense Is Organic Evolution Progressive ?

If increasing differentiation and integration is progress,
then Organic Evolution is most certainly progressive. Not
only when envisaged as a whole, but when attention is
focussed on particular lines, Animate Nature exhibits, as
age succeeds age, an increasing differentiation or complexify-
ing and an increasing integration or correlating. A locomo-
tive of the twentieth century shows, when compared with
Stephenson's engine, a much greater division of labour and
specialisation of parts; it also shows a much greater har-
mony of action and controllability. The same is revealed
in organic nature, when we compare an oak tree with a
mushroom, or a bird with a sponge. As age has succeeded
age, life has been in the main creeping upwards. It is not
that we naively rank as progress any change that makes a
creature liker ourselves ; there is a discernible standard with

376 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

objectively verifiable features — increasing differentiation and
integration — in a word organisation.

Three admissions must be made. (1) It is plain that evo-
lution may be down as well as up, and that the gates of para-
sitism and other facile slopes of degenerate life are always
open. The tapeworm in its inglorious ease is as much an out-
come of evolution as the lark at heaven's gate. It is a mis-
understanding to suppose that a result necessarily acquires
value, in any human sense, by being the outcome of evolution,
or that evolution is synonymous with progress. (2) There
are many corners where organisms seem to have run riot
in exuberant complication, often extraordinarily beautiful,
but without further significance so far as we have yet been
able to discern. We shall return to the interesting fact that
these instances of exuberance are sometimes in conditions
of life that are peculiarly secure, where the pruning knife
of N^atural Selection is in abeyance. (3) Some of the most
remarkable achievements of evolution have passed away in
their prime without leaving direct descendants. It is prob-
able, however, as we shall illustrate later on, that the distinc-
tive gains of these lost races are, sometimes at least, con-
served along collateral lines.

To be chastised out of our mind is the smug conceit that
all evolutionary change, especially that in which Man is
concerned, is ipso facto progressive, whatever that may mean.
Perhaps the lightest whip is best : "' Organic life, we are
told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the
philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is in-
dubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher,
not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance, and we can
have no security that the impartial outsider would agree
with the philosopher's self-complacent assumption " (Ber-

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 377

trand Eussell on the ^' Philosophy of Evolution " in ]\hjsti-
cism and Logic, 1918), A sense of humour forbids any
retort to so true a jest.

These admissions notwithstanding, the large fact is cer-
tain that on the whole there has been for many millions of
years progressive differentiation and integration along diverse
lines, an increasingly complex and masterly behaviour, a
growing emancipation of mind and an approximation to per-
sonality. This is the largest fact to be borne in mind in
our interpretation of evolution. The process has been on
the whole progressive. With Lotze we hear " an onward-
advancing melody ".

We certainly miss part of the impressiveness and sug-
gestiveness of the evolutionary process if we do not realise
its solidarity. It concerns a developing system, like a great
organism, in which the exuberance of one part and the tardi-
ness of another cannot be said to disturb the balanced move-
ment of the whole. Twigs shoot forth out of due time and
are broken off; huge branches of extraordinary magnificence
(like the lost races of Giant Reptiles) fall crashing to the
ground, but the tree lives on in order and balance. And
if we consider not our biosphere, merely, but the whole cos-
mic system that we know, we get the same impression.
Evolution is based on order and works out in order. ^' A
certain unity manifests itself then in the Cosmos, a unity
comparable to that which the development of an organism
reveals" (Joussain, 1912, p. 185).

Without losing sight of real differences we may believe
in a continuity of evolutionary process from inorganic gene-
sis to human history, but it must be confessed that there is
a good deal of scientific faith implied. Philosophically it
seems fair to say that if organic evolution is traced back

PnopEnry

378 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

into inorganic genesis, it must also be traced forward into
human history, and the process regarded, as far as we can,
as a whole. It is a misleading abstraction '' to treat the world
of nature as a fact complete in itself, a system finished
without man. . . . Man is organic to nature, and nature
is organic to man. It is a false abstraction to try to take
the world apart from the central fact in which it so ob-
viously finds expression" (Pringle-Pattison, 1917, p. 177).

SUMMARY.

The scientific theory of evolution has suffered from a scarcity
of facts and a plethora of words, yet also from a dearth of words.
For the term ' evolution ' is used with fallacious elasticity for
processes of becoming in very different fields. The use of differen-
tial terms for the three great orders of facts may be suggested. In
the domain of the inorganic we study the genesis of the solar sys-
tem, of a range of mountains, or of precious stones. In the realm
of organisms we study the development (or ontogeny) of the in-
dividual and the evolution (or phylogeny) of the species or race.
In the kingdom of man we study the history of institutions, social
activities, and the like.

Organic evolution differs from inorganic genesis: since organism
transcends mechanism; since organismal variation is quite different
from the ubiquitous inorganic flux (which has its analogue in age-
ing, dying, re-incorporation, etc.) ; and since inorganic genesis, as
in the making of a star, has its analogue in the individual develop-
ment of the organism, not in racial evolution, where much shares
in the process of becoming that does not figure in the final result.

Organic evolution differs from the history of human societary
forms: because social variations are not restricted to the germ-
plasm; because the extra-organismal or social heritage bulks so
largely; and because there is not in the realm of organisms more
than a dim adumbration of deliberate selection, towards a social
ideal, by means of social sifting-organisations. Yet there are quaint
forms of social organisation on the instinctive line which command
admiration, though, for ethical reasons, Man cannot take any imita-
tive advantage of their subtlety.

Organic evolution is a continuous natural process of racial change

THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION 379

in a definite direction, whereby distinctively new individualities arise,
take root and flourish, alongside of, or in place of the originative
stock. In a general way, it means that the present, with its fine
fauna and flora and the inter-relations of these, is the product of
the past and the promise of the future.

It is necessary, however, to consider the view that evolution may
have been not synthetic complexifying, but analytic simplification,
— ^by a removal ot inhibitions which has allowed the original rich-
ness of endownment to express itself with increasing fulness. This
view of evolution is open to several serious objections which show
its untenability. In so far as the view means that there is noth-
ing evolved which was not in kind originally involved, that there
is nothing of lasting value in the end which was not present in
kind in the beginning, it is acceptable. But Biology is justified in
regarding evolution as a racial epigenesis.

The evolution-formula cannot be demonstrated like that of grav-
itation; it is acceptable because it fits and is never contradicted
by facts. The so-called " evidences of evolution " — anatomical, em-
bryological, palseontological, and so on — are multitudinous; but
they are never more than presumptive. The real strength of the
evolutionist's position is in the value of the theory as an organon.
There is no other scientific formulation in the field. The weakness
of the evolutionist's position is that he remains very ignorant as to
the pedigree of many of the most important types, such as Verte-
brates; as to the factors leading to the establishment of great new
departures, such as birds or men; and as to the causes of varia-
tion itself. But the inquiry is young.

The difficulties in the way of concrete evolution-theory, which
will probably disappear as knowledge grows, have prompted the
suggestion made by Alfred Russel Wallace and others that special
spiritual influxes have operated at various critical stages in the
process of becoming. This means a premature abandonment of the
scientific problem, which proposes to work with verifiable factors;
it suggests a fanciful dualism of two worlds, one of which occasion-
ally intrudes effectively into the other; it gives up the idea of con-
tinuity of process. It is not to be identified with the conviction
that more is involved in evolving organisms than is recognised by
those who insist on restricting their formulation to mechanistic

terms.

Evolution is continuous in the sense that it is a process without
gaps. But it is not without steps, for discontinuous variations or

380 THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION

mutations seem to be important realities. What is meant by the con-
tinuity of evolution is that each stage in the process has its full pre-
condition (we do not say interpretation) in what precedes. There
is a flesh-and-blood continuity of hneage (* enchainement des etres '),
and there is also continuity in the extra-organismal order which
includes the established sj^stem of inter-relations.

In regard to the progressiveness of Animate Evolution, three ad-
missions must first be made. There have been many retrogressive
lines, notably in adaptation to parasitism and sedentary life. There
are also many comers where organisms seem to have run riot in
exuberant complication, often extraordinarily beautiful, but with-
out further significance that we can discern. Some of the most
striking achievements of evolution, such as the flying dragons, have
passed away in their prime without leaving direct descendants. It
IS probable, however, that the distinctive gains of these lost race^.
may have been conserved on collateral lines.

These admissions notwithstanding, the large fact is certain that
on the whole there has been progressive differentiation and in-
tegration along diverse lines, an increase in the complexity and
masterfulness of behaviour, a growing emancipation of mind, and
an approximation to personality. This is the fundamental fact to
be borne in mind in our interpretation of evolution.

LECTURE XII.
GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTIOK

LECTUKE XII.
GEEAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION.

§ 1. The Origin of Organisms upon the Earth. § 2. The Nature of
the First Organisms. § 3. Establishment of Diverse Types of
Cellular Organisation. § 4. The Divergence of Green Plants.
§ 5. The Making of Bodies. § 6. The Divergence of the
Sexes. § 7. Progressive Differentiations and Integrations.
§ 8. Rise and Progress of Backboned Animals. § 9. The As-
cent of Man. § 10. General Impressions of Animate Evolu-
tion.

The largest and most overwhelming idea in all science
is that the system of Nature in all its complexity, intricacy,
multitudinousness, and harmony has come to be as it is
from apparently simple beginnings — from something like a
nebula if we go back to inorganic genesis, from a crowd of
invisible microbes if we begin with the primordial organisms
on the cooling earth. We say the word evolution so often
that we are apt to get dull to the overpowering grandeur
and undeniable mysteriousness of the process. It may not
be altogether unprofitable to attempt the impossible, — a short
review of the great achievements.

§ 1. The Origin of Organisms upon the Earth.

As every one knows, there was a time when the tempera-
ture of our earth was beyond the endurance even of tho
mythical salamander. It was far too high to admit of
the existence of forms of life like those we know, or can
even imagine, and we need not speculate about others. There

383

384 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

was a time, therefore, when living organisms began to be
upon the earth.

Whether germs of living organisms reached terrestrial
shores from elsewhere, borne in the crevices of a meteorite
or wafted by light waves amid cosmic dust, or whether
living organisms may have evolved from not-living material,
e.g., from some colloidal carbonaceous slime in which fer-
ments were operative, we do not know, l^o hypothesis of
abiogenesis (i.e., of the origin of the living from the not-
living) has yet been suggested that can be accepted with
easy-going satisfaction. Whether we start with an inorganic
colloid able to utilise solar energy, or with formaldehyde
generated by lightning flashes through moist air, or with
the cyanogen radicle formed in incandescent materials, diffi-
culties abound. It is not of much avail to point to the
achievements of the synthetic chemist unless we can indicate
in Inorganic ISTature some analogous agency able to pick
and choose, combine and eliminate. On the other hand, one
is not inclined to lay much stress on the fact that there
has not been as yet effected in the chemical laboratories
any synthesis of natural proteins, the substances which
always form an important part of the physical basis of
life; for who would have suspected a few years ago that
we should now be using artificially compounded indigo and
salicylic acid ? More important is it to remember that there
is not to be found in natural conditions anything like living
matter (or protoplasm) except as organised in the form of
organisms or pieces of organisms ; that we do not know of
a ^ living substance ' as we know of, say, albumen ; that the
problem is the origin of organisms.

As regards the origin of protoplasm, " the physical basis
of life ", as Huxley called it, there is not at present much

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 385

that can be profitably said. In a letter to Alfred Russel
Wallace, Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer expressed his sense of
the extreme difficulty of the problem. ^' We cannot form the
slightest idea how protoplasm came into existence.'' It is
not a mere substance; it is an organisation, and when we
speak of the complex substances that the chemist makes
we should remember that he usually does so by complicated
processes. " Protoplasm appears to be able to manufacture
them straight off in a way of which the chemist cannot
form the slightest conception " (quoted in Alfred Russel
Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences. By James Marchant.
1916. Vol. II., pp. 95-8).

If in the future it should become easier for a biologist
to say that simple organisms probably evolved naturally from
non-living materials, from some colloidal carbonaceous slime
activated by ferments, or otherwise; if it should be found
possible to make in the laboratory a microscopic material
system which lived; what difference would it make to our
general thinking save that the domain of the inorganic would
appear more continuous than before with the realm of or-
ganisms? If it should become easier in the course of this
century for a biologist to say that living creatures were prob-
ably born of the dust of the earth and the dew of heaven,
witt the sun shining on both, then would all the groaning
and travailing of the inorganic appear more intelligible.
Then also it would be clearer than ever that there was in
the beginning more than could meet the eye, more than
could be summed up in the laws of matter and motion. For
no one can conjure 'mind' out of 'matter', even if he
invoke ' Evolution ' many times.

In ancient days fire was lit from fire, and it was naturally
a sacred duty to keep the fire burning. Before the dis-

386 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

covery of electro-magnetism, magnets were made from mag-
nets. And until recently crystals were obtained in a crystal-
lisable solution only by the introduction of a nucleus of
crystallisation. Thus melted salol, protected from crystals
of any kind, remains liquid indefinitely in a closed tube.
If it be touched with a platinum wire that has been in
contact with solid salol, crystallisation sets in, because a
nucleus has been introduced. If the wire be heated first its
introduction is without effect. But in 1867, as Professor
Dastre (1911) points out, crystals of glycerine appeared
spontaneously in glycerine, and have since been spread
throughout Europe. No one knows the circumstances which
determined their formation, and if they became extinct, as
might readily happen, no one knows how to produce them
again. In the same way, — this is Professor Dastre's pertinent
argument, — the fact that within our knowledge living organ-
ism always springs from similar living organism, and that no
spontaneous generation of any microbe has ever been dem-
onstrated in any culture-medium, does not warrant us in mak-
ing a dogma of omne vivum e vivo.

Prof. Lloyd Morgan's position in regard to the origin
of living organisms is one that commends itself. " Of pro-
toplasm we may likewise say that under certain conditions,
at present unknown, it appeared. Those who would con-
centrate the mystery of existence on the pin-point of the
genesis of protoplasm do violence alike to philosophy and
to religion. Those who would single out from among the
multitudinous diiferentiations of an evolving universe this
alone for special interposition would seem to do little honour
to the Divinity they profess to serve. Theodore Parker gave
expression to a broader and more reverent theology when
he said : " The universe, broad and deep and high, is a hand-

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 387

f ul of dust which God enchants. He is the mysterious magic
which possesses " — not protoplasm merely, but — '' the world "
(Interpretation of Nature, p. 77).

§ 2. The Nature of the First Organisms.

Regarding the first organisms we know nothing, but biolo-
gists who have given a lifetime to the study of cells and
simple creatures are able to make certain useful statements.
It is quite certain that most of the Protozoa, even everyday
forms like Amcebse and Slipper Animalcules, are the results
of long-continued evolution. We may call them unicellular
or non-cellular, but they are masterpieces of complexity.
The problematical first organisms were not like them.
A minute Infusorian called Bellerophon (Penard, 1914)
shows on each side a number of prominences like guns
projecting from port-holes. Minute cysts may be seen travel-
ling up into these prominences, and there, when occasion
demands, they explode into offensive threads. It is plain
that Bellerophon is not a simple organism, not a Protozoon
in the literal sense.

The late Prof. E. A. Minchin, an expert Protistologist,
suggested that the earliest living beings were very minute,
possibly ultra-microscopic, units or biococci of chromatin, —
the protein material that is characteristic of the nuclei of
all cells. Suppose a firm envelope to be formed around
one of these chromatin globules, and behold a bacterial type
of organism. Suppose the chromatin globules to increase in
number and then to show some complexity of arrangement,
and suppose a non-chromatinic ground-substance (cytoplasm)
to accumulate between them and the envelope, and behold
a primitive vegetable unit.

But suppose that around the chromatin granules there

388 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

was formed an enveloping matrix of restless semifluid sub-
stance, rapidly discharging what explosives it got a hold of,
in other words living nearly up to its income, and exhibit-
ing streaming outflowings and amoeboid movements. This
ivas the first animal, and it preyed on smaller organisms.
When the chromatin granules concentrated into and were in-
tegrated into a definite nucleus — an organised kernel — the
first true cell was formed. The details are all uncertain, but
it is probably safe to say that a long journey had to be trav-
elled before even the first cell appeared. It need hardly be
said that the numerous suppositions made in this paragraph
have a factual basis in existing organisms of low degree.

§ 3. Establishment of Diverse Types of Cellular

Organisation.

The next great series of steps had to do with the estab-
lishment of a variety of types of cellular organisation, besides
the bacterial and amoeboid already referred to. Some active
forms evolved cilia and flagella ; some sluggish forms evolved
protective cysts, adapted to unpropitious circumstances and
times ; some creeping forms got a skeleton which made them
more coherent; others were adapted to flotation ; and so on end-
lessly. A luminous idea was long ago developed by Prof.
Patrick Geddes in his conception of the ^ cell-cycle ', that there
are three great pathways of cellular evolution — the very act-
ive Infusorian-line, the very sluggish Sporozoon-line, and the
median compromise of the Amoeboid-line. These three lines
correspond to the three physiological regimes of lavish ex-
penditure or ^ living dangerously \ of preponderant saving
or a life of ease, and of a balance between these extremes.
The cells of higher animals may be in part classified on
these three lines — ciliated, encysted, amoeboid ; and there is

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 389

often, even in man, a transition from one line to another,
just as in the life-history of the very simplest Protists, which
pass through a cycle of phases without accentuating any
one. It is significant that we should see the main physio-
logical possibilities blocked out so early.

We must repeat that if we are asked how there could
be in the Primordial Organisms all the promise and
potentiality of bee-kind, bird-kind, mankind, we cannot an-
swer save to say that the question is not rightly put. But
what we may ask is how the Primordial Organisms con-
tained the promise and potentiality of the next stage in
the Systema Naturae, and it is not so difficult to answer
that question.

§ 4. The Divergence of Green Plants.

One of the early great events was the emergence of green
plants, possibly from an Infusorian stock. Either they or
their ancestors had built up chlorophyll, which is probably
the most important single substance in the world, for it is
in association with this green pigment that the sunlight
becomes available to living matter as a source of energy in
building up organic compounds. The divergence of plants
and animals was one of the great cleavages in organic nature,
— distinguishing those that feed at a low chemical level from
those that feed high, the manufacturers of explosives from
those that fire them, the savers from the spenders, the pre-
dominantly sedentary from the predominantly locomotor,
the anabolists from the katabolists, the sleepers from the
wakeful, the captives from the free. The contrast between
plant and animal is one of the fundamental dichotomies;
parallel dichotomies recur many times in the story of evo-
lution,— on to the phlegmatic, imperturbable, fatalistic, hypo-

390 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

kinetic type of man and bis energetic, excitable, rebellious,
byper-kinetic counterpart.

It is beyond our present scope to follow tbe plant line of
evolution, whicb went on simultaneously witb tbat of tbe
animal world, tbe two often intersecting, indeed intertwining.
Perhaps tbe most striking general impression is tbat of a
succession of dominant groups, eacb of great excellence,
eacb attaining a climax and supremacy and tben yielding
to anotber. Tbus the gigantic Club Mosses and Horsetails
of tbe Carboniferous forests, to wbicb Man owes so mucb,
yielded to Cycad-like forms and passed into relative insignifi-
cance, witb little more tban pigmy representatives to-day;
tbus tbe Cycadopbytes in tbeir turn yielded to Flowering
Plants.

§ 5. The Making of Bodies,

It was an epocb-making step in organic evolution wben
^ bodies ' began to be, tbat is to say wben tbe transition was
made from tbe unicellular to tbe multicellular grade of or-
ganisation. In some Protozoa tbe division of tbe unit is
not followed by actual separation, tbe daugbter-units re-
main associated instead of drifting apart, and tbus, coherent
colonies arise. In some such way multicellular organisms
may have been evolved. It was not increase of size tbat
was primarily important, for many a Rotifer with a thousand
cells is smaller tban a unicellular Protozoon, such as tbe
Noctiluca which causes much of tbe phosphorescence of our
summer seas. Nor was the step primarily one of increased
complexity, either of structure or of activity, for many uni-
cellular organisms are far more complex in plasmic and in
skeletal architecture and in their behaviour than are, for
instance, the fresh-water polyps, built up as these are of

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 391

thousands of cells. The establishment of a body was one
of the mysterious big lifts in evolution, rising to a new
grade of organisation. More scope was given for specialisa-
tion of function, and indirectly for increase in size, since
free-living single cells cannot grow large except in very
peaceful surroundings. Getting a body made great increase
in size possible, which, other things equal, counts for some-
thing in a rough and callous physical environment, especially
if anything aggressive is to be done. One advantage is the
possibility of storing energy for vigorous assault on the
environment. Another advantage is the possibility of resting
and of lying low. Capitalisation has always meant much
in evolution.

But the nemesis of gaining a body was liability to natural
death, — a liability proportionate to the complexity of the
bodily framework. For the more differentiation there is
in the colloid substratum in which the chemical processes
take place, the more difficult is it for processes of repair
and rejuvenescence to counteract that accumulation of wear
and tear results which spells senescence (see Child, Senes-
cence and Rejuvenescence, Chicago, 1915).

§ 6. The Divergence of the Sexes.

Another step with far-reaching consequences was the evo-
lution of male and female multicellular individuals within
the same species, the two being complementary in the con-
tinuance of the race. The first hints of this were among
the Protozoa, but these are probably on a side-track. The
big fact was the origin of two dimorphic types within the
species, a dichotomy like that between plants and animals,
probably expressing alternative rates or rhythms of biochem-
ical routine, and culminating in the contrasts between pea-

39^ GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

cock and peahen, ruff and reeve, stag and hind, man and
"woman. Sexual reproduction meant much In immediate
:reward. It meant a more economical means of continuing
the race ; it meant a device for securing the persistence
of a successful constitution and for screening the offspring
from disadvantageous dints made on the parent's body; it
meant more opportunities for re-arrangements of the hered-
itary items at the beginning of each new life. But the sep-
aration of sperm-producers or males and egg-producers or
females, differing deeply in constitution, would also tend
to increase the possible range of cross-fertilisation, which
is often advantageous, and would permit of a very profitable
division of labour between the two parents in their relations
to the offspring. For the masculine constitution has rarely
proved adaptable to mothering. But at a great distance the
divergence attained another justification, for sex-dimorphism
afforded a basis for love, becoming a liberator and an edu-
cator of emotions which have enriched and ennobled the
lives of many creatures. It is surely a fact of encourage-
ment to man that there are in the evolution of sex many
instances of the sublimation of what was, to start with,
somewhat rough and crude, into what, in some birds for
instance, it is difficult not to regard as a fine affection.

§ 7. Progressive Differentiations and Integrations,

A multitude of evolutionary steps of great interest must
be summed up in the phrase progressive differentiation. Tis-
sues begin in sponges, organs in the stinging animals or
Coelenterates. As we ascend the series we see organ added
to organ in a way that suggests inexhaustible resources.

The radial symmetry of sponge and zoophyte, jellyfish
and coral, well enough suited for a sedentary or for a drift-

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 393

ing life, was replaced among the worms by bilateral sym-
metry, suited for more strenuous life, such as that involved
in chasing victims, avoiding enemies, pursuing mates, and
shepherding the offspring. This was another literally epoch-
making step ; it was the beginning of our knowing our right
hand from our left. It meant a distinction between head
and tail, right and left 3 it was the beginning of head-brains
and cephalisation.

This opened up great possibilities of integration, which
means more perfect unity and control, especially through the
nervous system. Differentiation may be compared to the
extension of an empire and to the complex division of labour
that is established in different parts of it; integration is
the binding of the whole into harmonious federation and
unified control.

This is not the place to follow the long succession of
achievements in differentiation and integration which mark
organic evolution, but we shall simply mention a few: — an
open food-canal, a body-cavity or coelom between it and the
body-wall, striated or swiftly-contracting muscle, a fluid tis-
sue such as blood or lymph, circulatory organs for keeping
this in movement and thus distributing throughout the body
digested food and oxygen and collecting waste, oxygen-cap-
turing pigments such as haemoglobin, a segmented body as
in earthworms, a renewable external armour as in crusta-
ceans, muscular appendages unjointed to start with and by
and by jointed, specialised sense-organs such as eyes and
balancers and chemo-ceptors, improved respiratory arrange-
ments reaching extraordinary perfection among insects where
the blood hardly becomes impure, delicate adjustments for
filtering out the poisonous nitrogenous waste of the body,
for checkmating intrusive parasites, irritants, and poisons,

394 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

for dealing with frequently ree-irrent injuries such as lost
arms in starfishes and broken legs in crabs, and so on through
a long list.

We can only allude to the establishment of the leading
types of architecture which are represented by the various
series of Invertebrates or backboneless animals. Besides and
beyond the sponges and Coelenterates already spoken of, we
have to deal with a perplexing variety of worm-types; with
the higher segmented worms or Annelids, probably leading
on to Vertebrates; with the starfishes, sea-urchins, and the
like forming the series of Echinoderms; with the jointed-
footed Arthropods, such as crustaceans, insects, and spiders,
in which instinctive behaviour reaches its climax; with the
unsegmented limbless Molluscs, such as bivalves, snails, and
cuttles; and many a smaller group besides.

To what purpose such enumeration ? Simply that we
must bear in mind the fact that millions of years are spent
in the fashioning of minutiae of perfection in types which
are certainly not near the highway of evolution that led to
backboned animals and eventually to man. Nothing is too
remote, too minute, too trivial — everything must be finished
and refined. Though it take a million years to make an
Argonaut, there is no hurry.

§ 8. Rise and Progress of Backboned Animals.

But a step of great magnitude among many that were
eventful was the oris^in of backboned animals or Vertebrates,
which perhaps emerged from an Annelid stock. The origin
of Vertebrates meant an independent start on a new line
of more masterful life. A dominant feature was the es-
tablishment of a relatively large brain protected by a skull
and of a long spinal cord protected by the backbone. For

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 395

there were in this new type of nervous system fresh possi-
bilities of elaborate and subtle integration, of registering
experience and experiments on a large scale, yet without
interfering with openness of mind, and probably of a richer
and freer stream of inner life. It was in Vertebrates first
that bone made its appearance, and formed a living internal
skeleton pervading the whole body. This contributed not
a little to integration. In the establishment of numerous
glands of internal secretion, whose hormones or regulative
substances are distributed throughout the body, a chemical
integration began to operate or to operate on a larger scale
(for we know very little of such organs of internal secre-
tion in backboneless animals). It is difficult to exaggerate
the importance of these organs in backboned animals, for
they are regulatory arrangements which secure smooth work-
ing. In one way they make the organism more automatic;
in another way they set it free for higher issues. How
much is our peace of mind dependent on the insignificant
looking speed-regulator, which we call the thyroid gland, or
on what the adrenals do in the way of rapidly altering the
blood-pressure.

Skulls began with the hags and lampreys — simple gristly
brain-boxes to start with; jaws and paired fins, scales and
typical gills with the true fishes; digits, true lungs, vocal
cords, and a mobile tongue — what a list of acquisitions —
with the phlegmatic amphibians; the ante-natal robes (or
foetal membranes) known as amnion and allantois w^ith the
reptiles; a four-chambered heart with the crocodilians; warm-
bloodedness or keeping the temperature of the body approxi-
mately constant with birds and mammals, which also show
an enormous advance in brain development, — the big-brain
type at length coming to its own. The usually prolonged

396 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

ante-natal connection between mother and offspring began
with the placental mammals; it implied an intimate living
together or symbiosis of parent and child that has been of
far-reaching importance.

We must remember also how some amphibians achieved
what a few fishes essayed, getting foothold on dry land.
Most of the amphibian pioneers have to return to the water
in their breeding and early development, and the possession
of dry land must be put to the credit of reptiles, and asso-
ciated with what seems at first sight a mere internal detail,
— the development of an ante-natal robe that secures breath-
ing through the egg-shell. And just as amphibians mark the
transition from water to dry land, which the reptiles per-
fected, so the extinct flying dragons or pterodactyls pointed
from a great distance to that mastery of the air which birds
and bats perfected, — each type, however, it is interesting
to notice, presenting a different solution of the problem of
flight.

As we have already seen, the great structural advances
are associated with progressiveness of behaviour. Many an
infusorian has a very complex life and orders its goings very
perfectly, but the range is obviously narrower than that of
a spider and the resources are fewer. The behaviour of
ants and bees is very complex and on the instinctive line
very effective, we may almost say, unsurpassable. But the
range is narrower than that of a dog, and the resources are
fewer. It is in the big-brained birds and mammals that we
find the most convincing evidence of an inner mental life
of subjective experimenting, which we call in ourselves
perceptual inference or intelligence. Very interesting also
is the fact that as an organism attains to more or less
intelligent mastery of its environment, it is able to practise

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 397

reproductive economy. With heightened individuation there
is associated lessened reproductivity. There are fewer off-
spring, which might be racially dangerous were there not
a correlated increase of parental care which implies less
juvenile mortality. If we read the story aright, the indi-
vidual counts increasingly, and psychical linkages bind par-
ents and offspring, and kin to kin.

§ 9. The Ascent of Man.

Finally, to bring our breathless survey to its climax,
there appeared in the Early Eocene age, perhaps three mil-
lion years ago, an arboreal race of mammals — the Primates
■ — differentiated from other orders in digits and teeth, skull
and brain. From this stock there diverged New World
Monkeys and Old World Monkeys, small apes and large
apes, until at length there was left a much purified humanoid
stem, which after giving off some relative failures even-
tually realised itself in the modern man stock — '' the summit
of the whole ".

§ 10. General Impressions of Animate Evolution,

If we try to sink detail and seize the general impression,
the dominant one is that of the gradual increase of organi-
sation. This takes varied forms. There is a great deal of
structural complexity in organisms that is merely quantita-
tive, but there is a combination of differentiation and inte-
gration that is qualitative. The architecture of Venus's
Flower Basket (Euplectella) is very intricate, but it does
not amount to much more than the endless repetition of a
certain kind of scaffolding, where three flinty axes meet
at right angles and are firmly warped together where they
cross. But compare that kind of intricacy with man's cere-

398 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

bral cortex, which is the chief seat of intelligence. It covers,
if spread out' about a foot and a half square and is said
to consist of about 9,200,000,000 nerve-cells, which are in-
tricately connected together. Apart from supporting tissue
and blood-vessels, these cells and their processes would only
occupy about a cubic inch and weigh 13 grammes, but they
form the material theatre of our intellectual life, and it is
practically impossible to exaggerate the complexity of inter-
relations,— a complexity on a different plane altogether from
that of the Venus's Flower Basket. In the sea-urchin there
is, as Aristotle knew, a quaint piece of intricate skeleton,
the lantern, which has masticatory, respiratory, and actually
locomotor functions. It is a very fine contrivance, which
works very beautifully; it consists of twenty-five or more
different calcareous pieces and is worked by numerous mus-
cles. But this sort of complexity, finely as it works, is on
a relatively low plane compared with, say, our eye or ear —
where organisation reaches its zenith.

But the organisation of structure which increases through-
out evolution, except in cases of retrogression, is correlated
with a complexifying of the internal economy of the body.
The variety of internal activities increases, there are more
different kinds of metabolism, the subtlety of correlation
grows, the different processes work more perfectly into one
another's hands. Small bodies near the kidneys secrete
from part of their structure a potent substance called adren-
alin which is passed into the blood. The amount of adrenalin
in our blood is normally about one in 20,000,000 parts;
but if we suffer from righteous anger the secretion of adrena-
lin rapidly increases and like magic prepares us for struggle,
affecting the pressure and distribution of the blood, the
vigour of the heart, the amount of sugar in the blood, the

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 399

coagulability of the blood, the rapidity of recovery from
fatigue, and so forth. In other words, the organism is subtly
correlated not only for the everyday life of the peaceful
citizen, but for emergencies when it becomes necessary to
return to the ways of our ancestors.

Besides the progressive organisation of structure and the
increasing intricacy and correlation there is a complexifying
of the inter-relations of organisms. There is a long gamut
from having an ocean to swim in and a homestead. The
inter-relations of earthworms are not few, but the threads
make much more intricate knots in the economy of birds.
Many of the simpler animals are related to their environment
— whether for food, oxygen, or anything else — in a very
generalised way ; but evolution has meant an increasing spe-
cialisation in the business of exploiting.

We must not forget that alongside of the organic evolution
there proceeded an inorganic genesis, changes in which must
have meant much to life. In his charming Breath of Life,
John Burroughs has stated the idea picturesquely : ^' Does
not man imply a cooler planet and a greater depth and
refinement of soil than a dinosaur? Only after a certain
house-cleaning and purification of the elements do higher
forms appear; the vast accumulation of Silurian limestone
must have hastened the age of fishes. The age of reptiles
waited for the clearing of the air of the burden of carbon
dioxide. The age of mammals awaited the deepening and
enrichment of the soil and the stability of the earth's crust
— ^who knows upon what physical conditions of the earth's
elements the brain of man was dependent ? "

Prof. H. F. Osborn has done good service in reminding
evolutionists that their problem concerns four inter-acting
complexes of energy :— the inorganic environment, the body

400 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

of tho organism, the ^ heredity-germ ', and the animate en-
vironment. How slow we are to learn, for instance, Weis-
mann's lesson that the main steps of evolution are due to
changes emerging centrifugally from the germ-cell, not, so
far as we know, to changes impressed centripetally on the
body. Yet the germinal variations require the aid of somatic
functioning if they are to develop fully, and likewise the
aid of encouragement from the inorganic environment. Fur-
thermore the animate environment which forms part of the
selective sieve is also in process of evolution. It is a corre-
lated fourfold (^ tetrakinetic ') evolution that we have to
deal with.

But the crowning feature of evolution is the increased
masterfulness of behaviour. Even the very restricted brain
development of bony fishes belongs to a different epoch from
that of the medusae under whose umbrella they sometimes
shelter, and the otter is as far ahead of the fish as the fish
is ahead of the medusa. It is not merely intricacy of be-
haviour; it is not merely effectiveness; there is plenty of
both at very humble levels; the characteristic feature is
more freedom, plasticity, and resourcefulness. As we shall
afterwards see there is considerable reason for saying —
though it is difficult exactly to prove it — that the outstanding
fact about organic evolution is the increasing dominance of
Mind. As we think of the advance from invisible micro-
organisms to Mankind, we feel the grandeur of the process.
The apparently simple beginnings, dimly discerned by us,
have had large issues, — an extraordinarily fine, beautiful,
and interesting fauna and flora, an intricate self-regulating
and self-compensating system which has a moving equi-
librium in spite of the continual breaking-down of parts.
The eyes of Man's understanding have been darkened if

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 401

he does not see something of the majesty of the great be-
coming.

We see that the length of time required for the evolu-
tionary process has not been, so to speak, a consideration.
Half-a-million years may be spent in the fashioning of a
feather and longer in giving the horse his hoof. It is certain
that the antiquity of man is enormously greater than even
Lyell supposed. According to the calculations of experts
like Keith and Sollas, it is probable that the human type
diverged from the Anthropoid between two and three million
years ago. But if it be, as many say, 800 million years
since organisms began to spread upon the earth, then the
duration of the biosphere has been to that of man as a long
forenoon compared with one minute. What fills us with
amazement is that so many of millions of years should
have been spent, so to speak, in laying the foundations.
Without rest, but certainly without haste, the process con-
tinued. Well might Bishop Butler say: '^ Men are impatient
and for precipitating things; but the Author of nature
appears deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing
His natural ends by slow successive steps." In modem
terminology, " The Tempo of the Absolute is slow."

Impressive also is the fact that by-paths, leading nowhere
in particular, are marked by the same finish as the great
highways that approach such notable results as the bee-hive
and the ant-hill, or the rookeries and the assemblies of
cranes, or the troop of wild horses, or the village community.
There are indeed many relatively simple organisms, like
polyps, and some old-fashioned primitive types, like Peri-
patus, but the large fact is the detailed intricacy of the
great majority of living creatures. With the category ' or-
ganism ' we must associate a tendency to exquisite finish of

402 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

complex structure. The living artist does not leave many
creations in the sketch stage. ^' I believe," the poet said,
" that everything is equally perfect."

It seems to us fair to say that the very broad foundations
laid among backboneless animals and among the lower back-
boned animals like fishes, make the superstructure stable.
Let us suppose for a moment — if we do not suppose it always
— that the whole process of animate evolution is a coherent
thought leading on to Man, who, limited as he is, has some
capacity of intelligent appreciation, may it not be that the
foundations were and are because without them the super-
structure could not stand ? That is a matter for interpre-
tation, which is beyond science, and it introduces concep-
tions of values which are also beyond science. What we
venture to emphasise is ihe fact that without the broad
foundations the superstructure could not be. As biologists
w^e do not say that a welter of water-fleas and the like
came into being in order that there might be fishes,
and fishes in order that there might be fishermen; what we
do say is, that, as a matter of fact, the existence of fishes
depends on that extraordinarily diversified, prolific, intricate,
and beautiful fauna of minute organisms.

We have already referred to the puzzling disappearance
of masterpieces, part of the explanation of which is that
over-specialisation has its nemesis and that very successful
organisms tend to a dangerous exuberance when they get
away from the pruning shears of Natural Selection. But
it was probably worth losing the giant reptiles to gQ\ birds
and mammals in their stead. There is little evidence that
big inventions once made have ever been lost.

But what must be dominant in our minds after a survey
of the achievements of Animate Evolution is that the process

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 403

has had its outcome in personalities, who have discerned
something of its magnificent sweep, w^ho are seeking to
understand its factors, who are learning some of its lessons,
who cannot rest until they interpret it — even though it be
mistakenly.

SUMMARY.

The biggest fact of science is that the Systema Naturae in all its
complexity, intricacy, multitudinousness, and working harmony has
come to be as it is from relatively simple beginnings and by suc-
cessive achievements. By * simple ' is meant ' unevolved ' — a nebula
or a group of planetesimals, a zoogloea or a bunch of biococei.

Of the origin of the first organisms upon the earth we know noth-
ing,— whether they came from elsewhere or were evolved from some
not-living carbonaceous slime activated by ferments. DiflSculties
beset all the hypotheses of abiogenesis that have been as yet sug-
gested; yet, on general grounds, it seems likely that abiogenesis
occurred.

Of the nature of the first organisms we know nothing directly,
but it is probable that they were of very minute size and much
simpler than most of the Protozoa within the ordinary range of
microscopic visibility. Minchin's suggestions leave us convinced that
a long journey had to be travelled before the first cell appeared.

The next great step was the establishment of many distinct types
of cellular organisation. Perhaps this was the time of the funda-
mental initiatives.

One of the early events was the emergence and the divergence of
Green Plants, — a fundamentally important cleavage, without which
the evolution of animals would not have been possible. The vegeta-
tive line of evolution is obviously off the main track.

An epoch-making step was the making of ^ bodies ', the transition
from the unicellular or non-cellular grade of organisation to the
multicellular. It opened the way for specialisation of function, for
great increase in momentum, for storing energy, and so on, but it
soon brought with it the nemesis of natural death.

Another step of far-reaching importance was the evolution of
male and female multicellular individuals, differing in constitution,
and complementary in the continuance of the race. This sex-

404 GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION

dimorphism or divergence had many organic advantages; it became
also a liberator and educator of enriching emotions.

A multitude of evolutionary steps must be summed up in the
phrase progressive differentiation and integration. Of unique im-
portance was the replacement of radial symmetry by bilateral sym-
metry which led on to head-brains and cephalisation, and was the
beginning of our knowing our right hand from our left. The
zoologist discerns that the word epoch-making is not too large for
such steps as the making of haemoglobin, the invention of blood, the
establishment of internal surfaces. The story of the evolution of
backboneless animals discloses a long succession of achievements.

A step of great magnitude on the main line of evolution was the
origin of backboned animals, with a new type of central nervous
system opening up fresh possibilities of integration, registration,
and experiment. There was a conquering of new media — the dry
land and the air. There was a great extension of the range of
behaviour and a widening of resources. Economised reproduction
became possible as parental care lessened juvenile mortality. The
individual became more of an individual and counted for more in
life. Psychical linkages bound kin to kin.

Finally, Man emerged, " the summit of the whole ".

Looking back over the great spectacle of Animate Evolution, we
gather certain general impressions. There is progressive organisa-
tion of structural detail, increasing intricacy and correlation of func-
tions, a complexifying of the inter-relations of organisms, a grow-
ing masterfulness and resourcefulness of behaviour.

The process of evolution from invisible Biococci to Mankind has
a magnificence which cannot be exaggerated. It has been a process
in which the time required has been of no consideration, in which
there has been neither rest nor haste, in which by-paths show as
much finish as the highways, in which broad foundations have
been laid so that the superstructure has been secure, in which, in
spite of the disappearance of masterpieces, there has been a con-
servation of big gains. It has had its outcome in personalities who
have discerned its magnificent sweep, who are seeking to understand
its factors, who are learning some of its lessons, who cannot cease
trying to interpret it.

LECTURE XIII.

OKIGIKATIVE FACTOES IN" EVOLUTION

VARIATION.

LECTUEE XIIL

ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

VARIATION.

§ 1. Tlie Central Problem of Etiology is the Origin of Heritable
Variations. § 2. Variations Distinguished from Modifica-
tions. § 3. Discontinuous Variations {or Mutations) and
Continuous Variations {or Fluctuations). §4. Problem of
the Origin of Variations. § 5. Correlation of Variations. § 6.
Theory of Temporal Variations. § 7. Evidences of Definite-
ness in Variability. § 8. Germ-cells on Implicit Organisms.

§ 1. The Central Problem of etiology Is the Origin

of Heritable Variations.

While the general idea of evolution is accepted by prac-
tically all living naturalists, there is great uncertainty in
regard to the factors that have been operative in the process.
The uncertainty is partly due to the difficulty of arguing
from a meagre experience of the present to a past of many
millions of years, and partly to the fact that scientific aetiol-
ogy is still very young, for it may almost be said to date from
Darwin's Origin of Species (1859).

There are two main problems of evolution. The first asks
how we are to account for the continual emergence of new
things, of changes or variations which make an organism
appreciably different from its parents or from the rest of
its kin. The second asks what directive factors operate on
the variations which arise, determining their elimination
or their persistence as the case may be, and working, it may
be, towards the familiar but puzzling result— the existence of

407

408 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

distinct and relatively well-adapted species. The first ques-
tion has to do with primary or originative factors ; the second
has to do with secondary or directive factors. It may well
be, however, that the discontinuity of species depends more
on originative than on directive factors.

A good many years ago there was born in a normal North
of Scotland family a child who grew up to be a wise and
well-proportioned dwarf. He married and bad children —
a certain number of whom were dwarfs. The peculiarity
re-appeared in grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and
one of the fourth generation was recently at the head of a
successful business — a wise and well-proportioned dwarf.
The question before us, discussible if not answerable, is.
What conditioned the dwarf? This is the fundamental prob-
lem of the origin of the distinctively new. V^hether it be
a clever dwarf, a mathematical genius, a 10-foot tailed
cock, a copper-beech, a Greater Celandine with laciniate
leaves, the general problem is the same, the old problem of
new departures. What are the originative factors in organic
evolution ?

§ 2. Variations Distinguished from Modifications.

A problem so difficult demands cautious handling. The
first question is as to the nature of the novelties that actually
occur; and the sound procedure is to take stock of all observed
peculiarities or differences marking off individual organisms
of the same kind. These " observed differences '^ must be
measured and registered without theory or prejudice. We
compare the colour of the trout we catch from different
streams, the various numerical relations of radial canals and
sense-organs in a thousand jellyfishes of the same species,
the plumage in a score of ruffs, the number of vertebrae in

VARIATION 409

a hundred herrings, and so on. We register these observed
differences.

It soon becomes plain, however, that analysis of our data
is necessary, if we are to avoid fallacy. We must try to sift
out peculiarities which are associated with age and with
sex, or are directly due to peculiarities of nurture. It is
obvious that immature herrings must be compared with im-
mature, and that we must not mix up the ruffs and the reeves,
drones and worker-bees. More difficult, however, is it to
separate off those peculiarities which can be experimentally
shown to be individually acquired modifications, directly due
to peculiarities in nurture (whether nutritional, environmen-
tal, or functional). Many crabs are profoundly changed by
being parasitised by Sacculina and related forms, and a
conclusion as to variability in crabs is vitiated by mixing
up the parasitised with the normal. An organism dwarfed
by lack of food or lack of space for exercise, such as the
fresh-water snails studied by Semper and De Varigny, is in
a different category from a normal dwarf appearing in a
family with no dwarfs in its recent lineage. The much cut-
up leaves of the fresh-water buttercup in the swiftly flowing
water, one of the examples Lamarck gave of the direct
results of environmental influence, are not to be placed
alongside of the laciniate leaves of a variety of the Greater
Celandine (Chelidonium majus) which cropped up without
warning in 1590 in an apothecary's garden in Heidelberg,
and has been breeding true ever since.

Darwin called these directly induced, exogenous modi-
fications " definite variations " — not a fortunate term ; they
are currently and unhappily called " individually acquired
characters"; they are best called "somatic modifications".
They may be defined as individual bodily changes directly

410 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

due to peculiarities in environment, nutrition, and function,
which transcend the limits of organic elasticity and persist
after the inducing causes have ceased to operate. As there
is not at present any convincing proof of the transmissibility
of these somatic modifications, either as such, or in any
representative degree, they must be left out, in the first
instance, in our inquiry into the origin of the distinctively
new. They may be of great import for the individual, a
life-saving veneer, but if they are not transmitted they can-
not be of more than indirect importance to the race.
It does not follow, however, that a changeful environment
may not be an originative factor in evolution.

When we subtract from the total of observed differences
those that can be shown to be modifications, when we also
eliminate the peculiarities associated with differences of age
and sex, the remainder are for the most part (in proportion
to the success of our subtraction) what are called variations
— inborn not acquired, intrinsic not extrinsic, blastogenic
not somatogenic, endogenous not exogenous, arising from the
constitution of the germ-cell not impressed from without,
expressions not indents. Some of them at least are very
transmissible, and it may be said that these constitute the
raw materials of evolution.

§ 3. Discontinuous Variatio7is (or Mutations) and
Continuous Variations (or Fluctuations).

The next step is to inquire whether all the inborn varia-
tions are on the same platform, and here we may go back
to Darwin's distinction between (a) " single variations ''
and (h) " individual variations '', though the terms are not
felicitous. (a) By " single variations " Darwin meant
sports, abrupt changes, sometimes of notable amount, such

VARIATION 411

as that "which gave rise to the copper-hcech in the IGth cen-
tury, or to hornless cattle, or to short-legged slieep, or to
Angora rabbits, or to fantail pigeons. They correspond to
Galton's ^' transilient variations ", to Bateson's '^ discontinu-
ous variations ", to De Vries's ^' mutations ", and the last
name should be kept for them. The contrast, it should bo
noted, is not so much in the amount as in the kind of change.
A white rat does not seem to lack very much to make it a
brown rat — the species whence it sprang, but it was in its
day a qualitative new departure, and it has bred true, (h)
By '^ individual variations " Darwin meant the minute,
ubiquitous peculiarities which distinguish child from parent,
brother from brother, cousin from cousin. Though he was
much interested in the '' single variations " or brusque
^^ sports ", it was in " individual variations " or minute
fluctuations that he found most of the raw materials of new
species. '^ The more I work," he said, '^ the more I feel
convinced it is by the accumulation of such extremely slight
variations that new species arise."

Some authors have tried to identify Darwin's slight in-
dividual variations or fluctuations with the somatic modi-
fications already referred to. While this may be sometimes
justified in point of fact, Darwin did not regard minute
variations as modificational. This is plain from such a
sentence as this: "If, as I must think, external conditions
produce little direct effect, what the devil determines each
particular variation?" Moreover, fluctuations or minute
variations often arise among animals whose conditions of
life appear to be quite uniform. On the other hand, what
Johanssen calls fluctuations in " pure lines " of beans are
probably slight modifications due to difi^crences in nurture.

Little is known in regard to the transmissibility of

412 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

fluctuations or minute variations in the Darwinian sense,
but the recent work of Castle (1916), for instance, shows
that it is in some cases demonstrable.

It is a curious fact that one of the reasons why Darwin
attached little importance to sports or mutations was his
belief that they would be swamped in the inter-crossing.
In reality they are highly transmissible. When they come
they often come to stay unless they are pathological on the
one hand, or too superlative, like geniuses, on the other.
What is desirable at present is more evidence of the trans-
missibility of the small fluctuations of germinal origin — a
transmissibility which Darwin assumed without ques-
tion.

To emphasise the contrast between fluctuating or con-
tinuous variations, and saltatory or discontinuous mutations,
we may quote a couple of vivid sentences from one of Samuel
Eutler's Essays.

When circumstances are changing, an ^^ organism must
act in one or other of these two ways : It must either change
slowly and continuously with the surroundings, paying cash
for everything, meeting the smallest change with a cor-
responding modification so far as is found convenient ; or
it must put off change as long as possible, and then make
larger and more sweeping changes ".

" It may be questioned whether what is called a sport is
not the organic expression of discontent which has been long
felt, but which has not been attended to, nor been met step
by step by as much small remedial modification as was found
practicable: so that when a change does come it comes
by way of revolution. Or, again (only that it comes to much
the same thing), a sport may be compared to one of those
happy thoughts which sometimes come to us unbidden after

VARIATION 413

we have been thinking for a long time what to do, or how to
arrange our ideas, and have yet been unable to arrive at
any conclusion,"

To the Dutch botanist De Vries especial credit is due for
his recognition of the evolutionary importance of mutations
and for his study of their behaviour in inheritance. It is
an often told story how he found, in 1886, in a potato-
garden near Hilversum, in Holland, a race of the Evening
Primrose (CEnothera lamarckiana) in which the mood was
all mutation. In spite of Galton's insistence on the reality
of transilient variations and Bateson's marshalling of in-
stances of discontinuity, the tendency had grown strong to
dogmatise about the continuity of organic change, just as
previously about the fixity of species. '' Natura non facit
salius'* they said: but De Vries discerned Natura saliatrix
in the Evening Primrose of Hilversum, which, by the way,
turns out to have been in the 18th century a wild
species in North America. Three points may be emphasised.
First, that some of the mutants which De Vries's sportive
(Enotheras threw off, as an artist might tear sketches from
his note-book, were ephemeral failures, while others were
viable and bred true, and could not be otherwise described
than as species in the making, fingers searching as it were
for their appropriate environmental glove. Second, in many
cases the mutants were of particular interest because they
showed through and through divergences — in leaf and stem
and flower — certainly suggestive of some general disturb-
ance of germinal organisation. Just as if the CEnothera was
born again! Third, that the creativeness or sportivencss of
the Evening Primrose is not restricted to De Vries's partic-
ular race of CEnothera lamarcUarm. It occurs in other
species of Evening Primrose, and also in snapdragon and

414 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

barley, in strawberry and maize, in pomace-fly and potato-
beetle, in rat and in Man himself. Mutations may be induced
experimentally, as Professor Tower did with his potato-
beetles and as Mme. Henri recently did with the bacillus
of anthrax; or they may manifest themselves in wild nature
as in the black mutants of Peppered Moth and West Indian
Sugar-bird. The result may be a plus or a minus, a dominant
or a recessive or neither, pathological or normal. The muta-
tion may occur after crossing or in a pure race ; it may show
itself potentially before, during, or after fertilisation. In
short, there is nothing hard and fast about the origin or
nature of mutations : their common features are their brusque
appearance, their discontinuity with the parent stock, and
their capability of being transmitted intact to a certain
proportion of the offspring.

The work of Dr. R. R. Gates on (Enothera lamarchiana is
of capital importance. It had been suggested that this species
might be a cultivated hybrid, and that its remarkable muta-
tions might be re-combinations of the Mendelian characters of
its parents. But it has been shown that (Enothera lamarch-
iana was in the 18th century at least a wild North
American species. Moreover, the brusque phenomena of
mutation occur not only in (E. lamarchiana, but in (E,
biennis, (E. grandiflora, and (E. muricata as well.

Of particular interest in many of the mutations of (E.
lamarchiana is the fact that they affect several different
parts of the plant, including foliage, flowers, and habits.
The disturbance produced in the germ-plasm must be of a
fundamental character, it has manifold outcrops, as is sug-
gested by the names of the mutants — giga^, lata, nanella,
ruhricalyx, hrevistylis, and so on.

How does Dr. Gates interpret the germinal disturbances

VARIATION 415

which result in somatic mutations? "As regards the ulti-
mate nature of mutations, we are inclined to look upon them
as the result of various types of change in the nucleus: (1)
morphological changes (a) in number, (6) in shape and
size of the chromosomes, or in the arrangement of their
substance; (2) chemical or functional changes in (a) whole
chromosomes or (h) portions of particular chromosomes, by
which a function may be modified or lost; (3) two simulta-
neous mutations may occur through mismating of the chromo-
somes in two pairs so that each germ-cell receives both
members of one pair; (4) changes in the mysterious karyo-
lymph or gel which forms the groundwork of the nucleus.
Such changes may be thought of as alterations in chemical
structure or even in polarity, and may also be supposed to
extend to the ground substance of the whole cell. But the
real nature of all such changes as those last mentioned is
at present highly speculative" (1915, p. 303).

§ 4. Prohlem of the Origin of Variations.

Turning now to the problem of the origin of inborn varia-
tions, we may usefully distinguish two levels of difficulty.
There are variations and variations. There are some novel-
ties that imply just a little more or a little less of some
quality,— a slightly longer tail, a slightly denser blackness,
a slightly stronger flight-muscle, a slightly weaker eye; some
that involve a disappearance of an entire character, such
as hair or horns, tail or pigment; some that may be described
as obvious re-arrangements of the characters displayed by
the ancestry, as we see in a piebald pony or in a hybrid cock-
atoo. Now it does not seem very difficult to imagine the
origin of this kind of quantitative variation. Without pin-
ning our faith as yet to any very detailed view of the ma-

416 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

terial basis of inheritance, we may regard it as certain that
the cliromosomes play an exceedingly important role as ve-
hicles of the heritable qualities. We may compare them to a
microscopic pack of cards and we know that they are some-
times visibly different from one another in the same germ-
cell, and that there is an extraordinarily elaborate shuffling
of the cards before development begins. In the reduction-
process involved in the maturation of almost every animal
egg-cell, half of the ovum's pack is thrown away, usually in
the first polar body, and comes to nothing. In the matura-
tion of the sperm-cell there is also a halving of the pack,
but all the reduced units are in this case functional. In
fertilisation the two half-packs come together in intimate
and orderly union, though without fusion of chromosomes,
forming the zygote-nucleus. The opportunities for permuta-
tions and combinations of hereditary items, and for the
dropping out of one or more altogether, are many and actual.
Thus the origin of variations of a quantitative sort does not
seem beyond our comprehension, except in the sense that we
do not in any way understand the process of cell-division,
whether meiotic or reducing division in the maturation of
the germ-cells, or the ordinary equational division in other
cases.

That this is still only nibbling at the problem is evident
when we think of meristic variations (in the number of
parts, segments, vertebrae, joints, etc.), which Professor Bate-
Bon has usefully distinguished from substantive variations (in
the composition of materials). A re-shuffling of the molec-
ular cards within the germ-cell might give rise to a new
pigment which was continued in subsequent generations as a
definite constituent particle (which we have to credit with
great capacity for increase) or as a particular chemical

VARIATION 417

'tendency' of the protoplasm; but how are we to picture
the origin and continuance of meristic variations ?

A separate consideration may be given to fertilisation as
a source of variation, — a view prominent at one stage in the
development of Professor Weismann's theories. For a time
he was inclined to attach great importance to the mingling (or
amphimixis) of two sets of hereditary qualities as a pos-
sible source of novelties, but he afterwards attached more
importance to the influence that fluctuations in nutrition
within the body might have in inducing changes in the
germ-plasm or in inducing struggle among the analogous
hereditary items. In recent years the Belgian botanist Lotsy
has been a thoroughgoing champion of the variational signifi-
cance of fertilisation and has gone the length of maintaining
that all variation is due to crossing. There is ample experi-
mental evidence that novelties may be induced by crossing,
and this is not surprising when we remember that two very
complex systems, usually of diverse origin, become in fertili-
sation a unity that goes on in most cases to develop into a
harmonious life. On the other hand, Lotsy's attempt to
refer all variations to crossing is extreme. This is showTi, for
instance, by the occasional occurrence of variations in
parthenogenetic lineages in which no father intervenes for
prolonged periods. Moreover, crossing can be of no avail
unless the two sex-cells that combine are different. If they
are different it must be by hypothesis because of previ-
ous crosses. Thus we simply push the problem back
and back to original differences which are left unaccounted
for.

The problem before which we are bafiled is the origin of
the distinctively new, where the novelty is qualitative not
quantitative. Some would refuse to admit this distinction,-

418 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

and perhaps they are pedantically right: the distinction is
one of common sense. There is many a grade between those
who find their fingers indispensable in simple computations,
and the calculating boy who can tell us in a few seconds the
cube root of 2,498,846,293 yet cannot explain how he knows,
but there seems good sense in recognising the latter as a
qualitative change. So with the mathematical genius, the
musical genius, the artistic genius, and there is not any rea-
son to believe that Man is the only species that produces
geniuses. The evidence of their occurrence elsewhere is in
the rapidly-growing records of mutations of large amount.
There is a mutation-theory, but is there any theory of muta-
tions ?

On the dark problem of the origin of the distinctively
new some beams of light have been shed. (1) First, there
are facts suggesting that deeply saturating environmental
influences may act as variational stimuli on the germ-cells
and provoke change. Professor MacDougal injected solu-
tions of sugar and compounds of calcium, potassium, and zinc
into the developing ovaries of one of the Evening Primroses,
and got out of several hundreds of seeds sixteen individuals
notably atypical, which bred true to the second and third
generation. There were not only losses and augmentations,
there were well-marked novelties which maintained their
distinctiveness when crossed with the parental strains. It
should be noted that what Professor MacDougal injected was
not very much out of the way, and might be paralleled by nat-
ural changes in the chemical composition of the sap of the
plant. Professor Punnett expresses the view of many natural-
ists when he says : ^' There is reason to suppose that environ-
mental change leads to abnormal divisions in the ripening
germ-cells, and that these abnormal divisions are the starting-

VARIATION 419

point of the new variety " (Article Heredity, Hastings'
Encyclopcedia of Religion and Ethics).

Pointing in the same direction are the well-known experi-
ments of Professor Tower, who subjected potato-beetles to un-
usual conditions of temperature and humidity when the male
and female reproductive organs were at a certain stage of
development. The results were strangely lacking in uniform-
ity, but some of the oifspring showed striking and persistent
changes, not only in colour and markings, but also in some
details of structure. Professor Tower's work has met with
some adverse criticism, but, taken along with similar experi-
ments, it suggests that we must not overlook the possibility
of deeply-saturating environmental influences acting as varia-
tional stimuli, — affecting not the body of the parent, but the
germ-cells within. Here should be included Weismann's
view that fluctuations in bodily nutrition may prompt the
germ-plasm to vary.

(2) Some of the researches of recent years, such as those
of Dr. R. Euggles Gates on Evening Primroses ((Enothera)
and of Prof. T. H. Morgan on the Pomace-fly (Drosophila)
have focussed attention on the chromosomes. It is a distinct
step to know that certain peculiarities of particular mutants
are associated with visible alterations in the chromosomes
of the fertilised egg-cell. It is very interesting to know
that while the fundamental number of chromosomes for the
genus (Enothera is 14, this has become 15 in lata and semi-
lata, 21 in semigigas, 28 in gigas, and so on. These are the
numbers observed in the fertilised egg-cell and in every ele-
ment throughout the plant.

In this connection a reference may be made to what obtains
in Man. Competent observers have stated that the cells of
the male negro have 22 chromosomes, and it is probable

420 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

that the negress has 24, at least in some cases. Now in the
white man and woman the enumerations of Winiwarter and
others have usually been 47 and 48. It seems curiously
difficult to reach certainty in regard to this simple point,
but there is no harm in asking, as Dr. Gates does, whether
the white man may not have originated from a black race
by a ^' tetraploid mutation and its consequences ".

The nuclear changes studied in CEnothera in their as-
sociation with particular mutations are not restricted to
changes in the number of chromosomes; they may concern
their shape, size, and structure. What has been gained is
a demonstration that in some cases the bodily peculiarities
of mutants are correlated with visible changes in germinal
organisation.

Now one is quite aware that this is just telescoping-down
the Proteus of the full-grown organism into the germ-cell
phase of its being, and that a recognition of germinal dis-
turbances does not tell us what conditions them. As Professor
Bateson has often said, we find ourselves confronted with
the oppressive difficulty of cell-division and irregularities
in its procedure. Yet there is an enlightening gleam in the
proof that somatic mutations are correlated with antecedent
germinal disturbances, for we know that abnormal cell-divi-
sions occur in various conditions in Nature, and we have
already referred to the opportunities for re-arrangements
that occur in the early history and maturation of the germ-
cells. Is there any further light?

We must remember that chromosomes are living units in
a complex environment, and just as Bacteria sometimes
change suddenly in their physiological properties, so chromo-
somes may vary in their stereochemic architecture or in
functional powers. Moreover, it is not fanciful to suppose

VARIATION 421

that these vital units, which have great persistence of ' in-
dividuality \ may exhibit age-changes or periodic reorganisa-
tion processes.

Here may be profitably considered the recent work on
the Slipper-Animalcule (Pararnecium aurelia) by Professor
Woodruff and Miss Erdmann. Woodruff has kept a pure
line of this Ciliate healthy for over seven years, through
more than 4500 generations. As is usual in a pure line all
descended from one there was no conjugation. On an av-
erage of once a month, however, a remarkable regulatory
process occurs, which the authors call endomixis, which
secures the indefinite life of the race. Nuclear changes,
comparable to those that precede conjugation in normal
wild conditions, set in ; the old nuclear material, both macro-
nuclear and micronuclear, is disintegrated and re-organised.
But there is no formation of stationary and migratory
micronuclei as there is before conjugation. For conjugation
is not going to occur ; something that takes its place is occur-
ring— endomixis. Now it seems probable that such a
periodic re-organisation of nuclear material will afford op-
portunity for plasmic re-arrangement, and this may imply
the origin of variations even within a pure line. Professor
Jennings has found in pure lines of non-conjugating Para-
mecium evidence of variations about the mean. These might
be due to re-arrangements effected in endomixis. It is
conceivable, as Woodward and Erdmann point out, that
''heritable'' variations may result from some rare re-
combinations in endomixis.

This Paramecium is a very complicated organism, as
Prof. Clifford Dobell has vividly emphasised, on the non-
cellular line of evolution, and we find it in certain conditions
exhibiting a monthly re-organisation as part of its life-cycle.

422 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

Is it not possible that some similar re-organisation may
normally occur in Metazoa at the origin of each individual
life, and that, if it does, there is no need to look about for
any special cause ? It is all in the day's work, it is part of
the programme of the essentially regulative life-cycle. We
may recall, too, that variation occasionally occurs in
parthenogenetic or aspermic development, as well as in the
ordinary process.

We are not seeking to ^ explain ' variations by verbal
inventions. Our argument is quite clear: Certain mutations
in organisms are preceded by germinal disturbances, perhaps
these germinal disturbances are comparable to endomixis in
Paramecium. It is always a step towards understanding
.to put one obscure process alongside of another which is
similar to it and which may be more amenable to experi-
mental treatment. Therefore we suggest that endomixis may
be profitably considered along with the problem of the origin
of variations.

Another gleam of light may possibly be found in Professor
Child's long-continued study of processes of senescence
and rejuvenescence, — a study recently presented in its
entirety in a remarkable volume Senescence and Rejuvenes-
cence (1915). Professor Child finds that when a fragment
of a Planarian regrows a whole, there is a rejuvenescence dur-
ing the re-constitution ; the rate of metabolism is high and the
resistance-power is great. The metabolism may be measured
by Tashiro's ^ biometer ', an extraordinarily delicate reg-
ister of the CO2 output, or more indirectly by the degree
of susceptibility and resistance to cyanide poisons and the
like. Judged by these tests, the regenerating piece of Plana-
rian is younger than it was when it formed part of the parent.
It literally renews its youth. Similarly, when a Planarian

VARIATION 423

or a Hydroid multiplies asexiially, the separated-off piece
shows marked rejuvenescence as revealed by the two tests
named.

Professor Child's thesis is this: As an organism differen-
tiates, it ages, for the accumulation of relatively inactive con-
stituents in the colloidal cytoplasmic substratum necessarily
involves a decrease in the metabolic rate ; but there are coun-
teractive processes of reduction, removal, and de-differentia-
tion, when the metabolic stream erodes its bed instead of
depositing materials. These are marked by acceleration in
metabolic rate, and constitute rejuvenescence. '' It is cer-
tain," Professor Child says, " that the new individuals which
arise by division or budding from other individuals or from
experimentally isolated pieces are to some extent physiologi-
cally younger than the parent individual from which they

arose."

The idea of a see-saw between processes of senescence and
rejuvenescence finds many illustrations among the lower
animals, but what of higher levels? Professor Child finds
some interesting evidence that the early developmental stages
of a number of animal types, before specialisation of cells sets
in, are conspicuously young in the physiological sense. The
germ-cells themselves are very stable condensations of he-
reditary items, but in the early development there is a time
of re-constitution, of de-differentiation, of relaxation. If
there is any soundness in this view, in support of which data
are, of course, submitted, we may perhaps recognise another
opportunity for variation, namely in the very young embryo,
Avhere the alleged rejuvenescence may include possibilities
of re-arrangement and, as it were, re-tuning.

424 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

§ 5. Correlation of Variations,

The tendency of modern research has been to lay emphasis
on the idea of hereditary particulateness, that the character-
istics of organisms are made up of elementary units, without
intergrades, as sharply separated from one another as the
chemical elements. This is the idea of " unit characters ^\
independently heritable, and independently variable. It is
very striking that a trivial feature in the hands — a reduc-
tion of the index and middle finger (in spite of the presence
of a little extra triangular bone at their bases), and a con-
sequent projection of the ring finger, should behave as a
Mendelian character for at least four generations and be
found in fifteen out of thirty-six descendants of the family
investigated. (See H. Drinkwater, Journ. Anat. Physiol.,
L., 1916, pp. 177-186, 14 figs.) There is indirect evidence
that particular unit characters are represented by particular
particles (factors, determinants, or genes) in the germ-plasm,
or perhaps by ultra^microscopic differences of architecture,
and the idea works well, — like the atomic theory in chem-
istry. But it has its limitations and it must not be pressed
so hard that we lose sight of the unity of the organism even
in the germ-cell phase of its being, and of the fruitful con-
ception of correlated variations. An exaggeration of the
idea of particulateness leads to a view which is too mechan-
ical to fit living creatures, as if the organism evolved like
a machine perfected piecemeal by the adding on of many
little patents independent of each other. A reaction may
be seen in the recent book by Prof. T. H. Morgan and others
on The Mechanism of Mendelian Inheritance (1915),
where it is insisted that the so-called unit character is only
the most obvious or most significant product of the postulated

VARIATION 425

^ factor ', that the effects of a ' factor ' may be far-reaching
and manifold, and that a single character may depend on
many ^ factors ' which interact. '' Cases of interaction of
factors, in which the effect of one factor is altered by the
action of another factor, are very numerous '^ (p. 4G). '' The
expression of a factor-difference may not be limited to one
region but may produce a different effect in different re-
gions/'

Many considerations suggest that we should do well to ap-
preciate afresh the idea which Darwin and Sir Ray Lan-
kester have emphasised of the '^ correlation of variations '\
that one change, as we see for instance in disease, may have
manifold expression or outcrop in different parts of the
body, that the organism may change as a unity in many parts
at once. It is not difficult to suppose that a change in the
rate of a particular kind of metabolism may reverberate
through the body. As Mr. J. T. Cunningham and Professor
Dendy have pointed out, an augmentation or a diminution
of certain internal secretions or hormones might have
multitudinous transforming effects.

§ 6. Theory of Temporal Variations.

Another important idea is that of temporal variations,
that is to say alterations in the tempo, or rate, or rhythm
of metabolic processes, or in the duration of particular
phases in the life-cycle. Many changes of great adaptive-
ness are probably due to a lengthening out of one chapter
and the telescoping of another. In the remarkable regula-
tory influence of the internal secretions in backboned an-
imals we get a hint as to the way in which changes in ' time '
might be effected.

It is very interesting to compare different life-histories

426 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

from this point of view. In some, such as May-flies or
Ephemerides, the adult life is condensed into a few days
or even hours. It may even be lost altogether as in cases
of paedogenesis, where there is juvenile reproductivity. On
the other hand, when juvenile life is hazardous, it may be,
as it were, telescoped down into the egg, thus the young
Mound-bird is able to fly on the day on which it is hatched.
In other cases, as in the generations of Planarians badly fed,
the animal may be born old. Part of the tune may be played
very slowly, part very quickly, and another part left out
altogether, and a life-history adaptive to particular condi-
tions may be the result of selecting out suitable temporal
variations. (See in this connection Mitchell, 1912, and
Thomson, 1914.)

V/e must not think too exclusively of variations in struc-
ture; many variations may afl'ect rate and intensity; many
may be difi'erences in stability of constitution, in rapidity of
reflexes and cerebral processes, and in the mysterious quality
called vigour. Or, penetrating further still, may we not
recognise the possibility of a kind of variation which is of
more profit than any increase of stature, strength, or speed,
than any perfection of armour or weapons, than any subtlety
of protective coloration or mimetic resemblance, — a kind of
variation that expresses itself in a keener endeavour after
well-being, a stronger will to live, and a livelier sense of
kinship ?

§ 7. Evidences of Definiteness in Variability.

For our interpretation of evolution it is important to rec-
ognise the growing body of evidence that variation is a much
more definite, much less fortuitous, organic change than
was formerly supposed. (A) There are many illustrations of

VARIATION 427

what is called orthogenesis, or progressive variation along a
definite line. The palaeontologists in particular have very
strong convictions as to reality of this orthogenesis, and as to
the absence of arrows shot at a venture. (B) Instances are
accumulating of the occurrence of mutations or brusque varia-
tions, and if these come they often come to stay. The Black
Mutant of the Peppered Moth was rare 60 years ago ; in
many places it has now replaced the originative stock. This
lessens the element of the casual in organic evolution. It
also lessens the need for over-burdening the role of natural
selection in sifting out from amid a crowd of random novel-
ties, and as an accumulator of minute increments. (C) But
along with this there should be considered the idea, that
variations are limited in some measure by what has gone
before. At the beginning of each individual life there is the
fertilised ovum, — a viable unity. If a variation occur it
is not like to grip unless it be congruent with the germinal
organisation already established ; it must harmonise, just as
an addition to a crystal must, but within a wider range. The
character of the building that has been erected determines in
some measure the nature of an addition to it. The idea of
architecture is of course only one aspect; the novelty must
be congruent with the previously established reaction system
and specific metabolism. Out of the same spring we do not
get sweet water and bitter. This is an old but important
idea; we find in Aristotle the suggestion that the possible
range of the form of an organ is limited to some extent by
its existing difi'erentiation. Thus the element of the fortu-
itous shrinks still further. It is interesting to find that
monsters sometimes result from infelicitous crossings, but
perhaps a greater interest attaches to the fact that monsters
are rare in Nature, not only in survival, but in occurrence.

428 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

An illustration of the limiting of changes by pre-existing
organisation may be found in a recent paper by Prof. S. J.
Hickson {Mem. 6^ Proc. Manchester Lit. dc Phil. Soc, LX.,
1916, pp. 1-15), in which he notes that meristic variability
in important organs is much greater in radially symmetrical
forms than in bilaterally symmetrical forms where a balance
must be kept. In reference to the Pennatulacea he shows
that variable or plastic characters may become less variable
or plastic as a transition is made from radial to bilateral sym-
metry, and points out that increasing rigidity of certain
characters leads in some cases to the differentiation of the
discontinuous groups which are recognised as species. What
we would suggest is carrying this idea from the fully-formed
organism to the germ-cell organism, and considering substan-
tive as well as meristic variations.

§ 8. Germ-cells as Implicit Organisms.

Let us sum up. Germinal disturbances or re-arrangements
occur and these may find expression in development as varia-
tions or mutations of the organism. The question is. What
brings about the re-arrangements ? — a question to be asked in
the light of the fact that, frequent as variations are, hered-
itary constancy, or inertia, or persistence of specificity is
even more marked. The following suggestions are before
us. (1) That germinal disturbances come about in response
to subtle environmental stimuli of a novel kind penetrating
in from without and affecting cell-division, or the architecture
of the chromosomes, or perhaps the " mysterious karyolymph
or gel which forms the groundwork of the nucleus ". Along
with definable changes in the external environment may be
included changes in the somatic fluids which might affect
the nutritive or other metabolism of the germ-cells, (2) That

VARIATION 429

in the division of the germ-cells before fertilisation, where
there has to be a partition of a complex cytoplasmic and
chromosomic cargo between two vessels, losses and augmenta-
tions and inequalities may be expected in the transhipment.

(3) That in fertilisation, with its intimate and orderly
nnion of paternal and maternal contributions (amphimixis),
there may be opportunity for new permutations and combina-
tions, the result normally being a viable unity of dual origin.

(4) That there may be growth-changes, or regulative re-
organisation processes, or rejuvenescences in the germ-cells in
the course of their history ; and it is possible that there may
be something in Weismann's hypothesis of intra-germinal
struggle.

We are thus aware of certain originative factors in evolu-
tion, which admit of experimental testing, and we should
not lose sight of any of them. Each must be pushed as far
as it will go. Kecognising this, some will insist that there
is no more to be said, but much to be done. We venture
to doubt, however, whether this is not making a tyranny
of scientific method (which, after all, is very selective and
partial) and giving up the right of speculative adventure.
As Karl Ernst von Baer, the great Russian embryologist,
said: There is observation, but there is also reflection.

Those who have devoted much attention to the occurrence
of variation, we think for instance of Darwin and Bateson,
have given emphatic expression to their sense of the difficulty
of accounting for the origin of the new. The fountain of
change, whence are its well-springs? '' As to almost all the
essential features, whether of cause or mode, by which specific
diversity has become what we perceive it to be, we have to
confess an ignorance almost total " (Bateson, 1913, p. 248).
But we also notice that some of those who h^ve given much

430 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

of their life to the study of the phenomena of variation
occasionally lapse from the stern path of science, and in face
of the difficulty of the problem ask themselves if they are
allowing enough for the fact that the organism is alive.
Thus we would quote from the recent work of Dr. R. R.
Gates on The Mutation Factor in Evolution this inter-
esting sentence : ^' Just as an Alpine climber dangling over
a chasm may, by changing his hold, swing himself on to
a shelf from which he can make a fresh start in some other
direction, so "we may think of the organism trying many un-
conscious experiments in its offspring, some of which are
hurled by the gravitational effect of natural selection into
the abyss of extinction while others with a more fortunate
turn rest on a ledge of safety whence new essays of variability
begin." But Dr. Gates mutationist all too speedily takes the
place of Dr. Gates psycho-biologist. After this one exciting
glimpse of the organism as climber we are hurried back to
the chemical and physical complexity of the protoplasm
and its unique irritability and retentiveness. But we are
disposed to linger over the idea of the organism as climber,
and the organism here means the germ-cell. It is not sug-
gested that the germ-cell is dominated by any purpose of
getting to the top of anything, or of circumventing any par-
ticular difficulty, but rather that there is inseparable from
it a restless experimenting in self-expression, bearing the
same relation to the insurgent self-assertiveness of the full-
groAvn creature that the tentatives of dreamland bear to
the achievements of open-eyed and deliberate endeavour.

The position we are suggesting is that the larger muta-
tions, the big novelties, are expressions of the whole or-
ganism in its germ-cell phase of being, comparable to experi-
ments in practical life, solutions of problems in intellectual

VARIATION 431

life, or creations in artistic life. These are accomplished,
every one knows, by molecular activities in the brain and
body, but they are not intelligibly thought of unless we
conceive of the organism as a psycho-physical individuality,
a mind-body, or body-mind, as we will. Similarly it may be
that our conception of germinal variability is falsely abstract
unless we recognise that germ-cells are living individualities
of great complexity telescoped-down into a one-celled phase
of beings, and that they too make essays in self-expression.

Mr. E. S. Kussell (1915, p. 430) has suggested that non-
adaptive specific differences which make species discontinu-
ous may be profitably compared to the diiferenccs between
related organic compounds, and that they may be due to
diiferences in metabolism or stereochemic architecture which
cannot be other than discontinuous. But adaptive specific
characters, whether of internal or external reference, may bo
the result in the long run of some " obscurely psychic capac-
ity for active effort ''. " The analogies between intelligent
and instinctive behaviour on the one hand and the organic
processes of active adaptation on the other, as these are ex-
pressed in changes of form, are striking and profound.'^
Mr. Russell goes on to say that behaviour and morphogene-
sis are probably different manifestations of one and the
same fundamental capacity which cannot be formulated ade-
quately without using psychical terms.

If it be said that this is retrograde science to fall back
on psychical formulation because of the baffling difficulty
of physiological formulation, and that it is a reversion to the
mediaeval solution of the problem of digestion and the like
by calling in the aid of Archegseus and other indwelling
spirits. But it may be answered first, that in giving an
account of our own behaviour it is not a hypothesis to re-

432 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

gard psychical factors as verce causce, that somehow or other
the psychical factors we are aware of were implicit in the
germ-cell whence we sprang, and that therefore it is not a
reversion to mediaeval physiology to keep our mind open to
the possibility that the origin of the profounder and more
vital variations may not be statable without a recognition
of the implicit organism of the germ-cell as at once psychical
and metabolic.

Perhaps we mislead ourselves by repeating too often the
elementary commonplace that the Metazoon begins its life
as a single cell. It is true enough in a way, but certainly
not the whole truth. It is no commonplace cell, the gamete.
It is an implicit organism and within it, in some manner
that we cannot begin to image, though we crowd it with
factors and genes (the modern successors of Darwin's gem-
mules and Weismann's determinants), there lies a complex
inheritance, unified afresh at the start of each new genera-
tion. If an Amoeba has a behaviour, as Professor Jennings
seems to have proved, may not the much more richly-en-
dowed germ-cell of a fruit-fly be allowed the capacity of
putting its house in order ? If the Foraminifer TecJinitella
ihompsoni picks and chooses the materials of its encasement
and builds this with what looks like a dawning art, may
not the ovum of an Evening Primrose be allowed some free-
dom of internal architecture? Germ-cells are not corpuscles
of undifferentiated protoplasm. They are individualities
that live and multiply, that struggle and combine. They
are repositories of multiplicate inheritances borne by strangely
persistent smaller living units, the chromosomes, which ad-
just themselves in the most momentous of organic compro-
mises. Is it fanciful to suppose that these gametes, neither
pilDple cells nor portmanteau^ of hereditary factors, but

VARIATION 433 '

unified individualities, experiment internally, not fortui-
tously but artistically, not at random nor yet inexorably,
not purposefully but perhaps purposively, and that they are
body-minds or mind-bodies telescoped down ?

In certain moods one feels inclined to agree with those
who say to-day what Darwin said more than fifty years
ago that our ignorance of variation is profound, and who
urge the appropriateness of silence. Yet perhaps it is more
wholesome for thinkers to have an exposure of the vast un-
certainty that surrounds this central problem of biology than
to be led astray by those who confidently declare that organic
evolution can be mechanically re-described. If the re-descrip-
tion is difiicult and still impossible Avhen we use full-blooded
biological categories, how must it be if matter-and-motion
categories are supposed to be the only legitimate ones ?

SUMMARY.

The central and most difficult problem of a3tiology concerns the
origin of the new, that is, of those variations or mutations that form
the raw materials of progress or the reverse.

From an unbiassed registration of all observed differences between
the members of the same species there have to be subtracted all the
peculiarities that can be reasonably interpreted as associated with
age and sex, or as individually-acquired somatic modifications di-
rectly due to peculiarities of nurture, whether environmental, nutn-
tional, or functional. As there is no convincing evidence at present
that these extrinsic somatic modifications can be transmitted as such,
or in any representative degree, they cannot be included, in the
first instance at least, among the raw materials of racial evolution.
These are discerned when the modifications in question and the
peculiarities associated with ag6 and sex are subtracted from the
total of obser\'ed differences. For this subtraction brings into view
the true variations or mutations— inborn not acquired, blastogenie
not somatogenic, endogenous not exogenous, expressions or outcomes
not indents or imprints. Some at least are very transmissible, and
these furnish the raw materials of evolution.

^34 ORIGINATIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

Among ioborn variations it is useful to distinguish between
mutations (Galton's " transilient variations", Bateson's "discontinu-
ous variations") and small fluctuating variations. The former arise
brusquely, with a measure of perfectness from the first, without
intergrades, and are markedly transmissible. The latter are of the
nature of " a little more or a little less ", they show intergrades ;
their transmissibility has not been much studied, but it has been
proved in a few cases.

It IS also useful to distinguish quantitative variations from defi-
nite novelties. The reduction or exaggeration of a quality, the
dropping-out of a character altogether, a re-arranged pattern of
hereditary items, may be called quantitative, and may be explained
as due to permutations and combinations of the determinants or
factors of hereditary characters. For such shufflings of the cards
ample opportunities are afforded in the course of the maturation
of the germ-cells.

Another possibility is afforded at the beginning of each individual
life, where, in the great majority of cases, two very complex sys-
tems of dual origin become a new unity which normally develops
into a harmonious organism. Some modern evolutionists attach
great importance to crossing as a cause of variations.

But the greater difficulty is with the origin of the distinctively new,
of what may be called qualitative variations or mutations, (a)
It may be that deeply-saturating environmental influences act as
variational stimuli on the germ-cells, provoking change, (b) Definite
changes in the nuclear bodies or chromosomes of the germ-cell have
been proved to be associated with particular mutations in the full-
grown organism, and, in addition to the opportunities for chromo-
somic change afforded in the history of the germ-cells — before, dur-
ing, and after fertilisation — it is possible that chromosomes, which
are living units, may change suddenly like Bacteria, or may undergo
age-changes, or may exhibit periodic re-organisation like slipper-
animalcules, or rejuvenescence-changes like those occurring in some
cases of regeneration and asexual multiplication.

The tendency of modern research is to emphasise the idea of
particulateness, for it looks as if the characteristics of organisms
were often made up of elementai-y units, without intergrades, as
sharply separated from one another as the chemical elements. But
we must not lose sight of the unity of the organism, even in the
one-cell phase of its being, and of the correlation of variations. A

VARIATION 435

change in some particular kind of metabolism may reverberate
through the whole body.

Another important idea is that of temporal variations, that is to
say, alterations in the * time ^ or rate or rhythm of metabolic pro-
cesses, or in the duration of particular phases in the life-cycle.
Many changes of great adaptiveness are probably due to the length-
ening out of one chapter and the telescoping of another. In the
influence of internal secretions in backboned animals there is a
known method of effecting these changes in * time '.

Of great importance for our interpretation of evolution is the
growing body of evidence that variation is often a much more
definite organic change than was formerly supposed. There are
many illustrations of progressive variation along a definite line, —
orthogenesis. Instances of mutations are accumulating, and if
mutations come they usually come to stay. This also lessens the
element of the casual and the need for over-burdening Natural
Selection with the task of sifting from amid a crowd, and of ac-
cumulating minute increments. Furthermore, variations occurring
in a unified individuality are not likely to be stable unless they are
congruent with the organisation already established. Thus there
seems little warrant for talking about evolution as a " chapter of
accidents ".

It may well be that our conception of variability is fallaciously
abstract unless we recognise that germ-cells are living organisms of
great complexity telescoped down into a one-cell phase of being,
and that they make essays in self-expression which we call varia-
tions. These blind experiments of the germ-cells are submitted
to the developing and adult organism to be tested in actuality.

LECTURE XIV.

DIEECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION

SELECTION.

LECTURE XIV.

DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

SELECTION.

§ 1. Selection the Central Idea in Darwinism. § 2. Lorjicnl Objec-
tions to Darwinism. § 3. Sentimental Recoil from Darwinism,.
§ 4. Changes in Selection Theory since Darwin's Day. § 5.
Scientific Critique of Selection Theory. § G. Subtlety of
Selection Theory. § 7. Sexual Selection. § 8. Selection and
Progressiveness. § 9. Selectionist Interpretations and the
Argument from Design.

§ 1. Selection the Central Idea in Darwinism.

The central idea in Darwinism is the natural selection
of the relatively fitter variants in the struggle for existence.
Our understanding of Darwinism must therefore depend
on our appreciation of what is implied in variation, in the
struggle for existence, and in selection. A rough and ready
understanding of it is easy, hut when we are dealing with
living creatures that is apt to mean misunderstanding, and
so it has been. By the hasty-minded, and by those more
anxious to score points than to get at the truth, Danvinisni
has been persistently misunderstood. This has been largely
due to trusting to second-hand impressions instead of going
to Darwin's own works. Natural Selection may be described
as the process by which, in the struggle for existence, certain
variants of a species, marked from their fellows by the pres-
ence or absence of some innate character, are on that very
account favoured with longer life or with more successful
families than their neighbours, who are on that account

439

440 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

sooner or later eliminated. Darwin stated his theory in a
couple of sentences : " As many more individuals of each
species are born than can possibly survive, and as, conse-
quently, there is frequently recurring struggle for existence,
it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any
manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes
varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of sur-
viving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong
principle of inheritance any selected variety will tend to
propagate its new and modified form.'^

§ 2. Logical Objections to Darwinism,

From Darwinism there have been several hasty recoils,
some logical and others sentimental, but both due to mis-
understanding. Let us take first the logical, and second
the emotional or sentimental recoils. At a later stage
we shall consider the emendations of Darwinism which
further investigation has necessitated — a very different
matter.

(a) It is a misunderstanding of Darwinism to dwell on
the fact that Natural Selection is not originative, only direc-
tive; that it is comparable to the action of pruning shears
or of a sieve, not to the welling forth of a spring; that it
corresponds to Siva, the destroyer, rather than to Brahma,
the creator. That is quite true, but while Darwin sometimes
spoke for brevity's sake of the creative work of Natural
Selection, he made it quite clear that the sifting process
could only operate on the raw materials which the variability
of organisms brought within its scope. When we say that
the strange shape of an evergreen in the garden is due to
the gardener's shears, we do not forget the growing living
plant. So when we say that the wing of a bird is the out-

SELECTION 441

come of selection, we do not forget the varying organism,
strong in endeavour. One forgives much to Samuel Butler
in admiration of his genius, one forgives even the jibe that
^' Darwinism tries to explain how I am here by showing
how my uncles, cousins, and aunts have gone away ". But it
seems to us to promote misunderstanding when an expert
writes in cold blood — '^ Danvin . . . left the question of
variability open, a course which reduced his doctrine to the
self-evident proposition that what was not capable of exist-
ence could not exist ". . . . ^' Darwinism . . . explained
how by throwing stones one could build houses of typical
style " (Driesch, History and Theory of Vitalism. Trans.
London, 1914).

(6) It also promotes misunderstanding to make very much
of the fact that Natural Elimination is often a more accurate
phrase than Natural Selection. A wonder-working gardener
like Mr. Luther Burbank actively selects and fosters variants
that catch his eye and seem to him to be promiseful ; what
happens in Nature is in great part a weeding-out of the
relatively less fit to given conditions. But it is familiar
Darwinian doctrine to distinguish between ' lethal selec-
tion ' which works by the discriminate elimination of the
relatively less fit, and ' reproductive selection ' which works
through the increased and more effective multiplication of
the relatively more fit. As a matter of fact the weeding out
of the relatively less fit must always to some extent involve
the fostering of the relatively more fit which survive.

§ 3. Sentimental Recoil from Darwinism.

(A) The sentimental recoil from Darwinism may be illus-
trated by those who shudder at the so-called automatism of
the selective process. The raw material of novelties passes

442 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

over an unending sieve which never ceases to sift; an un-
certain fraction of the variants pass through the meshes and
are ground to powder 'twixt the upper and the lower mill-
stone; another uncertain fraction escapes and continues its
kind. These are no mills of God, but of Moloch, and all
is dread automatism. But it was to remove this misunder-
standing that we lingered in a previous lecture over the
struggle for existence, and saw that it included all the
individual endeavours and answers-back which creatures with
a will to live and abundance of resource make to their en-
vironing limitations and difficulties. After allowing a little
for chance, the relatively best candidates will come to the
top in a number of wisely and accurately conducted exami-
nations. This is not mechanical or automatic; neither is
l^atural Selection. We must recognise that Natural Selec-
tion includes all the subtlety of endeavour, all the patient
perseverance, all the indomitable insurgence, of living crea-
tures. They share in their own evolution; they often help
to make the sieves by which they are sifted.

(B) Another sentimental reason for recoil is because of
the supposed grimness of the selection-method. " Contention
is the vital force '^ ; rank individualism is the order of Na-
ture ; " Each for himself '' is the cry from every corner, and
extinction take the hindmost. It is a vast gladiatorial show,
said Huxley, this Nature, — a dismal cockpit. But, as we
have seen, this is a travesty. The struggle for existence is
a metaphor, it includes every new endeavour after well-being;
it is rarely very intense between near kin ; it is often not
competitive at all. One organism survives, indeed, by sharp-
ening its claws and whetting its teeth, but another by increas-
ing maternal care or mutual aid.

Speaking of the Darwinian conception of the way in which

SELECTION 44.3

evolution has chiefly been brought about, Prof. Arthur ().
Lovejoy (1909, p. 93) writes: "The doctrine of natural
selection represents Nature as a scene of monstrous waste
and of universal conflict, a veritable helium omnium contra
omnes. It pictures the teeming Universal Mother as reck-
less in the production of aspirants for life, but strangely
parsimonious in her provision of the means of maintaining
life, — leaving to every one of the hungry children at her
board only the privilege of snatching the food of his neigh-
bours, only the grim alternative of destroying or being de-
stroyed." . . . We quote this as typical of common carica-
tures, not as representing Professor Lovejoy's own picture of
Natural Selection. There is a tendency to exaggerate the
destructiveness and instability of wild nature. Apart from
man's interference, which is quite yer se, cases of rapid
disappearance of species, as in the Passenger Pigeon, are
rare, and are very puzzling. What is impressive is the Live-
and-let-Live equilibrium, the stability of species. Mr. F.
C. S. Schiller writes that " Every species is in constant
danger of extinction ", but one would like to have the evi-
dence for such a statement. The fact is, that many species
have attained to positions of extraordinary stability and
security.

§ 4. Changes in Selection Theory since Darwin's Dai/.

It would be ominous if the theory of Natural Selection
stood to-day as it did in Darwin's lifetime. Emendations
have been made and saving-clauses have been added, and
while extreme critics hold that the theory has been dis-
credited, this conclusion is largely due, we think, to taking
the theory in a wooden way and failing to realise its full
significance. Before we consider typical criticisms, it will

444 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

be convenient to discuss some of the positive changes in the
theory.

(1) There has been in a few cases a welcome demonstra-
tion of Natural Selection at work. The theory is not merely
a hypothesis as to what might have happened long ago; it
is a statement of what does happen now. There is some
actual proof of discriminate selection, where the survivors
are shown to survive in virtue of the possession of particular
qualities. Let us take a well-known diagrammatic instance,
(Cesnola, Biometrika, 1904). The praying Mantis, Mantis
religiosa, occurs in Italy in a green and a brown variety,
the former usually on the grass, the latter usually on the
withered herbage. The Italian naturalist Cesnola tethered
twenty green Mantises among green herbage and a similar
number of brown ones among withered grass. After seven-
teen days they were all alive, having escaped the notice
of their enemies. He tethered twenty-five of the green
variety among brown herbage ; all were dead after eleven
days. In the converse experiment, of forty-five brown insects
exposed on green grass, only ten survived at the end of sev-
enteen days. Most of the Mantises were killed by birds ;
five of the green ones were killed by ants. The experiment
should be extended, but it proved the selective value of
the coloration. If green and brown Mantises were exposed
in a green country, the green ones would survive, the brown
ones would be eliminated, and the selective death-rate would
have reference to the particular quality of coloration. Simi-
lar experiments have been recorded by Professors Poulton,
Crampton, Bumpus, and Weldon — all proving discriminate
elimination. Prof. Karl Pearson has also demonstrated the
occurrence of a selective death-rate in man.

These demonstrations require more exposition than is here

SELECTION 445

possible, but, as we are dealing with one of the most im-
portant of biological theories, with the question of the direc-
tive factors in evolution, we may cite from a previous dis-
cussion two simple obsen^ations which illustrate discriminate
elimination picturesquely (Thomson, Darwinism and Tiumnn
Life, 1911). Prof. C. B. Davenport, of the Carnegie In-
stitution for Experimental Evolution, had 300 chickens in
a field, eighty per cent, white or black and conspicuous,
twenty per cent, spotted and inconspicuous. In a short time
twenty-four were killed by crows, and it was interesting to
observ'e that only one of the killed was spotted. The elimi-
nation seemed to be discriminate, and in wild conditions it
would doubtless have led to the elimination of the conspicu-
ous variants. It will be understood that we are not attach-
ing great importance to any individual case, such as this,
for criticism and corroboration are required all round; we
are giving an illustration merely.

In a heavy snowstorm at Johannesburg in August, 1909.
many hundreds of trees were destroyed by the weight of
snow on the branches. In many places the roads were blocked
by the fallen trees. It was interesting, after the storm, to
notice that the elimination was in a marked degree dis-
criminate. The trees that suffered most were the imported
Australian trees, such as the Blue Gums and Black Wattles,
quickly growing, with soft wood, and with abundant foliage
that caught the snow. On the other hand, the Deodars from
the Himalaya mountains, constitutionally adapted to let the
snow slide from their pendulous branches and acicular leaves,
had hardly a twig broken.

(2) In the second place, the position of the selection
theory has been strengthened by a recognition of its mani-
foldncss. It takes several different forms, the logic of which

446 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

is the same. When Darwin says '' Natural selection acts
bj life and death ... by the survival of the fittest and
by the destruction of the less "well-fitted individuals ", he
describes lethal selection. Insects with reduced wings or
none at all abound in wind-swept islands like Madeira, the
flying insects having been blown out to sea and destroyed.
When Weismann points out that the animals best adapted
to the colour of their surroundings will secure the most
abundant food and multiply most prolifically, and will thus
increase the numerical proportion of others like themselves,
he is describing reproductive selection. If an advantageous
character is linked to an increase of fertility it will tend
to persist apart from lethal lopping off. In the cultivation
of a lawn one may eliminate the weeds by direct lethal
selection; but one may also stimulate the multiplication of
the grass by giving it a specific food which is not profitable
for the weeds. There is a special form of selection in the
sometimes fatal combats of rival males, and in preferential
mating when there is evidence of discrimination on the
female's part. There is social selection between rival ant-
hills, where community sometimes competes with commu-
nity, and, at the other pole, there may be selection between
potential egg-cells, the ovarian struggle sometimes ending
in the survival of one out of many, and selection between
the hundreds of sperm-cells in their race towards the ovum.
Allowing a wide margin for chance, the most vigorous and
perhaps the most sensitive spermatozoon will tend to succeed,
and the elimination of the others by the blocking of the
entrance to the egg will be for the advantage of the species.
As Weismann suggested, it is also possible that fluctuations
in the nutritive supply of the germ-cells, and inequalities
in the vigour and assimilating power of the hereditary con-

SELECTION 447

stituents or determinants, may result in an intra-f^jerminal
struggle and selection. But we need not go further, since
our point is simply that the selective processes are probably
more manifold than even Darwin realised.

(3) Whenever we turn from expositors of Darwin to
Darwin himself we discover afresh how subtle was his idea
of the process of Natural Selection. We realise, for instance,
that the selection need not imply a sudden elimination of
the relatively less fit, for a persistently shortened life and
a consistently unsuccessful family will work to the same
result in the long run as lopping off heads. As Professor
Punnett puts it: " If a population contains .001 per cent, of
a new variety, and if that variety has even a 5 per cent.
Selection advantage over the original form, the latter will
almost completely disappear in less than a hundred genera-
tions." In human affairs we may be thus encouraged in
patience. It has also to be realised that the web of life
has so fine a texture that apparently trivial differences in
organisms may be of critical moment in determining the
survival of those who possess them. And just as in animal
courtship what determines the female's preference for one
suitor out of many is very probably an irresistible tout
ensemble of gifts and graces, rather than excellence in one
particular decoration or quality, so in natural selection it
may be that what gives survival value is often a general
stability of constitution and efficiency of behaviour. In a
well-known instance when 136 storm-spent sparrows were
brought into shelter, 72 revived and 64 died. Careful meas-
urements showed Professor Bumpus that the eliminated birds
were less near the normal than those which sun-ived. Ex-
cept in one measured character, the range of variation was
greater in those that succumbed. Thus while natural selec-

448 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

tion may operate with great delicacy in reference to a sieve
with fine meshes, it may also rough-hew and cut off in a
crisis a large number of organisms which are in a general
way less fit than their fellows. As Professor Bumpus said,
general stability of structure was the essential characteristic
of the surviving sparrows (Bumpus, 1898).

(4) An interesting corollary to the selection proposition
is that a relaxation of sifting may admit of exuberance.
When organisms reach a position of relative security, as
many species do, then, the criticism of circumstances being
removed, there may be extraordinary abandon in the way
of coloration and decoration. The limit is the stability of
the constitution ; the risk is that some environmental change
may involve a heavy tax on the exuberance which the condi-
tions of relaxed selection tolerated. It may be one reason
of the diversified brilliance of humming birds that they have
few enemies. A clearer case is to be found in the coral-
fishes, whose exuberance of coloration beggars description
(see Reighard). It may be that the gorgeousness has been
made possible by the safety of the labyrinthine reefs, and
by the agility of the swimmers. Prof. J. P. Lotsy (1916)
speaks of the bewildering diversity exhibited by a series
of about 200 specimens of the Common Buzzard {Buteo
huteo) in the Leiden Museum, " hardly two of which are
alike ". ^' The reason probably is that here no selection has
been at work, because this bird of prey is so strong that it
has practically no enemies in the regions in which it occurs.''

(5) Of great importance is the change that has been in-
volved in our appreciation of Natural Selection by an in-
creased knowledge of the raw materials supplied to the sieve
by variability. As we have seen, discontinuous variations
or mutations are not of rare occurrence ; there is a brusque

SELECTION 449

passage from one position of eqiiilihrinm to another; the
Proteus leaps as well as creeps. An advance marked from
the first by a certain measure of perfectnoss is made at a
stride, not by minute steps generation after generation. A
copper-beech, a laciniate celandine, a hornless calf, a calculat-
ing boy, or the like, just appears — out of the inexhaustible
conjurer's box. Now it is plain that as the list of these
mutations or saltations grows in length, the lighter will be
the burden that has to be laid on the shoulders of Natural
Selection. Apart from the palaeontological record it is only
by analogy from the present that we can argue back to what
occurred in the distant past, but it looks as if mutations were
much more frequent than has been till recently supposed,
and the more frequent mutations were in the past, the less
work would there be for Natural Selection to do in the way
of fostering small increments in a particular direction.

It is quite premature, however, to think of abandoning
the idea — so characteristically Darwinian — of the cumulative
importance of minute advances. Many palaeontologists in-
sist on the origin of new characters '' by excessively fine
gradations w^hich appear to be continuous" (Osborn), and
also on the frequent occurrence of orthogenesis, i.e., change
in a definite direction without marked divagations. As Prof.
H. F. Osborn says (1919), the palaeontological record often
confirms the prophetic judgment of Aristotle: " Nature pro-
duces those things which, being continuously moved by a
certain principle contained in themselves, arrive at a certain

end."

We must be on our guard, however, against the possible
fallacy of concluding, from the apparent orthogenesis in
fossilised and surviving stages along an evolutionary line,
that there was no zigzagness and pruning in the process.

450 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

Types may have their waywardness gradually sifted out of
them. The uniformity of the flow of cartridges from a test-
ing machine gives a fallacious impression unless we dis-
cover that they have passed through three siftings which
reject the too heavy and the too light, the too long and the
too short, and those whose calibre is too broad or too
narrow.

On the other hand, one of the impressions that we get
from Prof. D'Arcy Thompson's magistral work on Growth
and Form is that the variability of organisms runs on lines
laid down by the conditions of the inorganic. Variations
must conform to the trammels of surface-tension, minimal
areas, stability, and so on ; there is not an indefinite number
of ways in which an aggregate of cells can be arranged ;
one skull or leaf often diifers from a related form in a way
which might be described as a general deformation — due,
for instance, to a tilting of axes. The same general impres-
sion of definiteness we get from considering what we have
alluded to as temporal variations: one species often seems
to differ from another in rate or tempo, and this fits in with
Prof. D'Arcy Thompson's morphological illustrations, for dif-
ferences of form depend in great part on different rates of
growth in different directions.

But even mutations and definite orthogenetic variations
cannot dispense with the criticism of Natural Selection.
There is ever a risk that they may go too far. It is easy to
have too much of a good thing. The antlers of the Irish
Elk which hastened the doom of their possessors are diagrams
of the evolutionary adage Nequid nimis. If we accept De
Vries's view that evolution is often effected by mutation,
by sudden considerable jumps, this is contrary to the idea
of Natural Selection working as an accumulator of small

SELECTION 451

gains. But De Vries does not propose to dispense with
the theory of ISTatural Selection. He attaches less importance
to intra-specific selection, but not less to the sifting of species
by one another and by the environment. Speaking of the
Mutation-Theory, Prof. G. H. Parker writes (1913, p. 263) :
" Organic evolution, then, is accomplished by occasional
strides rather than by many oft-repeated short steps. This
theory is in no sense antagonistic to natural selection. In
fact, it works eifectively only in conjunction with natural
selection, for, after all, what determines whether a race
showing a trait produced as a mutation will survive or not
is natural selection. ... As De Vries himself rightly
maintains, the mutation theory is significant only in con-
nection with natural selection."

§ 5. Scientific Critique of Selection Theory.

As our whole view of Animate Nature is coloured by our
position in regard to the scope and importance of the pro-
cesses of selection, we must consider some of the most serious
objections to the theory. We select three. One of the criti-
cisms is thus clearly stated by Prof. G. H. Parker (1913.
p. 256) : " The chief objection that has been raised against
natural selection is one which was well known to Darwin
himself, but which has been gathering strength for some
years past. It is to the effect that the initial phases of
a favourable variation, as conceived by Darwin, are too
slight to be of use to the organism, and consequently they
cannot come under the influence of the selective process.
When the slight individual differences that Darwin laid so
much stress upon are closely scrutinised, it seems scarcely
conceivable that they could be, even in the long run, uf life-
and-death importance to an organism; in other words, that

452 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

they could afford a starting-point for the formation of a new
species. And when closely related species in nature are ex-
amined, such as the different kinds of warblers, or of sedges,
it seems impossible that the slight differences separating
them should represent gaps produced by natural selection
through an elimination of intermediate forms. Thus an in-
spection of nature reveals a state of affairs which many inves-
tigators have come to believe to be much too refined to be a
product of natural selection." Some who admit that natural
selection is '^ capable of rough-hewing a species " doubt
its ability to put on " the polishing touches ". The answers
to this objection are three. (1) The idea that established
differences between species are too refined to be the work
of natural selection, shows a lack of appreciation of the fact
that the selection is often in relation to a very intricate and
subtle web of life, where the shibboleth that decides survival
or failure may be a very refined criterion indeed. (2) Vari-
ations are sometimes correlated, and a minor variation which
is not itself of sufficient magnitude to have survival value
may be carried in the wake of one that has. (3) Some
variations are not minute fluctuations, but are brusque muta-
tions, springing fully formed into existence and therefore
at once of a magnitude to be sifted in the sieves of natural
selection.

A second objection, also familiar to Darwin, is that indi-
viduals possessing an advantageous variation would have to
pair with others not possessing it, and that the new departure
would be swamped by the inter-crossing. To this there are
three answers: that similar variations often occur about the
same time in several individuals; that many factors of iso-
lation operate towards reducing the range of inter-crossing
and bringing similar forms together ; and, thirdly, that many

SELECTION 453

variations are of the nature called Mendelian, which do not
blend, but are handed on in intactness to a certain propor-
tion of the descendants.

A third even more serious criticism has arisen out of the
recent selection-experiments of the Danish biologist Johann-
sen, the Dutch botanist De Vries, the American zoologists
Jennings and Pearl, and others, which are to some extent'
at variance with the Darwinian view, that the average of a
stock can be improved as regards a particular character by
always breeding from those that show most of it. If the
descendants of an individual high-class bean are kept apart,
forming what is called " a pure line ", there are observable
fluctuations of characters. Some are tall plants, others are
short, and so on. But if the tails are selected out and bred
from, or the shorts, there is no establishment of a tall race,
getting gradually taller, or of a short race getting gradually
shorter, nor is there anything to choose between the descend-
ants of the tails and the descendants of the shorts. There
is no departure from the average of the original pure line.
From a mixed wild stock a selection may be made of par-
ticular types which start pure lines or distinct races, but
when the pure line has been started there is no further
progress, select as one may. There is no getting beyond the
mean of the inbred line. The reason for this seems to be
that the fluctuations within the pure or inbred line are modi-
fications or indents, and not transmissible.

If selection of the best of a pure line does not improve
the stock, how do the breeders succeed? The answer is that
their success is due to making a good start with a good line;
beyond the level of this they cannot pass without the intro-
duction of fresh blood from another line. There are obvious
reasons, however, why these facts from artificial selection

454 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

must not be used hurriedly in depreciation of the role of
selection in natural wild conditions. (a) Pure or inbred
lines are not typical of wild stocks, in which cross-fertilisa-
tion is of frequent occurrence, (h) It is dangerous to argue
from very short-lived experiments to the age-long processes
of Nature, (c) It is premature to deny the possibility of
stable germinal variations occurring in a pure or inbred
line. If one did, it might be the starting-point of a new
advance. In any case there remains a great role for Natural
Selection in eliminating certain lines or races and favouring
others in its ceaseless sifting.

§ 6. Subtlety of Selection Theory.

Natural Selection is a technical expression for a manifold
and almost ubiquitous process of sifting, which discriminates
in life and in death between the relatively more fit to the
given conditions and the relatively less fit. It must always
be thought of in the Here and Now, i.e., in reference to
particular conditions of space and time. There are three
reasons why it is important to keep this obvious fact in view,
(a) It is a frequent and pernicious error to suppose that
there is any sort of ceaseless winnowing towards an ideal
of fitness, except perhaps self-consistency. The only common
character of surviving variants is that they survive, — they
must have consistent viable constitutions suited to particular
conditions, which may be those of parasitism or putridity.
The fallacy of supposing that Natural Selection necessarily
works towards ^ fitness ' in the colloquial sense is largely due
to thinking of the process abstractly and hypostatising it,
and to misunderstanding the word ' fit ', which means merely
relatively advantageous in given conditions, making for sur-
vival in short. But the error is also due to a shrewd per-

SELECTION 455

ception of the big fact that, after all, life has been sloivly
creeping upwards as the ages have come and gone. We
shall consider this fact later on, but meanwhile it is necessary
to be perfectly clear that being selected does not necessarily
confer on the creature any dignity or approval. It means
wholly and solely survivability in certain conditions, which
may be those of parasitism or sloth. The value of survival,
as judged by any human standard, depends altogether on the
conditions under which survival is secured. Survival may
be to a type that does not work for its living, but is an
unpaying boarder inside another creature, or to a mere drifter
in the stream of things, or to a rough egoistic combative type,
much less desirable, when judged by aesthetic or ethical
standards, than a gentle, altruistic, fine-brained type for
which the times were too stern. Survivability means little
in itself: one has to know the regional conditions and the
price paid.

(5) It is important, for a second reason, to remember that
Natural Selection operates in great part with an external
reference to an established system of inter-relations which we
call the web of life. For it is this reference to an intricate
sieve that enables us to understand how minute and rather
subtle advances might have survival-value, or might turn the
scale between success and failure. A nuance — a shibboleth
— may be decisive. There are some kinds of fresh-water
mussel which cannot continue their kind without the un-
conscious co-operation of a particular species of fresh-water
fish. The parasite which causes the disease of liver-rot in
sheep cannot in Britain continue its race unless the free-
swimming larva find entrance to a particular species of
fresh-water snail Limncea truncatula, for other species do
not seem to serve. There are some flowers which cannot

456 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

be pollinated except by a particular kind of insect-visitor.
We miss tbe significance of Natural Selection unless we
realise its frequent specificity. Meredith speaks of Nature
winnowing '' roughly ", and that may sometimes be; but it is
also a fact that she often winnows with a meticulous nicety.
To sum up. In variation and selection we have, so far
as we know, the chief factors of Animate Evolution. The
method is theoretically very simple. A move is made and
it is tested ; a new idea occurs and it is criticised. But this
kind of formal summary of the tactics is quite fallacious.
It conceals the heart of the matter, that living creatures
with a will to live, with an insurgent self-assertiveness, with
a spirit of adventure, with an endeavour after well-being —
it is impossible to exaggerate the personal aspect of the facts,
even if the words which we use in our ignorance may be too
metaphorical — do trade with time and have commerce with
circumstance, as genuine agents, sharing in their own evolu-
tion. There is abundant room for sympathetic admiration
of the tactics of Animate Nature, though the strategy may
— and, for science, must — remain obscure.

§ 7. Sexual Selection.

(a) To illustrate still further the subtlety of the process of
Selection we shall now consider how it works in the case
of preferential mating. It was primarily in reference
to secondary sex-characters that Darwin suggested his theory
of sexual selection. Certain variations, e.g., in the improve-
ment of weapons and food-catching apparatus, are favoured
by natural selection in the course of the everyday struggle
for existence; in the same way, variations which are advan-
tageous in securing mates and consummating sexual repro-
duction will be favoured by sexual selection. Darwin began

SELECTION 457

with instances of the importance of masculine vigour and
equipment when rival males compete for the possession of
the females. ^' The strongest and, with some species, the best-
armed of the males drive away the weaker; and the former
would then unite with the more vigorous and better-nour-
ished females, because they are the first to breed. Such vig-
orous pairs would surely rear a larger number of offspring
than the retarded females, which would be compelled to unite
with the conquered and less powerful males, supposing the
sexes to be numerically equal ; and this is all that is wanted
to add, in the course of successive generations, to the size,
strength, and courage of the males, or to improve their
weapons '' (Descent of Man, 2nd Ed., 1888, Vol. I., p. 329).
'Now it is plain that forceful competition among rival males
for the possession of a female or of several females, does
not differ in kind from the ordinary struggle for food and
foothold, except that it is strictly intra-specific. Danvin
pointed out indeed (p. 349) that sexual selection is less
rigorous than natural selection ; that it is less of a life-and-
death affair; that it operates through the unsuccessful males
having fewer, less vigorous, or no offspring; and that it is
not limited by the general conditions of life; but there is
in all this no departure from the natural selection position.
This part of the theory, therefore, remains valid to those who
regard natural selection as a vera causa,

(h) Darwin went on to those characters that are useful in
the recognition and capture of the females. When a male
excels his neighbours in his capacities for finding, pursuing,
and catching the female, sexual selection, he said, again comes
into action. (Descent of Man, p. 324.) The male moth often
finds his mate by the olfactory acuteness of his large anten-
na; some small crustaceans recognise the other sex almost

458 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

instantaneously when there is chance contact in the water;
in some fishes, recognition depends on colour and on be-
haviour ; manj experiments led Goltz to believe that the male
frog distinguishes the female by touch; in birds, visual and
auditory impressions count for most ; in mammals, the scent
is often of chief importance (see S. J. Holmes, Studies in
Animal Behaviour, Boston, 1916, pp. 219-328). Since cor-
rect recognition of the one sex by the other is often of essential
importance to the race, it is not surprising to find Darwin
saying (Descent of Man, p. 324) : " But in most cases of
this kind it is impossible to distinguish between the effects
of natural and sexual selection." This part of the theory
also remains valid, if one believes in selection at all.

(c) Darwin primarily used the term sexual selection for
all cases where sifting occurs in relation not to ordinary
nutrition and self-preservation, but to pairing. It was only
secondarily that he laid emphasis on the ^ choice ' that the
female is supposed to exercise in reference to rival suitors.
An interesting confusion, which has misled some biologists,
has arisen by a double use of the word selection. Darwin
spoke of the female's selection, but it is perfectly clear that
he recognised a lar^e field of selection in which there was
no question of selection or choice on the part of the female.
(See Descent of Man, 2nd Ed., 1888, Vol. I., p. 323, foot-
note.) Sexual selection meant, for Darwin, sifting in con-
nection with mating, whether the female held the sieve or not.

(d) In his next step Darwin used the word selection in
a non-metaphorical sense : — ^^ Just as man can give beauty,
according to his standard of taste, to his male poultry, or
more strictly can modify the beauty originally acquired by
the parent species, . . . so it appears that female birds
in a state of nature have^ by a long selection of the more

SELECTION 459

attractive males, added to their beauty or other attractive
qualities " (Descent of Man, 2nd Ed., 1888, Vol. L, p. 326).
In many animals, at diverse levels of organisation, there is
an elaborate courtship-ceremonial, allied, according to Groos,
to play. It is sometimes on both sides ; it is usually for the
most part on the male's side. It includes a manifold display
of decorations, colours, agility, and vocal powers. Darwin's
theory in this connection was simply this: if there are rival
males, and if they are unequally endowed with structural
and emotional equipment, or with the capacity of using this
to advantage, there will be preferential mating on the
female's part, and, other things equal, there will be a selec-
tion of the type of male most successful as a suitor. It
is the female who sifts, but the logic of the process is the
same as in natural selection.

(e) It is conceivable that pronounced and persistent
differential mating might lead not merely to the establish-
ment and augmentation of characters determining the result
of the contest or the courtship, but also to a process of physio-
logical and psychological ^ isolation ' (narrowing of the range
of inter-crossing), and thus to an accentuation of the apart-
ness of a species as regards crossing with related neighbour-
species (see Karl Pearson, Grammar of Science, 2nd Ed.,
1900, p. 418).

(/) At this point attention may be directed to the impor-
tant contributions to the natural history of mating to be
found in H. Eliot Howard's monumental British Warblers
(1907-1915). We venture to think that this acute and sym-
pathetic observer exaggerates the instinctive at the expense
of the intelligent element in the behaviour of birds, and
that he is unnecessarily antagonistic to Darwin's theory
of sexual selection, but his work is a rich treasure-house

460 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

of reliable data. * It is of great interest, for instance, to
discover how much competition there is among the male
warblers, before the females arrive on the scene, in the way
of discovering and securely holding the most advantageous
territories for nesting. ISTot less important is the evidence
that the soberly coloured warblers do not fall behind bril-
liantly coloured birds in the elaborateness and abandon of
their display attitudes and poses.

(g) Darwin was well aware of many of the difficulties
besetting his theory. With his wonted candour he anticipated
various objections, e.g., that the theory '^ implies powers
of discrimination and taste on the part of the female which
at first appear extremely improbable '' (Descent of Man,
p. 326). The first very serious criticism came from Wal-
lace in 1871, and was restated in his Darwinism in 1889.
The most elaborate criticism as yet is surely to be found
in T. H. Morgan's Evolution and Adaptation (1903), where
no fewer than 24 reasons are given for rejecting the theory.
Within our narrow limits we must confine our attention to
the three criticisms which seem most important.

There is, in the first place, an admitted difficulty in the
scarcity of direct evidence that some of the males are actually
disqualified and left unmated. If all the males get mates
sooner or later, then no discriminate elimination is effected.
Prof. Karl Pearson has given statistical evidence of prefer-
ential mating in mankind, but this is hardly procurable in
the animal world. Darwin met the objection in various
ways. He pointed out that in some species the males out-
number the females, and that in some other species there is
polygamy. If the more attractive males have in such cases
an advantage in mating, the direction of evolutionary move-
ment will be determined by them, and not by the handicapped

SELECTION 4G1

residue of the unattractive. He also pointed out that the
more vigorous and more attractive males would be accepted
by the more vigorous females which are the first to breed,
and this would imply a cumulative preponderance of the
more vigorous and more attractive types. Even earlier hatch-
ing of the young birds might be of critical moment. As a
matter of fact, definite information as to the elimination
of some of the males is by no means wholly lacking. Thus
in diagrammatic illustration we may refer to some spiders
where, as the Peckhams and others have shown, the female
sometimes kills a suitor who does not adequately please her.
That she may also kill a successful suitor is immaterial,
since the mating has been accomplished. (See G. W. and
E. G. Peckham, Observations on Sexual Selection in Spiders
of the Family AttidcE, Milwaukee, 1889, p. 60.)

In the second place, many critics have objected to credit-
ing the female organism — whether bird or butterfly — with
the power of ^ choice ', and while comparative psychology has
not advanced far enough to admit of many definite statements
as to the subjective aspect of animal courtship, it may be
granted that there is not in the ' choice ' of any female
animal much that would correspond to a human weighing
of pros and cons. But the point of importance is whether
the mating is in any real way selective, preferential dis-
criminative. It has been proved experimentally that insects
as well as birds may be selective in their eating: is the same
true as regards their mating? It appears to iis that the
I)henomena of mating recorded by Darwin, by Groos ( Flay
of Animals, 1898), by Cunningham {Sexual Dimorphism,
1900), by Pycraft {Courtship of Animals, 1913), and so
on, place the reality of some measure of preferential mating
beyond doubt. Even if one adopts the modern view that

462 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

the female does not choose the ' best ' out of a bunch of
suitors, but rather remains unresponsive to the solicitations
of males who do not raise her emotional interest to the
requisite pitch, that is quite enough for the purposes of
the theory; and it is in agreement with Darwin's own re-
mark about the female bird : " it is not probable that
she consciously deliberates: but she is most excited or
attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant
males '\

A third objection is more serious. It is one thing to
admit the reality of a somewhat vague preferential mating,
it is quite another thing to credit the female animal with
a capacity for appreciating slight differences in decorative-
ness or musical talent or lithesomeness. Wallace's statement
of this objection is well known. Referring to Darwin's
four chapters in The Descent of Man, he says : '' Any one
who reads these most interesting chapters will admit that
the fact of display is demonstrated; and it may also be
admitted, as highly probable, that the female is pleased
or excited by the display. But it by no means follows that
slight differences in the shape, pattern, or colours of the
ornamental plumes are what lead a female to give the pref-
erence to one male over another; still less that all the
females of a species, or the great majority of them, over a
wide area of country, and for many successive generations,
prefer exactly the same modification of the colour or orna-
ment {Darwinism, 1899, p. 285).

But the edge has been taken off this objection by Lloyd
Morgan and others, who point out the gratuitousness of
crediting the hen bird with a standard of taste or capacity
for aesthetic valuation. ^' The chick selects the worm that
excites the strongest impulse to pick it up and eat it. So,

SELECTION 463

too, the hen selects that mate which by his song or othenvise
excites in greatest degree the mating impulse. Stripped
of all its unnecessary aesthetic surplusage, the hypothesis
of sexual selection suggests that the accepted mate is the
one that most strongly evokes the pairing instinct " {Habit
and Instinct, 1896, p. 217).

It may be insisted, however, that if individual excellence
in attractive characters (such as plumes, singing power,
dancing agility) does not appeal to the female, it cannot
be determinative in preferential mating, and therefore its
establishment cannot be effected by any process of sexual
selection. Unless the female is somehow aware of the indi-
vidual variation in question, the theory breaks down, and
yet it is difficult to believe that the female is so meticulous
in fastidiousness, so detailed in her preferential excitability.

The answer, probably sound, is that the details count, not
as such, but as contributory to a general impression. Each
has its eifect, but synthetically, not analytically. " Even
when the female seems to choose some slight improvement
in colour or song or dance, the probability is that she is
simply surrendering herself to the male whose tout ensemble
has most successfully excited her sexual interest '^ (Geddes
and Thomson, Evolution, 1911, p. 172).

(h) If one provisionally accepts the theory that a sec-
ondary sex-character may have been established and aug-
mented because it contributed to a decision in preferential
mating, one has to face the further question of the signifi-
cance or racial justification of the courtship-habits — often so
prolonged, elaborate, and exhausting. The sifting probably
works well in keeping up a standard of racial fitness, for
the most persuasive male is likely to be, among animals,
the fittest all round. But there is surely more than this.

464 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

To Groos and to Julian S. Huxley we owe two luminous
suggestions. In his Play of Ammals (Eng. Trans., 1898,
p. 242), Groos suggests that '' in order to preserve the
species the discharge of the sexual function must be ren-
dered difficult, since the impulse to it is so powerful that
without some such arrest it might easily become prejudicial
to that end '\ '^ This very strength of impulse is itself
necessary to the preservation of the species; but, on the
other hand, dams must be opposed to the impetuous stream,
lest the impulse expend itself before it is made effectual,
or the mothers of the race be robbed of their strength, to the
detriment of their offspring." ..." The most important
factor in maintaining this necessary check is the coyness
of the female; coquetry is the conflict between natural im-
pulse and coyness, and the male's part is to overcome the
latter'' (op. cit, p. 243).

'Not less interesting is the suggestion developed by Julian
S. Huxley in his remarkable study of the courtship-habits
of the Great Crested Grebe, Podiceps cristatus (Proc.
Zool. Soc. London, 1914, pp. 491-562). In the Great
Crested Grebe the two sexes are practically alike in plumage,
colour, and habits; but the courtship is extraordinarily elab-
orate— a self-exhausting ritual, " not leading up to or con-
nected with coition ". Mr. Huxley believes that " the court-
ship ceremonies serve to keep the two birds of a pair together,
and to keep them constant to each other ". " Birds have obvi-
ously got to a pitch where their psychological states play
an important part in their lives. Thus, if a method is to
be devised for keeping two birds together, provision will have
to be made for an interplay of consciousness or emotion
between them." The courtship is justified by the strength
of the emotional bond it establishes. There is a '^ Mutual

SELECTION 465

Selection " which is in a way " a blend between Sexual and
Natural Selection ".

(i) A survey of recent observations on mating, as in Mr.
W. P. Pycraft's Courtship of Animals (1913), leaves an
impression of an intricacy and subtlety that baffles descrip-
tion. We agree with this distinguished expert as to the
need for psychological as well as physiological interpre-
tation. It is probable that no naturalist has studied a court-
ship with the thoroughness that Mr. Huxley shows in his
account oi the Great Crested Grebe, and what is his verdict ?
" Display and ornament do not act on the aesthetic sense
of the female, but on her emotional state; they are — using
the words in no narrow or unpleasant sense — excitants,
aphrodisiacs, serving to raise the female into that state of
exaltation and emotion when alone she will be ready to pair.
. . . But the element of choice does, in another form,
remain. In animals such as Birds, where there is a regular
pairing-up season, and where, too, the mental processes are
already of considerable complexity, it is impossible to doubt
but that mating may be, and in some species is, guided by
impulse, unanalysable fancies, individual predilection,"

(;) In his Studies in Animal Behaviour (1916) Mr. S. J.
Holmes has an interesting chapter on " the role of sex in
the evolution of mind ". Let us take one illustration. '' The
primary function of the vocal apparatus of the Vertebrates
was probably to furnish a sex call, as is now its exclusive
function in the Amphibia. Only later and secondarily did
the voice come to be employed in protecting and fostering
the young, and as a means of social communication. And
the evolution of the voice in Vertebrates doubtless influenced
to a marked degree the evolution of the sense of hearing.
It is not improbable, therefore, that the evolution of the voice,

466 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

with all its tremendous consequences in regard to the evo-
lution of mind, is an outgrowth of the differentiation of sex."
There can be little doubt that the biology of the future will
attach not less but more importance to sexual selection.
For it seems likely that characters and qualities originally
established in this way have often influenced both body and
behaviour in reaches now more or less remote from the tides
of sex-impulses.

§ 8. Selection and Progressiveness.

There is a very important reason why we should keep
in mind the relation of Natural Selection to the Systema
Naturae which has been gradually evolved, which is continu-
ally becoming more complex, which is made up of numerous
components, mostly stable and beautiful, often intelligent
and purposeful. The reason is that we have here part of
the explanation of the progressiveness of evolution. For,
while there are blind alleys and other paths that turn back
on themselves, the large fact is that on the whole evolution
has been in the direction of increased differentiation and
integration, of growing mastery and freedom. In this way
Nature has led up to Man, her minister and interpreter. But
how was it effected ?

It may be that part of the secret is insoluble, that it is
wrapped up with a tendency to complexify which may be
seen even in the inorganic, where corpuscles form atoms
and these molecules, where small molecules form large ones,
and large molecules colloid masses, and so on. A fortiori
it may be inherent in the very nature of an organism to
complexify, to differentiate.

We could suggest, however, that part of the riddle is
solved when we carefully observe the process of Natural

SELECTION 467

Selection, which operates in relation to an external Systcina
Naturae, the building-up of which is the work of aeons. As
organisms evolved there was a pari passu complexifying of
the web of life, and this extra-organismal registration worked
towards conservation and towards further advance. For it
is in relation to the external system that selection works.

In the evolution of human societies much has always de-
pended on the external registration of ideas and ideals. They
form a framework of institutions and organisations, as stable
as folk-ways and traditions; they become immortal in litera-
ture and art; and this extra-organismal registration works
both towards conservation and towards further advance. For
it is in relation to the external system that selection works.
It may be urged, however, that the social system is often
unsound, that it may give fixed expression to the vicious
as well as to what is noble, and that the result is to help
degeneration not progressive evolution. The answer is sadly
familiar, that this does occur; and that nationalities and
their monuments alike are then swept from the stage.

The difference in the realm of organisms is that we have
there to deal with an external system which is the product
of many millions of years, that the disintegrative elements
which entered into it have for inherent reasons failed to
stand the test of time. Like rotten stones in a building they
have crumbled away. But they have been replaced by others
more enduring.

What we mean may be made clearer by a concrete instance.
It was probably in the Carboniferous age that various insects
became flower-visitors, that inter-relations began to be estab-
lished between insects and flowers, between flowers and in-
sects. The flowers evolving in their own way came to have
flower-visiting insects (likewise evolving) as part of their

468 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

environment, as part of the system in relation to which they
were naturally selected. Similarly with the insects in rela-
tion to ' entomophilous ' flowers. And as the inter-relations
became more and more intricate, more and more precise,
they would tend to make the selection progressive.

There may be a sort of momentum in the organism itself,
for nothing succeeds like success. As Walt Whitman wisely
said, " It is provided in the essence of things that from any
fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth some-
thing to make a greater struggle necessary.'' As was said
of old time : '' For to every one who has shall more be given
and richly given; but from him who has nothing, even that
which he has shall be taken.'' Organisms run on a com-
pound interest principle. But our present point is that the
external web of life becoming ever more complex will tend
to secure progressiveness.

Whether or not our idea means as much as we think it
does, its consideration should in any case put an end to
the notion that Natural Selection is capricious. Both as
regards the raw materials and the sieve, evolution is very
far removed from being ^ a chapter of accidents '.

§ 9. Selectionist Interpretations and the Argument

from Design.

This seems the appropriate place for a consideration of
what has been called the Argument from Design. Discover-
ing some of the thousand-and-one ways in which the structure
and function of organisms are fit for the conditions of life,
many keen-sighted and reverent naturalists of older days
argued directly from the adaptations to the agency of a
Divine Adapter. It was in a way a wholesome attitude,
for the abundance of adaptations is a prominent fact in the

SELECTION 469

realm of organisms; they have, as Mr. Balfour says, '' exqui-
site nicety and amazing complexity " ; they are not easily ac-
counted for; and some of them make for the continuance of
what has for Man great value. But it can hardly be main-
tained that the argument in its old form was logically sound.
As Professor Lovejoy puts it (1909), ''from knowing,
through experience, that certain effects are caused only by
purposive human agency, we have no ground whatever for
concluding that certain other effects, of whose causation vvc
have no experience at all, must be due to non-human purpo-
sive agency ". It has been called by logicians the fallacy of
transcendent inference, but perhaps there is a truth of
transcendent inference in the idea behind the argument.

Many naturalists know and admire three monumental
volumes by the late Prof. Bell Pettigrew entitled Design in
Nature (1908). They form a magnificent, generously illus-
trated treasury of adaptations. But not the least interesting
thing about these volumes is the fact that the author, with
the thousand-and-one fitnesses before him, found himself
forced, like Darwin, to abandon the position of the Bridge-
water Treatises, that one may find in adaptations the evi-
dence of Divine Design. There is no doubt as to the reality
of the thousand-and-one adaptations: Why is the Bridge-
water Treatise position untenable ?

(1) It is a curious characteristic of some minds that they
cannot give a living creature credit for doing anything very
wonderful. They refuse to contemplate the possibility that
what the creature does may be accounted for in terms of
itself. They insist on helping the organism on by some
extraneous introduction — an Entelechy, a Purpose in Nature,
an elan vital, a Directive Intelligence, and so forth. What
the older N^aturalists should have done before concluding

470 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

their argument was to inquire how far the intelligence, which
adaptations certainly suggest, may be resident as intelligence
or some analogous form in the creatures themselves. Modern
study shows that many animals work out their own salvation.

(2) The second reason why modern naturalists do not
occupy the old position is because their outlook is evolution-
ist. When they scrutinise the magnificent series of adapta-
tions more closely they discern less perfect stages of them
in antecedent forms of life. The eye of a fly is an extraor-
dinary instrument, but there is a long ladder of eyes ap-
proximating to it. The community of hive-bees or of social
wasps amazes us — at first almost bewilders us, — with its
complexity and subtlety, but there is a long series of grada-
tions connecting it with the life of solitary bees and wasps.
Moreover, as we look around, we see that many adaptations
are still in progress, and very far from perfect.

(3) The third reason is, that, given a sufficient crop of
variations, plenty of time, and a process of sifting, the
Darwinian can give a plausible and approximate — we do
not say an easy or complete — account of the way in which
most of the wonderful adaptations have been evolved. The
hard-shelled Darwinian says : These effective adaptations you
so justly admire are the outcome of natural tentatives and
natural sif tings. We assume that the forms of life are
restlessly but not inconsistently variable, that they are con-
tinually offering new qualities and characters to the sieve
of selection, and that the conditions of life are such that
they eliminate in a very discriminating fashion the relatively
less fit. If these assumptions are granted, we can account
for adaptations. The immediate operation of a Divine
Adapter is a hypothesis of which, we say it with the utmost
reverence, we cannot scientifically make any use.

SELECTION 471

The idea of a Divine Designer is outside the scientific
mode of formulation, to which it is an impiety not to be
loyal, but it is not outside the right of interpretation which
we claim as rational beings. It is a religious idea — this of
the Divine Designer; the question is whether it is incon-
sistent with securely established scientific thinking. In our
judgment it is not inconsistent.

The old form of the Argument from Design has no longer
more than a historical interest, but it may be reasonably
maintained, it seems to us, that the general idea behind the
argument remains. Eor if we free ourselves, as we think
we must, from a purely mechanical evolutionism, and recog-
nise organisms as genuine agents, we may see in the factors
of evolution the relatively, though, of course, not absolutely
self-suflScient, means of working out a purpose, or thought, or
idea which was involved by the Creator in the origination
of the first organisms, or wherever it seems clearest to begin.
We must not forget the problem of the origin of the condi-
tions that made Organic Evolution possible. That He — the
Unmoved Prime Mover — has made things to make themselves
and to go on perfecting themselves — albeit they may be never
separable in thought from Him — seems a finer kind of crea-
tion than Paley pictures. As Professor Pettigrew said in
his Design in Nature (p. 820), '' mtural Selection may be
regarded merely as a process of so-called evolution by which
the Creator works and accomplishes His purpose. Indeed
the Creator, by conferring upon living matter in its simplest
and lowest forms the power of appropriating the elements
and building them up by endless elaboration and gradation
from a monad to a man, proves Himself to be an infinitely
more wonderful Designer than was ever dreamt of by even
the most ardent teleologist." This surely strikes the true note.

472 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION:

But it must be noted that it would not occur to scientific
investigators, as such, to speak of the factors of evolution
as means to an end. That is a point of view beyond science,
though naturally taken by those who feel the extraordinary
value and significance of certain results of evolution, — such
as the beauty of Nature, or the moving equilibrium of things,
or the progressiveness of organisation, or the emancipation
of mind, or the incomparable worth of a noble human life.

SUMMARY.

The central idea in Darwinism is the selection of the relatively
fitter variants in the struggle for existence.

An immediate logical recoil from Darwinism has been based on
the fact that Natural Selection is not originative, only directive;
and that it is rather eliminative than selective. But these points
are freely admitted by Darwinians; the recoil is due to a misunder-
standing of insufficiently criticised phraseology.

A sentimental recoil from Darwinism has been based on the sup-
posed mechanical character of the selective process (but many
organisms share as agents in their own evolution), and on the sup-
posed grimness of the eliminative methods (but this is a very partial
view).

Since Darwin's day the theory of Selection has undergone some
modification. Its position has been strengthened by the demon-
stration of several cases of Natural Selection at work, by
actual proof of a differential death-rate. It is not a mere inter-
pretative hypothesis. Its position has been strengthened by a
recognition of the manifoldness of the selective processes, e.g.,
lethal and reproductive. There has also been a clearer view
of the probable consequences, e.g., exuberant decorativeness, that
may ensue in situations where the elimination has been greatly
relaxed. The estimate of the scope of Natural Selection is affected
by the view taken in regard to the raw materials supplied. If
these reach by mutational abruptness to some degree of perfectness,
there is little for Natural Selection to do in the way of accumulating
minutiae. If they are in large measure definite, then Natural Selec-
tion has not to sift out the serviceable from a large casual crop. It

SELECTION 473

has been shown by Johannsen, do Vries, Jennings, Pearl, and others
that selection does not count for much within pure-lines or inbred
stocks. Tlie abundant * fluctuations ' that occur there cannot be used
as a basis for selection, for they are not transmissible, and are
probably for the most part of the nature of modifications.

As our whole view of Animate Nature is coloured by our estimate
of the validity and importance of the Selection-Theory, it is useful
to consider some of the more serious criticisms, e.g., that slight
initial changes could not have survival value, that they would bo
swamped or levelled down by inter-crossing. ... It does not seem
too much to say that the theory survives these criticisms and has
been the better for them.

It is very important to recognise that Natural Selection is a
technical expression for a manifold, almost ubiquitous, and often
subtle process of sifting, which has, in most cases, a particular ref-
erence to particular conditions in time and space. It does not work
consistently towards an ideal of fitness, but it eliminates inconsistent
non-viable constitutions; it often operates in reference to an intricate
web of life, and thus a nuance — a shibboleth — may have survival
value; it operates, generally speaking, in relation to a Systema
Natura3 which has been increasingly elaborated through the ages, in
which even ideas and affection get embodied, and this is part of
the explanation of the progressiveness of evolution. Another part
of the explanation of the progressiveness, which has always been a
puzzle except to teleological interpretation, is what may be called
organismal momentum. Organisms run on a compound interest
principle.

The question rises again whether the operative factors in organic
evolution are more than complications or compositions of factors
which operate in inorganic genesis. The answer is, much more.
Natural Selection operates on what is not accounted for mechan-
ically, and the sifting process itself is more than mechanical. What
Ward has shown in regard to Subjective Selection is vitally impor-
tant to an accurate view of the facts. The same conclusion may be
reached from a different set of data, the phenomena of preferential
mating.

In variation and selection we have, so far as we know, the chief
tactics of Animate Evolution. A move is made and it is tested;
a new idea occurs and it is criticised. But a formal statement of
the tactics is fallacious. It conceals the heart of the matter, that
living creatures with a will to live, with an insurgent self-assertive-

474 DIRECTIVE FACTORS IN EVOLUTION

ness, with a spirit of adventure, with an endeavour after well-being
— it is impossible to exaggerate the facts, even if the verbal sugges-.
tion is in our ignorance too metaphorical — do trade with time and
have commerce with circumstance as genuine agents, sharing in
their own evolution. This should at least increase our sympathetic
admiration of the tactics of Animate Nature, though the strategy
remain obscure.

Science has to do with description and formulation — not with
interpretation. Thus the selectionist account of the evolution of
adaptations does not conflict with the general idea behind the old
* argument from design \

LECTURE XV.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE: HEREDITY.

LECTURE XV.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE; HEREDITY.

§ 1. Definition of Heredity, Inheritance, Nurture, Development.
§ 2. Heredity a Condition of Evolution. § 3. Modifications
and Heredity. § 4. The Organism as a Historic Being. § 5.
Nature and Nurture. § 6. The Other Side of Heredity. § 7.
Heredity and Personality.

The water-vapour in the atmosphere condenses into rain
which falls on the hills; in the cold night it is changed into
ice, and next morning into running water again; at mid-
day it changes once more into water-vapour. So the same
material in the domain of the inorganic passes from form
to form, and nothing is lost. A mineral changes into some-
thing else and great aggregates are slowly transformed.
^' They say the solid earth on which we tread in tracts of
fluent heat began." There is a similar sort of flux in the
realm of organisms, in everyday metabolism, in wear and
tear, in senescence. " And so from hour to hour we ripe
and ripe, and then from hour to hour we rot and rot, and
thereby hangs a tale."

But apart from remarkable cases like Uranium liberating
Helium and giving origin to Radium, which liberating more
Helium may give origin to Lead, there is nothing in the
domain of things to compare with sequence of generations
that marks the realm of organisms. Individuals grow old
and die; oftener perhaps they do not grow old, but are
devoured; in any case they give place to others in the pro-
duction of which they often share. The corporeal individu-

477

478 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

alitj ceases to exist as such, yet part of it or something that
was wrapped up with it continues^ or may continue into an-
other individuality. This is the genetic relation — heredity,
which has to be considered as a condition of evolution, and
likewise as a factor in determining the individual life.

§ 1. Definition of Heredity, Inheritance, Nurture,

Development,

A few definitions, representing condensed discussions, may
be useful to start with. Heredity is the relation of organic
continuity between successive generations, which secures the
general persistence of resemblance between offspring and
their parents, between progeny and their ancestors; it im-
plies the continuance of a specific dynamic organisation of
which the germ-cells are usually the vehicle. In brief, hered-
ity is the genetic relation between ancestors and descendants.

Some use the word heredity to include all the causes or
factors which determine the resemblance between individuals
who are related to one another. But this resemblance is
not wholly due to heredity. Others would say that heredity
is the fact that like begets like; but it is more than that,
including indeed the possibility of variations. Others would
say that heredity is the past living on in the present, but
perhaps inheritance is the fitter word to denote that fact.
All these definitions suggest part of the truth, but it seems
clearest to regard heredity as the organic relation between
successive generations, — a relation which secures persistence
of characteristics and yet allows new ones to emerge.

Whatever definition of heredity is adopted, it must be
clearly understood that heredity is no mysterious force or
principle ; it is a flesh-and-blood linkage, a continuity of
germ-plasm, binding one generation to another. In pre-Dar-

HEREDITY 479

winian days, men always spoke of heredity with a capital
letter, as if it were a power that did things, as many people
still talk of Evolution, but one of Darwin's many services
was that he showed the linkage between generations to be
amenable to scientific experiment and description.

In mankind one generation may influence its successors
by tradition and institutions, by literature and art, and in
similar ways which are outside heredity in the biological
sense. For the extra-organismal legacies the term social
heritage may be usefully restricted, — a usage which would
leave Galton's term natural inheritance for all that is handed
on by means of the germ-cells, namely the egg-cell and the
sperm-cell. The natural inheritance includes all that the
organism is or has to start with in virtue of its hereditary
relation to parents and ancestors.

In most mammals, where the unborn offspring is carried
by the mother for a more or less prolonged period — the two
being bound together in a very intimate ante-natal partner-
ship or symbiosis — the natural inheritance of the ofi'spring
may be influenced by peculiarities in the available maternal
nurture. The same is true in all cases where the parents,
plants as well as animals, nurture the ofi^spring. It is plain,
though often forgotten, that ante-natal dints or imprints are
not in the strict sense part of the natural inheritance. The
word nurture, which Galton raised to the rank of a technical
term, includes all manner of extrinsic influences, environ-
mental, nutritional, and functional, which play upon the
organism, or with which the organism plays. Modifications,
as we have seen, are structural changes in the body of the
organism directly induced in the individual lifetime by
peculiarities in function or environment (including food,
etc.), which transcend the limit of organic elasticity and

480 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

thus persist after the inducing conditions have ceased to
operate. They may be illustrated by the tanning of the skin
under a tropical sun, or by the fattening of cattle, or by a
callosity due to pressure. They are dints due to peculiarities
in nurture, and have not been convincingly shown to be
transmissible as such or in any representative degree.
Finally, it may be noted that development is the realisation
of the normal inheritance in appropriate nurture.

§ 2. Heredity a Condition of Evolution.

Heredity is not so much a factor in evolution, as a condi-
tion of evolution. There would be heredity though there
were no evolution, but there could be no evolution if there
were not heredity. What is the role of Heredity ?

(a) Heredity involves arrangements which secure the per-
sistence of a specific dynamic organisation — holding fast that
which is good. This role is achieved by a simple device —
the continuity of the germ-plasm or essential germinal mate-
rial, a luminous conception mainly due to Galton and Weis-
mann. It amounts to this, that in the course of development,
often very early, some germinal material containing the in-
tact inheritance is kept apart from specialisation and goes
to form the germ-cells which become the starting-points of
another generation. As Galton pointed out, in development
the bulk of the germinal material of the fertilised egg-cell
goes to form the ^ body ' of the embryo, undergoing in a most
puzzling way differentiation into nervx and muscle, blood,
and bone ; but a certain residue is kept apart from the devel-
opment of the ^ body ' to form the primordium of the repro-
ductive organs of the offspring, whence will be launched in
due time another similar vessel on the adventurous voyage
of life. Thus in a sense the child is as old as the parent,

HEREDITY 481

for when the parent is developing, a residue of iinspecialised
germinal material, retaining the heritable qualities in their
intactness, is kept apart, and will eventually give rise to the
germ-cells which form the starting-point of the child. As
Weismann put it: In each development a portion of the
specific germ-plasm contained in the parent egg-cell is not
used up in the construction of the body of the offspring,
but is reserved unchanged for the formation of the germ-cells
of the following generation. So it comes to be that the
parent is rather the trustee of the germ-plasm than the
producer of the child. In a new sense the child is a chip
of the old block. Or, as Bergson puts it, in less static
metaphor, ^^ life is like a current passing from germ to
germ through the medium of a developed organism ''. It
appears that too rigid a contrast has been made between
body-cells and germ-cells ; for groups of body-cells in plants,
sponges, polyps, worms, Tunicates, and various other groups
are able to develop into perfect organisms. It is safer to
say that the germ-cells are those cells which carry the whole
inheritance without allowing any of it to find expression
until appropriate conditions and stimuli are forthcoming.
They carry the whole inheritance in a form little liable to
extrinsic influence and yet readily admitting of development.
The general idea of germinal continuity is one of the most
important contributions to post-Darwinian biology. It ac-
counts for the inertia of the main mass of the inheritance,
which is carried on with little change from generation to
generation. For men do not gather grapes off thorns or
figs off thistles. Similar material to start with; similar con-
ditions in which to develop; therefore like begets like.

(h) The second role of the hereditary relation is that it
allows of the emergence of the new and of the handing-on

482 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

of the new. On the whole it makes for persistence, for in-
ertia, but it also admits of the origin and entailment of
novelties. An antithesis is often made between hereditv and
variation, but that i^ not well thought-out; the hereditary
relation includes both the tendency to persistence and op-
portunities for variation ; the antithesis is between the per-
sistence of complete hereditary resemblance and the entail-
ment of variations.

(c) The third role of the hereditary relation is to shelter
the specific organisation from the influence of parental modi-
fications. It is not certain that the shelter is quite complete ;
but it is indubitable that most of the dints made on the
individual body are not entailed.. An organism which be-
comes subjected to a lasting change of temperature may, as
the direct result thereof, acquire some adaptive peculiarity
of great advantage; it would please our idea of economy
to know that this individual gain could be handed on. An
organism forced into a new habitat changes its functions
adaptively and acquires, as the direct result thereof, a new
dexterity. It w^ould please our idea of economy to know
that this gain could be entailed. So far as we know, this
does not occur, and the reason is probably that such entail-
ment of gains would involve also an entailment of losses,
and that both are inconsistent w^ith the arrangements which
secure what is much more important, namely, the persistence
of the specific organisation and of the germinal changes
which it from time to time exhibits. If any organisms ever
showed a strong tendency to transmit somatic modifications,
the probability is that they would be eliminated.

Our personal conviction, detailed evidence for which we
have given elsewhere (Heredity, rev. ed., 1919), is that there
is at present no good case warranting belief in the trans-

HEREDITY 483

mission of exogenous somatic modifications. But several
biologists for whom we have the greatest respect think other-
wise, and, without any indecision on our own part, we would
refer to the works cited in the bibliography under the names
of Hartog, MacBride, and Semon.

§ 3. Modifications and Heredity.

In the absence of any convincing evidence that exogenous
modifications acquired by parents can be transmitted to their
ofi'spring, either as such or in any representative degree, we
have to face the question whether individual modifications
have any evolutionary interest at all. It may be answered,
first, that deeply-saturating modifications may influence the
blood and other fluids of the body, or may alter the rhythm
of metabolism so that the production of internal secretions
is affected, and that these internal changes in the somatic
environment may act as liberating stimuli on the germ-
plasm and provoke variations. Prolonged exercise, e.g., in
dancing, may lead to an exaggerated production of muscle-
forming substance; the myogenic metabolism may be en-
hanced; this may be spread through the body, e.g., from
limbs to heart ; it is conceivable that it might affect the germ-
plasm specifically.

The second answer is that suggested by Profs. IMark
Baldwin, Lloyd Morgan, and H. F. Osbom, that an adaptive
modification may serve as a protective screen for the indi-
vidual until, perhaps, a germinal variation in the same direc-
tion has time to arise and establish itself. What is not
organically entailed may be acquired afresh in each suc-
cessive generation. In an area where a dark skin was of
survival value, acquired tanning might save many in-
dividual lives until, perhaps, a germinal variation in the

484 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

direction of inborn swarthiness had time to appear and
establish itself.

It seems to some quite incredible that the same modifica-
tion should be hammered on for a thousand generations
without inducing germinal changes in the same direction,
but the difiicultj is to find any direct or indirect evidence.
It is likely enough that the long continuance of a particular
modification might produce a metabolic change which might
affect the germ-plasm, but the point is whether the effect on
the germ-plasm would be to provoke a variation in the same
direction as the modification. Mr. J. T. Cunningham and
others have suggested that a well-defined modification may
be followed by the liberation of some very specific hormone
from the affected tissues, which might be carried to the germ-
cells and there find a nidus for subsequent operations. But
this remains a conceivable interpretation of what we do not
know to be a fact.

(c) Another consideration must not be forgotten, that it
is in the personal life of the creature that the germinal
variations are expressed, used, and subjected to criticism.
The germ-cell or implicit individuality determines the cards,
but it is the developed organism that plays them. It is
highly probable that the adult creature sometimes seeks out
a situation where its idiosyncrasy tells. Prof. James Ward
has emphasised the importance of this organic selection.
Environment selects organisms, but an organism may also
select its enviromiient.

§ 4. The Organism as a Historic Being,

The central idea in heredity is the persistence of a specific
organisation and the associated specific activity. The past
lives on in the present. The category of organism includes

HEREDITY 485

the conception of the creature as a historic being. Let us
think over this idea.

(a) There is, in the first place, the remarkable persistence
of the main body of the inheritance, with but rare divergence.
There is racial inertia; the entailment of what is called
specificity. As was said of old time, " All flesh is not tlio
same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another
flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." This
is confirmed by modern research, which has demonstrated,
for instance, that the ciliated epithelium lining the windpipe
of a dog is difi'erent from that from a rabbit. A fish can
often be identified from a few scales, a bird by a single
feather. This specificity goes through and through: thus
Reichert and Brown (1909) have shown that the various
species of mammals, so far as they have been tried, difi"er
in the minutiae of their haemoglobin crystals. In this way it
is possible to distinguish the blood of a domestic dog from
that of a wolf, or even from that of the Australian dingo;
red fox, grey fox, and Arctic fox are crystallographically
specific! Every creature has its own particular kind of
colloidal substratum and its own particular chemical routine
taking, place therein. The largest fact of inheritance is the
persistence of specificity, and we have here the reason why
new departures of great moment are not likely to occur
from specialised types. The relatively generalised types are
most likely to be strikingly inventive.

The antiquity of the various parts of the hereditary frame-
work is one of the most impressive facts of biology. Galton
has used the illustration of modern buildings in Italy which
have sometimes been built out of the pillaged edifices of
ancient times; here is an antique column and there a lintel
unified afresh.

486 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

(b) The persistence of antiques is often seen with clia-
gramniatic vividness in the case of vestigial structures, which
linger on in dwindled expression for ages after they have
ceased to be of any use. As Darwin said, they are like
the unsounded letters in many words, quite functionless
but of historical interest. They have often been compared
to the vestigial structures in clothes, buttons without cor-
responding holes, and holes without corresponding buttons.
So is it with the deeply-buried remnants of the long lost
hind limbs that some of the whales still exhibit, or with
the minute comb-like vestige of a gill in the spiracle of a
skate. The animal world is full of these interesting relics
as if the past were loath to relinquish its lien on the present.
Man is an antiquarian in spite of himself, a walking museum
of relics. A good instance is the vestigial third eyelid, larger
in some races than others, occasionally with a supporting
cartilage, but quite useless. It is the remnant of the nicti-
tating membrane that in most birds and mammals does im-
portant work in cleaning the eye. Similarly, the muscle
which moves the trumpet or pinna of the ear in many mam-
mals, such as dog and donkey, and is useful in locating
sounds, is vestigial in man, who moves his head about so
readily. Some men have it larger than others ; some may
even become able to move their ears by wasting attention
on the senseless effort. It may be noted that there is no
great evidence of imperfection in the fact that vestigial
organs are sometimes troublesome; it is too much to expect
that there should be no tax on the stability of what is
useful.

Another instance of the past living on in the present is
to be found in the persistence of ancient habits that have
outlived their utility. According to Darwin, there is an

HEREDITY 487

echo of the distant past when the dog before it settles itself
to sleep turns round and round in the imaginary herbage
of the hearthrug. The hand of the past is upnn il in the
passivity of sleepiness, and it does needlessly wliat its ances-
tors did to a purpose. So in the donkey '' we see signs of
its original desert life in its strong dislike to cross the
smallest stream of water". We are told that some Scottish
cows transported to unwonted conditions on an American
ranch hid their calves in the thicket, and went to feed in
the open in the old approved fashion of wild cattle. The
novel circumstances were really primitive and they awakeiiud
a long dormant instinct. Many examples of this sort have
been collected by Robinson in his Wild Traits in Tame Ani-
mals, and while there is need for criticism, there can be no
doubt as to the persistence with which the past lives on in
the present. Many outcrops that seem quite perplexing in
man are probably anachronistic stirrings of ancestral habits,
(c) Another set of illustrations of the past living on in
the present is afforded by the facts that are now familiar
in regard to the staying power of certain unit-cliaractcrs or
Mendelian characters that are relatively superficial in nature,
and cannot be regarded as forming part of the main frame-
work of the inheritance. When we consider h(jw the llaj)s-
burg lip has persisted for four centuries in Austria and
Spain, how night-blindness has continued to crop out for ten
generations and in hundreds of individuals in one family
history beginning with 1637, or hov/ brachydactylism (hav-
ing the fingers all thumbs) may last for six generations,
wo realise that the hand of the past is living indeed, — and
inexorable. We have already mentioned the laciniatc variety
of the Greater Celandine (Chelidoninm niajus), wliieh sud-
denly appeared about 1590 and has been breeding true ever

488 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

since, and it is this sort of fact that we must include in
our conception of the living organism, of Animate Nature,
and of man in particular. That the innate defects as well
as the excellences of the fathers are continued in the chil-
dren far beyond the third and fourth generation is well
known.

{d) Another general illustration of the past living on in
the present is to be found in the way in which the individual
development tends to recapitulate the racial evolution. Long
before the evolution idea was accepted, the suggestion was
made, e.g., by Meckel, von Bacr, and Louis Agassiz,
that the stages in individual development correspond to
grades of organisation in the animal kingdom. In post-
Darwinian days, Haeckel recognised the importance of the
recapitulation doctrine and stated it clearly in the light of
evolution. He called it the fundamental law of biogenesis,
and stated it in the familiar words: '' Ontogeny is a recapitu-
lation of Phylogeny." He also emphasised the contrast be-
tween palingenetic characters, which correspond to those of
the ancestral stock, and kainogenetic characters, which are
relatively recent additions. The latter, he said, may disguise
the former in a perplexing way; in any case, the recapitula-
tion is general, not exact, and often shows great condensation.
Fritz Miiller was another who did much to illustrate and
corroborate the recapitulation-idea, e.g., in his Fiir Darwin
(1864).

The recapitulation doctrine has suffered considerably at
the hands of its friends, w^ho have sometimes stated it in
an exaggerated fashion. When Prof. Milnes Marshal said,
" Every animal in its own development repeats its history,
climbs up its own genealogical tree ", he was speaking pic-
turesquely, for the recapitulation is general, not detailed ; it

HEREDITY 489

often shows telescoping; and it is truer of stages in organo-
genesis than of stages in the development of the embryo as
a whole.

It has also to be remembered that one term in the com-'
parison, the phylogenj, is very imperfectly known, so that
assertions as to the exactness of the recapitulation must be
taken with reserve. Needless to say, one must beware of
the vicious circle of arguing from the development to the
presumed ancestor, and then from the ancestor to its recapit-
ulative rehabilitation in development.

Another saving clause is that the individual development,
especially when there are larval stages, may have its recapitu-
latory features obscured by secondary adaptations to rela-
tively recent conditions of life. Thus one does not look
for recapitulation in the life-history of insects which have
sub-aquatic larvae, for these have been secondarily adapted
to a habitat which was not that of the ancestral stock. We
may also recall the idea that life-histories have been adap-
tively altered by lengthening out one chapter and telescoping
another.

Another saving clause concerns specificity, the individu-
ality and uniqueness of every well-defined type. Increased
precision of embryological work has shown that from very
early stages in ontogeny an organism is itself and no other.
An expert can distinguish an embryo chick a few days old
from an embryo duck, before either of them shows any avian
characters. There is only a technical difficulty in the way
of distinguishing even the cells of an embryo mouse from
those of an embryo rabbit, or those of an onion from those
of a lily: the number of chromosomes is different. But a
recognition of specificity from first to last is not inconsistent
with admitting a significant correspondence between steps

490 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

in individual development and steps in racial evolution. A
tadpole is from the first in several ways an Amphibian and
not a Fish, and jet in its two-chambered heart and branchial
circulation it is for a time distinctively piscine.

One reason why the ontogenetic recapitulation of phylogeny
must be general, not precise, is that the successive gains made
in the course of racial evolution are not superposed one upon
another, but must be severally incorporated into the organi-
sation and unified with it. The additions from millennium
to millennium are not like new wings added to a house,
for the tenements which we call individuals are continually
dissolved, and there is re-unification at the start of each new
life. We must remember too that antique characters grad-
ually disappear, thus ancestral birds had teeth, but no embryo
bird shows any trace of them. These saving-clauses are
of importance, but the broad fact remains that the organism's
inheritance, garnered for ages, does in many cases express
itself in a step-to-step development, from the general to the
special, which is in some measure a recapitulation of stages
in what is believed to have been the racial evolution. Some
illustrations must be given.

On each side of the neck of the embryo reptile, bird, and
mammal there are branchial pouches or gill-clefts which
correspond to those which have a respiratory function in am-
phibians and fishes, and may or do persist throughout life.
In reptiles, birds, and mammals these pouches are on the
whole transient, like fleeting reminiscences. The first seems
to persist as the Eustachian tube from the auditory passage
to the back of the mouth, and the thymus gland is connected
with another; but the rest pass away without persistent re-
sult. They are echoes of the past. In embryos of the chick
and of some reptiles, dwindling and transient traces of gills

HEREDITY 491

in connection with the gill-clefts have been recently discov-
ered (Boyden, 1918).

Similarly, the embryos of higher Vertebrates show for a
time a notochord, — a primitive skeletal axis derived from
the roof of the embryonic gut, and thus of endodermic origin.
It persists throughout life in lancelets and lampreys, serving
as the dorsal axis of the animal, as the forerunner of the
backbone which, from fishes onwards, develops from the
mesodermic sheath of the notochord. The notochord docs
not become the backbone, though perhaps serving as a sort
of tissue-scaffolding for it, and every stage of the replace-
ment of the notochord by its substitute the backbone is seen
in fishes. Yet on to man himself the notochord continues to
appear in development, a veritable antique; it has its short
day and passes, leaving but an unimportant trace behind.

In the establishment of the brain, the skull, the heart, the
kidneys, and other important structures in higher animals,
the foundations are laid down on old-fashioned lines, not
directly suggestive of what is to follow. In the individual
organogenesis there is often a recapitulation of historical
stages. The development of many an organ appears to the
observer to be circuitous, as if the old paths had to some
extent to be retrod, and yet the progress of a hundred thou-
sand years may be condensed into one day.

Another aspect of the same fact is that the developing
embryos of, say, bird and reptile are for some days very
much alike, moving on parallel lines along the great high-
way of Amniote development; but, sooner or later, about
the sixth day in the case of the chick, their paths diverge
and become distinctively avian and saurian. Thus does the
past live again in the present with compelling force. How
are we to think of it?

492 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

Ontogeny is the making explicit of the germinal organisa-
tion, which is what it is because of phylogeny. The way in
which an embryo moves towards a goal as if it had its future
consciously in view is due to the fact that it is constitu-
tionally determined by the past, which lives on in the present
in a manner peculiar to and characteristic of living creatures.
The ages that have gone have bent the bow in the plane along
which the arrow of the individual flies. But ontogeny must
not be thought of as the uncoiling of a wound-up spring,
or as the unpacking of a marvellous treasure-box, or as a
series of metabolisms which start one another in succession
and enter into increasingly complex inter-relations ; ontogeny
is a function of the individuality which is somehow con-
densed within the germ-cell. Perhaps it is not, after all, very
different from behaviour ! The fundamental fact which we
are so far from understanding is that the fertilised ovum
is at once the repository of ages of organic inventions
and a unified individuality in the one-cell stage of its
becoming.

If we adhere to the conclusion that evolution has been a
series of discoveries or inventions of the genuinely new, the
further question is how the gains have become enregistered
in the germinal organisation, which must be thought of as
becoming increasingly complex. There are two ways in
which this cnregistcring may be thought of. (1) On the
one hand it is conceivable that the individual acquirements
and experiences of the fully developed individual may in
some definite way affect the germinal organisation, and thus
the progeny. In this way Lamarckians have thought of the
germ-cells as being continually enriched by the gains of the
individual organism, or reduced by its losses, and that in
a quite definite and representative manner. There are very

HEREDITY 493

few known facts which lend support to this view, but it
seems premature to foreclose the question by any dogmatic
denial of the possibility that individually acquired modifica-
tions can leave representative imprints on the organisation,
or, as some would say, on the unconscious memory of the
germ-cells. It is possible that an increase of knowledge will
show us that there is some hidden truth in the Lamarckian
position; but the facts do not point that way at present
Deserving of consideration here are the remarkable facts of
cellular habit or momentum in metabolism, expounded nota-
bly by Prof. J. G. Adami (1918, p. 55 and p. ICC). Pro-
fessor Adami calls attention to facts like the following. Once
the cells of the body of a rabbit have got accustomed to pro-
ducing a counteractive or anti-toxin to ricin (a poison from
the castor-oil plant), they may go on producing this anti-
ricin for weeks or months after the original stimulus. There
is an organic momentum. In the horse a single toxin unit
of tetanus can lead in the process of immunisation to the
production of 1,000,000 anti-toxin units. A cold in the head
may continue for weeks after the causative agent has dis-
appeared, and thorough sterilisation of the nose has been
effected. The cells form a habit, it may be an entirely new
habit, and it lasts, ^' an acquired cell variation becoming, if
I may so express it, converted into a cell-heredity ". But the
difficulty is to pass from such cases to the generations of
ijnulticellular animals.

(2) The known facts point to the conclusion that the or-
ganic materials of progress are supplied from within, from
.the fountain of change that there is in the germ-cell. If
the metaphor be permissible, and we cannot get beyond meta-
phors yet, the germ-cell is the blind artist whose many in-
ventions are expressed, embodied, and exercised in the de-

494 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

veloped organism, the seeing artist who, beholding the work
of the germ-cell, either pronounces it, in the light of the suc-
cess which it brings, to be good, or else, w^hen it spells ruin,
curses it effectively by sinking with it into extinction. There
is no difficulty in understanding how a germinal mutation,
having arisen, comes to stay. That is provided for in the
continuity of the germ-plasm. It is probably, then, by the
entailment of the results of intrinsic germinal experiments,
and not by the imprinting of the results of individual ex-
periences, that the steps made in phylogeny become regis-
tered in the germ-cells, and thus made expressible in the
ontogeny for long ages to come.

§ 5. Nature and Nurture.

Development is always the result of an interaction between
inherited nature (the germinal organisation and activity),
and appropriate nurture (air, moisture, space, warmth, food,
light, exercise, education, and much else). The tw^o are
complementary. Though the direction of development is
mainly intrinsic, the degree of expression which the inherit-
ance attains is conditioned by nurture. Theoretically, the
point is of interest that there is what may be called an
external heritage in relation to which the natural inheritance
must develop. For we are ever apt to isolate too much, for-
getting that the actuality is an association of organisms in
a definite region. It is of obvious practical importance that
the best possible nurture be secured. Otherwise promising
variations may remain like sleeping buds, an inherited talent
may remain hidden in a napkin in the ground. Hereditary
characters are like seeds requiring soil and sunshine and
rain, l^egatively too it is always possible that alterations
of nurture may prevent the actualism of inherited pre-

HEREDITY 495

dispositions of a deteriorative sort. In Man's case nurture
is very modifiable and largely under control ; much is made
that is not born, and it rests with Man to determine whether
it be ameliorative or the reverse. But it must never be for-
gotten that the direct effect seems to be restricted to the
individual.

§ 6. The Other Side of Heredity,

The past lives on in the present, that is what is meant
by heredity. There is an inexorableness in the persistence,
the so-called transmission, of all sorts of inborn peculiarities,
except sterility of course, not only to the third and fourth
generation, but far further. Sometimes it is a trivial feature
like a shock of "white hair ; sometimes it is a deadlv vice of
blood ; sometimes it is all bodily, leaving the spirit unblem-
ished, as in certain cripples; sometimes it is a blot on the
brain that affects the character, now in this way and again
in that, but always perniciously. There is no gainsaying
the fatalistic impression that the study of heredity forces
upon us, and since heredity is the relation of organic or
genetic continuity between successive generations, there can
be no other side to it. But there is another side to the
fatalism.

(1) There is a growing solidarity among men and women
of good-will; there is a wider recognition of the social or
racial aspect of parentage; there is an increasing control
of life. So that, while words are easy and actual doing is
difficult, it is not speaking unadvisedly with our lips to say,
that the reappearance of an evil past is not inevitable in
the future : it may be blocked in the present. The transmis-
sion of defects and weaknesses of a misery-bringing, race-
weakening sort can be in some measure checked. A man,

496 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

who is captain of his soul, need not submit to the lien that
ancestry has over him. Brave words, of course; but history
is full of brave deeds. One does not wish to say much about
the way in which — by a survival of Nature's regime in the
Kingdom of Man — rotten stocks come of themselves to an
end ; for the tragedy is that they often taint sound stocks
by the way.

(2) Moreover, it is ungrateful to forget that the hereditary
relation, which depresses us when we lose perspective, secures
the entailment of all manner of wholesome human qualities.
The true inwardness of heredity is a holding fast of that
which is good.

(3) For characters that blend, if the occurrence of blend-
ing characters be granted, it may remain true what Galton
stated in his Law of Filial Regression, — that there is a reg-
ular regression or deviation which brings the offspring of
extraordinary parents in a definite ratio nearer the average
of the stock. This succession-.tax is even-handed; the off-
spring of under-average parents come nearer the mean just
as do those of extraordinarily gifted parents.

(4) The hereditary relation is such that it admits of
variability, for the temptation to make a quite misleading
antithesis between heredity and variation should be avoided.
There is a strong specific inertia — the first law of motion,
as it were; but there is a copious fountain of change — the
second law, as it were. Phrase it as we may, there is some-
thing like creativeness, which is always supplying the new
.raw material of progress. Unless we have quite misunder-
stood evolution, it implies an emergence of novelties. It is
like original thinking.

(5) The quality of the nurture, largely in our own hands,
determines the degree to which the buds of good qualities in

HEREDITY 497

our inheritance may be made to unfold, and the buds of bad
qualities may be kept more or less dormant.

(6) There is an undeniable moulding power in changes
of function and environment, and though the resulting modi-
fications of our plastic organism do not seem to be genetically
persistent, i.e., transmissible as such or in any representa-
tive degree, they can be re-impressed, if desirable, on each
successive generation. This is part of the biology of educa-
tion.

(7) Lastly, it must be recognised that in our social
heritage, which is as supreme as our natural iiikeritance
is fundamental, there are ever-widening opportunities for
transcending the trammels of protoplasm. Wherefore, Sur-
sum corda: Let us lift up our hearts.

Mr. Bernard Shaw speaks of ^' the unbreathable atmos-
phere of fatalism which is the characteristic blight of Dar-
winism ". We have sought to show that as regards heredity
there is air to breathe. It appears to us, moreover, that the
fatalists assume a knowledge which they do not possess. A
human inheritance is a very wonderful thing; it is very
difficult to tell how much or how little a man has got. The
son is told that he is handicapped by his father's defects,
but it is quite possible that the father's innate defects were
fewer and his excellences greater than ever transpired. For
the fullness or sparseness of nurture determines the degree
of expression which the inheritance attains in development.
Of course there are limits. ^' He that will to Cupar maun
to Cupar." " Though thou shalt bray a fool in a iimrtar,
yet will not his folly depart from him." Our possibilities
are hereditarily pre-determined, but can this be said of our
actual personalities? The higher the organism the greater
its unpredictability within certain limits, the greater the

498 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

power of the higher nature to modify what has undergone
automatisation or enregistration, the greater the capacity
of selecting and altering the environment. We do not know
all the evil that is in our inheritance, therefore we should
not take too many risky chances. We do not know all the
good that is in our inheritance, therefore we should give
it every chance. Biology and history, as well as our con-
science, give the lie to the mechanistic fatalism which asserts
that we have not, in any measure, freedom of self-develop-
ment.

§ 7. Heredity and Personality.

The greatest advance in the modern study of heredity has
been the disclosure of unit-characters or Mendelian charac-
ters. It is certain that there are numerous hereditary char-
acters which behave in a distinctive and independent way
in inheritance, being distributed as indivisible entities accord-
ing to a definite scheme. They are clear-cut, either there
or not there ; they do not blend or intergrade ; and they
are infallibly present in a certain proportion of the offspring.
They seem to be represented in the germ-cells by definite
determinants, factors, or genes, the nature of which is un-
known. Some have likened them to ferments;, others to
differences in the ultra-microscopic architecture. It is quite
likely that several factors may be concerned in one character,
or that one factor may influence more than one character.
The gist of the Mendelian discovery is, in Pearl's words,
this: ^^ Hereditary differences behave, in the main, as discrete
units, which are shuffled about and re-distributed to individ-
uals in the course of the hereditary process, to a considerable
extent independently of each other ; and in typical cases this
re-distribution follows the simplest of statistical laws of

HEREDITY 499

dispersal, the point binomial." In illustration of characters
that exhibit Mendelian inheritance, the following may be
cited, the dominant condition which prevails over its alter-
native in the first cross-bred generation being named first
in each case: — Hornlessness and the presence of horns in
cattle, normal hair and long ' Angora ' hair in rabbits and
guinea-pigs, kinky hair and straight hair in man, crest and
no crest in poultry, extra toes in poultry and the normal
number four, bandless shell in wood-snail and banded shell ;
yellow cotyledons in peas and green ones, round seeds in
peas and the wrinkled form, absence of awn in wheat and
its presence, susceptibility to rust in wheat and immunity
to this disease, two-rowed ears of barley and six-rowed ears,
markedly dentate margin in nettle leaves and slightly toothed
margin. Why one character should be dominant and its
alternative recessive we do not know. It is often supposed
that a dominant character implies something plus, the pres-
ence of a definite ^ factor ' ; while the corresponding reces-
sive character implies the absence of that ' factor '. But it
is difficult to hold to this consistently.

The modern study of heredity suggests that our personal-
ity is made up of many strands which go back into antiquity
and which have a unique combination for each individual.
The strands are ancient, but the individual, as Jennings
(1911) says, " is a new knot ". And it seems an important
fact that a good deal is known in regard to " the intimate
material processes of the interweaving". There is a frc>h
unification at the beginning of each individual life,— a fresh
unification that implies some measure of unpredictability and
freedom from the past.

The strands of each individual knot diverge before and
behind us. " Those in my knot have come from a hundred

500 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

others, and may later untie in a hundred still diverse. Of
my characteristics I may say, like lago of his purse, '' 'twas
mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands ". . . . " Our
characteristics exist elsewhere in humanity and will continue
to exist after that particular knot which forms the present
self has been untied " (Jennings, 1911, p. 906).

There is a certain organic immortality which is the lot
of all, our strands live on. '^ It holds as well and in the
same sense for him who leaves no children of his own as
for the parent." ^' Each of us is but a knot in a continuous
web of strands that have, in other combinations, built up
many persons, and will, in still new combinations, build
up many persons. Thus as we have before taken part in
the development of brute and of man, we may hope to take
part in the development of superman" (Jennings, p. 910).

It has been said that to find any enlightenment in the
persistence of strands of personality in collateral lineages
shows a very tawdry conception of what personality means
and a very limited appreciation of the sanctities of human
relationships. But this criticism is not quite fair: the biol-
ogist whom we quoted and with whom we agree was simply
making a biologist's contribution to one of the riddles of
existence — the apparent wastefulness of fine flowers that
bear no seed. It is very unlikely that the same flowers will
ever appear again ; the really fine individuality is unique.
But it is not unlikely that approximations to the same pat-
tern will recur. There is a conservatism in evolution, which
retains qualities on collateral lines even when a particular
lineage comes to an end. Mongrel ising makes for mediocrity,
but eugenic marriages make for masterpieces. One can
hardly reproach the order of ^NTature for cases where remedia-
ble social conditions have prevented fine personalities from

HEREDITY 501

the venture of parenthood. The deliberate or coerced celi-
bacy of fine types may have implied in some cases an en-
richment of the social heritage, but it is very unsound bio-
logically.

In regard to questions with a wider horizon than racial
persistence the biologist must — as biologist — remain silent,
but it is not unscientific to plead for keeping doors open till
they must be shut. The personality of a genius — whether
intellectual, artistic, or moral — is an amazing fact, perhaps
further beyond the individuality of a dog than that is be-
yond the unity of an amoeba. It is not the general body of
the man that is distinctive, but the greatly increased com-
plexity of the nervous system and the correlated new liberty
and integration of thinking and feeling and willing. And
this personality is still in process of evolution. Who shall
^x its limits?

When, after thousands of years of discussion, all remains
dark except in the light of Christianity, why should we
continue the unending quest? But it is unlikely that man
will ever cease from such adventuring, and it is not to be
desired as long as the quest does not interfere with the
discharge of his daily duties. As Simmias said in the
Phoedo, shortly before Socrates was to die: "I will tell
you my difficulty and Cebes will tell you his. I feel my-
self (and I daresay that you have the same feeling) how
hard or rather impossible is the attainment of any cer-
tainty about questions such as these in the present life.
And yet I should deem him a coward who did not prove
what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart
failed him before he had examined them on every side.
For he should persevere until he has achieved one of two
things: either he should discover, or be taught the truth

502 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE:

about them ; or, if this be impossible I would have him
take the best and most irrefragable of human theories,
and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life
— not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some
word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.''

SUMMARY.

Heredity, the genetic relation between ancestors and descendants,
between the race and the individual, has to be considered as a condi-
tion of racial evolution and as a factor in determining the personal
life.

Heredity is the relation of organic continuity between successive
generations, securing the persistence of resemblance between off-
spring and their parents, between progeny and their ancestors,
and is sustained by the continuance of a specific dynamic organisa-
tion of which the germ-cells are usually the vehicle. The natural
inheritance includes all that the organism is or has to start with
in virtue of its hereditary relation, and is to be distinguished from
extra-organismal legacies, such as Man's social heritage; from the
r^ults of ante-natal influence as in most mammals and flowering
plants; and from exogenous modifications directly due to pecuhar-
ities in ' nurture '. Nurture includes all manner of extrinsic in-
fluences,— environmental, nutritional, and functional. Development
is the realisation of the inheritance in appropriate nurture.

Hereditv is not so much a factor in, as a condition of evolution.
It involves arrangements which secure the persistence of a specific
dynamic organisation — holding fast that which is good. This is
effected by the continuity of the germ-plasm. Nevertheless it admits
of the emergence and of the entailment of the new. It serves or
tends to prevent the transmission as such of individual somatic
modifications either for good or ill. The question arises in what
way the personal life counts in evolution.

Although there is not at present any convincing evidence of the
transmission of individual modifications as such or in any representa-
tive degree, it should be noted that some may serve as variational
stimuli; that some may serve as adaptive screens saving the in-
dividual until germinal variations in the same direction may emerge
and establish themselves; and that it is in the personal life, often

HEREDITY 503

of continuous experimenting, that the germinal variations are tested
and sifted.

The conception of the organism as a historic being is well il-
lustrated by the facts of heredity and development. There is the
inertia of the great mass of the inheritance, much of which is of
very ancient origin. There is a striking persistence of vestigial
structures and even habits. There is remarkable staying power in
unit characters. There is an indubitable recapitulation of phylogeny
in ontogeny, especially in organogenesis. The enregistering of
past gains is probably to be thought of in the light of the continuity
of the germ-plasm, for it seems that organic progress emerges
from within and is not impressed from without.

The individual organism is the outcome of a hereditary nature
developing in an appropriate nurture. The direction of development
is mainly intrinsic, but the degree of expression attained bears
some relation to the extrinsic systematisation, what may be called
the external heritage. In Man's case in particular, where the nur-
ture is very subtle and very plastic, much may be made that is
not born.

A study of the facts of heredity engenders a fatalistic impression :
the hand of the past has such a heavy grip. But " the other side
of heredity " must be considered, — the persistence of the stable,
the continual emergence of the new, the influence of nurture on
the individual, and the dominance of the social heritage. It is
important to bear in mind that each organism is in some degree
a new individuality with some measure of indeterminateness, and
made as well as born.

The modern study of heredity forcibly suggests that the per-
sonality is a unique combination of many strands which go back
into antiquity. The strands are ancient but, as Jennings i)uts it,
each knot is new. It is tied afresh at the beginning of each new
life, and this implies some measure of uniqueness and freedom in
the self. Our characteristic strands do in some measure exist in
other combinations elsewhere, and may last on, unfortunately as
well as fortunately, when our particular knot is untied.

LECTURE XVI.

THE EVOLUTION OF MIND AND MIND IN

EVOLUTION.

LECTURE XVI.

THE EVOLUTION OF MIND AND MIND IN

EVOLUTION.

§ 1. Of the Fact of the Evolution of Behaviour There Is No Doubt.
§ 2. Difficulty of Understanding the Process. § 3. Provisional
Sketch of the Evolution of Behaviour. § 4. The Efficiency of
Mind in Everyday Life. § 5. The Evolutionary Efficiency of
Mind.

§ 1. Of the Fact of the Evolution of Behaviour There Is

No Doubt.

In a typical human life, thinking and feeling and willing
bulk largely, and we naturally inquire into the historical
setting of these capacities. We cannot make the mental
states of animals the object of direct observation; on the
other hand, we cannot believe that mental states began with
Man. So we seek for indirect evidence that animals share
them. Can we discern stages in mental evolution ? And
this raises another question : In human evolution the prac-
tical importance of mind is certain; has it also counted
in the evolution of organisms ?

It should be possible to discuss these questions in a scien-
tific way without going into the metaphysical question
whether the stuff out of which the world is built can he
thought of as independent of mind, and without discussing
the difficult question of the relation of mind to lx)dy, if
it be rightly called a relation. It goes without saying that
we cannot derive mind from anything else of a different
kind; if we seem to do so we are deceiving ourselves with

507

508 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

verbal jugglery. It. may also be said at the outset that if
the genetic view we adopt here results in suggesting that
animal behaviour is easy to understand or is a commonplace
affair, then it is being wrongly stated. Whatever view we
take as to the nature of mind and its relation to bodily ac-
tivity, it is a fact that as we follow the main line of animal
evolution, behaviour becomes more masterly, more plastic,
more like our own. As regards behaviour the slipper-animal-
cule is surpassed by the earthworm, the worm by the black-
bird, and the bird by the cat. There is increasing freedom,
subtlety, and resourcefulness of behaviour. Many will ad-
mit this at once, who will not take the further step of
supposing that the progressive evolution of behaviour is asso-
ciated with a clarifying and strengthening of what, by anal-
ogy with ourselves, we may call the stream of inner life —
the flow of feeling, will, and thought. We suppose that there
is a rill of inner life growing in volume until it becomes
a stream, because as we pass from lower to higher animals
there is more and more behaviour that we cannot fully de-
scribe in purely physiological terms. But before we think
tentatively of the stages in the evolution of behaviour, we
must give heed to some preliminary considerations.

§ 2. Difficulty of Understanding the Process,

First, we must try to avoid any facile reading of the man
into the beast. In ourselves we know that some stimulus
often sets agoing a vigorous internal activity of thought-
processes, involving an experimenting with imagery and play-
ing with centrally aroused sensations. This goes on in our
brain and it brings fatigue. It may be associated with
• movements in larynx and tongue, with speaking to ourselves,
and with changes in eyes and brow and heart; but there is

MIND IN EVOLUTION 609

not at the time anything to show for it in our explirit
behaviour, and our neighbour offers us a penny for our
thoughts. Yet our future action — in the case of a genius,
the history of the world — may be modified by this hour of
hard thinking. Is there that sort of inner life of the mind-
body in animals ? We must not expect too much. Not only
is our nervous system a much more differentiated and in-
tegrated nervous system than that of even the highest ani-
mals, but we have language and we have developed the pos-
sibilities it affords of inter-subjective communion. A few
animals have a limited vocabulary, but no animals have
more than the primordia of language, so we must not sup-
pose that the mental furnishings of animals are like our
own. Some experts have warned naturalists that the search
for reasoning, imagery, and the like among animals must
forever remain futile. On the other hand, we should remem-
ber that in our own case there is much in mind besides those
inferences which we are accustomed to regard as distinctive
of intelligence. There is a continuous flow of mingled sen-
sations, perceptions, ideas, feelings, desires, and volitions, —
a stream sometimes clear and peaceful, sometimes muddy
and turbulent. It is probable that among the lower animals,
the flow does not show much in the way of perceptions and
ideas, still less in the way of experiments with these. We
know that in our own individual development the earlier
stages are largely pre-intellectual, mainly emotional. It is
extremely improbable that the starfish laboriously disarming
the sea-urchin has made any inference on the subject, for
its nervous system has no ganglia ; but it is difficult to make
sense of the operation without crediting the creature with
conation, with something of the nature of endeavour, not
necessarily with full antecedent awareness, but with a de-

510 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

termination of action in relation to the result that will
accrue.

Another great difficulty lies in the fact that at stage after
stage, as we have seen, there is a tendency to organisation
or automatisation of capacities for behaviour, and if we
attend too exclusively to these we are apt to get the im-
pression that the naturalist's suggestion of mind is a mere
courtesy to the psychologist. But it is necessary to look
into the less conspicuous deviations from routine which some-
times show the hand of mind on the reins, and to inquire
into the stages of initiative and testing which may have pre-
ceded the automatisation.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty of all is to think of germinal
variations supplying the appropriate materials for the evolu-
tion of complicated instinctive behaviour or for capacities
of perceptual inference. Nowhere does the problem of the
origin as distinguished from the survival of fit variations
appear so baffling as here.

§ 3. Provisional Sketch of the Evolution of Behaviour.

What, then, shall we say of the Evolution of Behaviour?

(a) A starting-point may be found in the tentative move-
ments of simple creatures, swimming about in the pond,
called hither and thither by slight differences in temperature,
oxygenation, and the like, or, if there is no particular stim-
ulus, moving in straight lines, or curves, or spirals — ex-
pending their energy, expressing themselves in modes of loco-
motion which are often characteristic, yet every now and
then striking the note of tentative endeavour. There is an
occasional new departure, some experiment, a hint of the bent
bow. As Professor Jennings has graphically described, thei
amoeba hunts another amoeba, captures it, loses it, recaptures

MIND IN EVOLUTION 511

it, loses it. Much importance must be attached lo simple
searchings and probings. As the late Mr. Darbishire put
it: ^' If Necessity was the mother of Invention, Curiosity
was almost certainly its father."

(b) At an early stage there must have been established
a number of particular answers to stimuli, which in the case
of Unicellulars may be called organic reactions, keeping the
word reflexes for creatures with a nervous system. A good
illustration is the answer-back so familiar in the case of
the slipper-animalcule, Paramecium. To every hurtful stim-
ulation it gives the same answer: — it reverses its cilia, it
retreats, it twists a little on its axis, it feels its way, and
goes full steam ahead — often in this way avoiding the ob-
noxious stimulus. The capacity of exhibiting this uniform
reaction is organised or enregistered in the creature; and
these ingrained capacities increase in number.

(c) The next step is the ' trial and error ' or perseverance
procedure. One reaction is tried after another, till, it may
be, one of the movements relieves the creature from stimula-
tion. The Stentor reacts in four different ways to the micro-
scopic dust which the experimenter showers on it; three an-
swers are ineffective, the fourth saves the situation. There
is a persisting state of the organism which varies the answers,
there is probably a simple expression of conation or en-
deavour.

(d) The main line is continued in such behaviour as is
illustrated by multicellular ganglionless animals like star-
fishes. There is persistent co-ordination of acts towards a
definite result. There is sensori-motor experimentation.
Our picture here is that of the brainless starfish persistently
disarming the brainless sea-urchin, wrenching off the pedi-
cellarise from area after area. This is purposive behaviour,

512 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

but the purposiveness has not reached a perceptual level.
Consciousness is at work, and its ^' precise function in sen-
sori-motor action is to grasp the unique combination of stim-
uli, each of which having its special reaction modified by
the concomitant reactions, there follows a response appro-
priate to the unique situation as a whole " (Hobhouse, Mind
in Evolution, 1915, p. 62).

(e) With the establishment of a nervous system there was
opened up the possibility of a new kind of hereditary autom-
atisation or organisation, — that of reflex actions and tro-
pisms. The former are usually movements of parts of the
animal, the latter movements of the whole creature. A re-
flex action is the predetermined result of the activation of
an inborn structural arrangement of receptor, conductor, and
effector, which gives a uniform response to a given stimulus.
It may be very perfect from the first, or it may improve
by practice, or it may result from individual habituation:
but typically it is an outcome of pre-established hereditary
organisation, definite linkages of sensory neurons, associa-
tive neurons, motor neurons, and muscular elements. In
effect reflex actions seem purposive, but in process they are
organisational. If there was originally an operative pur-
posiveness, it has receded into pre-formed structure.

Our pictures are of the sea-anemone closing its tentacles
on a victim, of the nestling opening its mouth at the touch
of food in its mother's beak, of the starfish surrendering an
arm in the spasms of capture, of the young mammal sucking
whatever is put into its mouth. Antecedent to reflexes there
is more or less random flow of activity which is now and
then definitised in experiment and endeavour. Reflexes im-
ply the establishment of definite channels for the flow.

Tropisms are more or less obligatory movements of the

MIND IN EVOLUTION 513

whole organism, or of a large part of it, which automatically
make towards securing physiological equilibrium in refer-
ence to particular stimuli. Thus an organism moves towards
or away from light and heat, electric currents and diffusing
chemical reagents, water currents, and the earth and so on.
It must not be said that heliotropic animals desire the light
or dislike the darkness; the tropisms are more or less forced
movements which work automatically like a gyroscope.

Our evolutionary theory is that reflexes and tropisms are
economical automatisations, enregistrations, or organisations
of capacities which are continually being called into action
in the ordinary life of the creature. They require neither
thought nor endeavour; they are ingi-ained and almost as
much part of the constitution as, say, breathing movements.
Their survival value is (1) that they admit of the rapid
automatic execution of life-preservative or species-preserva-
tive movements (an automatism for which in unusual con-
ditions there may be a heavy tax to pay) ; and (2) that they
leave the organism more free to use, if it can, the second
string of purposive endeavour.

(/) The main line continues in a kind of behaviour which
shows evidence of ' learning ', of utilising previous experi-
ence to compass an end which is not necessarily immediate.
The note of inference is heginning to be sounded. There
is experimentation and correlation at a higher level than that
of the starfish. It is the dawn of intelligence, and may be
illustrated by cases like the following. A young octopus
trying to capture a hermit-crab is stung by the sea-anemone
which is the crustacean's partner. It avoids further en-
counters. Old octopuses, however, learn to extract the her-
mit-crab without touching the sea-anemone. Prof. Lloyd
Morgan calls this profiting by experience through the exer-

514 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

cise of intelligence. Dahl relates that when a spider is given
a fly that has been steeped in turpentine, it will not for a
time dart at another fly of that species. This is like simple
learning.

(g) The improvement of the brain opened up a new pos-
sibility in the way of hereditary organisation — that of in-
stinctive behaviour. In virtue of inborn nervous predispo-
sitions the animal seems to be from the first aware of the
significance of certain stimuli and configurations, and obeys
an impulsion to a definite routine which is singularly effec-
tive, though more or less independent of practice. Pure
instinctive behaviour is well illustrated by ants, bees, and
wasps ; but there and elsewhere it may be mingled with
experimental, including intelligent, behaviour. Of instinctive
behaviour very perfect in its first performance many pictures
rise in the mind : — the chick neatly removing the top of
the imprisoning egg-shell, the month-old kitten exhibiting
without imitation '^ almost a complete repertoire of move-
ments used by the adult cat in catching and killing mice '',
the young guinea-pig nibbling at a carrot at the end of the
first day after birth. In illustration of instinctive activities
that improve or change under various influences we may recall
the pecking of chicks and the singing of some birds. Of
the serial succession of steps in instinctive behaviour there
is no better illustration than the way in which the Yucca
moth on its first flight visits and pollinates the Yucca flowers
and lays eggs in the ovary.

(h) The next level is that of intelligent behaviour, which
is characteristic of the higher reaches of the big-brained
line of evolution. It implies trial and error experimenta-
tion on subtler lines and more definite profiting by ex-
perience. Psychologists interpret it as implying ^ perceptual

MIND IN EVOLUTION 515

inference ', some working with ideas. It is reflective and
inferential, as contrasted with instinctive and intuitive.

When the Greek eagle lets a tortoise fall from a height
on the rocks below so that its strong carapace is broken,
when beavers cut a canal right through an island in a big
river — a task not practically justified till completed, — when
a collie dog at the bidding of a few sounds and signs
accomplishes a really difficult thing in the way of sheep-
driving, it is probable that we have to do with intelligent
behaviour.

We have seen that, at various lower levels of behaviour,
the perfecting role of practice is recognisable, and this is
the case also at the level of intelligence. We are familiar
with the individual habituation of exercises which originally
required attentive selection and detailed control. Certain
structural changes in the nervous system come about as the
result of frequent performance, and what was at first la-
boured becomes very automatic — or so facilitated up to a
certain point that the mind is free to attend to finishing
touches. It is not known that the results of individual
habituation can be entailed in a representative way on the
offspring.

(i) The climax is the rational conduct occasionally ex-
hibited by Man. We cannot describe such conduct without
using general terms; it involves experimenting with ideas,
conceptual as distinguished from perceptual inference; it
is controlled with reference to an ideal or conceived purpose.
Man has his reflexes and a little instinctive behaviour;
most of his activity is either intelligent, or was originally
intelligent, but has become habitual; the point is that, if
occasion arise, Man may instantaneously pass from a lower
level to that of rational conduct.

516 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

When we look back over the vaguely discerned succession
of modes of behaviour, we detect what may be called the
tactics of the evolutionary advance. At level after level,
there has been an organisation or automatisation or enregis-
tration of behaviour so that an organism can do things
effectively without having to think about it. The answer
comes pat, and there is an economy of time and life. In
reflex actions, tropisms, and instinctive behaviour we see
the activation of capacities which have become part of the
hereditary constitution. The great result has been that the
organism, freed from having to attend to and control these
organised activities, has been able to push on to finer issues.
As individuals we are aware of this result being attained
by habituation, but there is little warrant for supposing
that the successive organisations we have referred to have
arisen by the entailment of the results of often repeated
performance. We say this because we do not know how
it could be arranged, because we have no evidence of the
transmission of intelligent-habitual capacities, because some
of the most striking pieces of instinctive behaviour occur
onlv once in a lifetime, and for other reasons.

How, then, could the successive organisations be accom-
plished ? The probable answer is that they are all due to
germinal variations in the direction of a complexified nerv-
ous system. New departures which have been called, from
the psychical side, ^ inborn inspirations ' prompted changes
in behaviour, and these were tested and sifted in the indi-
vidual lifetime. For a time the germinal variation might
be in the direction of differentiating and integrating the
brain; for a time there might be a specialisation in the seat
of some particular activity; and again there might be varia-
tion leading to short-circuits.

MIND IN EVOLUTION 517

We are still at the stage of metaphor in regard to the
factors in the evolution of behaviour; but metaphor is less
dangerous than false simplicity. Our metaphorical picture
is this — the germ-cell just beginning to develop is an im-
plicit organism of great complexity, an individuality in the
one-cell phase of its being, a mind-body or body-mind tele-
scoped down. It varies, it makes experiments in internal
re-arrangement, in self-expression. It is a blind artist, its
sketches are submitted to the criticism of the fully-formed
organism, the seeing artist, who will put them in the proper
light and bring out what there is in them of value.

If the Amoeba has in its small way a mind, an aspect
of itself corresponding to our mind, and if the Amoeba
uses it when it goes a-hunting, — two not unreasonable hypoth-
eses,— then it may be that the germ-cell has also its analogue
of mind — a not unreasonable hypothesis, since it develops
into a creature with a mind. And this leads us to the
hypothesis that the more momentous variations may be in-
explicable if we keep only one aspect of the germ-cell in
view. And if so, could there be a more relevant opportunity
for the mental side showing itself than in variations which
lead to new departures in behaviour?

In any case, the hypothesis that hereditary organisation
of capacities of behaviour comes about by the entailment of
the results of individual practice, experimenting, and learn-
ing cannot be readily maintained. On the other hand, while
it is difficult to think clearly of the origin of great improve-
ments in behaviour by germinal variation, and of the relative
automatisation of them arising in the same way, there is
no special difficulty in understanding their persistence on
this theory. For variations that arise from within have
often great staying power in inheritance.

518 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

The Germinal Origin of Impi^ovements in Instinctive Be-
haviour. We must linger over the difficulty, which many
biologists feel acutely, of trying to account for improvements
in instinctive behaviour by variations in the germ-cell.

When an organ, such as the proboscis of an elephant, has
shown in successive ages a gradual increase and differentia-
tion, as the skulls of fossil Proboscidea seem to indicate,
the non-Lamarckian evolutionist supposes that this is due
to the selection of variants in the direction of elongation,
these variants being the expressions of appropriate changes
in germinal organisation. The change in germinal organisa-
tion, say a strengthening of certain primary constituents,
operates during the active process of proboscis-development,
or of proboscis-growth, for it need not begin to exert its
influence until long after the foundations have been laid.
Thus a long-billed bird need not show much or anything in
the way of a long bill until after it is hatched. The general
idea is that an improvement of structure comes about as
the expression of a germinal variation which asserts itself
during the activity of development or growth. It is not
necessary to think of it as asserting itself only once, for the
highly differentiated structure, such as a snail's horn or a
newt's lens, may be regrown if it be lost. The germinal
variation includes a residual capacity (localised at the base
of the horn or in the tissue near the lens) for reproducing
or regenerating what has been lost. The general idea, we re-
peat, is that a cumulative germinal variation, implying a per-
fecting of some part of the germinal organisation, expresses
itself in the course of generations in a cumulative improve-
ment of a certain routine of developmental or growth activity.

If this be admitted as conceivable, then it is not a great
step to pass to the improvement of instinctive activities as

MIND IN EVOLUTION 519

the result of progressive germinal variations and, of course,
the personal testing of these. For the line between develop-
ment and the expression of instinctive capacity is hard to
draw. Both are actualisations of the implicit, the ingrained,
the enregistered. Both are expressions of ' organic memory '.
As M. Joussain says (1912, p. 156), "Instinct is a pro-
longation of the organising work: the effort by which the
chick breaks its shell, frees itself from the debris, and be-
gins to walk, is a continuation of the development by which
its organs have been built up in the egg." He proceeds to say,
though the speculation is not necessary for our point : " If the
final stroke of the beak is conscious and voluntary, the work
immediately antecedent must likewise be so, and thus back-
wards. It is, then, by its own effort that the egg is developed
into a bird." . . . But this will sound absurd to those who
are satisfied with the simplicist formulae of the mechanical
school.

Organic Memory. In his interesting Esquisse d'une Phi-
losophie de la Nature (1912), M. Joussain makes much of
the conception of organic memory. " The transition from
mechanism (tropism ?) to instinct and from instinct to intelli-
gence, as likewise from automatism to spontaneity and from
spontaneity to freedom, is correlated with the extension of
memory. In the animal, the complexity and differentiation
of the organism are correlated with the extension of specific
memory. . . . The relative independence of the organism in
respect to its environment increases with its complexity and
differentiation, and consequently with the specific memory.
The higher the animal's degree of organisation, the more it
is capable of altering its reactions in answer to stimuli from
■without, the more reserve of energy it has and freedom in
using it. The independence of the creature is thus greater

520 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

in proportion to the extent of its remembrance, and in this
sense one may say that memory enfranchises it from the
dominion of matter.'^

It seems to us, however, that there is need for discrimina-
tion here between the little-brain type, with its climax in
ants and bees, and the big-brain type, with its climax in dog
and horse. The enregistration of capacities of effective rou-
tine reaches a high degree of perfection in ants and bees,
and we may call it racial memory if we please. But while
it makes for mastery of the usual, it does not bring any gift
of freedom — not even of educability. It is an enregistra-
tion of capacities of concatenated reflexes, but certainly not
of reflection. It is a memory that kills originality. We
agree therefore with those who distinguish the enregistering
of instinctive capacity from the enregistering of intelligent
capacity, the power of discerning relations, of controlled not
reflex behaviour. It is comparable in a way to the experi-
ence of many students who remember little of what they have
learned, read, or even solved, but who have as their reward
a capacity of rapid judgment.

§ 4. The E-fficiency of Mind in Everyday Life,

There is no use going farther without facing the position
of those who maintain that all this discussion is an unneces-
sary complication of the problem, who believe that to speak
of an inner life besides metabolism is only a faqon de parler,
"who regard mind at the best as a useless epiphenomenon.

The first respiratory movements of the newborn offspring
are commanded by delicately adjusted inborn structural ar-
rangements in the medulla oblongata ; these are set into activ-
ity by external stimuli or by slight changes in the alkalinity
(Hydrogen-ion concentration) of the blood; and these again

MIND IN EVOLUTION 521

are due to a slight asphyxia resulting from the withdrawal
of the maternal circulation.

So when it comes to sucking, swallowing, digesting, and
the like, appropriate stimuli pull the trigger of pre-formed
adjustment, and one reflex process evokes another, and so
the creature gets on.

We have an inherited set of triggers called ceptors, con-
tact-ceptors, chemical-ceptors, thermal-ceptors, and so on;
and these are connected with wires, nerves, or conductors,
which pass on the stimulus to the areas of muscular activity.
There may be threshold-resistances to be overcome so that
undue impetuosity of response is avoided ; there are arrange-
ments for the summation of stimuli, for laying down paths
so that action-patterns are formed ; and all has a phylogenetic
reference, that is to say, neuro-muscular pre-arrangements
work well to-day because all has been wrought out through
the ages in reference to frequently recurrent problems. It
is hardly possible to exaggerate the nicety of adaptiveness —
the brain is the storage battery, the muscles the seat of
motor activity, the liver makes fuel and helps to remove
ashes, the thyroid gland effects speed control, the adrenal
body has to do with counteracting the accumulation of acid
waste-products, and so on through the inter-dependent series
of organs which make up the kinetic system of the body.
What need is there for mind ? Is it more than a name for
^ versatility of nervous response ' ?

In an admirable exposition of Man as an Adaptive
Mechanism, Professor Crile shows how much the human
body is good for without any help from the human mind.
It is strange, however, that one of his notable advances in
surgery is associated with the recognition of the importance
of fear or anticipation before operations, and we cannot

522 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

agree that fear or anticipation is adequately accounted for
in terms of physiology. Another strange thing is that Pro-
fessor Crile includes among the functions of his adaptive
mechanism ^' the fabrication of thought ". One might say
that it was not a good thought that Professor Crile's
mechanism fabricated when it conceived of the organism as
a mechanism ; but his position is theoretically impossible —
a contradiction in terms.

The apsychic formulation seems unsound practically as
well as theoretically. On the theory that mind does not
count, we may make much of a horse or a dog, but certainly
not most. There is a great deal of sound sense, we think,
in the quaint words of one of the old breeders, Gervase
Markham (1621): "You shall beginne to handle and in-
struct your dogge at four months old; . . . make him most
loving and familiar with you, taking a delight in your com-
pany, also mix with this familiarity a kindly awe and obe-
dience which you shall procure rather by tenderness than by
terrefying him, which only maketh him sly.'' It is wrong
" ever to hurry your young dogge, give him time to fix
himself and much liberty of movement, handle him firmly
but tenderly." (Quoted by Dr. N. C. MacNamara in his
Instinct and Intelligence, 1915, p. 183.)

There are two fallacies in the doctrine of the uselessness
of mind. In the first place, it ignores the fact that the process
of organisation (otherwise called automatisation and still
more unfortunately mechanisation) has the effect of increas-
ing efficiency at a higher level. It enables the creature to
meet novel circumstances, to experiment, to make a purpose-
ful use of its own experience, which is what we call intelli-
gence. Just as in our own life we practise labour-saving,
time-saving, worry-saving methodical devices, so as to have

MIND IN EVOLUTION 523

our mind more free for its own adventures, so the consum-
mate registration that the organism exhibits is a device for
the emancipation of mind.

The second fallacy is the assumption that what now takes
place reflexly, tropistically, or instinctively never required
mental control. Without accepting the theory that reflexes
have been organised by habituation, we may recall such
experiences as learning to ride a bicycle, which show how
extraordinarily automatic movements may become which
originally required all our attention and a good deal of
strong will. In cases like playing the violin the original
efforts often require a good deal of intelligence, for
those learn best who see clearly the relation of means to
end.

Of reflexes, Professor Sherrington writes (p. 388) : ^' Per-
fected during the course of ag«^s, they have during that course
attained a stability, a certainty, and an ease of performance
beside which the stability and facility of the most ingrained
habit acquired during an individual life is presumably small.
But theirs is of itself a machine-like fatality. ... To
these ancient invariable reflexes, consciousness, in the ordi-
nary meaning of the term, is not adjunct. The subject as
an active agent does not direct them and cannot introspect
them."

But he goes on to show that, in higher animals especially,
reflexes are under some control. We know this in connec-
tion with coughing, eye-closing, and smiling. Some people
can slow down their heart and suppress the pharyngeal re-
flex of swallowing. " Certain it is," he continues (p. 300),
"that if we study the process by which in ourselves this
control over reflex action is acquired by an individual,
psychical factors loom large, and more is known of them

524i THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

than of the purely physiological modus operandi involved
in the attainment of the control."

^' My mind to me a kingdom is," and to many men the
inner life of contemplation, imagination, sesthetic emotion,
hard thinking, and the like, is the real life. In everyday
human life we see evidence of the efficiency of mind when a
man copes with novel difficulties, when he anticipates a
rarely occurring risk, when of set purpose he correlates his
acts and those of others towards a distant end, when affec-
tive states (such as joy) exert a demonstrable influence on
the functions of the body. We should not spend time in
making such obvious remarks, were it not for the activity
of the hard-headed mechanists, who write, for instance, thus :
" So until the opposite can be proved we must accept the
proposition that also human intelligence comprises no psy-
chical factor, and that it has arisen phylogenetically through
continual transformation and refinement of physico-chemical
nerve-processes."

It is interesting to notice the growing tendency to recognise
both physiological and psychological factors in the chain of
causation of mental and nervous disorders. Thus Dr.
Bernard Hart writes (1918, p. 16) : " We have, indeed,
reached the paradoxical conclusion that, while in many
^ mental ' disorders mental factors play only a minor part
amongst the causes which have produced them, in ^ nervous ^
disorders these mental factors are of fundamental signifi-
cance. . . . The conviction that in the so-called nervous
disorders the predominant part is played by mental causes
has been steadily growing during the forty years which have
elapsed since the work of Charcot, and has been greatly
strengthened by the experience given to us by the war."

MIND IN EVOLUTION 525

§ 5. The Evolutionary Efficiency of Mind.

What is true of the everyday human life is true also in
history that mind has counted for much, notably in tradi-
tional folk-ways and ideals, and in the external registration
of ideas in literature and art. The question is whether mind
has practically counted in Animal Evolution.

To this question two extreme answers have been given.
According to the thoroughgoing mechanistic school what is
called mind has not been in any degree a vera causa in evolu-
tion. Thus one of them, Le Dantec, writes that conscious-
ness is certainly not an acting partner in the firm of life,
it is at most a sleeping partner.

According to the thoroughgoing vitalist school, mind is the
essential driving force in all evolutionary change. Thus
Samuel Butler maintained that it was necessary to have a
psychological theory of heredity and a psychological theory
of the origin of organic novelties, besides recognising at
every turn that the organism is a genuine purposeful agent,
striving, endeavouring, trying to make the best of things.
Dr. W. MacDougall may be cited as a modern animist who
thinks, for instance, that the truest description of even
individual development is one which recognises the efficiency
of an anima animans.

Can we steer between the Scylla of Montaigne's generous
anthropomorphism and the Charybdis of Descartes's simpli-
cist automatism? We cannot accept the view that mind
is the essential driving force in all evolutionary change,
since this depreciates what we may call the physiological
driving force inherent in organisms, simply as unified proto-
plasmic reaction-systems. We quote again what Spinoza said :
"No one has yet learned from experience what the body,

526 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

regarded merely as body, is able to do in accordance with
its own natural laws, or what it cannot do.'^ On the other
hand, we cannot accept the apsychic view, because it gives
a false simplicity to the facts, and because it implies a
gap between man and animals which our experience of
higher animals and lower men leads us to regard as incred-
ible.

Our theoretical position is that certain pieces of behaviour
can be approximately formulated in terms of the organisa-
tion and metabolism of the animal as treated of in sound
physiology of a non-mechanistic type, but that there are other
pieces of behaviour which cannot be approximately formu-
lated without postulating factors like desire, conation, im-
agery, feeling, correlating, putting two and two together, in-
terpreting perception in light of memory, awareness of the
relation of means to end, and, in the most advanced stage,
deliberately thinking or experimenting with ideas. We are
not supposing that these expressions of mentality are inde-
pendent of metabolism ; we say merely that the concept
* Organism ' has to be enriched by that of Body-mind or
Mind-body.

Our problem, then, is to indicate the lines along which we
may look for indirect evidence that Mind, in the sense defined,
has counted in Organic Evolution, in '' life's innumerable
venturings ". The great Russian embryologist von Baer said
that ^^ the history of Nature is nothing but the history of
the ever-advancing victory of spirit over matter ". Was von
Baer right or do animals, for instance, play the game all
unawares and unbeknov^n to themselves ?

We may refer, to begin with, to the way in which some
creatures select their environment. If organisms were agents
in producing those novelties which we call variations and

MIND IN EVOLUTION 527

mutations, as a bird is an agent in building a nest or a
spider in weaving a web, we might say that they were artists
of their own fortunes. But the variations and mutations are
due to the organism in the germ-cell phase of its being, and,
whatever be our surmise, we have no data for speaking of
the mentality involved. What we do know, however, is that
the full-grown organism sometimes plays these novelties as
cards in its game ; it puts them to the test of use ; it experi-
ments with them ; it tries what locks these new keys will
fit. It seems to the open-air naturalist indisputable that the
organism is an experimental agent.

Prof. James Ward laid emphasis many years ago on what
he called subjective or hedonic selection on the part of an-
imals. Without denying the importance of natural selection,
he directed attention to organismal selection. Environment
selects organisms, in a metaphorical sense; organisms select
environments, in a less metaphorical sense. Creatures seek
out corners that please them most, that suit them best; and
this selective agency on the creature's part has been one of
the conditions of that advance from lower to higher forms
which has puzzled so many.

" Thus — even if there were no natural selection of vari-
ations fortuitously occurring, and even if there were no
struggle for subsistence, still — the will to live, the sponta-
neous restriction of each individual to so much of the common
environment as evokes reaction by its hedonic effects (with the
increasing adaptation and adjustment that will thus ensue),
and, finally, the pursuit of betterment to which satiety urges
and novelty prompts,— these conditions, really implying no
more than the most rudimentary facts of mind, will account
for definite variations to an apparently unlimited extent"
(Naturalism and Agnosticism, T, 1899, p. 229).

528 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

There is little knowledge as yet in regard to variations
which arise in response to environmental stimuli, and as to
modifications which result from changed environmental in-
fluence we do not know that they are transmissible, so that
the importance of subjective selection may not be so direct as
Professor Ward supposes. But its importance may be great
if the organism picks out comers in which it can use its
individual peculiarities most effectively, where it can give
them a chance, where it can test them, where it can gain
elbow-room for having more. Needless to say in attributing
importance to the animal's selection of environment, we must
walk warily. Professor Ward says that ^' in subjective selec-
tion there is nothing metaphorical ", but we have to make
sure in each case that there is really selection, in which the
organism feels and wills and knows. In a green environ-
ment a spider-crab masks itself with green Algae, but it will
do this without guidance from its brain. If when covered
with borrowed livery of green it be transferred to an aqua-
rium half green, half red, it always goes to the green half.
If its livery be red seaweed, put on in a red environment,
it will go to the red half. But we must not say very much
about the choice being consciously related to the disguise,
for a crab that has lived for a while in a green environment
is always positively susceptible to green, and will always
go to the green side even with no disguise on.

It is probable that personal agency has operated in cases
among big-brained animals where there has been a drastic
change of habit and habitat. Thus Alfred Russel Wallace
referred with reasonable admiration to the water-ouzels or
dippers. These well-known birds are relatives of wrens,
with very short wings and tail, and very dense plumage.
They frequent, exclusively, mountain streams in the northern

MIND IN EVOLUTION 529

hemisphere; they fly under water; they walk along the bed of
the torrent; they are continually ininiersed without gettiug
wet. Doubtless the habit was gradually perfected, but it
is difficult to escape the view that the dippers showed more
than physiological endeavour in utilising their variations in
reference to the extraordinary change of life which they
illustrate. To some extent they probably selected the " va-
cant place" in Nature which they have won. For here '' we
have a bird, which, in its whole structure, shows a close af-
finity to the smaller typical perching birds, but which has
departed from all its allies in its habits and mode of life,
and has secured for itself a place in nature where it has
few competitors and few enemies " (Darwinism, 1889, p.
117).

There is another promiseful line of inquiry, — to study
among animals with complex brains any unusual devices
which are not part of the ordinary routine of the creatures'
life nor absolutely necessary for the survival of the race.
It is desirable to exclude, in the first instance, all devices
which fall into these two categories, lest we be misled by
extraordinary instinctive capacities, which, at any rate, are
not so clever as they look. The cases we are thinking of
may be illustrated by the way rooks and gulls lift exposed
cockles and mussels in their bills and allow them to fall from
a height on the hard shingle so that the shells are broken
and the flesh made available. It is very unlikely that the
device was thought out; but it is probable that the birds in
telligently took advantage of a hint which a chance fall
afi'orded.

A third line of evidence may perhaps be found in persist-
ent endeavour towards a distant goal. There is a kind of
vital inertia that admits of physiological explanation. A

530 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

plant goes on growing up to a certain limit, and this may
be for a time accelerative, as in the case of a green leaf,
which utilises more and more matter and energy the larger it
grows. The almost ceaseless movements of relatively simple
creatures, like jellyfishcs, or of more complex creatures like
water-mites, or of still more complex forms like fishes, may
illustrate this organic inertia. Perhaps not very much higher
is the way in which a burrowing beetle-larva will eat on and
on with little or no interruption under the bark of the tree,
until its constitution begins to change and it becomes a pupa
just below the surface. The degree of conation (if any) that
may be reasonably assumed in such cases, must remain at
present a matter of opinion. But organic momentimi or
perseverance proves inadequate when there is persistent, yet
interrupted, co-ordination of activities towards a distant
result. The following interesting case is quoted by Professor
Hobhouse (Mind in Evolution, 2nd Ed., 1915, p. 80).

" A sandhopper is feeding amongst seaweed and a crab
approaches behind a clump of weed; which he uses as
^ cover \ There was a distance of about eight inches be-
tween the two animals, which the crab had to cross without
alarming his victim. Presently he left his cover, and, crouch-
ing down, crept towards the sandhopper. When he had got
about half-way, the sandhopper stopped eating, and turned
towards the crab, which immediately disappeared in the sand.
Presently the sand rose nearer the sandhopper, the crab re-
appeared, took a stealthy step or two towards the victim, and
then sprang upon him. There are here a succession of acts
of diverse character — watching, stealthy creeping, hiding,
and pouncing, all brought into operation as the case
required.'^ . . . Here is a series of sensori-motor acts ad-
justed from moment to moment, not to a series of simple

MIND IN EVOLUTION 531

sense stimuli, but to the changing phases of a complex situa-
tion. Is not this beyond physiologically explicable inertia
or momentum ?

Those who believe that the only realities are objective
physical things and processes (the monistic panhylists) are
of course aware of the behaviour of the higher animals, but
they regard this as purely objective, leaving consciousness
out. Against this view many objections may be urged; Mr.
W. P. Montague states four (1912, p. 271). (1) We can be
conscious of our behaviour. ^' But if behaviour is itself
consciousnesSj there seems nothing left in terms of which
we can define the consciousness of behaviour." (2) '' Be-
haviour is always a movement or chain of movements in
space either of the organism as a whole or of something in
the organism, such as neural current. But the square root
of minus one of which we are conscious is not a bodily move-
ment, nor is our consciousness of the life of Julius Caesar."
(3) '^ All that is visible or profitably observable as behaviour
relates to movements, with which it is physiologically impos-
sible for consciousness to be identified or even directly cor-
related. For physiology teaches us that consciousness
depends upon, or is immediately and directly bound up with
neural currents which are always intra-organic, if not intra-
cortical." (4) " Finally, consciousness does at each moment
of a train of conscious behaviour have for its contents past
incidents of the behaviour that are no longer and future
incidents that are not yet." In short, it seems impossible
either to get rid of consciousness,— a strange ' psychophobia \
or to define it in terms of any objective process.

What is implied in saying that the mind counts in be-
haviour? What distinguishes an a6c-process, in which mind
operates, from an a6-process, such as a simple reflex action,

532 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

which may be called purely physiological ? The clearest
answer that we know to this question has been given by
Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan (1915, p. 10). ''The c-factor is
not mere awareness. It is always pre-awareness. It is
always awareness which, by however little, forestalls the
coming event ; always in a measure anticipatory ; always rep-
resentative of that the like of which may follow in sensory
presentation. It is always this at its very lowest level ; and
at its highest level it is this developed into definite and
distinct prevision of ends, thus rising to the fully teleological
status. Furthermore its presence or absence, as criterion of
mind, is not only a speculative problem but one of inference
based on evidence afforded by observation. When an or-
ganism profits by experience, as we say, — "when for example
a chick avoids nauseous caterpillars after (and only after)
seizing their like in its bill, — we may infer pre-awareness
of what is, or may be, just coming in further presentation.
This is our c-factor in an early phase of development ; and
even at this early stage the study of behaviour may afford
evidence from which its presence or absence may be inferred.'^
" What, then, does such pre-awareness imply ? It implies

(1) the prior occurrence of direct awareness of like nature;

(2) the retention of some change of structure associated with
such direct awareness; (3) the revival of awareness in rep-
resentative fashion; and (4) the time-precedence of this
revival to the occurrence of like awareness in sensory pres-
entation. If, for example, a chick has pre-awareness of the
taste-meaning of the lady-bird it sees, there must have been
prior awareness of live insects as nauseous ; the effects of that
prior awareness must be structurally retained; the meaning
must be functionally revived ; and this must ^ prevent ' —
both in the older and in the more modern sense of this word

MIND IN EVOLUTION 533

— the recurrence of the nauseous taste in sensory presenta-
tion. It is this prevention which renders p re-awareness
effective in the guidance of behaviour."

Now, if this view, so clearly expressed by one of the
founders of comparative psychology, be correct, we get two
flashes of light on the problem of the evolution of ' mind '.
While no suggestion can be offered as to the first emergence
of the psychical factor — say the pre-awareness of meaning
within a sphere of interest — we may find a pre-condition of
it in the physiological capacity of registration and retention
which has been recognised as one of the characteristics of
organisms. And secondly, in the minute structure of the
brain (notably the cerebral cortex) of higher animals there
is what may be called an appropriate anatomical basis.
That is to say, there is a ^ loop-line ' system, in which in-
hibiting or controlling cells intervene between the receptive
or sensory centres receiving sense-impressions and the effec-
tor or motor centres commanding action. As Prof. Lloyd
Morgan tersely puts it, ^' We are now in a position to
characterise our a&c-process as that of loop-lines whereon
pre-aw^areness, prospective meaning, or prevision of ends,
intervenes between the sensory presentation and the re-
sponse" (1915, p. 12).

Very suggestive of mentality are some of the variations
in play-instincts as exhibited by kittens, puppies, kids, lambs,
and the like. Mr. Hamerton describes the diversity of games
exhibited by his young goats, one succeeding another when
a new suggestion was made. A psychological element is
surely hinted at in cases which seem to the observer like
sham-hunts or sham-fights, but it is not the old-established
forms of play that seem to us most significant, for they are
instinctive. We see more interest in novelties. Thus Dr.

534. THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

Levick gives a graphic description of a pastime among
Adelie penguins in the Far South. They would board an
ice-floe until it could hold no more, and get carried by the
tide to the lower end of the rookery, where every bird would
suddenly jump oif and swim back against the stream to
catch a fresh floe and get another ride down.

A digger-wasp coming to its burrow with a paralysed
spider has been seen to place its booty in the fork of a plant
away from the ants. Another has been seen to grip a small
stone and use it to beat down the earth over its burrow.
Forel's ants brought from Alegeria, where they have open
doors to their nests, began to close them with pellets when
they were bothered by visitors of other species. Very sug-
gestive also of awareness are some of the normal changes
in instinctive behaviour. Thus some woodpeckers bring
their young first seeds, then partly opened cones, then com-
plete cones.

The scientific mind is almost morbidly afraid of being
too generous; but common sense recoils from making the
world magical. Thus it is well known that instinctive be-
haviour often changes greatly with the state and situation
of the organism, and it is usual to give physiological explana-
tions of the change. We often doubt if these physiological
explanations are adequate until we supplement them with
Prof. Lloyd Morgan's view that instinct is ^' organic be-
haviour suffused with awareness ". Speaking of the i^oddy
Tern, Prof. J. B. Watson wi'ites : '^ Before the egg is laid
the birds are timid and will fly up at the slightest dis-
turbance. After the egg is laid the birds become exceedingly
bold. They will fiercely attack the encroachment of any
other bird and will even attack the human intruder. A
large number of the birds will actually sit on the nest and

MIND IN EVOLUTION 535

allow themselves to be removed bodily from it before offer-
ing to fly." . . . The egg is kept constantly covered.
'' They turn it round and round with the beak; they go to
the water to wet the breast feathers to keep it moist; they
shove one another aside, when the shifts are made, without
exposing the egg for any length of time." When we are
dealing with a big-brained effective organism like a Tern
we cannot help feeling that the description does not lose in
scientific accuracy by allowing a modicum of awareness.

Another way in which some degree of intelligence may
have evolutionary import is in connection with habit-forming.
Many of the higher animals are born with very imperfect
capacities, but they eke this out by the rapid acquisition of
habits. Given an imperfect pecking-capacity, the adapta-
tion may become perfect by habituation. Now we do not
suppose that all habit-forming implies mental processes, but
we maintain that some do, namely those which involve an
appreciation of the situation. It is said that batting and
bowling are hard intellectual exercises, involving a multitude
of rapid judgments. So it may be with some vitally im-
portant habits of animals; and survival is with the edu-
cable.

Some interesting data bearing on our problem may be
obtained from a study of what may be called conventions
among social animals. Taking penguins again, a case where
independent observers confirm one another, we find that the
early incubatory task is very arduous, involving in the Adelie
penguin a minimum total abstinence from food of about
eighteen days and a maximum of twenty-eight. Later on,
the two parents relieve one another at frequent intervals,
and they have a good deal of what looks like ' fun '. To
get more time without leaving the young birds to be killed

536 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

bj skuas or by ' hooligan ' cocks (idle bachelors and wicked
widowers) the parents " pool their offspring " in groups,
which are left in charge of a few conscientious philo-progeni-
tive persons (there is great individuality among the members
of the penguinery), who ward off the skuas and do their best
to keep the chicks from straying. The holidaying parents
bring food at intervals — when their conscience smites them
— and they remain loyal to their own creclies. If a story like
this stood alone we would think that tbe generous interpreta-
tion we have hinted at was mistaken, but there are a great
many stories of this sort, so many that the apsychic theory
of the laboratory-naturalists begins to appear like a super-
stition.

Living creatures are often treated too generously, for they
are extraordinarily limited in many ways. This is peculiarly
true when instinctive capacities are strong. With different
individuals of the now extinct Passenger Pigeon, Professor
Whitman made the simple experiment of removing the eggs
a few inches outside the nest. The bird returning sat down
in the nest as if nothing had happened ; seemed to feel dimly,
however, that something was wrong; she missed something,
she knew not what, for she showed no interest in the two
eggs lying within reach ; after a few minutes she flew away.
Of course we must not be too hard on her, for even rational
social personalities sometimes behave in a quite extraor-
dinarily stupid way when their routine is disturbed.

But our recognition of the limitedness that often marks
the animal must not be allowed to become an obsession, and
we venture to think that there is a good deal to be said for the
common-sense view which credits the big-brained type, where
instincts are not dominant and where educability is well-
marked, with the analogues of our perceptual inference, our

MIND IN EVOLUTION 537

simpler emotions and affective states, and our desires and
volitions.

If birds, for instance, have no genuine jojousness, they
make at times such an extraordinarily good imitation of it,
that a statement of the apsychic theory gives one a disagree-
able impression — that if this be accurate, then we are living
in a conjuring show.

" 'Tis the merry nightingale
That crowds and hurries and precipitates
With thick fast warble his deUcious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all his music."

Is this good poetry and bad science ? Is the joyousness
only in '' the raptured ear of men ", or has the nightingale
really a full soul ?

The critic says: But if the nightingale, why not also
the cricket and other insect-instrumentalists? Perhaps the
best answer would be ^^ Why not?"; but we are inclined
rather to point out that the bird has a highly developed
brain, not on the same line or level as that of higher mam-
mals, but still a fine ^ big brain ', which may be reasonably
credited with the possibility of a stream of ' inner life '
fuller than is likely to flow in any representative of the ' little-
brain ' line of evolution.

The critic again intervenes, pointing out that these nerve-
storms of excitement are due to the liberation of internal
secretions, and that they may be induced by injections and
by dieting. That of course is the physiologist's business,
to work out the series of metabolic happenings; but our point
is that in the cases which are experimentally open to us,

538 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

namely ourselves, we know that a physical event, — such as
the receiving of good news, — will, we cannot explain how,
except on the unity-of-the-organism theory or symbolism,
set in motion a series of physico-chemical and vital processes,
complex beyond the ken of the wisest.

There is another line of evidence of a particularly in-
teresting kind, that obtainable from the records of trained
animals. A dog may exhibit remarkable ability in doing
certain things in response to words. Speaking from where
he could not be seen in a room in the Johns Hopkins Labora-
tory, Mr. Dixie Taylor said to his dog Jasper, ^^ Go to the
next room and bring me a paper lying on the floor." The
dog went and executed the command ; it appeared to have
an associative memory for about a hundred words. Prof.
J. B. Watson, a tough-minded behaviourist, ends his chapter
on " The Limits of Training in Animals " by saying ^' the
behaviour laboratories must be prepared to admit that the
sympathetic upbringing of animals in the home, where they
are thrown into constant contact with human beings, does
produce in them a certain complex type of behaviour for
which the laboratory concepts, as they now exist, are in-
adequate to supply explanation ".

A terrier was allowed in the dining-room, where it some-
times received a bone from the table. The convention was
that the door was at once opened for it when it sought exit
with the bone in its mouth. It disdained bread. One
evening it heard barking outside. It had, however, on that
occasion no bone. It snapped up a piece of bread and made
for the door. When it was opened, it dropped the bread
and ran out to join its fellows (McCabe, Evolution of
Mind, p. 222).

Professor Whitman once said that he had studied pigeons

MIND IN EVOLUTION 539

for so many years that he got as far inside their heads as it
was possible to go without metempsychosis; and it is probable
that a reliable appreciation of the depth of animal life may
he got by making a sympathetic study of some suitable an-
imal like dog or horse. For there we meet with something
approaching our own personality, which leads us on just as
our mother's personality did in most momentous ways long
ago. The animals also may become aware in new ways of
our personality and send out tendrils of intelligence and emo-
tion which are impossible in ordinary circumstances.

Lastly, may we notice once again the risk of concentrating
attention on reflexes, tropisms, instincts, predispositions,
habituations. If we have read the story aright it is part of
the tactics of evolution to increase organisation or enregistra-
tion so that freedom may be more worth while. How in-
accurate might be a parsimonious account of the intellectual
value of the daily routine of a very methodical worker.
Only in flashes does the intelligence or the reason gleam out
convincingly. We should look out for such flashes in animal
life. We see one when a wounded dog, being dressed, checks
a bite and turns it into a caress.

Was Hume ironical when he said, " No truth appears to
me more evident than that beasts are endowed with thought
and reason as well as men. The arguments are in this case
so obvious that they never escape the most stupid and ig-
norant." The fact is that it is peculiarily difficult to find
evidences of thinking among animals. We cannot find an
objective criterion of intelligence; we have to rely on the
treacherous argument from analogy. Yet how are we to
establish a contact between our mind and a bird's or to find
a common denominator between our behaviour and a hive-
bee's? We are faced with the dangers of fanciful anthropo-

540 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

morphism on the one hand and false simplicity on the other.
Perhaps we should rest satisfied in the meantime with a
general cumulative impression. Certainly we should avoid
staking any conclusion on particular cases. We must try
to refrain from Lo Here ! and Lo There ! One of the most
beautiful things in the world is the dawning of feeling and
thinking in a child; it is like the coming of spring. But
how impossible it is to punctuate. Similarly we must hesi-
tate as to the boundary lines in Animal Evolution between
behaviour which can be adequately described physiologically
and that which requires the use of subjective terms if we are
to do it justice. Perhaps it does not matter very much, for
the organism as we know it is a unity; never only body,
never only mind. Our knowledge is not sufficient yet to
allow us to say, except in a few cases, when it is acting more
as a body-mind and when more as a mind-body. But what
seems important in our interpretation of Animate Nature
is the cumulative evidence that in organisms also there is
a flow of inner life, though it be but a slender rill as
compared with our full stream.

There is something to be said, too, if we believe in continu-
ity of evolution. Enthralled as many weak or oppressed
human lives are, there is ample experience of self-determina-
tion, and, after all, the most potent force in the world may be
a new idea. Now, inclined as we are to emphasise man's
apartness, we feel the extreme improbability of the view that
in the animal world, with which he is solidary, mind does
not count. In plain words, the apsychic view is outrageous.

SUMMARY.

As we follow the main Une of animal evolution we see behaviour
becoming more complicated and masterly, more like our own. There

MIND IN EVOLUTION 541

is evidence of a rill of inner life growing into a stream, i.e., there
is much that we cannot fully describe in purely physiological terms,
there is an increasing difficulty in describing what we see without
using psychological terms. This proposition can be discussed apart
from any theory of the mind-body ' relation \ It must be noted that
it is very difficult for Man to get mentally near the lower animals,
whose mental stream is probably in greater part pre-intellectual,
more conative than cognitive.

(a) In the evolution of behaviour a starting-point may be found
in the restless tentative movements of Unicellular Animalcules, not
far removed from internal automatic movements, (b) Gradually
there is established a capacity for reacting in a uniform way to
frequently recurring stimuli, (c) The next step is the pursuance
of a trial and error method, one reaction being given after another,
until, it may be, one relieves the stimulation, (d) The main line
is represented by such behaviour as an amoeba exhibits when on the
hunt, and this is continued into the sensori-motor experimentation
and co-ordination of acts exhibited by ganglionless animals like
starfishes, (e) The establishment of a nervous system opened up
the possibility of another kind of automatisation, — that of reflex
actions and tropisms. (/) The main line is continued in experi-
mental behaviour at a higher level, where there is definite evidence
of * learning ', where the creature utilises its own experience to
compass an end which is not necessarily immediate, (g) The im-
provement of the brain opened up the possibility of another kind
of hereditary organisation — that seen in instinctive behaviour.
There is a hereditary awareness of the practical significance of cer-
tain configurations and an impulsion to an effective routine which is
in some measure independent of practice. Instinctive and experi-
mental (sometimes intelligent) behaviour are often mingled, some-
times the one element predominates, sometimes the other, {h) The
main line is continued into intelligent behaviour, implying experi-
mentation and perceptual inference. Of this in the individual
lifetime there may be habituation, {i) The climax is in Man's
rational conduct, implying conceptual inference and rational pur-
posefulness.

The general feature of the whole evolution is that organisation
or automatisation is effected at stage after stage, so that the organ-
ism is able to push on less embarrassed. The general result seems
to be a growing emancipation of mentality— growing evidence of a
subjective aspect over and above ordinary activities.

542 THE EVOLUTION OF MIND

According to the extreme meclianistic schools, behaviour is, or will
be, thoroughly explicable in physiological terms, i.e., in protoplas-
mic terms, i.e., in physico-chemical terms. Even Man is but an
" adaptive mechanism ", we are told by a physiological authority,
' who enumerates, however, among the functions of the mechanism
" the fabrication of thought " — including the concept of " adaptive
mechanism ". But this view is a contradiction in terms theoretically,
and a contradiction of common-sense practically. On the apsychic
theory, that mind does not count, we may make much of horse and
dog, but certainly not the most. In man's everyday life (apart
from contemplation, imagination, aBsthetic emotion, hard thinking,
and the like), there is familiar evidence of the efficiency of mind
in coping with novel difficulties, in anticipating a rarely occurring
risk, in the purposeful correlation of acts towards a distant end, in
the influence of affective states (such as joy) on the functions of
the body, and so on. Of similar efficiency among animals there is
presumptive evidence.

The further question is whether mind has practically counted in
Animate Evolution. Some have answered that mind is not in any
degree a vera causa in evolution. Others that mind is the essential
driving force in all evolutionary change. But a middle position
seems more defensible.

There is a physiological driving force in organisms, and in many
cases they are body-minds rather than mind-bodies. But the evolu-
tionary efficiency of mind is seen among animals in the search for
suitable environments, in intelligent Life-favouring devices, in per-
sistent endeavour towards a distant goal, in training the young,
in the conventions of social life, in the impelling influence of emo-
tions, and in many other cases. Cunning has been more of a
factor than luck.

LECTURE XVII.
NATURE CROWNED IN MAN.

LECTURE XVII.
NATURE CROWNED IN MAN.

§1. Differentiation and Integration as Standards of Progress.
§ 2. The Probable Phytogeny of Man. § 3. Maw's Solidarity
with the Primate Stock. § 4. Man's Unique Position. § 5.
Factors in the Ascent of Man. § 6. Human Fyvolution Con-
trasted with Animal Evolution. § 7. In What Sense May It
Be Said that Nature Is Crowned in Man?

§ 1. Differentiation and Integration as Standards of

Progress.

The genealogical tree of animals is like a great candela-
brum, whose branches arise at different levels, but reach
at their terminations to approximately equal heights, if
height be estimated by elaborateness of structure and cor-
relation of function. Except as regards brain, some details
of cardiac structure, and the absence of an ante-natal sym-
biosis between offspring and mother, the eagle is almost as
highly differentiated and integrated as Man. In skeleton,
locomotion, breathing system, and eyesight the eagle excels
the man, but it is on a different evolution-tack. Similarly,
the bee is on its own line hardly inferior; its sensory, nerv-
ous, muscular, and respiratory systems reach a very high
level. If organic evolution had stopped with insects it would
still have been a succession of achievements that angels
might desire to look into. The entomologist watches by the
most copious fountain of wonder in the world, — a well of
surprises for eye and intellect.

Why, then, is it agreed, by learned and simple alike, that

545

546 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

birds and mammals are the highest animals, since it is
difficult to show that they excel insects in differentiation and
integration, — the plummet and square with which we meas-
ure progress ? It cannot be that it is simply because thej
are superficially likest man, for birds are on an entirely
different line. The reason is that in birds and mammals
there is the fullest expression of what may be called the
general trend of evolution, and of what we hold as of supreme
value: (1) freedom, individuality, mastery of fate, a power
of triumphing over the inorganic, intelligent resourcefulness,
and (2) consciousness, possessed joyousness, satisfaction in
work and family. So as to Man, scientifically regarded, he
is the highest organism because of his all-round excellence
of differentiation and integration, and especially because he
has far and away the best brains. But on broader grounds
Man excels all masterpieces in the realm of organisms be-
cause in him there is the fullest expression of what evolution
seems to make for, and because he is Nature's only inter-
preter.

§ 2. The Prohahle Phylogeny of Man.

The story of the Ascent of Man as told us by an expert
like Prof. Arthur Keith is very impressive. During the
Early Eocene ages, perhaps three million years ago, when
grass was beginning to spread like a garment over the earth,
there emerged an arboreal race of Mammals, the Primates,
differentiated from other orders in digits and teeth, skull
and brain. From this stock there diverged in the Eocene,
first the New World Monkeys and then the Old World
Monkeys, leaving the main line (from our point of view)
none the worse, ^ons passed and the main stem, feeling
its way towards the light, gave off in the Oligocene the

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 547

branch of small apes (gibbon and sianiang) and later the
branch of large apes (gorilla, chiuipanzee, and orang). This
left, towards the end of the Oligocene (others would say in
the Miocene), a generalised humanoid stem, perhaps weaker
physically by the divergence of the apes, but probably depend-
ent more on wits than strength. According to Professor
Sollas's estimates this sifting out of the generalised human
stem occurred some two million years ago. Once we have
parted company with Archbishop Usher there is no use
haggling over a million less or more.

Ages passed, at all events, and from the humanoid stem
there diverged first of all Pithecanthropus the erect. It must
be confessed that we do not know much about him, whose
sparse remnants were found on the banks of the Bengawan
near Trinil in Central Java, but we get just a glimpse of a
being " human in stature, human in gait, human in all his
parts, save his brain ". The date was perhaps late Pliocene
or early Pleistocene, and there seems little doubt that Pithe-
canthropus belonged to a collateral humanoid stock, away
from the main line.

The same sifting-out process appears to have been repeated
time after time. It was in all probability in the Pliocene
that there took origin the Neanderthal species, which reached
its climax and passed away with apparent suddenness (like
aboriginal races to-day) in the Mousterian or middle Palteo-
lithic period. There is no doubt that in middle Pleistocene
Age, men of the Neanderthal type, quite distinct from those
of to-day, were widely represented in Europe, along with
woolly rhinoceros, mammoth cave-bear, ibex, bison, and
cave-hysena. He was a loose-limbed fellow, the Neandcr-
thaler, short in stature and of slouching gait, but a skilful
artisan, fashioning beautifully-worked flints with a character-

548 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

istic (Mousterian) style. He used fire; he furnished his dead
with an outfit for a long journey; he had a big brain. But
he had great beetling, ape-like eyebrow-ridges and massive
jaws, and he showed " simian characters swarming in the
details of his structure". Prof. William King, a quiet
worker at Queen's College, Galway, protested in 1864 against
Huxley's conclusion that the Neanderthal man was merely
an extreme variant of the modern type, and proposed to es-
tablish a new species, Homo neanderthalensis ; and this is
the view generally accepted to-day. It seems certain that,
although the Neanderthaler had many anthropoid features,
he was not a low type, that he had his own peculiar adapta-
tions and specialisations, and that he was not ancestral to
modern man. Indeed, men of the modern type seem to have
been in existence when the Neanderthal man was still living.
What may the Neanderthaler have thought of his own
species dwindling and another taking its place, — another
which he perhaps despised? What if there had been no
other ?

Again the story repeats itself, and there is a divergence
of another branch from the main human stem. We refer
to the early Briton of the Sussex Weald — the Piltdown skull,
one of the interesting discoveries of the beginning of the
twentieth century. There is abundant uncertainty, one must
admit, but the Piltdown skull perhaps dates from an early
phase of the Pleistocene or from a late phase of the Pliocene
epoch, perhaps half a million years ago. Its great interest
is its remarkable mixture, e.g., in teeth and jaws, of simian
and human characters. The anthropoid characters of the
mouth, teeth, and face, the massive and ill-filled skull, the
simian characters of the brain and its primitive and pre-
human appearance are held by Dr. Arthur Keith to justify

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 549

Dr. Smith Woodward's conclusion that the skull requires
the establishment of a new genus in the family Plominidae.
If so, it represents another sifting out, another blind alley,
another breaking of the mould in which a wonderful creation
was cast. For the early Briton of the Sussex Weald was
no ancestor of ours.

We must include in our conception of our race the fact
of solemn antiquity, and the fact that we had distant relatives
who came to nothing although possessed of very high qualities.
For one of the interesting conclusions at which Dr. Keith has
arrived, after painstaking reconstruction of the data, is that
the Piltdown brain was well within the modern human
standard of size. And this was at the Pleistocene period or
earlier, perhaps half a million years ago. " All the essential
features of the brain of modern man are to be seen in the
brain cast. There are some which must be regarded as
primitive. There can be no doubt that it is built on exactly
the same lines as our modern brain.''

" Although our knowledge of the human brain is limited
— there are large areas to which we can assign no definite
function — we may rest assured that a brain which was shaped
in a mould so similar to our own was one which responded
to the outside world as ours does. Piltdown man saw, heard,
felt, thought, and dreamt much as we do still. If the eoliths
found in the same bed of gravel were his handiwork, then
we can also say he had made a great stride towards that state
which has culminated in the inventive civilisation of the
modern western world" (Keith, 1915, p. 429). There is
something awe-inspiring in the fact of the coming and going
of tentative merir—oi Java, Neanderthal, and Piltdown—
who had their day and ceased to be, creatures not unlike
ourselves, but with more clay in their legs, our predecessors

550 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

but not our ancestors. Was Emerson thinking of this sort
of thing when he wrote;

" Thrice I have moulded an image,
And thrice outstretched my hand,
Made one of day, and one of night,
And one of the salt sea sand."

After the segregation of the branches represented by Pithe-
canthropus the erect, the slouching man of Neanderthal and
Heidelberg, and the fine-brained Piltdown man, there was
left the stem of modern man, which broke up in Pleistocene
times into African, Australian, Mongolian, and European
races. It is possible that the modern man type was dis-
tinguishable from collaterals a million years ago. If we
mean by the antiquity of man the time since he reached
what may be called the human standard in size of brain.
Dr. Keith's conclusion is that this was reached by the com-
mencement of the Pliocene period, which means over a mil-
lion years ago. When the evidence of flints is considered, the
tendency is to go further back still.

There may be errors in the conclusions of the authouities
whom we have followed, and the estimates of time are very
uncertain, but there is no great likelihood of errors which
will affect the general im^Dressions that alone concern us here.
The antiquity of man is on a grand scale. There is a solem-
nity in the patience of the age-long man-ward adventure which
has crowned the evolutionary process upon the earth. Three
million of years ago the Primate stem sent out its first tenta-
tive branches, and the result was a tangle of monkeys; a^ons
passed and the main stem, still probing its way, gave off the
Anthropoids, which certainly rise to great heights. There
was no pause, however, yet without hurry other experiments

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 661

were made, and the terminations of these we know at Trinil
and Heidelberg and Piltdown, for none of them lasted (^r
was made perfect. Still the main line goes on evolving—
and who will be bold enough to limit its insurgence ? Is
there a race of super-men implicit amongst us w^ho will, when
another half million years have sped, look back on us as
we on the early Troglodytes? In any case it seems, to say
the least, extremely difficult to look back on the sublime
spectacle of long-drawn-out trial and error, patience and
endeavour, and on the general progressiveness of the issue,
without the hypothesis (which other than scientific considera-
tions may make more than a hypothesis) of an inhcTcnt
purpose as the core of the world-process. But to suppose
that the purpose is fulfilled in us in particular, who arc but
stages in an evolving race, seems premature.

§ 3. Mans Solidarity with the Primate StocJc.

Zoology speaks with no uncertain voice in regard to Man's
affiliation to the Mammals. There is " an all-pervading
similitude of structure '', as Sir Richard Owen said, between
man and the anthropoid apes; his blood mingles harmoni-
ously with theirs ; he and they share certain diseases. More-
over, man is a walking museum of vestigial structures, which
prove his pedigree; and he is shot through with atavistic
proclivities. In his development he climbs, to some extent
at least, up his own genealogical tree. There is no doubt
at all that Man is solidary wnth the rest of creation. To
quote the closing words of The Descent of Man : '^ We
must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man,
with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for
the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only
to other men, but to the humblest living creature, with his

552 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

God-like intellect, which has penetrated into the movements
and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted
powers — man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible
stamp of his lowly origin."

The Psalmist felt Man's insignificance, " When I con-
sider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars which Thou hast ordained, — What is man ? '' Sub-
sequent astronomers from Copernicus onwards had taught
the same humbling lesson; but it was reserved for the
biologists to expose the pit whence Man had been digged,
and the rock whence he had been hewn by proving his
solidarity with mammals. But this is only one side of the
picture.

§ 4. Mans Unique Position.

Mankind has often had to pay for the realisation of a
great truth by temporarily losing grip of some other.
Dazzled by a new conclusion, we are blinded to an old one.
Thus, without being reactionary, we may ask whether we
have not paid heavily for the truth that is in Darwinism.
That truth, as regards Man, was the recognition of his
solidarity with the rest of creation, of his definite affiliation
to a primitive stock of Primate mammals, of his literal
blood-relationship to the relatively distant collateral stock
of Anthropoids. It has made the world more a universe
to have seen the worm, as Emerson said, mount through
all the spires of form, striving to be Man. It has given
a new significance to the realm of organisms, with all its
groaning and travailing, that the man-child glorious was
born of them, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh.
It has been a clearing of the eyes to know that much that
used to seem quite inexplicable and bitterly perplexing in

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 553

us is a succession tax on our inheritance, a lleii tbat the past
dwelling in us exacts. It has been a hearteuing- eiicuurage-
nient to know that it is an ascent, not a descent, that we
have behind us, and that if we read the story aright the
Cosmos is rather with us than against us. The recognition
of our solidarity with the realm of organisms has been of
great importance, and we cannot go back on it. Yet it
has perhaps blurred our appreciation of Man's apartness.

What, then, are the differentiating characteristics of Alan
that mark him as a being unique and apart? The bipedal
uprightness may have had something to do with human
speech, and there is undoubtedly interest in various structu-
ral peculiarities from chin to heel (taking both these words
with anatomical literalness), and from teeth to great toe,
but there is little that we can regard as decisive save the
size and complexity of the brain, of the cerebral cortex in
particular. No normal human subject has less than twice
the cranial capacity of say the orang or chimpanzee; the
average human brain weighs far more than twice the heaviest
gorilla brain. The closely convoluted cerebral cortex, about
a foot and a half square if folded out, is composed of some
9,000 millions of cells, and is the protoplasmic side of ]\ran*s
capacity for fonuing general ideas and experimenting with
them (in what we call reason), his power of rational dis-
course or language, his vivid self-consciousness of him-
self as a personality with a history behind him, and with
strong kin-instincts binding him for his own self-realisation
to his fellows.

We lose what Darwin has gained for us if we fail to
recognise that many animals seem to have a power of per-
ceptual (though probably not of conceptual) inference; that
many animals have words though they do not make sentences

554 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

(perhaps they would speak more if they had more to say) ;
and that there are animal societies at various levels' of dif-
ferentiation and integration. Rousseau's saying, '' Man did
not make society, Society made man ", may be taken to
cover the fact of pre-human anthropoid sociality. As Mr.
Hobhouse says, ^' We find the basis for a social organisation
of life already laid in the animal nature of man.'' But
allowing all this and more, we are constrained to admit
that Man stands to a remarkable degree apart, and that pre-
human evolutionary formula3 no longer quite fit.

The theromorphists, who see in Man only a bipedal mam-
mal, are wont to point to children, with their delicious
primitiveness of gait and speech, of manners and morals,
and with their largely pre-intellectual thought-stream in
which the world is " one great booming buzzing confusion " ;
but while such facts strengthen our conviction of Man's
affiliation with mammals, they do not aifect our impression
of his apartness when a fully developed personality.

We probably err, as Sir Arthur Mitchell never tired of
insisting, in dwelling too much on degraded savages, for
when we wish to get the truest appreciation of any type we
should study its fullest expression, and some at least of
the degraded savages are probably in process of retrogres-
sion, being the descendants of the under-par remnants of
tribes sifted or persecuted too severely. Furthermore, many
unsophisticated people take a good deal of knowing and are
not quick to lay bare their souls either to missionary or
scientific ethnologist.

But our point is the simple one that Man at his best —
who reasons and thinks about his thinking, who bends Nature
to his will, who seeks after the True, the Beautiful, and the
Good with all his heart and soul and strength — is a being

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 555

singularly apart. As Mr. Hewlett says in his Richard
Yea-and-Nay: '''Lord, what is man?' cried the Psalmist
in his dejection. 'Lord, what is man not?' cry we, who
know more of him ? "

As the ' self-made ' man is proud to show the cottage
where he was born, so generic man may take credit to him-
self in contrasting his present position with his ' humble
origin '. He must be very self-complacent, however, if he
has no feeling of gratitude in respect of — we cannot say to
— those simple creatures without whom he would be vet
more imperfect than he is. For while many know the handi-
cap of inherited animal passions sometimes asserting them-
selves all too vehemently, and of humbling atavisms that
come to the surface occasionally from the deep undercurrent
of the Unconscious, can there be forgetfulness of the plus
side of our inheritance, the deep instincts of kinship, of
mutual aid, of love, and of parenthood whose roots go far
back into the pre-human world. We must be very careful,
too, in inquiring into the accuracy of the statements that
are made in regard to what is supposed to be carried on
from mammals to men.

The truth lies between two extremes. It is erroneous,
on the one hand, to regard man as isolated and the great
exception, as " a moral Melchizedek, without father, without
mother ", and as one who to save his soul must combat the
^cosmic process'. For this overlooks the fact of solidarity,
and raises the gratuitous j)roblcm how a moral being can
have emerged from non-moral or immoral antecedents. Tt
is erroneous, on the other hand, and a fallacious blologism
to think that human evolution can be scientifically handled
without a recognition of Man as a rational and social per-
sonality, pre-eminent even on the average, at his best — and

556 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

then usually in the form of a woman — " a little lower than
the angels, crowned with glory and honour ". ^' What a
piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason ! How infinite
in faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable !
in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a
God ! "

§ 5. Factors in the Ascent of Man.

Of the factors in the establishment of human species we
are very ignorant, and even speculation has not much to
say. Sir Ray Lankester has called attention to the inter-
esting fact that in Miocene times there was a great increase
in the size of the brain in several mammal types, such as
the Elephants. This may have implied that differentiation
of the rest of the bodily system could not profitably go much
further. There may also have been some potent environ-
mental stimulation. The possession of a big brain meant
great power of profiting by experience, of ^ educability %
and it would seem that several hundreds of thousands of
years ago Man's brain was not far from the standard of
historical times, standing head and shoulders above the rest
of creation in resourcefulness. But what led to the big
brain we do not know. Was there a gradual summation of
small increments in intelligence and the like, — here a wrinkle
and there a wrinkle in the cerebral cortex, or was there a
brusque mutation such as is hinted at in the occasional
emergence, in the brief span of historical times, of geniuses,
like Aristotle, Archimedes, Shakespeare, and Newton? As
regards the big brain, it seems not unlikely that there is
shrewdness in Robert Chambers's suggestion that a pro-
longation of the ante-natal life may have had to do with
the big brain, just as the prolonged infancy, characteristic

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 557

of human offspring, would help in the growth of gontleness.
The lengthening of the period of gestation would not of
itself mean much in the way of racial advance unless we
believe that it could as it were repercuss on the germinal
organisation. But it would mean much if there was at the
same time a germinal variation in the direction of an en-
larged brain. Great importance, as we have seen, is to bo
attached to ^ temporal variations ^ which consist in altering
the ^ time ' of different periods in the life-cycle, lengthening
out here and shortening down there; and the prolongation
of youth, also characteristic of mankind and of many very
clever mammals, means, as Dr. Chalmers Mitchell has well
shown, giving time for breaking down instincts and replac-
ing them by remembered results of experiment, for proving
all things, for tentatives in self-expression. It is a significant
fact that ^^ Man's brain is only about one-fifth of its adult
weight at birth, that of the anthropoid is already two-thirds.
. . . By the end of the second year the human brain has
reached two-thirds of its adult size, it has then reached the
same relative degree of development that the anthropoid has
reached at birth " (Keith, The Human Body, p. 37).

Consideration must also be given to the possible result of
walking erect, of using sticks and stones, of making beds
and shelters, of living in families and co-operating socially,
of talking a good deal. And all these are illustrated among
Primates lower than Man. The Anthropoid Apes are not
social creatures, but it must be borne in mind that many
of the lower Primates are. There is the raw material ..f
social organisation at many a level among mammals, and
there are springs of good conduct, too, which no one need l)e
ashamed to have inherited.

We are ignorant of the factors in the ascent of "Man,

558 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

but we venture to regard Huxley's version of the probabilities
as one-sided. '^ In the case of mankind/' he wrote, " the
self-assertion, the unscrupulous seizing upon all that can be
grasped, the tenacious holding of all that can be kept, which
constitute the essence of the struggle for existence, have
answered. For his successful progress, as far as the savage
state, man has been largely indebted to those qualities which
he shares with the ape and the tiger ; his exceptional physical
organisation, his cunning, his sociability, his curiosity, and
his imitativeness, his ruthless and ferocious destructiveness
when his anger is roused by opposition." This requires to be
corrected by the facts Kropotkin has gathered to show the
importance of mutual aid, and by what we know of the
indispensableness of the prolonged maternal care and a meas-
ure of self-subordination. A clear note was struck by the
late Professor Weismann : '^ It is a perversion of the theory
of evolution to maintain, as many have done, that what is
merely animal and brutal must gain the ascendancy. The
contrary seems to me to be the case, for in man it is the
spirit, and not the body, that is the deciding factor." This
we regard as good science.

Not very much is known in regard to the factors in the
Ascent of Man ; but more is known than some agnostics or
anti-evolutionists will admit. In illustration of this we ven-
ture to refer for a little to the arboreal apprenticeship of
the Primates as studied by Dr. R. Anthony and Prof. F.
Wood Jones. A new door was opened when the foot became
the supporting and branch-gripping member, and the hand
was set free to reach upward, to hang on by, to seize the fruit,
to hug the young one close to the breast. The evolution of
a free hand made it possible to dispense with protrusive lips
and gripping teeth, and thus there began the correlated en-

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 559

largement of the brain-box and the bringing of the eyes to
the front. Another arboreal acquisition was a greatly in-
creased power of turning the head from side to side, and
many other changes were involved in backbone and collar-
bone, in chest and respiration, in hand and brain. " It is
the freed hand which is permitted to become the sensitive
hand, which now, so to speak, goes in advance of the animal
and feels its way as it climbs through life." (See F. Wood
Jones, Arboreal Man, 1916, and also ^' The Origin of Man "
in Zoology and Human Progress, 1919.)

§ 6. Human Evolution Contrasted with Animal Evolution.

It is interesting to inquire how evolution-processes in the
Kingdom of Man agree with and difPer from those in the
Realm of Organisms generally. The question is important
especially in reference to the view that human history is
not only continuous with, but is not more than a continuation
of animal evolution. For there is a present-day school who
maintain that sociology is only a department of zoolog}', and
that again of dynamics.

There is no doubt that the great facts of variation, modi-
fication, and heredity, and the operation of natural selection
and isolation are demonstrable in mankind. Albinism is a
human mutation, sunburning a human modification, night-
blindness a human Mendelian character, in certain diseases
there is discriminate mortality or natural selection, and vari-
ous clans illustrate the influence of isolation. Up to a certain
point all is with man as with animal.

The differentia becomes plain when we observe that Man
is aware of his own evolution and seeks to direct it according
to his ideals. There is no analogue among animals to de-
liberate selection based on a eugenic ideal. Rational selection

560 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

transcends natural selection. We cannot accept the sugges-
tion that selective processes in mankind are not exclusively
automatic as they are in Nature, for it is an essential part
of our argument that they are not wholly automatic in the
lower sphere. It was not indeed by taking thought that the
ancestors of leopards changed their spots so that their de-
scendants had a garment of invisibility when crouching in
the dappled light of the forest, but it may have been at least
horse-sense that led their descendants to form a habit of
choosing the places where the illumination suited them. We
have already argued that w^henever an animal takes an active
share in its own evolution, the process ceases to be wholly
automatic. What differentiates man is his attempt to con-
trol his evolution according to an ideal. A rational and some-
times an ethical note is sounded.

We may give another illustration of our meaning. Isola-
tion and consequent inbreeding have probably meant a good
deal in a purely biological way in fixing the dominant char-
acters of tribes and stocks. But the facts of history warrant
us in saying that it is a false simplicity to omit as a factor
in the unification, at least as important as the bonds of kin-
ship, the unanimism wrought out by a common hope or am-
bition. It is a fallacious biologism to think that human
evolution can be accounted for without a recognition of Man
as a rational and social personality.

The first reason why we cannot regard the history of
human societary forms as simply a continuation of infra-
human organic evolution is that in society we have to deal
with integrates which work as wholes apart from the func-
tion of the component individuals. An approximation to
this on the instinctive plane of evolution is to be found in
the bee-hive, in ant-hills, and in termitaries. A far-off hint

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 561

of it on the intelligent plane is to be found in the beaver
village and the band of monkeys.

Professor Mclver has argued very clearly that in man-
kind there are no individuals who are not social individuals,
and that a society is not other or more than the members
who compose it. The social relationships of every individual
are not outside him, they are aspects of his individuality.
There is no social function which is other than the functions
of personalities.

We agree that there is no mysterious entity which we
call a society, or a social integrate, or a societary form ; that
each is composed of a number of more or less like-minded
and like-bodied individuals. But we are inclined to think
that Mr. Maclver's recoil from a false antithesis between
society and the individual, leads to an under-appreciation
of the difference that social life makes. When men are
associated and organised and integrated, their corporate
behaviour does not follow as a matter of course from what
we know of them as individuals. There is a strange psychol-
ogy of the crov/d. The same holds true of animals, to whom
it is always a relief to turn. Termites sometimes go on
food-collecting forays, 300,000 in a vigorous band, about 200
soldiers to 1,000 workers. At critical places the soldiers form
a guard for the foragers ; they give signals, they act as scouts,
they keep or restore order. If they lose their presence of
mind and fall back among the workers there may be a panic.
Here, on an instinctive line, is social organisation, and our
point is simply that, when integrates of individuals act as
units of a higher order, a new complication is introduced.
This complication is necessarily much greater in mankind
where social tradition counts for much, and where the in-
tegrates, such as communities or nations, that now and again

562 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

rise to some glorious expression of unified life, are not com-
parable to species or to varieties of animals, but are united
by bonds quite different from those of blood-relationship.
Two nations at war are not closely comparable to two species
of animals in internecine competition, if we admit that there
are secure instances of this to be found. One difference is
that a nation is not a kin-unit as a species is, and another
difference is that the issue of the struggle depends in part
on extra-individual factors, such as wealth, and there are
other differences.

The second differentia concerns the nature of variations.
In the Realm of Organisms variations count only in so far as
they are continued in the germ-plasmic inheritance of de-
scendants. In the Kingdom of Man this is true as regards
organic qualities, but it is not true as regards the influence
of the movers and shakers of the world, nor as regards an-
other kind of societary variation, such as a sudden change
from an Imperial dynasty to a republic, or any re-organisa-
tion of institutions after disasters or clashes. In human
society extra-organismal variations bulk largely.

The third differentia is illustrated in the predominant role
of the social heritage. Eor racial progress in physique and
mental vigour what counts is the natural inheritance, the
germ-plasm. Eor societary progress in good will, in dis-
crimination, in adjustability, in appreciation of the beautiful
and so on, what counts is also the natural inheritance, but
of vast importance as well is the extra-organismal heritage,
the social heritage of literature and art, the folk-ways of
customs and tradition, the external registrations which we
call institutions.

The fourth differentia is to be found in the ethical quality
of certain forms of social selection, which sound a new note.

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 563

In ordinary affairs a feckless unreliable person wbo is very
idelightfiil in many ways, but cannot be trusted to keep
appointments, gets left automatically. Tbe traditions of
business-likeness, the social systematisations, make him im-
possible, and he is elbowed out as a failure. This is closely
comparable to the process in Nature by which a variant that
is incompatible with the external systematisations gets sifted
out. But there is in societv another and distinctive kind
of sifting which works potently for good and ill, where a
social ideal of some sort is defined, and organisations are
formed, both on the temporal and spiritual side, to realise
it. There is deliberate controlled selection and its instru-
ments are integrates, not individuals.

It seems, then, that in societary variations, apart from
those due to the great men; and in social extra-organisnial
heritage, apart from all germ-plasm; and in societary selec-
tion, apart from natural selection in society, new notes are
sounded, which forbid any false simplification of the facts,
which in sociology is called a biologism and in biology a
materialism.

Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter. There
are some who think human society is just a new edition
of the animal community or of the alleged animal gladia-
torial show, and ihey are wrong. There are others who
think human society is on a plane wholly apart, a little lower
than that of the angels, where all talk of germ-plasm and
other abominations of the breeding-pen is irrelevant, and

ilfiey are wrong.

The truth is between the two extremes, and the whole
truth has not yet been revealed. We have given atten-
tion to the contrast between organic evolution and social
history because inattention to such contrasts is the theo-

564 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

retical complement of fumbling and muddling in practical
affairs.

For practical purposes the most important feature of tlie
contrast we have been working at lies in the role that the
extra-organismal plajs in the history of human society, and
here we venture to quote a striking passage from a well-
known evolutionist, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, the secretary
of the Zoological Society of London.

We are familiar with Kant^s beautiful passage beginning:
'' Two things fill my mind with ever renewed wonder and
awe the more often and deeper I dwell on them — the starry
vault above me, and the moral law within me.''

'' We may well agree," says Chalmers Mitchell, " that the
starry vault is a supreme example of the reality and external-
ity of the physical universe. ... I assert as a biological
fact that the moral law is as real and as external to man
as the starry vault. It has no secure seat in any single
man or in any single nation. It is the work of the blood
and tears of long generations of men. It is not in man,
inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his
customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation
and sustenance are the crowning glory of man, and his con-
sciousness of it puts him in a high place above the animal
world. Men live and die; nations rise and fall, but the
struggle of individual lives and of individual nations must
be measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend
to the debasement or perfection of man's great achievement "
(1915, p. 107).

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 565

§ 7. In What Sense May It Be Said that Nature Is

Crowned in Man?

It may be said that Man is the outcome of a persistent
trend — towards freedom of mind — which has been charac-
teristic of the process of organic evolution for millions of
years. A Martian zoologist, on another line of life altogether,
would, we fancy, have said in his report on a scientific
expedition to our planet in Eocene times, that the Saurop-
sidan line of evolution had been crowned in the peopling of
earth and sky with a fascinating set of bipeds, of quaintly
engaging ways and consummate locomotion, with adorable
parental virtues and an extraordinarily high level of artistic
culture which seemed to be quite instinctive to every one
of them, and so pervasive that many of them could not per-
form the commonest offices of life, without investing them
with grace. He was reporting on Birds, of course.

But is it not justifiable, in an equally detached way, to
say of Man that he crowns one line of Mammalian evolution ?
He shows in notable excellence what his predecessors, both
direct and collateral, have moved slowly towards, — a large
and intricate cerebral cortex, a subtle integration of the
body, and a masterly resourceful behaviour.

We cannot suppose, with the scholars in the school of
* Naturalism ', that the only realities are those that Natural
Science deals with, but we are not sure that Mr. Arthur J.
Balfour is accurate when he speaks of Man being, according
to Naturalism, ''no more than a phenomenon among phe-
nomena, a natural object among other natural objects, hia
very existence an accident, his story a brief and transitory
episode in one of the meanest of the planets ". For even
from the position of ' naturalism ^ it does not seem justifiable

566 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

to call Man's ^' very existence an accident ". There may be
accidents in evolution, though we think there are few, but
they do not last for two millions of years. An ascent that
has probably occupied between two and three millions of
years is not well described as " a brief and transitory epi-
sode ". Man may have been the greatest of mutations, but
there is no scientific warrant for regarding him as a freak.
He is congruent with antecedent and collateral evolution to-
wards higher nervous organisation.

In the same way we cannot admit that Huxley was talking
good science when he insisted that Man's only chance of
ethical progress was to combat the cosmic process. He made
this antithesis because he saw in Nature a vast gladiatorial
show, a ubiquitous Ishmaelitism, every living creature for
itself and extinction taking the hindmost. He made man a
stranger in Nature by failing to appreciate adequately the
fact that throughout the struggle for existence in Nature
there is often a pathway to survival and success through
increased co-operation, kindness, and mutual aid, as well as
through increased competition and self-assertion. Along the
line of combination and mutual aid Man has made some
of his greatest advances, and this line was indicated, as it
were, by Nature to him.

We have already asked whether there is not an ethical
finger-post in Nature's strategy that the individual living
creature realises itself in its inter-relations, and has to sub-
mit to being lost that the welfare of the whole may be served.
There is much indeed to be said for the thesis (which Prof.
Patrick Geddes has maintained) that the ideals of ethical
progress — through love and sociality, co-operation and sacri-
fice, may be interpreted as the highest expressions of the cen-
tral evolutionary process of the natural world.

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 507

Taking a broader than scientific view, we recognise that
there are other ways in which it may be said that Nature
is crowned in Man. He is Nature's interpreter, rationalising
the whole. In him the inherent rationality of Nature, the
Logos, became articulate, and found, moreover, joyous appre-
ciation.

We cling to the Aristotelian doctrine of the End as the
philosophical explanation of what goes before. As Prof. A.
S. Pringle-Pattison puts it in his Gifford Lectures, ^' The
nature of a power at work in any process is only revealed
in the process as a whole. It is revealed progressively in
the different stages, but it cannot be fully and truly known
until the final stage is reached. . . . Now man is, from this
point of view, the last term in the series, and the world is
not complete without him." We are grateful for what seems
to us wise teaching, but we venture to suggest that in regard
to a race and an external heritage that may go on evolving
for millions of years to come it is premature to speak of
* final stage ' or ^ last term '.

SUMMARY.

There are in the Realm of Organisms many masterpieces, reach-
ing along diverse lines to approximately equal heights of differentia-
tion and integration. Thus many insects in their way attain to
extraordinary perfection. Yet no one hesitates in ranking birds
and mammals as much ' higher ^ This means that they excel in being
very highly differentiated and integrated, but also that they exhibit
the fullest expression of what the trend of evolution seems to make
for, namely, freedom, mastery, and joyous consciousness. We call
them " higher " for two objective reasons, but we colour these with
an appreciation of values.

With inconceivable slowness the evolving stock of Primates was
differentiated along distinct lines. New World monkeys, Old Wt)rld
monkeys, small anthropoids, and large anthropoids were in turn

568 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN

segregated off. The evolving human stem was further pruned by
the divergence of doomed races, — Pithecanthropus, Neanderthalers,
and perhaps the men of the Sussex Weald. It is perhaps a million
years since the human standard of brain was reached.

In Man's bodily structure there is an all-pervading similitude with
the higher Anthropoids ; his blood mingles harmoniously with theirs ;
he is a museum of relics in the form of vestigial structures and he
is shot through with atavistic proclivities; in his development he
climbs up his own genealogical tree. Man is solidary with the
rest of creation.

On the other hand, Man is quite unique in his capacity for form-
ing and experimenting with general ideas or concepts (reason),
in his power of reasoned discourse (language), in his vivid con-
sciousness of himself as a personality with a history behind him
and with strong kin-instincts binding him for his own self-realisation
to his fellows. Man is apart from the rest of creation.

Of the factors in the establishment of human species we are very
ignorant. A great increase in brain capacity, implying marked
educability, perhaps arose as a mutation, as genius does still.
Perhaps a temporal variation, implying a prolongation of ante-
natal life, infancy, and childliood, was of importance. Also to be
considered are the results of arboreal life, of the emancipation of
the fore-limb, of walking erect, of using sticks and stones, of
building shelters, of living in families, of talking a good deal — and
all these began in Primates lower than Man. Furthermore, there
were a good many experiments in social organisation prior to Man.

Human history, though continuous with, is more than a continua-
tion of animal evolution. Man is a rational and social personality,
understanding something of his own evolution and seeking to have
a hand in it, directing it in reference to an ideal. When the
factors in social history are compared with those of organic evolu-
tion, great differences appear. In society we have to deal with
integrates which work as units, in a manner which cannot be ade-
quately described in terms of the functions of the component in-
dividuals. In social evolution enormous importance attaches to the
extra-organismal, — to societary variation, to the social heritage, and
to deliberate social selection by social methods.

In what sense may we say that Nature is crowned in Man? He
is the outcome of a persistent trend towards dominance of mental-
ity, and he carries this to finer issues. Man cannot be regarded
as * accidental ' or * episodic ' ; he is the outcome of a long-eon-

NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 669

tinued orthogenesis. Man is Nature^s interpreter, rationalising
the whole. In him the Logos became articulate, and found, more-
over, joyous appreciation. To Man also it has been given in an
extraordinary degree to control Nature's operations for his own
purposes. He has often put more meaning into Nature by master-
ing it.

LECTURE XVIII.
DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS.

LECTUEE XVIII.
DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS.

§1. Difficulties in the Way of a Religious Interpretation of

Animate Nature. § 2. Extinction of Highly Specialised Types.

§3. Imperfect Adaptations. §4. Disease. §5. Parasitism.

§ 6. Cruelty of Nature. § 7. Senescence and Death. § 8.

Apparent Wastefulness. § 9. J. Balanced View.

§ 1. Difficulties in the Way of a Religious Interprctalian

of Animate Nature.

SciEx^CE has strictly to do with the operations which go
on in Nature. It may legitimately inquire, indeed, into the
purposes that prompt the efforts of the higher animals, or
into the means by which certain results have been achieved,
but it has not to do "with the problem of the meaning of Evo-
lution. Metaphorically we have occasionally spoken of the
tactics of Nature, notably the great trial and error method
of Natural Selection, but we confess that this is leaving
strictly scientific terminology. And if the metaphor of
^ tactics ^ be allowed to pass, we must not offend by speaking
of strategy. Yet as rational beings we insist on pushing be-
yond science to a more all-round or synoptic view which in-
quires into the significance of things and of organic evolution
in particular. That organic evolution has led on to ^fan
is certain — the only known organism to understand it a
little; the general trend of organic evolution is integrative
and towards what at our best we value most — goodness,
beauty, and the health that leads to truth; there is, we main-
tain, a scientifically demonstrable progressiveness : these and

573

574 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

other considerations give us what we may call a scientifically
justified expectancy of discovering significance. But it is
through other paths of experience that men come to believe
— if they have the will to believe — in there being a strategy
behind evolution, which is partly what believing in God
means. Given, in other than scientific experiences, some con-
viction of an increasing purpose, ultimately spiritual in con-
tent, the question rises whether the state of affairs in Ani-
mate Nature and the way in which this has come about is
congruent with a religious interpretation.

We repeat that a scientific survey of the system of which
we form a part cannot prove anything as to the significance
of the whole ; that is certainly not its metier; yet it is legiti-
mate to ask whether the impressions afforded by the scientific
survey are consistent with regarding Nature as the expression
of a Divine Thought or Purpose. But it is often said that
this consistency can be recognised only by those who are will-
ing to ignore the seamy side of things. Let us therefore
face some of the disharmonies and shadows.

§ 2. Extinction of Highly Specialised Types.

One of the shadows which cannot be ignored is the lack
of plasticity in highly specialised types. The physical world
is changeful, in climate, in weather, in surface-relief, and
there are many living creatures which are unable to change
with it. They have gone too far to tack, and they perish.
Adaptations to novel conditions abound, but the over-special-
ised are sometimes victims of their own perfection. Many
types of great excellence have thus passed away without leav-
ing any direct descendants. The graceful Graptolites, the
robust Trilobites, the highly specialised Eurypterids, the
great Labyrinthodonts, Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, and the

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 575

Pterodactyls that could fly, are such lost races, not continued
into other stocks, wonderful achievements, but lacking in
plasticity. As the palaeontologist Marsh said, the epitaph of
the Iguanodon might be, ''I and my race died of over-
specialisation '', and he might have added ^ and stupidity',
for there was not in these ancient giants the intellectual re-
sourcefulness which we see in the still more specialised mod-
ern birds who can adapt themselves to many a drastic change.
We must admit that the extinction of splendidly perfect
types raises strange thoughts. What can one say save that
every art is limited by its medium, and that here the medium
is twofold, the inorganic and the organic? The inorganic
world is the grindstone on which life has been whetted, and
it cannot become a soft cushion. An environment without
vicissitudes might have meant an unprogressive fauna and
flora of jelly fishes and seaweeds. Against the callousness
of the inorganic domain, moreover, we should remember,
though with dread of a circular argument, the other fact that
the physical conditions are singularly well suited to be a home
of living creatures. Moreover, the lack of plasticity in or-
ganic structure is the minus side of that stability which
marks the journey-work of millennia. What is stable cannot
also be labile. Furthermore, some of the gains of lost races
may be continued on collateral lines.

§ 3. Imperfect Adaptations,

Another shadow is the existence of imperfect adaptations.
These are of two kinds. Eirst, there are established arrange-
ments which work well on the whole, but now and again
break down or miss the mark, as is the case with tro])isnis
and instincts that are in ninety-nine situations adaptive, but
in the hundredth suicidal. The crepuscular moth, unaccus-

576 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

tomed to light, flies into the candle, and the lemmings on the
inarch seeking new territory swim out into the North Sea
and are drowned in thousands. But the most keen-scented
discoverer of disharmonies or ^ djs-teleologies ' will surely
not suggest that organisms should be adapted for unusual
exigencies rather than for the routine of daily recurrence.
Even when there are adaptations to peculiar exigencies, as
we see in the surrender of damaged parts and their regroAvth,
these exigencies are of frequent recurrence.

There are instances, however, of structures that do not
seem to work so well as we have got into the way of expect-
ing from organisms. Thus attention has often been directed
to the cumbersome twenty feet of intestine with which man
is burdened without corresponding compensation. It may
be doubted, however, whether much of a case can be made
of any of man's disharmonies, since he is evidently in process
of rapid change of habits. An organism originally adapted
to feed when he could rather than when he would, must not
complain too loudly if he is not perfectly adapted for abso-
lutely punctual and well-proportioned meals.

In the case of some trees which spread their roots horizon-
tally at a slight depth it not infrequently happens during a
storm that the pressure of the wind on the branches causes
a strain too great for the roots to stand. The tree falls,
though in perfect health. This violent death reveals an
undoubted imperfection, but it also shows how physical con-
ditions eliminate such subtle defects as lack of proportion
between spread of sail and strength of mast.

§ 4. Disease,

Those who would arraign Nature on the charge of tolerat-
ing disease may be almost dismissed from court. For, apart

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 677

from parasites and senescence, there is almost no disease
in wild I^ature. Should a pathological variation arise, and
that seems a rarity, it is eliminated before it takes grip. Dis-
ease in the system of Nature is a contradiction in terms. Con-
stitutional disease is the occurrence of a metabolism out of
place, out of time, and out of tune, and Nature makes short
work of such idiosyncrasies.

What, then, of potato disease and salmon disease, of fowl
cholera and swine fever, of big-bud on our currant-bushes
and bee-disease in our hives? The list may be lengthened
out, but the answer is the same for all, that these diseases
occur in artificial, humanly contrived conditions, not in the
system of wild Nature with which we are here concerned.
It is doubtful whether there are more than two or three
examples of microbic disease in natural conditions, one of
the best known being a bacterial disease in sandhoppers, and
this may have something to do with sewage, as salmon-disease
with polluted rivers.

It is not asserted, however, that wild animals may not be
infected with microbes so that an epidemic results. What
is maintained is that such occurrences are exceedingly rare
and transient, and that they are usually traceable to rapid
human interference, — to introducing new tenants into a
region, to killing off the natural eliminators of the sickly,
to permitting over-crowding, to an infection of the soil and
water, and so forth.

What of a familiar case such as grouse-disease? The
facts appear to be that grouse harbour a good many parasites
which normally do them no appreciable harm. When birds
of inherently weakly constitution appear they are normally
eliminated by golden eagles, stoats, and other natural ene-
mies ; and the standard of the stock is not lowered. If over-

578 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

preserving, i.e., careless elimination of the natural enemies,
removes the natural sieves, then birds of weakly constitution
tend to become more numerous with each year, till a bathos
of weakness is reached. The contingent of parasites which
seems to be kept within limits in the vigorous bird may then
increase sevenfold, spreading, for instance, to new organs, and
this may give the death-blow. It seems that there is no spe-
cific disease in this well-nigh sacred bird, and it is highly
probable that there would be no ^ grouse-disease ' if there
were no game-keepers.

§ 5. Parasitism,

One of the shadows on the pleasant picture of animate
nature is the frequency of parasitism. To some minds it
appears as a blot spoiling the whole script. But without
denying that there is some warrant for practical, aesthetic,
and ethical recoil, we think that much of this is due to lack
of perspective. Let us briefly consider the facts of the case.

(a) Thousands of living creatures live in or on others,
bound up with them in brutally direct nutritive dependence,
and incapable of living in any other way. Uninvited and
non-paying boarders they are, who make their hosts no re-
turn for the hospitality enjoyed. Most animals that have
bodies at all have parasites in or on them, and the same
is true of most of the higher plants which are the hosts of
moulds and rusts, gall-producing creatures, and burrowing
larvae. One of the European oaks harbours no fewer than
ninety and nine different kinds of gall-flies, and the hun-
'dredth is probably being discovered. The lac insect of India
is attacked by thirty-one species of plant and animal para-
sites. The dog is a terrain for over forty parasites; man
and pig have far more. In fact when we inquire into the

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 579

number of diverse parasites that may possess a lusty host,
with a wide range of appetite, we find that they are legion
like the demons. When we ask about the number of indi-
vidual parasites, it is beyond telling.

(b) In many cases the association of parasites and host
is very specific, that is to say, many a parasite is only known
to occur in one definite kind of host, and many a host is
curiously non-susceptible to parasites not very different from
those which it harbours. The larva) of some of the fresh-
water mussels cannot become parasitic except on definite
species of fishes, though the larvae of some other kinds can
utilise many fishes. The larva of the liver-fluke in Britain
cannot develop except in one species of water-snail (Livm^jea
truncatula), though in other countries other species some-
times serve. There are, however, some very cosmopolitan
parasites which occur in many hosts.

(c) Parasitism is a relation of dependence — always nutri-
tive, often more — between the parasite and the host, but it
occurs in many grades. There are superficial ectoparasites
which often retain great activity, and intimate endoparasites
which may become practically part of their host. There
are partial parasites which retain independence during some
chapter or chapters of their life, and total parasites which
pass from host to host and are never free. Sometimes, it
is only the female that is parasitic, the male remaining free.

{d) Corresponding to the degree of parasitism is the de-
generation of the parasite. This is sometimes to be witnessed
in the individual lifetime, e.g., in many Copepod Crus-
taceans where the young are free-living. In other cases it
may be inferred by comparing the parasite with related free
living types. The retrogression affects especially the nervous,
sensory, muscular, and alimentary systems. The reproduo-

580 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

live system is often highly developed and the multiplication
very prolific, which may be associated (a) with the fact that
the parasite is often living without much exertion, with abun-
dance of stimulating food at its disposal, and also (h) with
the probability that as the chances of death are often
enormous, non-prolific forms have been persistently elim-
inated. Parasites survive not because they are strong, but
because they are many.

(e) While there are many different types of parasites, it
is of interest to notice that some kinds of organisation are
not compatible with a parasitic mode of life. Among back-
boned animals the only parasite is the hag (Myxine) and
it is not thoroughgoing. There are very few parasitic Mol-
luscs or Ccelentera, and there are no parasitic Echinoderms,
partly perhaps because the life of these three types is very
dependent on the activity of ciliated cells which usually re-
quire fresh water-currents. Among plants, most of the para-
sites are Fungi and very few are Flowering Plants.

(/) The life-histories of parasites are often very intricate
and full of risks. In many cases two hosts are required.
The embryos of the liver-fluke pass from sheep to water-pool ;
the hatched larvae enter a water-snail ; there are several asex-
ual generations in this first host ; minute flukes leave the snail
and encyst on blades of grass ; if these are eaten by a sheep
— the second host — the cycle recommences. There are curious
cases of hyper-parasitism where one parasite contains a sec-
ond which contains a third, and this gives rise to complicated
life-histories.

(g) Thoroughgoing parasites, with a long evolution behind
them, are naturally enough well-adapted to the conditions
of their life. Thus a tapeworm in the intestine of its host
absorbs food by the whole surface of its body; it has mus-

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 581

cular adhesive suckers and sometimes attaching hooks; it
can thrive with a minimum of oxygen; it has a mysterious
'anti-body' which prevents it being digested by its host; it
is exceedingly prolific ; and it is self-fertilising. The tape-
worm may be ugly, but it is very well-adapted; it may be
repulsive, but in the technical biological sense, relative to
the given conditions, it is ' fit '.

Such are a few of the most important facts in regard to
parasitism. Let us now inquire why the prevalent inter-rela-
tionship seems to many a dark shadow. Parasitism is re-
pulsive for three reasons: (1) because we dislike to see fine
organisation devastated, (2) because many parasites produce
an unpleasant sesthetic impression, and (3) because the life
of ease and sluggish dependence grates on our ethical sense
or on our idea of an organism.

(1) Many people resent the fact that a contemptible mi-
crobe may kill a genius before he comes of age, and that
paltry flies put a drag on the wheel of the chariot of civili-
sation. It is abhorrent that fine organisation should be
spoiled by intrusive parasites, but it is necessary to look all
round the facts, (a) In a multitude of cases the parasites
do not greatly trouble their hosts, a modus vivendi has been
established. If the host be of a weakly constitution or en-
feebled by lack of food, the parasites hitherto trivial may
get the upper hand and bring about the death of the host.
But this sifting will make for racial health, and cannot be
called abhorrent, (b) Mortality from parasites is in most
cases a consequence of organisms entering a new area and
becoming liable to attack by creatures to which they can
offer no natural resistance, or a consequence of the introduc-
tion of the parasite into a new area where it finds new
hosts abnormally susceptible to it. Cattle introduced into a

582 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

tsetse-fly belt are fatally infected by a trypanosome whicb
does not seem to damage the native antelopes in which it
is, so to speak, at home. The fatality of a new microbe
introduced into a new population is familiar, as in the case
of the Black Death in England, which was due to the in-
troduction of the microbe of bubonic plague.

It must be remembered that the effect of the parasite on
the host is extraordinarily varied. Some give off toxic sub-
stances ; others cause lesions and inflanmiation, especially if
they stray from their usual habitat in the body; some pro-
mote beautiful growths like oak-apples and pearls; others
drain the food-supply ; some do very little harm. The sturdie-
worm causes locomotor disorders in the sheep in whose brain
it grows, but the Gregarines found in the reproductive or-
gans of most earthworms seem usually unimportant in their
effects. The parasitic crustacean known as Sacculina de-
stroys the reproductive organs of crabs and changes the
male constitution towards the female type, so that a small
ovary may develop. The shape of the crab's abdomen
changes, approximating to that of the female, and the pro-
truding parasite is actually guarded by its bearer as if it
were a bunch of eggs. But many ^ fish-lice ' seem to do very
little, if any, harm to their bearers. It is highly probable
that very aggressive parasites have eliminated themselves
from time to time by killing their hosts, which it is not to a
parasite's interest to do.

(c) It seems useful to place by themselves parasites like
virulent Bacteria (e.g., the Plague Bacillus) and virulent
Protozoa (e.g., the Trypanosome of Sleeping Sickness) which
are rapidly fatal when transferred to a new kind of host.
Thus the Plague Bacillus is transferred by the rat-flea from
the rat, who can stand it, to man who has no constitutional

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 583

defence against it. Similarly, the tsetse-fly transfers the
trypanosome from some immune wild animal (such as an
antelope, it may be) to the highly susceptible man. But
these microbes are not in any special way adapted to parasitic
life; they might as well be called 'predatory. Many i)reda-
tory parasites, like Trypanosomes, live an exceedingly active
life within their host, exerting themselves as much as many
a free-living creature.

(2) Many parasites are assthetically repulsive in form,
colour, and movements, and it is interesting to contrast the
attractive free stages of some of them with the ungraceful
bloated parasitic stages. As we have already seen, the ugli-
ness is the brand of their degeneracy. It is the natural re-
sult of retrogression, sluggishness, and over-feeding. The
life of ease drifts and it loses the grace of the sharpened
life which commands its course. The dodder and mistletoe,
which every one must admit to be beautiful, are, it is inter-
esting to notice, only partial parasites. The ugliness of
some parasites is perhaps an exception that proves the rule ;
it is as if Nature said : This asylum is open, if you will, but
if you enter, you must wear the livery of dishonour ; beauty
will disappear.

(3) To many minds, however, the darkness of the shadow
is in the inconsistency between the parasitic mode of life
and Nature's usual insistence on a strenuous life, and this
has to be admitted. But one must remember how parasitism
arises in the struggle for existence. Environing limitations
and difficulties press upon the organism and one of the solu-
tions which is open to many is to evade the struggle by
becoming parasitic. The struggling, endeavouring creature
cannot have a clear prevision of the facilis descensus it has
set foot on. It may try to survive inside a larger organism

584 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

which has swallowed it ; in its searchings for food and shelter
it may discover what is to it simply a new world — on or
beneath the surface of another organism. It is not another
organism to them as it clearly appears to us; it cannot be
separated off from other areas of safety and abundance
which other struggling organisms may secure.

It is exceedingly difficult to draw a dividing line between
some parasites which are of some slight use to their hosts,
e.g., the beautiful Infusorians in the stomach of some herbi-
vores like horse and cow, which seem to help in breaking
down the food, and certain symbions or commensals which
are on the whole useful, but levy a slight tax. Some ecto-
parasites behave as if it was their duty in life to keep the
surface of their host's body clean. All the three modes of
life are to be looked at as expressions of the widespread
tendency in Animate Nature to establish inter-relations be-
tween organisms, to link lives together, to weave a web
of life. It may be occasionally repulsive, but it is to be
considered broadly as a part of a complex external systema-
tisation or correlation that has been evolved in the course
of ages and is of great importance in the process of Natural
Selection.

It must not be forgotten that parasites occasionally play
a part as eliminative agents, and may work towards conserva-
tion as well as wastefully. They may weed out the weakly
members of a stock. They may put a useful check on abrupt
changes of distribution. Another exonerating fact is that
in a number of cases, e.g., among Crustaceans, the parasitism
is connected with the continuance of the race, and is altru-
istic as much as egoistic, for it is confined to the mother-ani-
mals, who seek a safe place in which to bring forth young.

(4) It must be admitted that there is an occasional hint

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 585

of ^ wildness ' about parasitism, just as about some other
ways of life. E'o explanation can be offered except that or-
ganisms have in them something akin to the artist's genius.
They have endless resources and they are free. Some have
explained that it is not the destructiveness of parasites they
object to, nor their ugliness, nor even their feckless drifting
life, but their devilishness. The ichneumon-fly lays her eggs
in a caterpillar; the hatched grubs feed on the living tissues;
they make their way out to begin a new phase of life after
they have killed their host. It is very difficult, however, to
avoid anthropomorphism in such cases. Perhaps it does not
matter much to the caterpillar whether it is devoured from
the inside or from the outside, and perhaps the ichneumon
larvae should rather be called beasts of prey than parasites.
In any case it is certain that what the ichneumon-insect does
to the caterpillar is not so repulsive as what man often does
to man, for man knows or should know what he is doing.
In both cases there is devilry, but the ichneumon's is un-
conscious. Moreover, it plays a very important role in the
extraordinarily well equilibrated economy of Nature.

§ 6. Cruelty of Nature,

The system of Animate !N'ature is evolved on the scheme
that many kinds of living creatures use others as food. If
this be cruelty, then Man is in it too. But in most cases
there is no reason to drag in the idea of cruelty; taken in
the strict sense the word does not and cannot grip.

It should be remembered, if it makes any difference, that
many animals are vegetarian and that many depend upon
organic debris. Thus great hordes of marine animals live
on the detritus washed outwards and downwards from the
littoral vegetation of Algae and sea-grass. That all living

586 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

creatures should have pursued the plant regime of living on
air, water^ and salts is conceivable, but it would not have been
an adventurous resolute world, for the vigorous higher life
depends on a supply of high explosives manufactured by
other creatures. If animals had had to manufacture their
own munitions as plants do, there would not have been much
fighting, but there would not have been much thinking either.
But the critic of Nature explains that it is not the car-
nivorousness that offends him, — he does a little in that way
himself — it is the manner of its accomplishment. The gentle
disciple of Izaak Walton is pained that the Fishing-Frog
should use a rod and line. The housewife who sets a trap
for mice in the pantry affects to shudder at the ant-lion
which makes a pitfall for unwary insects. There is a taint
of insincerity about all this exotic tender-heartedness. The
joy of the cat is the grief of the mouse, says a Russian
proverb; but we go a-fishing with a light heart. We are
of more value than many trout. We do not deny that there
are some difficult cases, like that of the cat playing with
the mouse, which has perhaps an educational significance —
and what may not be done in the name of education — but in
the great majority of cases violent death is rapid and prob-
ably painless, and the accusation of cruelty is an irrelevant
anthropomorphism. We do not deny that there are what
look like dark shadows in Animate Nature, but we have seen
some of them disappear in the light of fuller knowledge,
and we think that William James was on the whole misled
by unawareness of the facts, when he wrote of Nature —
to some of us an alma mater — as '^ a harlot ", " all plasticity
and indifference ", " a moral multiverse and not a moral
universe ". " Beauty and hideousness, love and cruelty,
life and death keep house together in indissoluble partner-

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 587

ship ; and there gradually steals over us, instead of the old
warm notion of a man-loving Deity, that of an awful power
that neither hates nor loves, but rolls all things together
meaninglessly to a common doom." But this seems to us
a terribly alarmist inference to base on a demonstrably in-
accurate study of Animate Nature. It is not really the case
that beauty and hideousness, love and cruelty, keep house
together in indissoluble partnership.

We must confess, however, that even the naturalists are
often against us. Thus the veteran John Burroughs writes
in his charming Breath of Life: "What savagery, what
thwartings and delays, what carnage and suffering, what an
absence of all that we mean by intelligent planning and
oversight, of love, fatherhood ! Just a clash of forces, the
battle to the strong and the race to the fleet.'' Are we not
all like perplexed privates writing bitterly of a campaign,
knowing little of the actual operations, still less of the tac-
tics, and nothing of the strategy ? There are no doubt terri-
ble minutes when two lions get the better of an antelope, or
the wolves close in upon the deer, and huntsmen like Selous
have spoken of the " frenzy of fear and agony of a dying
brute ". But we must beware of anthropomorphic exagger-
ation. We recall Mr. Louis Gelding's good-humoured rebuke

(1919):

" But if a moth should singe his wings,
The world is black with dismal things.
And if a strangled sparrow fall,
There is not any God at all."

Alfred Russel Wallace had wide experience of wild na-
ture, and wrote: "Animals are spared from the pain of
anticipating death; violent deaths, if not too prolonged, arc
painless and easy; neither do those which die of cold or

588 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

hunger suffer much; the popular idea of the struggle for
existence entailing misery and pain on the animal world
is the reverse of the truth." Similarly Darwin concludes his
chapter on the " Struggle for Existence " with the sentence :
" When we reflect on the struggle, we may console ourselves
with the full belief that the war of nature is not incessant,
that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and
the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and
multiply."

We must beware of anthropomorphic exaggeration, but we
must also beware of commonplace inaccuracy. The death-
crisis of a mouse killed by a rattlesnake was 13 seconds;
the death-crisis of a thrush killed by a golden eagle was less
than half that.

We frankly admit, however, that for some reason or
other many of the forms of life are weird and fantastic
creations, and there is often more than a hint of the
" wildness " of which Prof. William James spoke. The
solitary wasp Philanthus, known as the bee-eater, catches
bees and after giving the victim a knock-out blow beneath
the chin and paralysing it, proceeds to knead its anterior
body, squeezing out the honey from the crop and enjoying
the grim meal. But if instead of turning away repelled we
follow the Philanthus, we find that the body of the bee
is used as provender for the larvae whose hatching the
Philanthus does not survive to see. We may rest satisfied
with this without following the famous entomologist who
has told us that the kneading operation which squeezes the
honey out is not so much for the parent's immediate
gratification as to prevent the larva from having stomach-
ache.

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 589

§ 7. Senescence and Death,

Another shadow is senescence and death. It saddens us
to see a fine edifice falling into ruins, and though old age is
often beautiful in mankind^ the time comes when even beauty
goes. Let us recall the picture which we owe to the author
of Ecclesiastes: The mind and senses begin to be darkened,
the winter of life approaches with its clouds and storms,
the arms — the protectors of the bodily house — tremble, the
strong legs bow, the grinders cease because they arc few,
the apples of the eyes are darkened, the jaws munch with
only a dull sound, the old man is nervously weak and startled
even by a bird's chirping, he is afraid of even hillock§, his
falling hair is white as the strewn almond blossoms, he
drags himself along with difiiculty, he has no more appetite,
he seeks only his home of rest, which he finds when the
silver cord is loosed or the golden bowl broken.

There is something indescribably pathetic in the decline
and the decay when it passes beyond senescence into senility.
The bones become lighter and less resistant, the muscles
weaker and stiffer, the nervous system slower and less force-
ful, the heart less vigorous, the arteries less elastic, the jiarts
fail to answer to one another's call, " and then, from hour
to hour, we rot and rot ".

In regard to this dark shadow, it must first be pointed
out that the securing of a healthy old age is very largely
within man's control, everything depending on the nature
of our physiological bad debts. Many are successful in
securing an old age such as Cicero praised ; others have one
whose days are labour and sorrow. In recent times, the
late Professor Metchnikoff has been prominent in maintain-
ing that if man led a more careful life, and had a more

590 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

enlightened understanding of the limitations and dis-
harmonies of his constitution, he would no longer, as Buffon
said, die of disappointment, but would attain everywhere a
hundred years.

The second point is not less important. As Professor
Humphrey, a specialist on old age, has said, '^ Strange and
paradoxical as it may seem, this gradual natural decay and
death, with the physiological processes which bring them
about, do not appear to present themselves in the ordinary
economy of nature, but to be dependent upon the sheltering
influences of civilisation for the opportunity to manifest
themselves, and to continue their work." The fact is that
man and some of his domestic animals have almost a monop-
oly of senility, while wdld animals rarely show a trace of
it. Thus senility is not disharmony in Nature, but in the
Kingdom of Man.

The bathos often seen in man is due partly to the way in
which he shelters himself from violent or extrinsic death,
which cuts off so many — if not most — animals ; partly to the
unnatural ways in which he lives ; and partly to his deficiency
in the resting instinct.

It is instructive to probe the matter further, inquiring
into the reasons not for senility, but for senescence and
natural death. There is an obvious distinction between (a)
death due to microbes or parasites, (h) death due to extrinsic
agencies or violence, and (c) death due to internal constitu-
tional reasons; it is with the last, natural death and its
antecedent senescence, that we have to do. To the question:
Why should an organism grow old ?, many answers have been
given. A reason has been found in the wear and tear of
parts, especially of elements like nerve-cells, which do not
in higher animals increase in number, nor admit of renewal,

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 591

after early stages in development. Wc do not get any ad-
ditions to our nerve-cells after birth. Ihit \vliy might not
nerve-cells have retained the power of regeneration that they
hav^e in some of the lower animals ?

A reason for old age and natural death has been found
in the slow accumulation of poisonous waste-products, of the
results of incomplete combustion, of the results of bacterial
activity, and so on. The fire of life may be smothered in its
own ashes. But it must be recognised that there is no neces-
sity for this, that we can conceive of more perfect arrange-
ments for purification. Isolated pieces of tissue can be kept for
a long time living if waste-products are carefully eliminated.

Similarly it has been pointed out that ageing is associated
with the diminishing activity of glands of internal secretion,
with a cumulative disproportion between cytoplasm (cell-
substance) and nucleoplasm, with the occurrence of organi-
cally expensive modes of reproduction, and so on. But these
suggestions seem to disclose what are merely symptoms of
some more fundamental imperfection.

What that is may be discovered by asking whether it is
really the case that all living creatures grow old and die.
We know that an insect may live for days, another for weeks,
another for months; that a fish may live for years, man
for scores of years, and a Big Tree for centuries; but are
there any creatures that need not die ? It seems that natural
death is more or less successfully evaded by most of the
Protozoa, which, being unicellular or non-cellular, have no
^body' to keep up, which have very inexpensive modes
of multiplication, which can continually recuperate their
wear and tear. There is good reason to suspect that the
same is true of multicellular animals like Hydra and Plana-
rian worms.

592 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

The clearest statement of the problem has been given
by Prof. C. M. Child in his Senescence and Rejuvenes-
cence. The process of progressive differentiation or com-
plexifying involves the accumulation of relatively inactive
constituents in the living matter. It becomes necessary to
have stable frameworks, and it is difficult to keep these
young. The vital current deposits materials in its flow,
and the bed begins to slow the stream. There are always
processes of rejuvenescence at work, removing the relatively
inactive material, and re-accelerating the rate so that fresh
erosion occurs. All sorts of devices are resorted- to, which
secure rejuvenescence; many of them are very drastic, such
as periodically breaking the body to bits and beginning
afresh; but the tendency is for rejuvenescence to lag in the
higher animals and for senescence to win. It cannot be
otherwise. Death was the price paid for a body; senescence
is the tax on specialisation. In the very simple organisms
the stable mortal parts of the colloidal substratum, which
is life's laboratory, can be reduced and restored piecemeal,
and the creature never grows old. Perhaps the same is true of
the fresh-water polyp, which thus will have, besides its indif-
ference to wounds, another reason for being called Hydra.
But as life became more worth living, and the organism
more of an agent, the capacity for rejuvenescence was
limited. Thus, as Professor Child tells us, " For his high
degree of individuation man pays the penalty of individual
death, and the conditions and processes in the human or-
ganism which lead to death in the end are the conditions
and processes which make man what he is." Thus one
may perhaps say without irreverence that science has made
the shadow of death more intelligible.

What have we, then? At the foot of the scale there are

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 593

some organisms in "which rejuvenescence keeps pace with
senescence, and natural death is evaded. At the top of the
scale there is the senility of many men and of some domestic
animals, like horses and dogs. It is certain that senility is
not within the scheme of Animate Nature apart from Man.
For many wild animals there is normal senescence, for many
there is not even that. There is a slight lowering of vitality
and a slight environmental huffet sends them off the stage.
But why is it that the fish Aphia pellucida lives only for a
year, dying off like an annual plant, while others live for
many years ? The probability is that the duration of life
is limited to some extent by the constitution of the creature,
but that within these limits it has been regulated in adap-
tation to the conditions of life^ that it has been punctuated
in reference to large issues, namely the welfare of the species.
Not that there is any purposive adjustment, but simply that
for each set of given conditions there is an effective age
which becomes the age of the surviving types. It is not
difficult to understand that a variation in the direction of
longevity might be very unprofitable and would be certainly
eliminated by the gradual disappearance, paradoxical as it
may seem, of the long-lived type. For the longevity might
mean that the organism continued multiplying when it was
past its best and thus impaired the vigour of the stock. The
longevity might mean that the organism continued multi-
plying after it had suffered so many dints from the years
that it could no longer give the offspring a successful send-
off in life. Such variations condemn themselves literally,
and the length of life is by selection adaptively punctuated
towards the welfare of the race. In some of the higher or-
ganisms prolonged multiplication is constitutionally pre-
vented on the female side after a certain age is reached, and

594 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

that is also adaptive. This idea must be gently transferred to
human life. Apart from multiplication altogether, apart
also from senility, which is often avoided with masterly suc-
cess, it seems in Man's case very doubtful that it is for the
good of the race that longevity should become too pronounced
a habit. There is profound wisdom in Goethe's saying that
Death is Nature's expert device for securing abundance of
life.

§ 8. Apparent Wastefulness,

Another shadow is the apparent wastefulness. '^ So care-
ful of the type she seems, so careless of the single life.''
The abundance of life has its correlate in the abundance of
death. ^' What a book," Darwin wrote, a ^^ a devil's chaplain
might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and
horribly cruel works of nature ! " (More Letters, Vol. I., p.
94, 1856). But we doubt whether he would have written
this a quarter of a century afterwards, when his insight into
the economy of Nature had grown clearer. We need not
doubt, for in 1881 he wrote: '^ If we consider the whole uni-
verse, the mind refuses to look at it as the outcome of chance
— that is, without design or purpose " {More Letters, Vol.
I., p. 395, 1881).
. Wastefulness is rather a question-begging epithet. The
abundance of small fry has made the life of higher creatures
possible. We do not say that the purpose of water-fleas is
to feed fishes, any more than we say that the purpose of
certain fishes is to feed man. What we say is that the extraor-
dinarily prolific multiplication of humble organisms affords
a stable foundation on which a higher life has been built.
The number of free-swimming larvae in the waters is beyond
our powers of picturing, and we think too little of the wonder

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 595

of this everyday multiplication which is so different from
anything in the inorganic world. Only a fraction of these
larvae come to anything, but since they form the sustenance
of finer expressions of life, we see no reason to speak of
wastefulness. The scheme of Animate Nature is in part a
cycle of incarnations; we may not approve of the scheme,
but it is not a wasteful one. In this connection it mav be
observed that it is a misrepresentation to speak, as Professor
Hobhouse does, of the result of evolution being that '' Species
should learn to destroy each other more efficiently ", for
this disguises two facts, — (1) that huge numbers of an-
imals live on detritus, which is often produced by physical
agencies; and (2) that what very frequently happens is
the establishment of a modus vivendi which lives and lets
live. But our general point is this, that a certain security
as regards the means of subsistence is a condition of econo-
mising reproductivity in higher animals, which means the
recognition and development of personality. Is wasteful the
term to apply to the existence of that teeming organic \n'o-
letariat which is one of the primary conditions of personal-
ities ?

The view that there is a deep incongruity between the
facts of the case and the possibility of religious interpreta-
tion has been forcibly stated by Professor Lovejoy, who does
not, however, accept the conclusion. '' Darwinism or the doc-
trine of natural selection declares these three unlovely aspects
of the world— its wastefulness, its disharmony, and its
cruelty— to be not simply casual details of the picture, but
the very essence of that whole evolutional process which, re-
garded in its results and not in its methods, had seemed so
admirable and so edifying to contemplate " (Lovejoy, 1000, p.
93). Whether the seamy aspects of Nature which the theory

696 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

of natural selection is supposed to bring into relief are really
centrally significant and ubiquitous aspects, is, Professor
Lovejoy admits, " a question which contemporary biology is
diligently endeavouring to settle by its own proper methods.
One can only say now that the dominant tendency is dis-
tinctly towards an answer in the negative" (1909, p. 95).
We have tried to show that this dominant tendency is
reasonable.

§ 9. A Balanced View.

These are not all the shadows by any means, but they
must serve for illustration. In other studies we have seen
that the struggle for existence is often an endeavour after
well-being; not a miserable internecine squabble around the
platter of subsistence, but including all the answers-back
which able-bodied, able-minded creatures make to environing
difficulties and limitations. We have seen that natural selec-
tion is neither altogether automatic nor in any case arbitrary,
but is a discriminative sifting in relation to an established
Systema Naturae — a fact which helps to secure progressive-
ness. We have seen that variation is not haphazard nor
fortuitous, and that heredity does not leave us stifling in a
fatalistic atmosphere. We, have seen that beauty is Nature's
universal hall-mark on fully-formed, independent, healthy
organisms, living in natural conditions. And lastly we have
seen that many of the shadows become less perplexing when
carefully scrutinised.

Our thesis is violently opposed to the view of some of
the greatest thinkers. Aristotle, who knew Animate Nature
with an intimacy insured by his genius and patience, spoke
of the lack of order in Nature and likened it to what may

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 597

be seen in the life of a slave, to whom, on account of his
low estate, certain license is permitted. Hegel, to skip
about two millennia, compared Nature to a Bacchantic dance.
We regard both comparisons as infelicitous. Indeed, we are
not in the least inclined to accept the depreciatory views
of Animate Nature which have been put into circulation.
Many are obvious libels. There is some truth in Aristotle's
dignified caution that Nature is daemonic rather than divine,
— but we reject as ignorant and impious Luther's brusque
saying; ^^ The world is an odd fellow; may God soon make
an end of it." Is it unreasonable to suggest that those who
allow themselves to be oppressed by the discords and dis-
harmonies in the world without are in part themselves to
blame for the weight of their burden, by remaining, more or
less consciously, under the domination of the geocentric,
anthropocentric, and finalist pre-conceptions of the Middle
Ages, which regarded Man as the hub of the Universe?

In reference to the misery of catastrophes, like the Cala-
brian earthquake or the ''Titanic" wreck, we venture ti«
note how the apologetic problem changes with our changing
outlook on Nature. Not many generations ago these calami-
ties were directly and literally referred to "the hand of
God " ; under the conception of the reign of law '' such
acts are now regarded as acts of divine permission rathrr
than of commission ". No ' sceptic ' would write of tin m
now as Voltaire did of the Lisbon earthquake. Moreover,
every one feels that it is not an orderly Universe if the laws
of the strength of materials or of oceanic currents can be
abrogated by mercy for individual lives. Without accepting
an exaggerated view of the Uniformity of Nature as ab-
solute, we know that within certain temporal and spatial
limits' we can trust to the regularity of frequently observed

598 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

sequences. It would be an intolerable world if there were
loopholes for individuals even when the number of lives
lost is tragic beyond any words. Many speak, rightly we
believe, of the unity of ^ purpose ' working in Nature and
its evolution, but do not the tragedies show us plainly that
this word Purpose, though the best we have, must be used in
this connection in a symbolic way, being Purpose with a
plan larger than we can understand?

If our view of Animate Nature presented no difficulties,
it would be justly regarded with suspicion. Truly, it pre-
sents difficulties. There is often lack of plasticity ; there are
imperfect adaptations; there are taxes on progress; there
are many parasites; there is some suffering and many a
domestic tragedy; there is the astonishing spectacle of the
demolition of masterpieces that millions of years have gone
to fashion; and there is often a note of wildness that startles
us. No one can shut his eyes to the difficulties, our protest
is against allowing them to blot out the sun. The plasticity,
the adaptations, the progress, the inter-linkages, the joy,
the happiness, the masterpieces, the note of gentleness, how
they make the shadows shrink! Our thesis stands that the
facts of an accurate Natural History are not incongruent
with an interpretation of Nature in higher terms.

We have, moreover, to bear in mind that the evolution is
still in progress, that organisms are still subduing the inor-
ganic unto themselves, that the mind-body is still continuing
its arduous task of subordinating the body-mind to its pur-
pose, that we in facing and mastering difficulties are sharing
in working out a better future for our successors. The
ladder of evolution is often very steep and organisms may
slip down into disintegrative phases, but the bigger fact is
that the main trend of evolution is essentially integrative.

DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS 599

Who shall impiously prescribe its limits, especially in the
Kingdom of Man, where Personality seems to be beginning
to transcend Organism?

SUMMARY.

It is a defensible position that Animate Nature and its evolution
are congruent with a spiritual or religious interpretation. A
scientific view of the system of which we form a part cannot, in-
deed, prove anything about the value or significance of Nature, but
it is not inconsistent with the idea that Nature may be a Divine
creation. Perhaps this is even suggested by the beauty, the har-
mony, and the progressiveness of Animate Nature. But there are
many shadows.

There is a notable lack of plasticity in highly adaptive organic
structure, and if environmental conditions change, highly specialised
types may perish because of their very perfection. Only in intelli-
gent resourcefulness is there a way of escape. But every art is
limited by its medium, and the extinction of types is often the nem-
esis of their long-continued stability. Moreover, the external vicis-
situdes have doubtless had a very important role in organic evolu-
tion. And even though lost races leave no direct descendants, some
of their gains may be continued on collateral lines.

There are some cases where arrangements that are usually well-
adapted are fatally inadequate in a crisis, as when the moth flies
into the flame or the lemmings swim out into the sea. But adapta-
tions must be, on the whole, in reference to normally recurrent rou-
tine, not in reference to very exceptional conditions; though as a
matter of fact there are some adaptations which meet rare diflicul-
ties. Imperfection of adaptation is often illustrated when organ-
isms are changing their habits or their habitat, and it would be a
magical world if it were not so.

It is quite futile to try to make a cosmic shadow out of the fre-
quency of disease. In natural conditions constitutional disease is
unknown— if it arises it is not allowed to grip ; and microbic disease
—so common when Man interferes— is exceedingly rare in wild

life.

Another shadow is the frequency of parasitism. Parasitic plants
and animals are legion and almost no living creature escapes tlnMU.
It is abhorrent that fine organisation should be spoilt, but many

600 DISHARMONIES AND OTHER SHADOWS

parasites do their wonted hosts very little harm. Many parasites
are repulsive in form, colour, and movements — the brand of their de-
generacy. The drifting life of ease seems inconsistent with Nature's
way of putting a premium on strenuous endeavour. But parasi-
tism is, to begin with, a response to environing difficulties and limita-
tions, the parasite can have little awareness of the significance of
its step; its host is in most cases simply a promiseful area of
exploitation; the parasitism often fades into symbiosis and com-
mensalism; it is often resorted to by the mothers seeking a safe
place for the young; it sometimes has a useful eliminative influence.
That there is sometimes a hint of devilry in parasitism must be
admitted, but there is great risk of fallacious anthropomorphism
here.

Another reproach hurled at Nature is that of cruelty, which may
be discussed along with parasitism since it refers to the nutritive
chains that bind organisms together. That many animals prey on
others is obvious, and this must sometimes involve suffering. Yet
little is known of their pain, and, apart from a few difficult cases,
there is no torturing.

Another shadow is that of senescence and death. But senility at
least is not a disharmony in the realm of organisms, only in man-
kind. Growing old is a necessary tax on differentiation, for as
a stable framework grows in complexity processes of rejuvenescence
are bound to lag. In some simple creatures natural death is suc-
cessfully avoided. " The conditions and processes in the human
organism which lead to death in the end are the conditions and
processes which make man what he is."

Oppressive to many is the apparent wastefulness. But the abun-
dant multiplication of humble organisms affords a stable founda-
tion on which a higher life has been based, and a truly marvellous
working equilibrium wrought out. The scheme of Animate Nature
is in great part a cycle of incarnations; it may attract or repel
us, but it is not wasteful.

That there are shadows is admitted, but it is significant that they
tend to disappear in the light of increasing knowledge. They
do not force us to conclude that there is any radical incongruity
between a scientific description and a religious interpretation of
Nature.

LECTURE XIX.

THE CONTROL OF LIFE: LESSONS OF

EVOLUTION.

LECTURE XIX.

THE CONTROL OF LIFE: LESSONS OF

EVOLUTION.

§ 1. The Idea of the Controllability of Life. § 2. Heredity the First
Determinant of Life. § 3. Nurture the Second Determinant
of Life. § 4. Selection the Third Determinant of Life. § 5.
Importance of Correlating Organismal, Functional, and En^
vironmental Betterment. § 6. Dangers of False Simplicity or
Materialism, § 7. Science for Life.

A STUDY of human history which yielded no practical
counsel to mankind would be self-condemned, and the same
must be true of a study of animate evolution. What are
the lessons of evolution?

§ 1. The Idea of the C ontrolldbility of Life.

There is practical suggestiveness in the very idea of or-
ganic evolution. Darwin changed a relatively static con-
ception of the Realm of Organisms into an intensely dynamic
one. The forms of life which seemed so fixed were shown
to be in racial flux — though the movement might be as im-
perceptible as a glacier's flow. What Man could do in a
relatively short time by breeding from selected variants was
shown by his success with domesticated animals and cul-
tivated plants. Thus the whole aspect of things was changed.
The outlook became kinetic, and this led on naturally to
the practical idea of ike controllability of life. If flowers
and pigeons and the like can be controlled, and controlled
so well, then why not human life also? If Man can evolve

603

604? THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

from out of a crab-apple all the treasures of the orchard,
may he not replace sourness by sweetness in human char-
acter ? If Man can evolve from out of a wolf-like creature
the domesticated dog, the trusty guardian of his flocks, may
he not hopefully try to evolve the wolfish out of mankind?
A few Darwinians were indeed inclined to be too sanguine,
overlooking the fact that all that Man did in his domestica-
tion and cultivation was to use with discretion the varia-
tional material which the organisms themselves put into his
hands.

Moreover, investigation brought to light many instances
of marked modifiability. So much can be done by training,
by exercise, by dieting, by altering the surroundings that
we cannot wonder that there was for a time an exaggeration
of the transforming power of function and environment. The
fact is, however, that what is expressed from within is much
more important than what is impressed from without; the
range of variability is much wider than that of modifiability.
Moreover, we do not know that the individually acquired
modifications of the parents can be entailed as such or in
any representative degree on the offspring.

It was pre-eminently Pasteur who made the idea of con-
trollability glow. He may be taken as type of the many
illustrious investigators who have been inspired to great
achievements by the idea of the biological control of life.
Beginning with measures for getting rid of the silkworm
disease, which was ruining the south of France, Pasteur
proceeded to attack such terrible scourges as splenic fever
and hydrophobia, and conquered by understanding them.
With object-lessons on a grand scale he .convinced every
open mind that the days of folded hands and resignation
were over, and that it was for Man, with Science as torch,

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 605

and with Mercy in his heart, to enter courageously into the
fuller possession of his Kingdom.

It was the beginning of a new era for mankind, and it
influenced thought and feeling as well as practice. If there be
almost no constitutional disease in wild nature, why should
it persist in mankind ? Why should Man and his stock have
a monopoly of senility? If certain microbic diseases can be
got rid of, why do we allow them to linger in our midst?
And we have, of course, practically ousted some terrors
from their lairs, as in the cases of smallpox and typhus. If
we cannot alter the span of human life, we can at any rate
make sure what we shall not die of. The practical corollary
of the doctrine of evolution is the controllability of life.

We have argued that Nature is crowned in Man, not
merely because he has an all-round excellence of differentia-
tion and integration, but especially because he is the finest
expression of those qualities which mark the main trend
of organic evolution, — such as freedom, awareness, mastery.
Speaking metaphorically, we may say that Nature finds her-
self in Man, who understands, appreciates, and enjoys her in
a sense that is certainly not true of the grazing herd. But
the anomaly is that Man, minister and interpreter of Nature
as he is, is subject to inhibitions and disharmonies which
are not tolerated in wild nature. If there be an under-
lying purpose or meaning in organic Evolution, is not Man
hindering it by his slowness to understand and fall in with
the principles of its accomplishment? If the central fact
in evolution be " the slowly wrought-out dominance of mind
in things '\ it is surely man's fundamental task to use this
expanding mind to control his own life. If the process of
Evolution suggests any lesson, it is surely that " the sharp-
ened life commands its course ",— by brains, correlation,

606 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

organisation. At lower levels the organisation that succeeds
may be reflex, tropistic, instinctive; for Man it must be
intelligent, at least ; rational, if possible. But what the evolu-
tion-process points to with firmness is that Brains pay —
Brains that include Love as well as Logic.

§ 2. Heredity the First Determinant of Life.

The first determinant of life is the natural inheritance —
the past living on in the present, often with something new
superadded. Nothing seems further from the possibility
of control than heredity : as the satirical poet observed, " a
man cannot be too careful in the choice of his parents ".
But while we cannot choose our parents, we can, more or
less, choose our partners in life, and this may mean control-
ling heredity. We cannot create a desirable variation by
taking thought, but we may perhaps be able to prevent a
very undesirable one from being continued. Parents have
also some opportunity and responsibility in regard to the
partners whom their children may choose. The days of
coercion are over, but there is no coercion in the garrisoning
(probably most effective when least direct) of the affections
against the advances of the ignoble, the inefficient, and the
hereditarily handicapped. This again means controlling he-
redity. The inheritance from the past is beyond control,
except in so far as its expression may be influenced by nur-
ture ; but the inheritance handed on to the future is in some
measure within control, since the mating of fittest with fittest,
of fit with fitter, of fit with fit can be encouraged by common
sense and good feeling, while the mating of fit and unfit,
and of unfit with unfit can be discouraged. This has, of
course, been done over and over again by peoples — such as
the Hebrews — with pride of race and an enthusiasm for

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 607

vigour. But now it can be done with fuller and finer knowl-
edge. Certain it is that there can be no secure progress
which does not recognise that Heredity, the past living on
in the present, is the first Fate, and the greatest of the three.
" Bless not thyself," said Sir Thomas Browne, '' that th<m
wert born in Athens; but, among thy multiplied acknowl-
edgments, lift up one hand to heaven that thou wert born
of honest parents, that modesty, humanity, and veracity
lay in the same egg, and came into the world with thee."

§ 3. Nurture the Second Determinant of Life.

The second determinant of life is Nurture — all manner
of environing influences, whether due to surroundings, or
to use and disuse, or to the social fabric. This nurture is
largely within control — especially for the more prosperous,
or more enlightened, or more idealistically ambitious mem-
bers of the community ; and the fullness of expression that
the inheritance finds in development depends in part on
the abundance and appropriateness of the nurture. If the
nurture be opulent the buds may blossom richly. Conversely,
buds which are detrimental may be kept dormant if the ap-
propriate wakening stimulus be withheld; and for the in-
dividual at least this may be well. More than a few of
us may have to confess with the poet that wo are " stuccoed
all over with quadrupeds", including some reptiles; but,
happily, these may remain in a starved state if we refuse
them the appropriate nurture. Thus '' the ape and tiger "
in Man may die,— in the individual at least. It comes to
this, that the controllability of nurture gives us some hold
on the expression of our inheritance. We cannot alter the
number of talents that we get to start with, but we certainly
have some freedom in our trading with them. Not very

608 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

often can a man truthfully say that he was hereditarily
compelled to put his inherited talent in a napkin and bury it
in the ground.

As the result of well-chosen influences and strenuous dis-
cipline, an individual may acquire some desirable quality,
— usually a nurtural modification of an inherent predisposi-
tion. Now, as we have seen, it seems unlikely that this sort
of personal gain can as such get into the racial treasure-box.
The possibility remains, however, of re-acquiring the gain
in each successive generation; or, contrariwise, of saving a
generation from a gratuitous loss. This is peculiarly im-
portant for Man, where the extra-organism al social heritage
counts for so much in nurture, especially as regards the
higher human qualities.

On another line of thought, it is doubtful whether those
who are not accustomed to look at life biologically are quite
aware of the value of variations. These new departures,
idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, individualities, originalities
are the most precious things in the world, — when they are
on the upgrade. If we do not understand them we call
their possessors cranks ; if they are ahead of the race, yet ap-
preciated, we speak of genius. In their finest human ex-
pression they mean reachings forwards to super-man. No
one can offer a recipe for their production, but this practical
point is clear, that, given a promiseful new departure, we
may fail to make anything like the best of it if the nurture
be not likewise evolving. Good nurture gives a progressive
variation more chance of realisation, success, and transmis-
sion. It is a sad waste when a fascinating new plant is
choked in a sluggard's garden. Nurture determines in part
the sort of reception that a new variation meets with, and
nurture consists in part of a subtle complex of liberating

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 609

stimuli, which are to our potentialities as sunshine and rain
to buds. "As is the world on the banks, so is the mind
of man." " What we have inherited from our ancestors
we must put to use, if it is to become our very own." When
a belief in the transmission of individually acquired somatic
modifications was general, reformers tended to exaggerate
the directly ameliorative value of good nurture. Now that
the belief in the transmission of individually ac<iuircd modi-
fications has been badly shaken, many thinkers have swung
to the opposite extreme, and the role of nurture is depreciated.
But its individual importance remains, and its indirect im-
portance also.

Prof. Karl Pearson and his collaborators have con-
cluded that " the degree of dependence of the child on the
characters of its parentage is ten times as intense as its de-
gree of dependence on the character of its home or uprear-
ing ". " It is five to ten times as profitable for a child to be
born of parents of sound physique and of brisk, orderly men-
tality, as for a child to be born and nurtured in a good physi-
cal environment." It may be doubted, however, whether it is
possible to discriminate so precisely between what is due to
hereditary nature and what is due to available nurture. It
is also important to inquire when the nurture is supposed
to begin: there is much nurture before birth.

Since hereditary nature and liberating nurture are both
essential, there is no rigid antithesis. Nurture is im-
portant as a condition of normal development, and on the
richness of its liberating stimuli the degree of development
in part depends.

Gudernatsch has shown that in tadpoles fed on thyroid
gland there is differentiation without growth, while in tad-
poles fed on thymus and spleen there is growth without

610 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

differentiation. A character Jcnown to he part of the in-
heritance may remain entirely unexpressed in the individual
development because certain environmental conditions are
lacking, yet the heritable character may be handed on all
the same. Thus fruit-flies (Drosophila) of a Mendelian
race with a peculiar abnormality may appear perfectly nor-
mal if raised in a dry environment, but the presence within
them of the ^ factor ' for the abnormal feature may be
demonstrated by rearing their offspring in a damp place.
This shows the importance of nurture for the individual.

A diagrammatic illustration concerns the red Chinese
primrose (Primula sinensis rubra). Reared at 15° — 20° C.
it has red flowers. Reared at 30° — 35° C, with moisture
and shade the same plants have pure white flowers like those
of Primula sinensis alba, which always has white flowers.
Thus we see that the development of colour in the red Chinese
primrose depends on its nurture.

Take another illustration from the fruit-fly. There is a
mutant stock that produces supernumerary legs, in consider-
able percentage in winter, few or none in summer. Miss
Hoge finds that when the flies are kept in an ice-chest at
a temperature of about 10° C, a high percentage of individ-
uals with supernumerary legs occurs. In a hot climate there
would be no evidence that the peculiarity was part of the
inheritance ; in a cold country it would be obvious. This
shows that the expression of the inheritance as regards a
particular character sometimes depends on nurture.

In estimating the importance of nurture for the individ-
ual man, we must remember how largely the human mind
is a social product. As Prof. George H. Parker (1914)
puts it, " Our intellectual outfit comes to us more in the
nature of a social contribution than an organic one." Per-

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION Gil

haps it is going too far to suggest that as regards our minds
we are more ^ made ' than 'born'; but this is certain,
that while our mental capacities are primarily determined
by heredity, they can be encouraged and augmented, or in-
hibited and depressed, within wide limiis, by nurture.

On no account are we to countenance, if we can help it,
spoiling good stock by bad, for that is the worst thing man
can do. But we must beware of confusing veneer with
hereditary nature. We must not too readily assume that
people are as good as they look, or as bad as they look. In
regard to the last, in an interesting study entitled Environr
ment and Efficiency, Miss Mary Horner Thomson tells of
her investigation of 265 children, mostly of " the lowest
class'' (Class A, fourth below the poverty level!), who had
been sent to institutions and trained. She found that 192
(72 per cent.) turned out well; that 44 (16 per cent.) were
doubtful; and that only 29 (less than 11 per cent.) were
unsatisfactory, and of these 13 were defective. These fig-
ures, which should of course be checked and extended,
afford some evidence of the controllability of the individual
life.

Less extremely than some other Mendel ians. Professor
Punnett writes: "Hygiene and education are influences
which can in some measure check the operation of one factor
and encourage the operation of another. But tliat they can
add a factor for a good quality or take away a factor for an
evil one is utterly opposed to all that is known of the facts

of heredity."

But a practical note may be here permitted. It is very
difficult for us to know all that is in a man's inlicritanoo.
Indeed we cannot, for we can sec only what is expressed,
and the condition of expression is appro]iriato nurtun\

612 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

Therefore in Man's formative periods the common-sense view
is surely this. We cannot be quite sure what we have in
our inheritance, therefore let us give every chance to such
qualities as are liberated by ameliorative nurture. We can-
not be quite sure what may not be in our inheritance, there-
fore we take no chances ; let us avoid the kind of nurture that
arouses sleeping dogs. The theory of the control of life is
here quite plain : the practice, we admit, is no easier than be-
fore, save that we understand the issues better. .

§ 4. Selection the Third Determinant of Life,

The third determinant of life is Selection, and this is
of peculiar importance in the human sphere, where Natural
Selection is largely in abeyance and the sifting is in great
part rational and social. We call it rational and social
because it is more or less deliberate and thought-out and
because it is effected by social sieves; unfortunately this
does not mean that it may not be terribly mistaken. In
early days mankind was much in the sieve of Natural Selec-
tion— the meshes being wild beasts, changes of climate,
scarcity of food, unchecked disease, and so on, and we are
the better for that sifting to-day. But, as every one knows,
the whole trend of human evolution since civilisation began
has been to throw off the yoke of natural selection. Some
of its thraldom remains, as in cases of differential death-
rate, where the inherently weaker succumb in larger num-
bers, but we are continually interfering — necessarily and
rightly — with the sifting operations of disease, hard times,
and the like. This interference has been in great part
prompted by the strengthening and diffusion of the humaner
sentiments and a realisation of our solidarity ; but it involves,
as every one recognises more or less clearly, the terrible danger

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 613

of relaxed sifting. In regard to that the records of organic
and social evolution are alike eloquent. No one has stated
the dilemma more poignantly than Spencer : '' Any arrange-
ments which, in a considerable degree, prevent superiority
from profiting by the rewards of superiority, or shield in-
feriority from the evils it entails — any arrangements which
tend to make it as well to be inferior as to be superior, are
arrangements diametrically opposed to the progress of or-
ganisation, and the reaching of a higher life." That way
perdition lies. It is a dilemma of civilisation that we can-
not tolerate Nature's regime, the individual life means so
much to us; and yet we have not replaced it by any suffi-
ciently strict, and consistent, and carefully thought-out sift-
ing methods of our own.

There is satisfaction in healing the sick and preventing
wastage of life; we cannot but try to alleviate suffering;
but there is no gainsaying the danger of being cruel to fu-
ture generations by being kind in the present. There is the
undeniable risk of helping too much, of coddling the un-
desirable and unwholesome so that they get strength enougli
to multiply, often spoiling good stock with the infiltration
of bad. The wheat may have too much sympathy for the
tares, and societies for the amalgamation of heaven and hell
do not commend themselves to the wise.

This is a large and difficult question — the transition from
Natural Selection to some other kind of selection which will
grip the germ-plasm. The following three considerations
are submitted. (1) In a number of cases the diseases and
miseries with which civilised man is successfully coping are
indiscriminate in their elimination. They thin the ranks,
but they do not weed out or sift. The checking of such
diseases and miseries will not, therefore, especially encourage

614 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

the survival of types who are a source of weakness to human
society. Hygienic endeavours which interfere with indis-
criminate elimination — as in the case of much infantile
mortality — may be pushed on unhesitatingly.

(2) As things are, there ought to be no question of drastic
social surgery or of accepting Plato's proposals for the purga-
tion of the state. For, on the one hand, we do not know
enough to go far with safety, and, on the other hand, we are
forbidden by the social sentiment of the most moralised
types. What can be done is to work back to the old and
wholesome pride of race, and to work away from whatever
tends to encourage the multiplication of the diseased and the
unwholesome. For a long time to come reformers will have
enough to do along negative lines, — in seeking to prevent the
spoiling of good stock with bad. Much may also be achieved
by educating public opinion, replacing baseless prejudices by
convictions founded on facts. It is not in the 20th cen-
tury too much to ask that the quaint lists of forbidden
degrees which used to be prefixed to copies of the Scriptures
should be replaced by sound eugenic information.

(3) The commonplace must be borne in mind that man
is a social person, and that what is biologically commendable
may be socially disruptive. Many of those who are seriously
handicapped by inheritance, and who ought not to be en-
couraged to have offspring, are in other respects valuable
citizens. Many of the weaklings whom the social surgeon
threatens are strong in spirit. As poets and artists, reform-
ers and preachers, many of the weaklings have been among
the " makers and shakers " of the world.

A useful office is the careful criticism of all the methods
of discriminate elimination — whether deliberate or not —
that are at work in mankind. Some economists have wisely

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 615

urged upon us the importance of criticism of consumption,
for it is plain that in our expenditure we arc willy-nilly
^ selective. Thus a tradition of consistent expenditure along
restricted materialistic lines must make for the elimination
of artists, musicians, and similar types who are the salt of
the earth. It condemns them to celibacy ; it lets them slowly
starve. Considerations of this sort may be exaggerated so
as to make life a burden too heavy to be borne, but it is j)laiii
that a community which is spending solely on things that
perish in the using cannot be on a sound line of evolution.
All expenditure that consistently promotes unhealthy oc-
cupations rather than healthy ones, that helps to foster and
multiply the feckless rather than controlled types, that makes
for sweated labour and slums rather than for well-paid
work and gardens, is necessarily anti-evolutionary. From
founding celibate fellowships at colleges down to advertising
for gardeners " without encumbrances ^\ every form of selec-
tion that tends to prevent good types from duly contributing
to the composition of succeeding generations is to be con-
demned in the court of applied biolog}^, often called
eugenics. That there may be a higher court of appeal is
not denied.

"An outstanding fact of Animate Evolution is, that new
departures making for the welfare of the race become in-
grained and entailed as part of the adaptive organisation
of the creature. In the case of Man there has been a similar
enregistration ; it is idle to deny that there has been a lu'iTdi-
tary organisation of kindliness, helpfulness, cheerfulness, and
so on. But this hereditary organisation proceeds slowly, and
so we must trust greatly to the extra-organisnial heritage of
traditions, conventions, ideals, and the like which works
very potently both as a stimulating nurture, jirompting us

616 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

to seek after virtue and understanding, and also as a selec-
tive agency, leaving us behind if v^e fail too utterly of what
society expects of its members.

In education — intellectual, physical, and moral — we do
of course habitually seek to utilise nurture in the widest
sense which includes the social heritage — as a means towards
making the most of the individual development, and what,
it may be asked, have we to offer in the way of new sugges-
tion? Simply this, that we might to advantage be more
scientific and less vague ; that we should utilise with resolute-
ness and conviction the suggestions which expert science has
to offer in regard to manifold problems in the control of life.
We are convinced that many of the so-called " cosmic
shadows ", such as the wastefulness of Nature, are misunder-
standings; we are convinced that many of the shadows of
human life are gratuitous, that they would be scattered if
we let in more of the light of science. Our forefathers had
to deal with these shadows in an indirect way or not at all;
often the only thing to do was to try to get moral discipline
out of them. But now we have made great advances towards
understanding many of the human shadows, and it is only
inertia that keeps us from directly dispelling them. Much
is being done every day, but much more requires to be done,
and our point is that the first and foremost lesson of evolu-
tion is: Let in more light, — more scientific light. Another
lesson, of course, is : Let in more Love.

We know that a normal development of the human or-
ganism— in mind and body — demands an appropriate nur-
ture; and yet we are implicated in human environments
which are not up to the normal standard. In these environ-
ments, which make us ashamed, good men and women do
indeed live, but there are surely many of the dwellers in

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION filT

darkness who find the great task of happiness altogether
too hard.

Similarly, in regard to functional fatigue, there is a
very considerable body of experimental fact in regard to the
profitable length of a school-lesson, the profitable length of
a school-day, the profitable length of a working-day, but how
slow we are to utilise expert advice. In regard to occupational
fatigue it is well known that it is the last straw that breaks
the cameFs back, and that what gives a push towards the
danger-zone is often the entirely remediable delay in procur-
ing appetising food.

These are familiar instances which we use simply as dia-
grams of the sad fact that we have got so accustomed to fold-
ing the hands when we did not know what to do, that we
continue our resigned acquiescence even when the path of
effective action is clear.

Professor Ward has spoken warmly of what man may
achieve by an increased control of life {Realms of Ends, p.
112). "What the schoolmaster, the physician, and the j)hi-
lanthropist effect for the amelioration of the masses needs no
description. Here again we have definite direction over-
riding the random and untrained impulses of the natural
man. While the progress already made in the physical and
social ameloriation of human life is inestimable, it is as noth-
ing compared with what is still possible. Nine-tenths of onr
physical ills are due to ignorance and perhaps a still greater
proportion of our social evils are due to selfishness. Present
scientific knowledge is adequate to remedy a very large
proportion of the former, and the ordinary prudential
maxims of utilitarian morality, if they were only observed
as they might be, would go far towards extinguishing the
latter: they would put an end to the worships of Venus,

618 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

Bacchus, and Mammon, if even thej did not establish peace
and chain up the dogs of war for ever." This was 1907-
1910.

In the cases where the issue is relatively clear we have
of course made great progress. We think of malaria and
Malta fever, of diphtheria and plague, and many other
diseases now coming under control. 'Not many years ago
a number of religious and worthy Boer farmers — uncon-
sciously impious — refused to join with an effective Anti-
Locust League which depended for success on concerted
action; they gave for their reason that it was attempting
to stay the hand of God. But already this sounds like an-
cient history. !N'ot in regard to diseases and pests alone, but
in regard to depressing environment, ugliness, and dirt; in
regard to dangerous and deteriorative occupations ; in regard
to poverty and unemployment, and, in short, all manner of
objective evils, we have a determination rapidly growing
stronger in our midst to get at the facts, to understand the
operative factors, and to put brains into the task of better-
ment. Knowledge is foresight, and foresight is power.
Science is for the ameloriation and control, as well as for the
enlightenment of life. To have this conviction strongly is
surely to show no profane depreciation of the things of the
spirit which are beyond the scientific universe of discourse.

It is the complaint of most of us that scientific efforts
for the alleviation of misery and the scattering of gratuitous
shadows move so very slowly. On the other hand, there is
some reason to be afraid of movements that make people
more comfortable without making them more ambitious in
the quest for the True, the Beautiful, and the Good ; and of
reforms which save guilty people from the consequences of
sin, selfishness, and sloth.

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 619

§5. Importcmce of Correlating Organismal, Functu^iuil,
and Environmental Betterment.

A consideration of organic evolution suggests that i)ro-
gressive change depends on the correlation of functional and
environmental with organismal improvement. We see writ
large the lesson that a promising organisation may undergo
involution in conditions of ease and safety, that the parasite
is branded by degeneration, that unused organs dwindle away.
We have seen that the development of characters is in some
measure dependent on nurture, that progressive variations
are apt to be short-lived unless the environment be also pro-
gressive, that the sifting is always in relation to a definite
here and now — namely, the surrounding web of life in which
some of the great advances of the past are always in some
measure systematised. What is true of organic progress is
yet more abundantly true of human progress, physical and
social, as well as organic: that there must be a correlation
of three kinds of endeavour, — that which aims at the im-
provement of the organism or breed (Eugenics), that which
concerns itself with the ameloriation of the environment
(Eutopias or Euthenics), and that which seeks to bring abjut
the betterment of functions, especially occupations (Eu-
technics). Different sides of progress appeal to different
minds, and few of us can work effectively at more than one
thing at a time, but perhaps we should give greater prom-
inence than we do to the simple lesson of Evolution that
lasting betterment must be realised in place and work as
well as in people, in environment and function (including
leisure-time activity) as well as in organism.

620 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

§ 6. Dangers of False Simplicity or Materialism.

When we turn to the consideration of practical problems,
we reap the reward of the time devoted to the discussion
of the essential characters of the living organism. The con-
clusion that the category ' Mechanism ' requires in Animate
Nature to be supplemented by the category ^ Organism ',
warrants us in carefully scrutinising all proposals which
are tarred with the mechanistic or materialistic brush. They
are bound to be fallacious in their incompleteness and per-
haps also in the clear-cut definiteness which makes false sim-
plicity seductive.

The conclusion that, among the higher animals at least,
we have certainly to do with mind-bodies or body-minds,
with individualities having at least a rill of inner life, justi-
fies us in looking with suspicion at projects which declare
the uselessness of the soul. The '' false simplicity " error of
materialism may be repeated at a higher level in a biologism
which leaves out mentality in its account and treatment of
a dog, or in a theromorphism which treats men as '^ bipedal
cattle " — often of considerable ferocity.

It is not merely a theoretical question of giving the most
accurate description of a dog or a horse or a man, it is
also a practical question of making the most and the best
of the creature. And in this respect the conclusion of
thoughtful experts is unanimous, that the truer conception
is also that which works best.

There are many higher reasons (religious, ethical, artistic,
and others) for taking a big view of Man, but what we have
been concerned with in this course is to show that the crude
view is bad science. When Prof. Jacques Loeb says, " We
eat, drink, and reproduce, not because mankind has reached

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 621

an agreement that this is desirable, but because, machine-
like, we are compelled to do so ", he does not make
a good antithesis. It is a familiar fact that Man often
inhibits these organised impulses, and does so in reference to
ideals which mankind has built up in a manner almost as
far from the average animal's ways as these are from a
machine^s. When Le Dantec says, '' The fact of being con-
scious does not intervene in the slightest degree in directing
vital movements ", we think that he is departing from the
first canon of scientific work — accuracy. Often in man's
experience it is just the being conscious that makes all the
difference.

It may be useful to give two or three examples to show
that proposals fundamentally biological need not be narrow
or materialistic. Many authorities on education have em-
phasised on various grounds the importance of Play, but
discussion passed to a firmer basis after the important work
of Groos on the play of animals, for he showed that play
was no mere safety-valve for superabundant energ\' and
spirits, no mere relaxation, no mere recapitulation, but that
it was a joyous apprenticeship to the business of life, a
time for replacing instinctive predispositions by learning
from experience, a time of elbow-room for variations, a
time for experimenting before criticisms prune, before casu-
alties induce caution, and before hard work brings on " life-
harming heaviness."

Or again, it may be well for us, on our own behalf and
for our children, to ask whether we are making what we
might of the well-springs of joy in the world ; and whether
we have begun to know what we ought to know regarding
the Biology or Psycho-biology of Joy. Have we given atten-
tion, for instance, to the work of the famous physiologist

622 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

of Petrograd, Prof. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, who was
the first to demonstrate the influence of the emotions on
the health of the body ? That a good circulation is associated
with cheerfulness is a familiar fact, — and how this organic
jauntiness sometimes jars on the tired and sorrowful! But
there is the converse proposition that cheerfulness makes
for health. It was said of old time : " he that is of a merry
heart hath a continual feast ", and '^ a merry heart is the
life of the flesh ". Now, what the researches of Pavlov,
Cannon, Carlson, Crile, and others have done is to demon-
strate experimentally that pleasant emotions favour the
secretion of the digestive juices, the rhythmic movements
of the food-canal, and the absorption of the aliment. Con-
trariwise, unpleasant emotional disturbance and worry of
all sorts have been proved to have a retard ative influence
on the digestive processes. When the hungry man sees the
well-laid table his mouth waters, but every one knows that
a memory or an anticipation will also serve to move at
least the first link in the digestive chain. ^^ It is now well
known," says Professor Dearborn, ^' that no sense-experi-
ence is too remote from the innervations of digestion to be
taken into its associations, and serve as a stimulus of diges-
tive movements and secretions." Emotion may influence
the production of adrenalin by the core of the adrenal glands,
and a slight increase in this potent substance constricts the
smaller blood-vessels, raises the blood pressure, excites and
freshens the muscles, increases the sugar content of the
blood, and so on. From the non-mechanistic position which
we have defended in these lectures, it is of great interest
and importance that good news, psychical if anything is,
may set in motion a series of physico-chemical and vital
processes, complex beyond the ken of the wisest And the

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION ()2;3

cheerful man, who cultivates the habit of happiness, tiiiding
good reasons for rejoicing — in the sunshine and stars, in
flowers and birds, in works of art and the faces of his friends
— will have his ' joy-reward ' or euphoria adik'd unto him
unless he is fool enough to pursue it. Our point is, that,
open to at least a large number of our fellow-creatures, there
are sights and sounds that make for joy and that increas-
ingly, as some of the Psalmists were well aware, and that
one of the obvious lessons of evolution — and of connnon
sense — is that we should use these well-springs freely.

What is true in regard to digestion applies also to other
functions. Wordsworth knew this when he spoke of his
heart responding to the sight of the rainbow and the recollec-
tion of the daffodils by the lakeside. He may not have
known much about the complex pathways of the pneunio-
ffastric, but he was sure about the influence of joy on the cir-
culation. Professor Dearborn has worked at the factors alter-
ing blood-pressure and he makes the notable statement that
in the ''general stimulation of the essential circulation in
all constructive parts of the body, such as the brain, the
muscles, and the digestive organs, joy exerts one of its
most conspicuous benefits, and one that no one can doubt

or ignore ".

There are facts which point to the conclusion that a glad-
some mind may also increase the integrative function of the
nervous system. It is an indubitable fact that a joy— say
of maternity, or discovery, or artistic creation— may become
an exhilaration and enthusiasm of thought and will; but
the same is true of bodily welfare. Good tidings will
invigorate the flagging energies of a band of explorers; an
unexpected visit will change a wearied homesick child, as
if by magic, into a dancing gladsome elf; a religious joy

624 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

will make men and women transcend the ordinary limits of
our frail humanity. How it comes about is not yet quite
clear; but somehow the oil of joy, as the Scriptures call
it, operates so as to make the limbs more supple and the
face to shine. Emotion has its physical accompaniment in
motions throughout the body, in changes in secretion and
circulation, and also in some other way whereby influences
from some emotional ' centre ' such, perhaps, as the optic
thalamus (the second great division of the brain) surge up
into the cerebral cortex, the seat of the higher mental proc-
esses, where joy and activity may be correlated.

We have referred to recent work on the physiology of joy
simply as an illustration of the way in which science may
be utilised in the control of life — not merely as regards ex-
ercise, fresh air, diet, and so on, but in the subtler task
of developing the personality on what one may call direct
lines.

The danger ahead is well known, that, just as the direct
pursuit of health is apt to engender hypochondria and vale-
tudinarianism, and just as the direct pursuit of happiness
is apt to defeat its own end, so the direct pursuit of joy
for the sake of the ^ joy-reward ' may prove consummately
futile. But it is possible to make a bogey of this risk. We
are not made of such friable material.

Forced cheerfulness is, of course, a horror, but the per-
sistent will to be glad, if worthily satisfied with some of the
real joys of life, may soon become a habit that requires
no artificial stimulation. A conventional approach to l^ature
and Art is often rewarded much beyond its deserts, and
men who began by taking walks for duty's sake have often
become genuine enthusiasts for the open country. The pur-
suit of joy may be futile and the faking of it an abomina-

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 625

tion, but there is nothing absurd or morbid, for instance,
in humbly learning to know more about the endless things
of beauty which are joys for ever. If we make sure of
these, the euphoria will look after itself.

It is surely for the guidance of youth to recognise that
at levels far below Man's there is an enhancing of physical
fondness by aesthetic embroideries and emotional tenderness,
and the sobering of all by a working together of mates in
the discharge of parental duties.

It is surely for the guidance of all to realise the extent
to which animal life rises above a struggle around the platter
of subsistence, and illustrates the raw material, at least, of
domestic virtues. We cannot believe that animals '' think
the ought '', so that in the strict sense the ethical note is not
sounded, but when we consider their expenditure of energ^•
towards results that are other-regarding not self-regarding,
we seem to hear an ethical undertone. In any case it is
not from Natural History that we learn the '' Might is Kight "
doctrine.

§ 7. Science for Life.

Let us sum up the general argument.

(1) There is no doubt whatever that many of the human
shadows that blot out the sun and make our feet stumble
are gratuitous, and may be got rid of whenever man pleases.
That this condition, '' whenever man pleases ", is not easily
fulfilled we are well aware. But there is no doubt that wo
can get rid of many social handicaps, and go on to higher
adventures, discovering more and more of the goodness of
God in the land of the living.

A hundred years ago people shuddered at the name * Gaol-
fever ', a terrible pestilence, which attacked judge and jury,

626 THE CONTROL OF LIFE:

prisoner and onlooker at Old Bailey. We call it typhus-fever
now, and it is rare in Britain, thanks to the enthusiasm of
the early nineteenth-century hygienists. It is a dirt disease,
it can be controlled by care and cleanliness. It is due to a
microbe, not yet isolated, which is transferred from man
to man by infected lice. As Sir Ray Lankester says, the
Angel of Death they spoke of a hundred years ago is the
clothes' louse, which can be readily exterminated by the
use of benzine. We cannot but feel that it was almost con-
temptible to have submitted for centuries to a tyranny of
dirt; but the point is that we are continuing to submit to
similar things. We are slow to gird up our loins. We are
slow to learn the lesson of the Control of Life.

(2) It has been said that there are two views of this world,
that which regards it as a swamp to be crossed as quickly
as possible, and that which regards it as a marsh to be
drained. The view to which our study of Animate Nature
points is emphatically the latter. Man must continue the
struggle against inhibitants, — the campaign in which living
creatures have been engaged for millions of years, the
endeavour to bring the inorganic into the service of the
organic, to bring the body-mind into subordination to the
mind-body, to eliminate the disorderly, the inharmonious,
the involutionary. For we adhere to the thesis that evolution
is on the ivhole integrative, not disintegrative.

(3) To put the same thing in a third way, which is more
generalised, we are in profound agreement with the view
well expressed by a contemporary philosopher, — that it is
Man's part to build up, as he is doing, a scientific systemati-
sation of knowledge which will form the basis of an in-
creasing control of life. The mundane goal of the evolution-
ary movement is " the mastery by the human mind of the

LESSONS OF EVOLUTION f527

conditions, internal as well as external, of its life and gruwth.
The primitive intelligence is useful to the organism as a
more elastic method of adjusting itself to its environment.
As the mental powers develop, the tables are turned, an<l
the mind adjusts its environment to its own needs. " Mihi
res non me rebus suhjungere conor" is the motto that it
takes for its own. With the mastery of external nature, ap-
plied science has made us all familiar. But the last enemy
that man shall overcome is himself. The internal conditions
of life, the physiological basis of mental activity, the socio-
logical laws that operate for the most part unconsciously,
are parts of the ^environment' which the self-conscious in-
telligence has to master, and it is on this mastery that the
regnum hominis will rest" (Hobhouse, 1915, p. 443). Of
a truth, Science is for Life, not Life for Science.

SUMMARY.

The theoretical doctrine of evolution has for its practical corollarj'
the fact of the controllability of life. Darwin was logically fol-
lowed by Pasteur.

If the central fact in evolution be " the slowly wrought-out dom-
inance of mind in things ", it is surely man^s fundamental task to use
this expanding mind for the fuller possession of his kingdom, and
the better ordering of his life in it. If evolution suggests any les-
son it is this. We must inquire, therefore, into the determiuauts of
life.

The first determinant of life is heredity — our relation to preceding
generations — which includes not only the past living on in the
present, but new departures or variations. We cannot alter our own
inheritance, though it is ours to trade with, but we have some meas-
ure of control over the inheritance of future generations.

The second determinant of life is nurture — all manner of for-
mative influences from surroundings and from use and disuse —
and this is largely controllable in our hands. Nurture determines
the fulness of expression that hereditary characters may attain in

628 THE CONTROL OF LIFE

development; it may re-impress desirable modifications on succes-
sive generations; it determines in part the sort of reception a new
variation meets with. In mankind * nurture ' includes the ' social
heritage \

The third determinant of life is selection, and this is of peculiar
importance in mankind, where natural sifting is largely in abey-
ance, where the sifting is in great part deliberate, rational, social.
The relaxation of natural selection is the inevitable result of the
increase of solidarity and sympathy; the difiSculty is to find a
sufficiently stern substitute. It should be noted that humane inter-
ference with indiscriminate elimination (which thins without sifting)
cannot harm the race; that drastic social surgery is impossible in
the present state of science and social sentiment; and that proposals
which are sound biologically may be disruptive socially.

A study of animate evolution points to the conclusion that secure
progress implies a correlation of organismal, functional, and envi-
ronmental improvements. This is even more true as regards progress
in the kingdom of man.

The hard-won conclusions that in Animate Nature the category
' mechanism * requires to be supplemented by the category ' or-
ganism \ and that among the higher animals at least this requires
to be supplemented by the conception of 'mind-body' (and in
mankind by that of social personahty), afford a test for practical
projects. The error of materialism (namely, false simplicity) is
often repeated at a higher level in biologism and theromorphism.
The error is not in theory only, but shows itself in practice when
the problem is to get the most or the best out of the creature.

It is very interesting to consider the extent to which animal life
rises beyond a struggle around the platter of subsistence, and illus-
trates the raw material, at least, of domestic and social virtues. In
the strict sense it may be true that the ethical note is not sounded,
but there is often an ethical undertone. Nature has stamped this
with her approval, Huxley notwithstanding.

LECTURE XX.
VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE.

LECTUEE XX.
VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE.

§ 1. Biological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature. § 2.
Psychological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature. § A.
Correspondence in Animate Nature to our Ideals of the True,
the Beautiful, and the Good. § 4. Humanist Value of the
Study of Animate Evolution. § 5. Scientific Description of
Animate Nature Not Inconsistent with Religious Interpretation.

§ 1. Biological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature.

In many different ways Man has realised the healing
power of l^ature — vis medicatrix Naturce — and all of them
are instructive. One might refer, for instance, to the hi^al-
ing virtues in many natural substances, both animal and
vegetable, some of which are extraordinarily quaint. It has
been re-discovered in modern times that more than one snake
carries in its gall-bladder a sure antidote to its own venom.
Is not the old advice that the coward should eat of the heart
of a lion, so that he might be brave, echoed in the modern
treatment of a cretinoid child with the thyroid gland of a
sheep? Is it not like a leaf out of an old book of magic
to read that an enlightened use of pituitary extract enabled
a successful examinee to add in a short time to his ht^ght
the couple of inches that were required in order to secure
a post for which he had proved himself otherwise eligible?
It looks as if by taking sufficient thought one might be able
to add a cubit to one's stature.

Interesting too is the reparatory power exhibited by many
living creatures. One of the Big Trees or Sequoias which

631

632 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURAE

was a seedling in 271 b.c, suffered a burn three feet wide
when it was 516 years old, and spent 105 years in folding
its living tissues over the wound. When it was killed at
the age of 2,171 years, a Methuselah among trees, it was
engaged in healing a third great wound 18 feet wide and
about 30 feet high. Vis medicatrix Natures,

A sponge can be cut up and planted out like a piece of
potato-tuber; it may be minced and pressed through a cloth
sieve without losing its power of regrowth. An earthworm
thinks nothing of regrowing a new head or a new tail, or a
snail its horn and the eye at the tip, even unto forty times.
And this regenerative capacity is in the main adaptive in
its distribution, for, as Lessona and Weismann have shown,
it tends to occur in those animals and in those parts of
animals which are in the natural conditions of their life
peculiarly liable to non-fatal injury. Long-legged and lanky
animals like crabs and starfishes usually show much of it; a
self-contained globular animal like a sea-urchin shows little.
The chameleon is one of the few lizards that does not regrow
a lost tail, for, as it keeps it safely coiled around the branch,
the regenerative capacity has fallen into abeyance.

Many other instances might be given of Nature's healing
power: — the processes of rejuvenescence which in many or-
ganisms are continually at work in staving off senescence;
the natural defences of organisms, such as the bodyguard of
migratory phagocytes which deal with intruding microbes,
and the mysterious intrinsic counter-actives or anti-bodies
which deal with toxins ; the immunity which some animals
have to poisons, as the mongoose to snake-bite; the regulatory
processes which sometimes occur when development or nor-
mal function is disturbed ; the absence of disease and senility
in wild life; the way in which some simple animals evade

VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 633

natural death altogether; the numberless arrangements for
keeping the earth clean and sweet; the hygienic value of
sunshine and fresh air.

These matters lie outside our proper theme, but they
are well worthy of being recalled. Even when one is able
to give a reasonable account of how they have come to be,
they illustrate the balance and adaptiveness which is charac-
teristic of Animate Nature. Only a system with order and
progress in the heart of it could elaborate itself so perfectly
and so intricately. There is assuredly much to incline us
to " assert Eternal Providence, and justify the ways of
God to Men ".

§ 2. Psychological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature.

Let us think, however, of the way in which Nature con-
tributes to the hygiene and healing of our minds, so apt to
be disturbed by the rush and racket of civilisation. There
are deeply-rooted, old-established, far-reaching relations be-
tween Man and Nature which cannot be ignored without
loss. Man was cradled and brought up in touch with Na-
ture, and he must ever return to her, like the wandering
birds whose life is never full until, moved by an organic
homesickness, they come back to nest in the place where they
were born. In a period of evolution which has been mainly
urban, we miss our contact with the open country, which
is, for many, a condition of full sanity, and makes for the
steadying and enrichment of life.

Especially in youth is touch with Nature invaluable, for
it remains true of the child who goes forth every day that
" what he sees becomes part of him for a day, or for a year,
or for stretching cycles of years ". It seems a pity that
the modern child is often unfamiliar with the Scriptures;

634 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURJE

it is also to be deplored that he is often equally unfamiliar
with the book of Nature.

Man needs to sojourn with Nature in order to get certain
fundamental impressions without which he is impoverished,
— the impressions from the starry sky, the pathless sea, the
mountain-top, the dense forest, the apple-blossom, the ant-
hill, the swallows flying south in autumn. Man cannot safely
dispense with the fundamental impressions of power, of large-
ness, of pervading order, of omnipresent beauty, of universal
flux, of intricacy, of gro^vth, of the web of life, of adaptive-
ness, of evolution. Some minds weary of theories; let them
by sympathetic observation hug the facts close, for thus also
may deeper visions of reality be gained. Let them by ob-
servation draw water from what an expert naturalist has
called '^ the bottomless well of surprises '^ (Chalmers
Mitchell, Finite Life and Individuality, p. 60).

Another healing virtue in Nature is to be found in its
perennial problem-setting interest. It arouses our attention ;
it intrigues the curious spirit; it leads us on and on like
the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, As some one
said, it is like a serial story. Its study is a brain-stretching
exercise, and while it rewards the discoverer with both light
and power, it subjects him to a discipline which engenders
humility. For is not all our science rounded with mystery
— mystery as to essences, mystery as to origins, mystery as
to mutations. What we are surest of is the fundamental
mysteriousness of Nature.

§ 3. Correspondence in Animate Nature to our Ideals of
the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.

There is a legitimate scientific sense in which it may be
said that Man is not only a part, but a product of the system

VIS MEDICATRIX NATURJi: 635

of things and creatures that we call Nature. We know, in-
deed, that the system in its subjective expression is of Man's
making; we know also that Man was made by the system.
This is a familiar riddle. Needless to say, however, the
system cannot mean to us a mindless kaleidoscope, for by no
jugglery can one evolve mind out of anything else. F^nt
keeping to the common-sense view that Man is of a pieco
with a real external Nature, though transcending it when
he will, we are concerned to point out that Nature is not
altogether so foreign to Man as is continually insinuated.

The highest values for Man are the True, the Beautiful,
and the Good; and it is of interest that there are in Nature
features which do in some degree correspond to these. For
it is not far-fetched to recognise that there is a rationality
in Nature which is there to be discovered or discerned, whioh
is not simply imposed upon Nature by our formulation. In
what sense can we speak of a rationality in Nature? We
mean that the system of things is more or less intelligible
and explicable, that its relative uniformities can be trusted
to, that when we get a grip of things we can make a coherent
scientific system of them, which fits in with other parts of
our intellectual systematisation. The formulation is some-
times premature and forced, but this is discovered in time,
for Nature does not humour the inquirer. The Ptolemaic
system in astronomy had to yield to the Copernican, that
to the Keplerian, that to the Newtonian, and so on, but
each advance meant getting nearer the truth, as we kn.uv by
the increase in consistency on the one hand, and by the
increase in the astronomer's power of prediction on the other.
This would not be possible did not scientific fornnilation
approximate towards a description of what actually happrns.

That Nature is amenable to scientific formulation— dis-

636 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

cemed rather than imposed upon it — is admitted by all, but
the interpretation is as difficult as the fact is obvious. It
is a philosophical problem, but a scientific note may be per-
mitted. To be asked how the marvellous fabric of science,
one of the greatest human achievements, is to be explained
in terms of evolutionary formulae, is like being asked to
account for the evolution of some very complex and relatively
perfect structure like the human eye. Such questions have
to be treated historically. Science and the eye must be
looked at as the results of long processes of evolution, vastly
older than Man. We trace the eye back to simple clusters
of sensory cells, and we trace science back to simple practical
lore, and further back still to pre-human capacities of learn-
ing. The acquisition and the expansion of the early lore
had assuredly survival value; inborn curiosity has been
from first to last a stimulus to inquiry; registration of gains
in language and reeords, in instruments and permanent
products, has made compound-interest advance possible. The
result is not less admirable because its early stages were
humble ; but to ignore the early stages is to make the Ascent
of Man magical.

But this does no more than give setting to the metaphysi-
cal problem. The strands of naturally-determined sequence
have woven themselves into an intelligible pattern which
science discerns; is it conceivable that they might have tied
themselves into a knot baffling all disentanglement? And
we must remember that almost all the discernment of the
order of ITature has depended on seeing the stars in un-
beclouded skies. Various attempts, such as Lachelier's
(1871), have been made to explain the 'correspondence'
between the intrinsic order of Nature and Man's capacity
for deciphering it^ but it seems doubtful if we get beyond

VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 637

some device which dissolves rather than solves the problem.
It looks like a frontier-problem for Man's intellect.

But, leaving this puzzle, do we not find some (jiiiet for
our unrest in the progressive disclosure of the orderliness
of Nature? Ours is no phantasmagoria of a world, hut a
Systema N^aturae. We are parts of a reasonable world, which
voices reason and listens to reason. Its process has worked
persistently towards masterpieces, of which the climax is the
reasonable soul. From the intrinsic order and intelligibility
of Nature, which the rise of the magnificent scientific edifice
proves, we may not be logically permitted to make a tran-
scendent inference to an Omniscient Creator, but it is in that
way the heart of Man points. Our belief is that the Logos
is at the core of our system, implicit in the nebula, as now
in the dew-drop. It slept for the most part through the
evolution of plants and coral-like animals, whose dream-
smiles are a joy for ever. It slept as the child sleeps before
birth. It became more and more awake among higher ani-
mals,— feeling and knowing and willing. It became articu-
late in self-conscious Man,— and not least in his science.

Scientific re-constructions are not arbitrary projections,
for they work. In this sense there is rationality in Nature.
But if there is rationality in Nature, must we not go fur-
ther? For, as Aliotta has put it, "He who believes in
the objective value of his science must then also believe in
God. If an absolute thought does not exist, Nature cannot
be rational ". Descartes rested his belief in Science on his
belief in God. In his Gifford Lectures Mr. Arthur Balfour
rested the belief in God on a belief in science, for " God
is himself the condition of scientific knowledge '\

To some it may seem far-fetched to find in Animate
Nature a correspondence to Man's truth-seeking. But wo

638 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

would point out, (1) that knowing is on the way to truth,
and the knowing creatures, that face the facts, survive; and
(2) that truth-seeking expresses the natural activity of the
healthy mind, and Nature is all for health.

But it is also part of the deepest life of Man to enjoy
what is beautiful, and one of the glories of the universe is
its beauty. There is no place where this voice is not heard
unless Man has obtruded noisily. Esthetic emotion thrills
what is best and highest in us, and it also makes the pro-
toplasmic stream sing as it flows. The correspondence is
never disappointing; and those who ask most are best satis-
fied. Part of the sensory delight that we have in beautiful
sights in Nature may be due to Man's familiarity with them
for so many hundreds of thousands of years ; but this will
not explain the correspondence that there is between the
beauty of Nature and the ever-changing requirements of
what we may call the ' spiritual eye \ In the contemplation
of the supremely beautiful there is something of the satisfac-
tion which religious feeling finds in music — a language ex-
pressing the inexpressible.

The system to which we belong is more or less intelligible,
we can make good sense of it ; it is beautiful through and
through ; but in what possible sense can it be said that there
is in it anything corresponding to what we call good? If
we patiently consider this question, two sets of facts present
themselves. In the first place, Man began with strands of
personality of pre-human origin, and some of these must have
been very fine and others very coarse. We are apt to think
oftener of the latter, for it is sometimes to our dismay and
perplexity that they show themselves in the fabric of our
life.

But do we think enough of the other side, that there must

VIS MEDICATRIX NATFR/E C.'JO

have gone to the making of jMankiiul some very fine pre-
human materials — kin-sympathy, parental afToction, the love
of mates, some power of control and of endurance, some grit,
and some gentleness. There are some s})rings of conduct
in us that were flowing long before our race began, and wbile
the water of some is bitter, that of others is sweet.

The second consideration is that a study of the evolution-
process discloses a multitude of cases in which the reward
of success is given to types which are careful parents, de-
voted mates, friendly kinsfolk. There is abundance of el-
bowing and jostling, but many who have consulted Nature
have turned away before she has finished speaking. We
do not say that the extraordinarily laborious insect-mothers
are ethical agents; that would be a confusion of thought;
we say, however, that the objectively altruistic type suc-
ceeds. Nature stamps not only the beautiful, but the other-
regarding with the only approval which is hers to bestow
— success in surviving. And, unless they are uncommonly
good hypocrites, many of Life's children behave as if they
found living good.

Thus Nature speaks to our moral as well as to our intel-
lectual ear. Singling and sifting never cease, but Nature
has certainly another counsel besides whetting teeth and
sharpening claws. The limitations and difficulties which en-
force struggle and competition are often eifectively tran-
scended by increasing parental care and sociality. Nature
is continually taking advantage of her ehildrenV capacity
for self-forgetfulness. In many races of animals success
has been the reward of subordinating individual interests to
those of the species. As a matter of fact, an extraordinarily
large part of the energy of organisms is spent not on them-
selves, but for others. Nature, we think, stamps not only

640 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

the beautiful but the good with her approval ; and when we
carefully consider the process of Natural Selection itself, do
we not get from it a deep and ancient ethical message — that
the individual must be content to subordinate himself to the
species, even to lose himself in its progressive life? There
is an ethical imdertone.

§ 4. Humanist Value of the Study of Animate E volution,

Nature's music does not cease on a merry chord, but
perhaps it has a healing power. There is at all events, a
tonic virtue in contemplating the evolutionary process of
which mankind is an outcome. It is not a small thing,
forsooth, that we are part and parcel of an Order of Nature
which has evolved for millions of years like a long-drawn-
out drama to finer and finer issues; that the process of
evolution has in the main ^' the unity of an onward advanc-
ing melody " ; that all through the ages, apart from blind
alleys, life has been slowly creeping — and sometimes quickly
leaping — upwards; that while there have been many mys-
terious losses even of branches from the great arbor vitae, the
flowers have become consistently finer. There was a time
when there were no backboned animals; then fishes ap-
peared, then amphibians, then reptiles, then birds and mam-
mals, and then, after various tentatives, mankind — each age
transcending its predecessor.

As we look back, then, on the world-becoming, we see that
finer and finer actors have appeared from epoch to epoch
on the crowded stage, and the situations have become more
and more intricate. A great web has been passing for in-
computable ages from the loom of time — hunger and love its
warp and woof — but the pattern has become more and more
subtle, and it sometimes seems as if it were picturing a

VIS MEDICATRIX NATUR E r,+l

story. Is there not meaning in the long-drjiwri-cuif l»iit
indubitably progressive evolution of the nervous system, in
the increasing elaboration of behaviour, in the gradual mian-
cipation of the psyche? The bird is more of an ag* nt tlian
the worm — more of a free agent; and the world has greater
value to the bird than to the worm. Some simple creatures
have only one answer to every question ; but how complex
is the life of the ant on the instinctive line of evolution,
and of the dog on the intelligent line. Since the beginning
of life there has been a growing appreciation and mastery
of the world. Is it going to stop ?

Perhaps no one has yet fully appreciated what may be
called the principle of conservation in evolution. In a very
literal sense, the higher animals are heirs of all the ages.
Let us explain. Organisms have evolved by a trial-and-
error method; they experiment organically, instinctively, and
intelligently; above all, perhaps, in the mysterious ante-
natal life of the germ-cells they experiment in self-expres-
sion— just as water vapour does in snow^akes, but far more
subtly. What are called variations and mutations in biologi-
cal language are the organism's experiments in self-expres-
sion, and these are the raw materials of progress.

But, while the organism is ever making tentative sugges-
tions and searching its environment with its tendrils, it is
also remarkably conservative. It proves all things, but Uie
other side is, that it holds fast that which is good. Croat
gains once made are not held lightly. Species become ex-
tinct and races perish, but important organic inventions an-
carried on by some collateral lineage. It was probai>ly some
ribbon-worm that first manufactured iKrmoglol.in-the all-
important, oxygen-capturing red pigment of the bb.ul. M.nv
backboneless animals of higher degree on dilTerent lines of

642 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

evolution have not got it, but the invention was too good
to lose; and every one knows that all backboned animals
from fishes onwards have red blood. Or again, the most
primitive and in a way most puzzling kind of locomotion
is that of the amceba flowing along, or rolling along — like
a microscopic ^ tank ' — in the pond. Is it not a most sug-
gestive fact that our health from day to day, and the de-
velopment of our nervous system, are absolutely dependent
on this self-same amoeboid movement? Our white blood-
corpuscles are amoeboid cells ; the outgrowth of nerve-fibres
in development is in some measure due to amoeboid move-
ment. How far this evolutionary conservation of values
goes, who shall say ? In any case there seems good reason
for regarding evolution as essentially integrative. By this
We mean that it makes for co-ordination, consistency, har-
mony in the continual self-realisation of multitudinous
forms of being. Ugliness, evil, inconsistency are disintegra-
tive lapses that perish; beauty, goodness, truth — even in
little bits — are integrative qualities that last. In any case,
the big fact is, that men, bent on making much of their
life, have behind them an organic momentum which is in
part in line with what the best in us regards as best.

Purpose and promise. When we consider the grandeur of
the long-drawn-out Evolution process and the wonder of its
masterpieces, and especially when we realise its general
progressiveness and its conservation of great gains, two ideas
rise in the mind — purpose and promise.

It is difficult to shut out the impression that Nature is
Nature for a purpose. We do not think any longer of a
' directive power ' outside of the evolving organisms, but
of a directive power which is bone of their bone and flesh
of their flesh, — a directive power analogous to that which

VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 643

we ourselves know when we coininaud <jur coiirsf <»r h»mi(1
an arrow to its mark. What we must j)articiil:irly lakr ae-
. count of is the main trend in evolution, makini; iH-rsistrntly
for the dominance of mentality and the cstablisliiMcnt even-
tually of personality. Whether what we now exptriciicc bf
the goal or near the goal, it gives significance to the whole
long journey. And if Man be the highest product of evo-
lution, and if the central reality in our life is our clear pur-
pose, may we not ask whether there is not also a purjtose
at the core of the world-process ? Von Baer, the founder of
embryology, remarks that the naturalist is not j)reeluded
from asking "whether the totality of details leads liiio lo
a general and final basis of intentional design ", and our
foregoing discussions have led us to the conclusion that a
scientific description of Nature is not inconsistent with a
philosophical or religious interpretation in terms of {)iirpose
which manifests itself in the order of Nature, in keeping
Nature in lasting remembrance. We must, however, reeog-
nise that just as Man's conceived purpose transcends the
mammaFs perceived purpose, as that in turn transcends the
lower animal's ingrained or organised purposiveness, so, but
much more, will the Divine Purpose transcend our highest
thoughts of it. But we deem that if we err in using tho
word Purpose — the biggest word we have — we err less griev-
ously than if we used no word at all.

Promise. For millions and millions of years there was
throughout Nature no voice of life at all— nothing to br.'ak
the silence but the thunder and the cataract, the waves on
the shore, and the wind among the trees. The niomini:
stars sang together and the little hills clapped their hands,
but there was no voice of life at all. Tl.e long lasting sileneo
was first broken by insects, but they never got bey.^n.l in-

644 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

strumental music. It is to the progressive Amphibians of the
Carboniferous Age that we must look back with special
gratefulness, for they were the first to get vocal cords, and,
interestingly enough, a movable tongue. With them Animate
Nature found a voice.

In a much deeper sense, however, we may say that for
millions and millions of years Nature was speechless — never
more than groaning and whispering, as it were. It was in
Man that Nature became definitely articulate; that the in-
herent rationality was echoed. In poem and painting Man
expresses his aesthetic appreciation and partial understand-
ing of the system of which he forms a part; in his science
he turns darkness into light; in the application of science
he conquers and controls the world.

Every one recognises as a big fact of animate evolution the
growing differentiation and integration (i.e., organisation)
of living creatures, but another side to it is the progressive
external registration. There has been woven a web of
life whose pattern has become more and more intricate, as
for instance in the inter-relations between flowers and
flower-visiting insects. This complexifying of inter-relations
has been of great importance in evolution, for it is in refer-
ence to this external system that experiments are tested
or even made, and that selection works. Thus, as it seems
to us, the intensification of life has been in part secured
and in part prompted by the growing complexity of the
external Systema Naturae. Thus living creatures contribute
to the evolution of their kind not only directly by exhibiting
variations and by personally testing these, but also indirectly
by making new patterns in the web of life. If this be
so, there is for Man the hint — the Open Secret — that pro-
gressive evolution depends not merely on the improvement

VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 645

of the natural inheritance, and on the intensification of the
individual life, but also on the ennoblement of the external
heritage — so much his own creation — the treasures of liter-
ature and art, the beautified region and city, the tradition
of high ideals, and the multitudinous linkages — many in
sad need of amelioration — in the framework of society itself.
In this mood we recall Emerson's famous passage : " So
shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. Nature
is not fixed . . . Spirit alters, moulds, makes it Biiikl,
therefore, your own world.

" When a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object
from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought
shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the
holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the
creation."

'' As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in
your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A cor-
responding revolution in things will attend the influx of
the spirit. So fast will disagreeable appearances, swine,
spiders, snakes [of course these words are used metaphori-
cally, not zoologically], madhouses, prisons, enemies, vanish.
They are temporary and shall be no more seen. The sordor
and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up, and the wind
exhale. As when the summer comes from the south, the snow-
banks melt, and the face of the earth becomes green before it,
so shall the advancing spirit create its ornaments along its
path, and carry with it the beauty it visits, and the song
which enchants it; it shall draw beautiful faces, warm hearts,
wise discourse, and heroic acts, around its way until evil
is no more seen. The Kingdom of man over nature, which
cometh not with observation— a dominion such as now is
beyond his dream of God— he shall ent^r without more

646 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored
to perfect sight."

Putting what we have said in a different way, we may
speak of the three voices of N^ature, meaning the impulses
that come from the threefold — practical, emotional, and intel-
lectual— relation between Man and Nature. These are the
wordless voices referred to in the XlXth Psalm : " Day unto
day is welling forth speech, and night unto night is breathing
out knowledge ; there is no speech, and there are no words ;
their voice has no audible sound ; yet it resonates over all the
earth." The three voices are: Endeavour, Enjoy, Enquire.
The first voice is Endeavour. What would our hereditary
character be without Nature's millennial sifting of the in-
surgent, the adventurous, the controlled, the far-sighted,
the strenuous? And the discipline is still binding. There
is no doubt as to Nature's condemnation of the unlit lamp
and the ungirt loin. One of the obvious lessons of evolu-
tion is the danger of having things made too easy!

The second voice is Enjoy. As we come to know Nature,
we find that everything is wonderful. " You of any well
that springs may unfold the heaven of things." ^' It is
enough if through Thy grace I've found naught common
on Thy Earth. Take not that vision from my ken." As we
begin to feel more at home our wonder grows into what may
almost be called affection. This is true of those who have what
Meredith called ^' love exceeding a simple love of the things
that glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck ". Science
never destroys wonder or delight, but only shifts it higher
or deeper. As Coleridge said, " All knowledge begins and
ends with wonder, but the first wonder is the child of ignor-
ance, while the second is the parent of adoration." We need
to listen to this second voice w^hich says Wonder, Enjoy,

VIS MEDICATRIX NATURA^ 647

Revere. It was one whose life was far from being all roses
who said:

To make this Earth our hermitage,
A cheerful and a changeful page
God's bright and intricate device
Of days and seasons doth suffice.

The third voice is Enquire: From the first Nature has
been setting Man problems, leading him gradually on from
the practical to the more abstract. Lafcadio Hcarn tells us
that in the house of any old Japanese family, the guest is
likely to be shown some of the heirlooms. " A pretty little
box, perhaps, will be set before you. Opening it you will
see only a beautiful silk bag, closed with a silk running-cord

decked with tiny tassels You open the bag and

see within it another bag of a different quality of silk, but
very fine. Open that, and lo! a third, which contains a
fourth, which contains a fifth, which contains a sixth, which
contains a seventh bag, which contains the strongest, rough-
est, hardest vessel of Chinese clay that you ever beheld ; yet
it is not only curious but precious; it may be more than a
thousand years old." Indeed it is more than clay, there is
an idea in it.

Natural Science has to do with a similar process of un-
wrapping— it opens the beautiful box, it removes one silken
envelope after another, trying at the same time to unravel
the pattern and count the threads— and what is finally
revealed is something very old and wonderful— the stuff
out of which worlds have been spun—" a handful of dust
which God enchants ". For we must see the scientific Com-
mon Denominator in the light of the philosophic Greatest

Common Measure.

Varying the metaphor, one of the foremost investigators.

648 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURJE

Sir J. J. Thomson, writes: ^' As we conquer peak after peak
we see in front of us regions full of interest and beauty,
but we do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon ; in the
distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those
who ascend them still wider prospects, and deepen the feel-
ing, the truth of which is emphasised by every advance in
science, that ' Great are the Works of the Lord/ "

These are the three voices of Nature. She joins hands
with us; and says Struggle, Endeavour. She comes close
to us, we hear her heart beating; she says Wonder, Enjoy,
Revere. She whispers secrets to us, we cannot always catch
her words ; she says Search, Enquire. These three voices
appeal to Hand and Heart and Head, to the trinity of our
being. In listening to them we may be disciplined to hear
even more august voices. Man^s struggles for food and foot-
hold have often helped him to much higher reaches of en-
deavour; to be thrilled with beauty may be a step to loving
goodness; to try to find out scientifically what is true in
Nature may be the beginning of waiting patiently upon
the Lord. But our point is that to listen to the three voices
of Nature is in itself worth while. It is a necessary and
natural discipline of the developing human spirit.

We are familiar with the story of a rugged and very hu-
man Hebrew prophet, who after severe discipline climbed
a mountain and heard the three voices of Nature. First,
there was a great and strong wind, — a symbol of the practical
voice, surely, which commands man to build his house upon
a rock and to struggle against the storm, which teaches the
sailor to trim his sails and the husbandman to prepare for
the rain. Second, there w^as an earthquake, — a symbol of
the emotional voice, surely, for is there anything so awful
that stirs man and beast more deeply, that moves us down

Vis MEDICATRIX NATUR.E 649

to the primeval bed-rock of human nature laid down in the
time of the cave-dwellers. Third, ihert' was the tire, — a
symbol of the scientific voice, surely, fur the tire of science
burns up rubbish, melts out the gold, reduces things Uj a
common denominator, and gives light to Man. Now it
seemed to the prophet that God was not in the wind, nur in
the earthquake, nor in the fire, and it seems strictly correct
to say that listening to the three voices of Nature is not
in itself religious. But it is a good thing to listen, and it
may form a preparation for religion. It was so in the
prophet's case, for after the echoes of the wind and the
earthquake and the fire had died away, he heard a still,
small voice — God's voice — a sound of gentle stillness, the
Margin says — which spoke very incisively to him. It was a
great experience to the prophet to have heard the three voices
of Nature, but it meant more for him practically to hear
the still small voice. And it may be that in oheying it he
understood afterwards that God was in the other voices too.
So when we pass from the cold evening-light of science,
which the schoolmen called cognitio vespertina, to the morn-
ing-light of religion, which they called cognitio viatutina,
we may be able to agree with Ruskin's fine words (engraved
on the memorial at Keswick) : " The Spirit of God is around
you in the air that you breathe, His glory in the light that
you see, and in the fruitfulness of the earth and the joy of
its creatures He has written for you day by day His revela-
tion, and He has granted you day by day your daily bread."

§ 5. Scientific Description of Animate Nature not Incon-
sistent with Religious Interpretation.

We cannot reach any religious truth or conviction along
scientific lines, but we have tried to show that a careful

650 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

scientific description of Animate Nature is not inconsistent
with a spiritual — i.e., religious or philosophical — interpreta-
tion.

Although some will not agree, we hold it to be historically
true that just as there is a science that knows Nature, so there
is a Religion that knows God ; and throughout our studies we
have not concealed our conviction that it is unprofitable to
pit against one another these two distinct ways of working
towards truth. For they are not antithetic but complemen-
tary.. Perhaps it would be well if the devotees of Science
were more aware of its limitations, perhaps it would be well
if the religious who have the vision of God knew a little more
about His works, but what must be sought after by both is
a position from which haply there may be seen the unity
of Huxley's science and Wordsworth's vision. The results
of Science must, we think, be taken up as ^' harmonious ele-
ments in a system of truth wider than themselves ; a system
in whose wider light their ultimate significance for life and
for the meaning of life would become manifest " (Blewett,
1907, p. 52).

We venture to hope that our study of Animate Nature
may have shown it to be less daemonic and more divine than
many, from Aristotle onwards, have supposed; we should
regret having spoken at all if our study has led any one
to suppose that Animate Nature is not greater than our
greatest thought of it. For the facts of the case from first
to last are so wonderful that we venture to say that no
general impression of Nature reached along scientific or any
other lines can be even in the direction of being true that
does not sound the note of joyous appreciation and of rever-
ent wonder. As Walt Whitman said, " Prais'd be the

VIS MEDICATRIX NATUR/E 651

fathomless Universe, for life and joy, and for objects and
knowledge curious."

Or take part of William Watson's poem :

" Nay, what is Nature's
Self, but an endless
Strife towards music,
Euphony, rhyme?

Trees in their blooming,
Tides in their flowing,
Stars in their circling.
Tremble with song.

God on His throne is
Eldest of poets;
Unto His measures
Moveth the whole."

But even that is not warm enough. We have missed the
substance if the study of Animate Nature leaves us cold.
Take rather this from Ralph Hodgson's Son-g of Honour:

" I heard the universal choir,
The Sons of Light, exalt their Sire
With universal song;
Earth's lowliest and loudest notes,
Her million times ten million throats,
Exalt him loud and long,
And lips and lungs and tongues of grace,
From every part and every place,
Within the shining of his face.
The universal throng."

Let us listen to Goethe, at once scientific invest ifrafor and
poet:

" Nature ! We are surrounded and embraced by hor :
powerless to separate ourselves from her . . .

652 VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE

We live in her midst and know her not. She is inces-
santly speaking to us, yet betrays not her secret . . .

She rejoices in illusion. Whoso destroys it in himself
and others, him she punishes with the sternest tyranny.
Whoso follows her in faith, him she takes as a child to her
bosom.

She wraps man in darkness, and makes him for ever long
for light. She creates him dependent upon the earth, dull
and heavy ; and yet is always shaking him until he attempts
to soar above it . . .

I praise her and all her works.

She has brought me here and will also lead me away: I
trust her. She may scold me, but she will not hate her
work.

Every one sees her in his own fashion. She hides under a
thousand names and phrases, and is always the same.

I praise her and all her works. She is silent and wise.
I trust her.''

But we cannot worship Nature. We cannot be grateful
to a system. We cannot find abiding human satisfaction in
Nature's voices alone. Invigorating, inspiring, and instruc-
tive they certainly are, but they are full of perplexities, and
it is with a sad wistfulness that we hear their echoes dying
away in the quietness of our minds like the calls of curlews
on the moor as they pass further into the mist. Happy, then,
are those who have what Sir Thomas Browne called " a
glimpse of incomprehensibles, and thoughts of things that
thoughts but tenderly touch ". Shall we not seek to worship
Him whom Nature increasingly reveals, from whom all
conie3 and by whom all lives?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EEFERENCES TO LITERATURE

Adami, J. G. Medical Contributions to the Study of Evolution
London, 1918, pp. 372, 7 pis., 20 figs.

A. E. The Candle of Vision. London, 1018

Agar, W. E. Transmission of environmental offcrfH from pnrent to
offspring in Siraocephalua vetulus. Philosophical Transactions, fintjal
Society of London, Series B, vol 203, 19L3, |)p 310-350

Allen, Grant. Physiological Esthetics.

Alexander, F. Matthias. Man's Supreme Inheritance New York
and London, 1918, pp. 354

•' Conscious guidance and control in relation to human evo-
lution in civilization."

Aliotta, Antonio. The Idealistic Reaction Against Science Trans,
by Agnes McCaskill. London, 1914, pp. xxii + 483

Ames, E. S. The Psychology of Religious Experience. Boston nnd
New York, 1910, pp. xii + 428

Assheton, R. The geometrical relation of the nuclei in an invnginat-
ing gastrula {e.g., Amphioxus) considered in connection with rell
rhythm, and Driesch's conception of Entelechy. Archiv Entwicklungs-
mechanik, XXIX, 1910, pp. 46-78, 9 figs.

Baglioni, S. Das Problem der Funktionen des Nervensy stems Jena,

1912, pp. 50.

Baldwin, James Mark. Development amd Evolution. New York and
London, 1902, pp 395.

Balfour, Arthur James. Theism and Humanism. Gifford Lectures
delivered in Glasgow University in 1914. London, 1915, pp 274

Bateson, W. Materials for the Study of Variation. London, 1894,
pp. 598, 209 figs

Bateson, W. The Method and Scope of Genetics. An inaugural lec-
ture. Cambridge University Press, 1908, pp 49.

Bateson, W. Menders Principles of Heredity. London, 1009, pp.
396, 33 figs.

Bateson, W. Problems of Genetics. Yale University Press, 1013,
pp. viii + 258, 13 figs., 2 pis.

Bateson, W. Biological Fact and the Structure of Society The
Herbert Spencer Lecture. Clarendon Press, O.xford. 1912, pp 34

Bateson, W. Presidential Address, British Association, Australia,
1914, pp. 1-38.

Bavink, B. Allgemeine Ergehnisse und Probleme der Naturwissm-
schaft. Leipzig, 1914, pp 314.

Bayliss, W. M. Principles of General Physiology. Ixindon, 1015,
pp. 850, 259 figs.

Bell, Clive. Art. London, Chatto and Windns, 1914. pp 203

Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution. English trans. London, li^ll,
pp. 425.

Bergson, Henri. Life and Consciousness Hibhert Journal, 1011, X,
pp 25-44.

Bergson, Henri. L'ame et le corps, in Foi et Vie, Dec. lOTi-.Tan ,

1913, pp. 714-719, 7-15.

655

656 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biedl, A. The Internal Secretory Organs Trans London, 1912.

Binet, A. La Vie Psychique des Micro-orgavvismes Paris, 1891.

Blewett, G. J. The Study of Nature and the Vision of God: with
other Essays in Philosophy. Toronto, 1907, pp. 358

Bohn, G. La Naissance de VIntelligence. Paris, 1909, pp. 350.

Bohn, G. La Nouvelle Psychologic Animale. Paris, 1911, pp. 198.
[A little masterpiece.]

Bosanqnet, Bernard. Three Lectures on Esthetics. London, Mac-
millan, 1915, pp. ix + 118.

Bosanquet, Bernard. The Value a/nd Destiny of the Individual. The
Gifford Lectures (Edinburgh) for 1912 London, 1912.

Bose, J. C. Response in the Living amd Non-Living. London,
1902

Boutroux, Emile. Science and Religion in Contemporary Philosophy.
Trans by Jonathan Nield. London, 1912, pp. 400.

Boutroux, Emile. The Contingency of the Laws of Nature. Trans,
by Fred Rothwell. London, 1914. Also, Natural Law in Science and
Philosophy. New York, 1914.

Bouvier, E. L. La Vie Psychique des Insectes. Biblioth^que de
Philosophie scientifique Paris, 1918, pp. 300

[One of the ablest and most open-minded of the recent intro-
ductions to comparativo psychology.]

Boyden, Edward A. Vestigial gill -filaments in Sauropsida. Ameri-
can Journal of Anatomy, 1918, XXIII, pp. 205-235, 4 pis., 3 figs.

Branford, B. Janus and Vesta. London, 1915, pp. 316.

Broad, C. D. Perception, Physics, a/nd Reality. An inquiry into the
information that physical science can supply about the real. Uni-
versity Press: Cambridge, 1914, pp. xii 4- 388.

Brooks, W. K. The Fowndations of Zoology. New York, 1899, pp.
339.

Brunetiere, F. La Science et la Religion. Paris, 1895.

BUtschli, 0. Mecha/nismua und Vitalismus. Leipzig, 1901, pp.
107.

Bumpus, H. C. The elimination of the unfit as illustrated by the
introduced sparrow. Wood's Holl Biological Lectures, Boston, 1899, pp.
209-226. See also ibid., 1898, pp. 1-16.)

Busse, L. Qeist und Korper, Seele und Leih. Leipzig, 1903, pp. 488.
[Probably the most exhaustive discussion of the " Body and
Mind " problem.]

Butler, Samuel. Unconscious Memory. New ed., 1910.

Butler, Samuel. Life ami Habit. London, 1878, pp. 307; new ed.,
1910.

Butler, Samuel. Luck or Cunning. London, 1887, pp. 328.

Butler, Samuel. Evolution Old amd New. London, 1879; rev. ed.,
1911, pp. 384.

Cairns, D. S. The Reasonableness of the Christia/n Faith. London,
1918, pp. 221.

Carr, H. Wildon. The Philosophy of Change. London, 1915.

Carr, H. Wildon. Instinct and Intelligence. British Journal of
Psychology, III (1910), pp. 230-236.

Carr, H. Wildon. The New Idealist Movement in Philosophy. Lon-
don, 1918, pp. 28.

Carr, H. Wildon (1918), see Life and Finite Individuality.

Case, T. Scientific Method as a Mental Operation. In Lectures on
the Method of Science, edited by T. B. Strong Oxford, 1906.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 657

Castle, W. E. Genetics and Eugenics. Harvard Univcrsify Vtphh
Cambridge, U. S. A., 19I6, pp. 353.

[One of the bt-st of recent textbooks of Evolution )

Castle, Coulter, Davenport, East, and Tower. Heredity and Ihtqmica
Chicago, 1912, pp. 315.

Cesnola, A. Biometrika, III, p. 58.

Child, C. M. Individuality in Organisms. Chicago Univcrftity PresB
1915, pp. 213, 102 figs

Child, C. M. Senescence amd Rejuvenescence. Chicago, 1015. pp 481.

Clay, Felix. The Origin of the Sense of Beauty. Smith, KIder A, Co ,
London, 1908.

Clifford, W. K. Lectures and Essays. 2 vols., London, 1879

Clifford, W. K. The Commonsense of the Exact Sciences 4th ed.
London, 1904.

Clifford, W. K. Body and Mind, with other Essays. Humboldt
Library of Science, New York, 1891, pp. 47.

Cole, Leon J. Biological Philosophy and the War. Scicntifir
Monthly, March, 1919, pp. 247-257.

Conklin, Edwin Grant. Heredity and Environment in the Develnp-
ment of Men Princeton University Press and Oxford University Press,
1915, pp. 633, 96 figs.

Cope, E. D. Origin of the Fittest New York, 1887

Cope, E. D. Prima/ry Factors in Evolution Chicago, 180fi, pp. 547.

Cossmann, Nikolas. Elemente der empirischen Teleologic. Stutt-
gart, 1899, pp 132

Councilman, W. T. Disease and its Causes Home Universitv Li-
brary, American Edition, New York, 1913, pp 254.

Crampton, Henry Edward. The Doctrine of Evolution, Its Basis and
Its Scope. Columbia University Press, 1911, pp 311.
[An admirable introduction.]

Cresson, Andre. L'espdce et son serviteur (Sexuality, Morality),
Paris, 1913, pp. 347, 42 figs.

[Emphasizing the frequent subordination of self-regarding
activities among animals to species-regarding activi-
ties.]

Cresson, Andr6. Les Bases de la Philosophic Naturaliste. Paris,

1907, pp. 178.

[A very clear and broad-minded exposition of naturalism ]

Crile, George W. Man an Adaptive Mechanism. New York, 1!)16,
pp. 387, 88 figs.

Cu6not, L. La Oen^se des Espkces Animates. Biblioth^que Scient.
Internat, Paris, 1911, pp. 496, 123 figs.

Cunningham, J. T. . Sexual Dimorphism in the Animal Kingdom.

London, 1900, pp. 317. ^

Cunningham, J. T. The heredity of secondary sexual characters in

relation to hormones, a theory of heredity of somatogenic characters.

Arch. Entwicklungsmechanik, 1908, XXVI, pp. 372-428.
[Stating an important hypothesis]
Cyon, Elie de. Dieu et Science. Essai de Psychologic des Snenrrs.

Biblioth^que de Philosophie Contemporaine. 2nd ed. I'aris, 1912. pp.

487.

[Attempted reconciliation of religious interpretations and

scientific descriptions J
Czapek, F. Chemical Phenomena in Life. Harper's Library of Liv-
ing Thought, New York, 191 1, pp 152.

658 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Darbishire, A. D. Breeding and Mendelian Discovery. London, 1911,
pp. 282, 34 figs., 4 pis.

Darbishire, A, D. Introduction to a Biology. London, 1917, pp. 291.

Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species by means of Natural Se-
lection; or. The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for
Life. London, 1859.

Darwin, Charles. Variation in Animals and Plants under Domestica-
tion. 2 vols London, 1868.

Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to
Sex. London, 1871.

Dastre, A. Life and Death. Trans. London, 1911.

Davenport, C. B. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. New York and
London, 1912, pp. 298.

Dendy, Arthur. Outlines of Evolutionary Biology. London, 1912,
pp. 454, 188 figs.

Dendy, Arthur. Progressive Evolution amd the Origin of Species.
President's Address, Section D. British Association, Australia, 1914,
pp. 383-397.

Dendy, Arthur. The Biological Conception of Individuality. Jour-
nal Quekett Microscopical Club, 1916, XII, pp 465-478.

Dickinson, O. Lowes. Religion. A criticism and a forecast. Lon-
don, 1906.

Dickinson, G. Lowes. A Modem Symposium. London, 1907.

Doflein, F. Das Tier als Qlied des Naturganzen. Vol. II of Tierhau
und Tierleben by Hesse and Doflein. Leipzig, 1914, pp. 960, 740 figs.,
20 pis.

[A great treasure-house of facts in regard to inter-relations.]

Dohm, Anton. Der Ursprung der Wirhelthiere und das Princip des
Functionswechsel. Leipzig, 1875.

[The idea of Function-change in Evolution.]

Dolbear, A, £. The Machinery of the Universe. London, 1911, pp.
122.

Dolbear, A. E. Life from a Physical Stcmdpoint. Wood's Holl Bio-
logical Lectures, Boston, 1895, pp. 1-22.

Dolbear, A. E. Explanations, or, Bow Phenomena are Interpreted.
Wood's Holl Biological Lectures, Boston, 1896, pp 63-82.

Dolbear, A. E. Known Relations between Mind and Matter. Ibid.,
pp 83-100.

Dollo, L. Les Lois de I'Evolution. Bull. Soc. Beige de Otologic
PaUontologie, et Eydrologie, 25th July, 1893.

[The law of the irreversibility of evolution.]

Doncaster, Leonard. Evolution and Incarnation. The Venturer.
Headley Brothers, London, January, 1916, pp. 116-119.

[This expert student of heredity suggests a reconciliation of
evolutionist and religious conceptions]

Downing, Elliot Kowland. The Third and Fourth Generation. An
introduction to heredity. University of Chicago Press, 1918, pp. 164.

[An admirable introduction, intelligible to all, and entirely
reliable.]

Driesch, Hans. Der Vitalismus als Qeschichte und als Lehre. Leip-
zig, 1905, pp. 246.

Driesch, Hans. The Science and Philosophy of the Organism. 2
vols. Gifford Lectures, Aberdeen London, 1908, pp 329 and 381.

Driesch, Hans. XJeber einige neuere " Wnlerlegungen " des Vitalis-
mus. Archiv Entwicklungsmechanik, 1908, XXV, pp. 407-422

BIBLIOGRAPHY 659

Driesch, Hans. The Problem of Individuality London, 1014, pp 84

Drummond, Henry. The Ascent of Alan. Thu I.owcll Ltcturea
London, 1904, pp. 444.

Dugdale, Robert L. The Jukes A study in crimt-, puuperiHrn, dis-
ease, and heredity. London and New York, I'JIO (Ist ed , 1K77), pi)
120.

Ellis, Havelock. The Task of Social Hygiene London, KM 2, pp 414

Ellis, Havelock. Essays in War-Time London, HMC), pp 2r>2

Ellis, Havelock. The Origin of War. The Nation, .lanviary IH, I'MU

Enriques, Federigo. Problems of Science Trans by Katharine
Royce. Introductory note by .losiah Royce. Chicago and London, l'.M4,
pp. xvi + 392

Erdmann, J. E. Leih und Seele nach ihrem Begriff und ihrem
Verhdltniss zu einander. Ein Beitrag zur Begriindung der philosoph-
ischen Anthropologic. Halle, 1837, pp 133

Espinas, A. Les SodHes animales, ^tude de psychologic compar^e.
Paris, 1877.

[An oldish book that remains very profitable.]

Fabre, J, H. Souvenirs Entomologiques Etudes sur Tinstinct et
les moeurs des insectes 9 vols Paris, 1879.

Fabre, J. H. Insect Life. Trans London, 1001

Life and Love of the Insect. Trans London, 1011.
Social Life in the Insect World Trans London, 1912
The Wonder of Instinct Trans London, lOlH.

Fifty Years of Darwinism. Modern aspects of Evolution Centen-
nial Addresses in Honour of Charles Darwin before the Anierii-an
Association for the Advancement of Science, Baltimonv New York.
1909, pp. 274.

Findlay, Alexander. The Reality of Atoms. New Statesman, June

16, 1917, pp. 250-251.

Fiske, T. Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy. London, 1874.
Fiske, T. Darwinism and other Essays. London, 1875.
Fry, Roger. An Essay in ^Esthetics The New Quarterly. No. 6,

Vol II.

Galton, Francis. Natural Inheritance. London, 1889, pp. 259.

Gates, R. Ruggles. The Mutation Factor m Evolution, with par-
ticular reference to (Enothera London, 1915, pp. viii -f 353. 114 li^'s.

Gaudry, A. Les Enchainements du Monde Animal dans Its Temptt
Qeologiques. Paris, 1888-1900, ,, ,,• /

Geddes, Auckland Campbell. The Aims of Anatomy. Dublin Juum.
Med. Science, Nov., 1909, pp. 1-14.

rVery suggestive remarks on Correlation.]

Geddes, P. Articles on Reproduction and Sex, Variation and Se-
lection Encyclopo'.dia Britannica (10th ed.).

Geddes, P., and J. Arthur Thomson, The Evolution of Sex. l>ondon,
1889; rev. ed., 1901,. pp. 342, 92 figs ^ , ^. , . ion t.t.

Geddes, P., and J. Arthur Thomson. Evolution. London, 1911, pp.
256. See also Sex, Home University Library, 1014, pp. 25G

Girod, P. Les Soci4t^s chez les Animaux. Pans, 1800.

Glaser, 0. Reflections on the Autonomy of Biological Science.
AmeHcan Naturalist, 1912, XLVI, pp. 712-728 „ ,„ ;k., .;,

Godlewski, E. Physiologic der Zeugung, in Wintersteins Uandbuch
der vergleichenden Physiologic Jena. 1900-1914

FA masterly treatise on sex and reproduction.]

Grassy, J. Lea Limites de la Biologic Pans, 1914.

660 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gregory, B.. A. Discovery: or, The Spirit and Service of Science.
London, 1916, pp. 340.

Groos, K. The Flay of Animals. Trans. London, 1900.

[Theory of the biological significance of play. Includes valua-
ble discussion of Sex-Seiectioir.J

Giilick, J. T. Evolution, Racial and Habitudinal. Washington,
1905, pp. 269.

Ha'het-Souplet, P. La Oen^se des Instincts, Etude exp^rimentale.
Paris, 1911, pp. 327.

Haldane, J. S. Life and Mechanism. Two lectures. Guy's Hospital
Reports, LX. 1906, pp 89-123.

Haldane, J. S. Mechanism, Life, and Personality. An examination of
the mechanistic theory of life and mind London, 1913, pp vi 4- 139.

Haldane, J. S. The Relation of Physiology to Physics and Chem-
istry. President's address to Physiological Section. British Associa-
tion, Dublin, 1908, pp. 8.

Haldane, J. S. Organism and Environment. Yale University Press,
1917.

Haldane, J. S. The New Physiology, and other addresses. London,
1919, pp 156

[A masterly statement of the claims of biology to an inde-
pendent position among the Sciences as against the cur-
rent belief that biology is only applied physics and
chemistry.]

Haldane. Viscount. The Pathway to Reality The Gifford Lectures,
St. Andrews. 1902-1904.

Vol. I. The Meaning of Reality. The Criticism of Categories.
Vol II. Absolute Mind
London, 1903. 1904, pp. 316 and 275.

Hanstein, Adalbert von. Gott und Unsterhlichkeit in der modernen
Weltanschauung. 2nd ed. Hanover, 1904, pp. 41.

[A good example of a scientific investigator's adherence to
religious concepts.]

Harris, D. Fraser. The Functional Inertia of Living Matter. Lon-
don. 1908. pp. 136.

Hart, Bernard. The modern treatment of mental and nervous
disorders. Manchester University Press, 1918, pp. 28.

[Emphasis on Mind-body as contrasted with Body-mind]

Hart, Bernard. Abnormal Psychology. Cambridge University Press.

Hartmann, E. von. Das Vnhewusste vom Standpunkte der Physi-
ologic und Descendenztheorie. 2nd ed. Berlin, 1877.

Hartog, Marcus. Problems of Life and Reproduction. London, 1913,
pp 362. 41 figs.

Hartog, Marcus. Samuel Butler and recent mnemic biological the-
ories. Scientia, 1914, XV, pp. 38-52.

Hartog, Marcus. The New Force, Mitokinetism. Report British
Association, SheflHeld, 1910, Section D.

Henderson, Lawrence J. The Fitness of the Environment. Mac-
millan Co, New York, 1913, pp. 317.

Henderson, Lawrence J. The Order of Nature. An Essay. Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A., 1917, pp. 234.

Henderson, Lawrence J. The Functions of an Environment. Sci-
ence, 1914, XXXIX, pp. 524-527.

Henderson, Lawrence J. Teleology in Cosmic Evolution. Joum.
Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1916, XIII, pp. 325-327.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 661

Henderson, Lawrence J. The Teleology of Inorganic Nature. I'hil-
osophical Review, 1916, XXV, pp 265 281.

Hering, E. On Memory as a General Function of OrganiHed Matt< t
Trans, in Samuel Butler's Unconscious Memory, IIHO

Heron-Allen, Edward. ContributionH to the atudy of the bionomics
and reproductive processes of the Foraminifera Phil. Trans U. Hoc.
London, 1915. Vol. 206, Series B, pp. 227-279. 6 pis.

[Selection of materials and purposive behaviour (intelligence)
in certain Foraminifera.)

Heron-Allen, Edward. On Beauty, Design, and Purpose in the Fo-
raminifera Proc Royal Institution of Great Britain, 1 9 If), pp. 1-13

Heron-Allen, Edward. A short statement u{ton the theory and phe-
nomena of purpose and intelligence exhibited by the Protozoa, illua-
trated by selection and behaviour in the Foraminifera Journ. Royal
Microscopical Society, 1915, pp. 547-557

Hobhouse, L. T. Development and Purpose. An essay towards a
philosophy of evolution. Macmillan, London, 1913, pp xiii + 3K3

Hobhouse, L. T. Mi/nd in Evolution. 2nd ed. Macmillan, London.
1915, pp 469.

Hobhouse, L. T. Morals in Evolution. A study in comparative
ethics. London, 1906.

Hoffding, H. Modern Philosophers Trans by Alfred C Mason
London, 1915, pp 317. See also his Outlines of Psychology and The
Problems of Philosophy.

Holmes, S. J. Studies in Animal Behaviour. Boston, 1916, pp 266.

Holmes, S. J. Th(! Categories of Variation. American S'aturalitt,
1909, XLIII, pp 257-285.

Holt, Edwin B. The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics. Ix)n-
don. 1915. pp 212.

Holt, Edwin B., Marvin. W. T.. Montague, M, P.. Perry. R. B..
Pitkin, W. B., and Spaulding, E. G. The New Realism. Cooperative
Studies in Philosophy. New York, 1912, pp. xii -f 291.

Howison, Q. H. The Limits of Evolution. New York and London,
1901, pp 396.

Huntington, Ellsworth. Civilization and Climate. Yale University

Press. 1915. pp 3.33.

Hutton. F. W. The Lesson of Evolution. London. 1902. pp 100
Huxley. Julian S. The Individual in the Animal Kingdom Cam-

hridge Manuals of Science and Literature. Cambridge ITniv.rsity

Press, 1912. pp 167, 1 pi . 16 figs . ^ t. » v , o

Huxley, Julian S. Habits of Great Crested Grebe Proc. Zool. Boc.

London, 1914, pp. 491-562. ., „ ,oqa

Huxley, T. H. The Crayfish. International Sctenttfio Senes, 1880,

pp .371, 82 figs. o . J I 1

Iverach, James. Christianity and Evolution. 3rd ed. London, pp.

viii + 232. . , . .• i . . u

[A valuable and sympathetic criticism of evolutionist Impli-
cations.!

James, William. The Will to Believe, and other essays in popular
philosophy New York and London, 1905, pp 332

Jastrow. Morris. The War and the Coming Peace. The Moral
Issue Philadelphia and London, 1918. pp 144 nrrrn

Jenkinson. J. W. Vitalism. Hihbert Journal. 1911. IV pp .>4.. .)..n.

Jennings. H. S. Behaviour of the Lower Organisms Macmillan ^o ,
New York. 1906. pp xiv 4- 366. 144 figs

662 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jennings, H. S. Heredity and Personality. Science, 1911, XXXIV,
pp. 902-910.

Jennings, H. S. Vitalism and Experimental Investigation. Science,
1911. XXXIII, pp. 927-932.

Jennings, H. S. Causes and Determiners in radically experimental
analysis. Americcm Naturalist, 1913, XLVII, pp. 349-360.

Jennings, H. S. Doctrines held as Vitalism. American Naturalist,
1913, XLVII, pp. 385-417.

Jennings, H. S. Life and Matter from the standpoint of radically
experimental analysis. Johns Hopkins Circular, 1914, No 270, pp 3-20.

Jennings, H. S. Development and Inheritance in relation to the con-
stitution of the germ. Johns Hopkins Circular, 1914, No. 270, pp. 21-72,
8 figs.

Johnstone, James. The Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge, 1014, pp.
391.

[A very important contribution ]

Joly, J. The Abundance of Life. Proceedings Royal Dublin So-
ciety, 1891, VII. pp. 55-90.

[A remarkable essay, reprinted in The Birth-Time of the
World, 1915.]

Joly, J. The Birth-Time of the World and other Scientifio Essays.
Fisher Unwin, London, 1915, pp 307, 28 pis.

Jones, r. Wood. Arboreal Man. London. 1916.

Jordan, David Starr. The Human Harvest A study of the decay
of races through the survival of the unfit? Boston, 1907, pp. 122.

Jordan, David Starr. War and the Breed. The relation of war to
the downfall of nations. Boston, 1015. pp. 265

Jost. Ludwig. Vorlesungen ilber Pflanzenphysiologie. 2nd ed. Jena,
1908, pp. 603.

[Good discussion of the purposiveness of the living plant.]

Joussain, Andr6. Esquisse d'une Philosophic de la Nature. (Biblio-
th&que de Philosophie Contemporaine.) Paris (Alcan). 1912, pp 197.

Kafka, Oustav. Einfiihrung in die Tic^rpsychologie auf experimen-
teller und ethologischer Grundlage Erster Band. Die Sinne der
Wirbellosen. Leipzig. 1913, pp. xii -t- .593. 362 figs.

Kammerer, Paul. Allgemeino Symbiose und Kampf ums Dasein als
gleichberechtigte Triebkriifte der Evolution. Archiv Rassen-und Oesell-
schaftsbiologie, 1909. VI, pp 585-608

Keith, Arthur. The Antiquity of Man. London, 1915, pp. 519, 189
figs.

Keith, Arthur. The Human Body. Home University Library, Lon-
don, 1913. pp. 256.

Keller, A. G. Societal Evolution: a study of the evolutionary basis
of the science of Society. New York, 1915.

Kellogg, V. I. Darwinism To-day. New York, 1907, pp. 403.

[A discussion of present-day scientific criticism of the Dar-
winia'™ Selection Theories, together with a brief account
of the principal other proposed auxiliary and alternative
theories of species-forming]

Kropotkin, P. Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution. London, 1902;
rev. ed., 1904, pp. 348

Laloy, L. Parasitisme et mutualisme dans la Nature. Bibliothdque
Scientifique Internationale. Paris, 1906

Lanessan. La lutte pour I'existence et I'association pour la lutte.
Paris, 1882.

BIBLIOGRAPHY cm

lankester, E. Ray. Degeneration. A chapter in Darwinism I,<.ii-
don, 1880, pp. 75.

Lankester, E. Ray. Extinct Animals. London, 1000, pp :{;{1. J is u^h

Lankester, E. Ray. The Kingdom of Man. London. 1007, pp. 101 r»i;
•figs.

Larger, R. La contre-6volution ou d^g^n^rescence par rh^r<'*dit6
pathologique, cause naturelle de I'extinction dea grouf)f8 animaux
actuals et fossiles Essai do pal^opathoiogio gt'-nr-ralc Hull ct .Mem.
8oc. Anthropol. Paris, 18th Dec, 1913. Also, P. Alcan, Paris, 1917,
pp. 403.

Latta, Robert. The relation of mind and body. British Journ. Vsu-
chology, 1912, V, pp 280-291.

Leathes, J. B. Chemical Interpretation of Vital Phenomena Trans.
Canadian Institute, 1912, IX, pp. 269-279.

Lee, Vernon. The Beautiful: an introduction to paychologiail a-a-
thetics Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature. Cambridge
University Press, 1913.

Life and Finite Individuality. Two Symposia.

I. By J. S. Haldane, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, P. Chalmers

Mitchell, and L T. Hobhouse

II. By Bernard Bosanquet, A. S. Pringle-Pattison, G. F. Stout,
and Viscount Ualdane, Edited for the Aristotelian Soci«'ty,
with an Introduction by H. VVildon Carr

Williams & Norgate, London, 1918, pp 194.

Lillie, Ralph S. What is Purposive and Intelligent Behaviour from
the Physiological Point of View. Journ. Philosophy, Psychology, and
Scientific Methods, 1915, XII, pp. 589-610.

Livingstone, B. E. Adaptation in the Living and the Non-Living.
American Naturalist, 1913, XLVII, pp 72-82.

Lock, R. H. Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity,
and Evolution London, 1908; rev. ed., 1916

Lodge, Sir Oliver. Continuity. The Presidential Address to the
British Association, Birmingham meeting. Dent, London, 1013, pp UH.

Lodge, Sir Oliver. Life and Matter. London, 1005.

Loeb, Jacques. Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Compara-
tive Psychology. London, 1901, pp 309, 39 figs.

Loeb, Jacques. Studies in General Physiology. 2 vols. Chicago,
1905.

Loeb, Jacques. Dynamics of Living Matter. London, 1006

Loeb, Jacques. Mechanistic Science and Metaphysical Romance.
Yale Review, 1915, pp. 766-785.

Loeb, Jacques. The Orga/nism as a Whole. New York and London,

1916, pp. 379 ^ _,

Loeb, Jacques. Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct.

Philadelphia and London, 1919, pp 209, 42 figs

Lotsy, J. P. Evolution by Means of Uybridisatwn. Tlie Hague.

1916, pp. 166. ,, ^

Lovejoy, Arthur 0. Some Aspects of Darwin's Influence on Modtrn

Thought. Washington University, April. 1909, pp 85-90

Lovejoy, Arthur 0. The Unity of Science. Univ. Missouri Built tm,

I, 1912. pp. 1-34.

Lovejoy, Arthur 0. The Meaning of Vitalism Science, 101 1,

XXXIII, pp 610-614.

Lovejoy, Arthur 0. The Import of Vitalism. Sncnrr, 10 U.

XXXIV, pp. 75-80.

664 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lovejoy, Arthur 0. Kant and Evolution. Popular Science Monthly,
Dec, 1910, Jan. 1911, pp. 538-553, 36-51.

Lull, R. S. Organic Evolution: a Textbook. New York, 1917, pp.
729, 30 pis., 253 figs.

[A good up-to-date textbook.]

Lundegardh, Henrik. Grundzuge einer Chemisch-physikalischen The-
orie des Lebens. Jena, 1914, pp. 63.

MacBride, E. W. Textbook of Embryology. Vol. I. Invertebrates
London, 1914, pp 692, 468 figs.

llacBride, E. W. President's Address, Section Zoology, British As-
sociation, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1916, pp. 403-417.
[Experimental Embryology and Heredity.]

HcCabe, Joseph. The Evolution of Mind. London, 1910, pp. 287.

[Chiefly from the physiological side with what seems to us an
apsychic bias]

Macdonald, J. S. President's Address to Physiology Section, British
Association, Portsmouth, 1911, pp. 524-539.

MacDougall, R. Neo-vitalism and the Logic of Science. Science,
1913. XXXVII. pp 104-106

McDougall, William. Social Psychology. London, 1908, pp. 355.

McDougall, William. Instinct and Intelligence. Brit. Journ. Psy-
chology, 1910. Ill, pp 250-266.

McDougall, William. Body and Mind, a history and a defence of
Animism London, 1913 (Ist cd., 1911), pp 384.

McDougall, William. Psychology. Home University Library, Lon-
don, 1912, pp 254

McDougall. William. Primer of Physiological Psychology. London.

Mclntyre, J. L. Body and Mind. Hastings' Encyclopcedia of Re-
ligion and Ethics, pp. 774-778.

[A terse and clear account of the various views.]

Mach, E. The Science of Mechanics 2nd ed. Eng. trans. Chicago,
1902.

Mach, E. Contribution to Analyses of the Sensations. Eng. trans
Chicago, 1897.

Mach, E. Populdr-wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen. 4th ed. Leipzig,
1910, pp. xii + 508, 73 figs.

Maclver, R. M. Society and " The Individual." Sociological Review,
Jan, 1914, pp 1-6

(See also his Community [1915].)

Macintosh, Robert. From Comte to Benjamin Kidd. The appeal to
Biology or Evolution for Human Guidance. London, 1899, pp.
287.

Marshall, A. Milnes. Biological Lectures and Addresses. London,
1894.

Marshall, F. H. A. Physiology of Reproduction. London, 1910, pp.
706, 154 figs.

[A fundamental treatise.]

Marshall, Henry Rutgers. The Relation of Instinct and Intelli-
gence. Brit. Journ. Psychology, V (1912), pp. 247-266.

Marvin, F. S. The Living Past: a Sketch of Western Progress
2nd ed. Oxford, 1915, pp. 296.

Marvin, F. S. The Century of Hope. A Sketch of Western Progress
from 1815 to the Great War. Oxford, 1919, pp. 3.52.

Marvin, F. S. Progress and History. Essays arranged and edited
by F. S. Marvin. Oxford, 1916, pp. 314.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 665

Matthews, A. P. Adaptation from the point of view of the Physi-
ologist. American Naturalist, 1013, XLVII. pp. 00-105.

Maxwell, James Clerk. On Dctermininni nxu\ Fm dom In Life of
James Clerk Maxwell by Lewis Campbell and William (Jarn.tt IHH2
pp. 434-444.

[Does the progress of physical science tend to give any ad-
vantage to the opinion of Necessity (or DetermiruHm)
over that of the contingency of events and the freedom
of the will?!

Mellor, Stanley A. Religion as affected hy Modern Science and Phi-
losophy. London, 1014, pp. 256.

Merz, J. T. A History of European Thought in the XlXth Cen-
tury. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1806-1014.

Merz, J. T. Religion and Science: a philosophical essay. Kdin-
burgh, 1016

Metcalf, Maynard M. Adaptation through Natural Selection and
Orthogenesis Amer Naturalist, 1013, XLVIII. i)p 65-71.

MetchnikofT, E. The Nature of Man. Trans Lf)ndon. 1003, p[) 300

Metchnikoff, E. The Prolongation of Life. Trans London. 1016.
pp. 343, 27 figs

Meunier, Stanislas. La Geologic biologique. Paris, 1914, pp 328.
20 figs

[Interesting in its exposition of the " biocosmic <'quilibrium "|

Minchln, E. A. The Evolution of the Cell President's Address to
Section D, British Association Manchester, 1015. [)p 437-46 1

Minot, Charles S. The Problem of Age, Growth, and Death Murray,
London, 1008, pp 280

Mitchell, P. Chalmers. Article, Evolution. Encyclopadia liritan-
nica 11th ed. 1010

Mitchell, P. Chalmers. Science and Life Presidential address to
the Bournemouth Congress of the South-Eastern Union of Siientilic
Societies 1014. pp 21.

Mitchell, P. Chalmers. The Childhood of Animals London. 1912,
pp xiv 4- 260, pis.

Mitchell, P. Chalmers. Evolution and the War. Murray. London.
1915, pp viii + 114.

[Including a noteworthy discussion of the struggle for ex-
istence.]

Mivart, St. George. The Groundwork of Science: a study of rpi-
stemology London. 1808, pp 331.

Mobius. Karl. JEsthetik der Thierwelt. Jena, 1908, pp 128. 3 pis.

195 figs.

Moore, Benjamin. The Origin and Nature of Life. Home University

Library. London, 1913.

More, L. T. The Limitations of Science. New York and London,

1915. pp 268. , ,

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Introduction to Comparative Psychology. Lon-
don, 1894

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Uahit and Instinct. London. 1806.

Morgan, C. Lloyd. The Interpretation of Nature Bristol. 1005.

PP- ^^4 ^ , ,,,. ,

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Instinct and Experience London. I'.U-. pp

xvii + 200

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Spencer's Philosophy of Science The Herbert

Spencer Lecture Oxford, 1913, pp 53

n:

666 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Mental Factors in FJvolution In Darwin and
Modern Science (1909). Essay XXI. See Seward.

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Instinct and Intelligence. British Journ. of
Psychology, III (1914), pp 219-229

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Article, " Instinct." Hastings' Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Mind and Body in their relations to each other
and to external things Scientia, 1915, XVIII, pp. 1-15.
[An important elucidation.]

Morgan, C. Lloyd. Eugenics and Environment. London, 1919, pp.
82

Morgan, T. H. Regeneration. Columbia University Biological Series,
1901, pp. 316, 66 figs.

Morgan, T. H. Evolution and Adaptation. New York and London,
1903, pp. 470.

Morgan, T. H. Experimental Zoology. New York, 1907, pp. 454,
25 figs.

Morgan, T. H., and others. The Mechanism of Mendeliam, Heredity.
London, 1916, pp. 262, 64 figs.

Morgan, T. H. A Critique of the Theory of Evolution. Princeton,
1916, pp. 197, 95 figs.

Mott, F. W. Nature and Nurture in Mental Development. London,
1914

Munro, Robert. Darwinism and Human Civilisation. Proc. Roy.
Soc. Edinburgh, 1917, XXXVII, jip 149-160

Myers, Charles S. Instinct and Intelligence. British Journ. of Psy-
chology, III (1914), pp. 209-218, 267-270

Myers, Charles S. Present-DaAf Applications of Psychology. Lon-
don, 1918, pp. 47.

Nageli, C. von. Mechanisch-physiologische Ahstammungslehre. Miin-
chen, 1884.

Natorp, P. Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften.
Leipzig, 1910, pp. 416.

Neal, H. V. The basis of individuality in organisms. A defence of
vitalism. Tufts College Studies, 1916, IV, pp. 1-.32.

Needham, J. G. General Biology Ithaca, 1910, pp 542, 284 figs

Noble, Edmund. Purposiveness in Nature and Life, the missing
factor in Evolution. The Monist, April, 1914, pp 25

Nunn, T. P, The aim and achievements of scientific method Lon-
don, 1907.

Nunn, T. P. Animism and the Doctrine of Energy. Proc Aristo-
telian Soc, 1911-1912

Osborn, Henry Fairfield. The continuous origin of certain unit
characters as observed by a palaeontologist Harvey Lectures, 1911-
1912, pp. 153-204, 8 figs

Osborn, Henry Fairfield. From the Greeks to Darroin An outline
of the development of the Evolution Idea. New York, 1894, pp. 259.

Osborn, Henry Fairfield. The Origin and Evolution of Life on the
Theory of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy. London, 1918,
pp xxxi -f 322, 110 figs.

Ostwald, Wilhelm. Natur philosophic. In Systematische Philosophic,
1907, pp. 138-172

Ostwald, Wilhelm. Vorlesungen iiber Naturphilosophie 3rd ed.
London, 1907.

Ostwald, Wilhelm. Individuality and Immortality Boston, 1906.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 667

Otto, R. Naturalism and Religion English trans London, l'j(i7,
pp 374.

[Perhaps the l)est of modern orientations.)

Parker, G. H. Biology and Social I'rohlcws Boston. Iin4, pp i:m.

Parker, G. H. A brief survey of the liild of organic evolution
Uarvard Theological Review, 1013, VI, pp 24r>-'2r.r)

Parker, De Witt H. The Self and Nature Harvard Univ.rBity
Press, 1917, pp .316.

Pearl, Raymond. Modes of Research in Qenetica. New York. 1915
pp 182

Pearson, Karl. National Life from the Standpoint of Science Ix)n-
don, 1901, pp 62

Pearson, Karl. The Grammar of Science. 2nd ed lx)ndon, 1900,
pp 548; rev ed., 1911.

Pearson, Norman. The Soul and Its Story: A Sketch London
1916, pp. 316.

Penard, E. Un curieux Infusoire Legendrea bellerophon Revue
Suisse ZooL, 1914, XXII, pp. 407-433, 1 pi.

Perrier, E. La Philosophie zoologique avant Darwin Paris, 1884.

Perrin, Jean. Atoms Trans, by D. LI Hammick London, 1917
[Evidenee of the real and actual existence of atoms.)

Pettigrew, J. Bell. Design i/n Nature. 3 vols London, 1908, pp.
1416, 581 figs

[A magnificent treasure-house of facts )

Picard, E. La iScience moderne et son 6tat actuel, in De la M^thode
dans Its Sciences. Paris, 1909.

Pieron, H. L'cvohition de la m^.moire Paris, 1910

Plate, L. Selections-Princip mid Probleme der Artbildung: Kin
Handbuch des fJarwinismus. 3rd ed. Leipzig, 1908, pp 493, 60

Poincare, H. The Foundations of Science Including Science and
Hypothesis, The Value of Science, and Science and Method Trnns
by G. B Halsted The Science Press, New York, 1913, pp. xi -f- 553

Poulton, E. B. Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selec-
tion London, 1896.

Poulton, E. B. Essays on Evolution, 1889-1907. Clarendon Prcaa,
Oxford, 1908, pp. 479.

Poynting, J. H. President's Address to Section A, British Associa-
tion, Dover, 1899, pp 609-624,

[The aims and methods of science.]

Poynting. J. H. Physical Law and Life. FJihhert Journal, I (1903),

pp. 728-746

Pringle-Pattison, A. Seth. The Idea of God in the Light of Recent
Philosophy. Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1917, pp. xvi -f- 423.

Prouho. Du role des p^dicellaires gemmiformes des Oursins
Comptes Rendus Acad Sci Paris, CXI, ISOO. pp 62 64 Se.- Prof.
E. W. MacBride's Echinoderma in Cambridge Natural History, I.

1906, p. 509.

[Combat between starfish and sea-urchin )

Punnett, R. C. Mendelism 6th ed. London, 1919

Punnett, R. C. Article "Heredity," Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Re-
ligion and Ethics ma An

Pycraft, W. P. Courtship of Animals London. 191.?, pp Jl», 4U

dIs.
Pycraft, W. P. Infancy of Animals. London, 1912

668 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kadi, Em. Oeschichte der biologischen Theorien. 2 vols , 1909.

[A scholarly and critical history of biological theories and
generalisations]

Reichert, E. T., and Brown, A. P. The differentiation and specificity
of corresponding proteins and other vital substances in relation to
biological classification and organic evolution: the crystallography of
hemoglobins. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 116, 1909.

Relnheimer, Hermann, tiymhio genesis, the Universal Law of Pro-
gressive Evolution. London, 1915, pp. 425. Also his Evolution by Co-
operation.

Reinke, J. Philosophie der Botamik. Leipzig, 1905, pp. 201.

Rickert, J. Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaf tlichen Begriffshil-
dung Tubingen and Leipzig, 1902

Rignano, Eugenic. Upon the Inheritance of acquired characters. A
hypothesis of heredity, development, and assimilation. Chicago, 1911,
pp. 413

[An important contribution on the Lamarckian side.]

Rignano, Eugenic. Essays in Scientific Synthesis. London, 1918,
pp. 254.

Ritter, W. E. Feeling in the Interpretation of Nature. Popular
Science Monthly, 1911, pp. 126-136,

Ritter, W. E. The controversy between materialism and vitalism:
can it be ended? Science, 1911, XXXIII, pp. 437-441.

Romanes, G. J. Darwin and after Da/rwm. 3 vols. London, 1892-
1897.

Ross, Sir Rcnald. Philosophies. London, 1910.
[Glimpses of the poetry of science.]

Ronx, W. Der Kampf der Teile im Organismus. Leipzig, 1881.

Roux, W. The problems, methods, and scope of developmental me-
chanics. Wood's Holl Biological Lectures, Boston, 1895, pp 149-190.

Russell, Bertrand. Principles of Mathematics I, Chap. LIV

Russell, Bertrand. Philosophical Essays. London, 1910, pp. 185.

Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. Home University
Library, pp 255.

Russell, Bertrand. Our knowledge of the external world as a field
for scientific method in philosophy. Open Court Publishing Co, 1914.

Russell, Bertrand. The Philosophy of Bergson, with a reply by H.
Wildon Carr, and a rejoinder. London, 1914, pp. 36.

Russell, Bertrand. Mysticism and Logic. London, 1918, pp. 234.

Russell, E. S. Some hypotheses on the structure of the germ-
plasm Scientia, 1909, V, pp. 10

Russell, E. S. The Evidence for Natural Selection. Scientia, 1909,
V, pp. 21.

[A very able discussion.]

Russell, E. S. Review of Driesch's "The Science and Philosophy of
the Organism." Scientia, 1910, VII, pp. 7.

Russell, E. S. Evolutio ou Epig6n6se. Scientia, 1910, VIII, pp. 218-
226.

Russell, E. S. Vitalism. Scientia, 1911, V, pp. 329-345.
'Russell, E. S. Form and Function. A contribution to the history of
animal morphology. London, 1916, pp. vii + 383.
[A scholarly and illuminating book.]

Russell, E. S. Le Probl&m<; des Esp^ces et de leur origine. Scientia,
1915, XVIII, pp. 423-431.

[All Mr. Russell's reviews and articles in Scientia reward
attention.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY 669

Sandeman, George. Problems of Biology. London, 1806, pp. 213.

[A shrewd disclosure of biological im[>lication8. J
Schafer, Sir Edward A. Life, Its Nature, Origin, and Maintenance.
London, 1912.

Schallmeyer, W. Vererhung und Auslese im Lebenalauf der Volker.
2nd ed. Jena, 1910, pp. 463.

Schiller, F. C. S. Humanism. 2nd ed. London, 1912.
Schiller, F. C. S. Studies in Humanism. 2nd ed. London, 1912.
Schiller, F. C. S. Riddles of the Sphinx. New ed. London, 1910.
Schneider, Karl Camillo. Vorlesungen Uber Tierpsychologie. Leip-
zig, 1909, pp 310, 59 figs.

Schultz, Julius. Philosophic des Organischen. Jahrbiicher der Phi-
losophie. Berlin, 1913, With an extensive bibliography.

Schuster, Arthur. Presidential Address, British Association. Man-
chester, 1915, pp. 3-23.

Schuster, Arthur, and Shipley, A. E. Britain^s Heritage of Science.
London, 1917

Scott, W. B. The Theory of Evolution, with special reference to the
evidence upon which it is founded. New York, 1917, pp. 183, 13
figs.

[A fine up-to-date statement of the ' evidences '.]
Sedgwick, W. T., and Tyler, H. W. A short history of science.
New York, 1917.

Semon, R. Die Mneme als erhaltendes Princip im Wechsel des
organischen Geschehens. 3rd ed. Jena, 1911.

Semon, R. Der Stand der Frage nach der Vererbung erworbener
Eigenschaften. From Abderhaiden's Fortschritte der Naturwissen-
schaftlichen Forschung. Berlin, 1910, II, pp 1-82

Semon, R. Das Problem der Vererbung " erworbener Eigenschaften."
Leipzig, 1912, pp. 203, 6 figs.

[A fine statement of the case in support of a belief in the
transmission of acquired characters.]
Semper, Karl. The natural conditions of existence as they aflFect
animal life International Science Series, 1881, pp 472.

Seward, A. C. (Editor). Darwin and Modern Science. Cambridge,
1909, pp 595.

[A series of valuable essays.]
Shand, Alexander F. The Foundations of Character: being a study
of the tendencies of the emotions and sentiments London, 1914.

Shearman, J. N. The Natural Theology of Evolution. London,
1915, pp. 288.

[Rehabilitation of Design-Argument.]
Sherrington, Charles S. The Integrative Action of the Nervous Sys-
tem. New York, 1906, pp. xvi + 411.

Sigwart, Christoph. Logic. Trans, by Helen Dendy. 2nd ed. 2
vols. London, 1895.

Simpson, James Young. The Spiritual Interpretation of Nature.
London, 1912, pp. 383.

[A valuable contribution to the new Natural Tlieology.]
Simpson. James Young. The Fitness of the Environment Harvard
Theological Review, 1914, VII, pp. 72-87.

Simpson, James Young. Some Thoughts on the Relations between
Science and Religion. London, 1918, pp 32

Snyder, Carl. New Conceptions in Science 2nd ed. New York and
London, 1903, pp. 361.

670 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Soddy, Frederick. The Evolution of Matter as revealed by the
Radio-active Elements. The Wilde Lecture Memoirs and Proceedings
Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc, 1904, XLVIII, No. 8, pp 42

Soddy, Frederick. The Evolution of Matter. The Aberdeen Um-
versity Review, 1917, IV, pp. 116-133.

Soddy, Frederick. The Interpretation of Radium. London.

Soddy, Frederick. Matter and Energy. Home University Library.
London

Sorley, W. R. The Interpretation of Evolution. Proc. British
Academy, 1909, IV, pp, 1-32

Sorley, W. R. Moral Values and the Idea of God. Giflford Lectures,
Aberdeen, 1914-1915; Cambridge, 1918, pp. 534.

Sorley, W. R., Lindsay, A. D., and Bosanquet, B. Purpose and
Mechanism. A Symposium. Reprinted from Proc. Aristotelian Society,
1911-1912, 33rd Session, pp 216-263

Spaulding, E. 6. Review of Driesch's " The Science and Philosophy
of the Organism " Philosophical Review, 1909, XVIII, pp A^l-A'^^

Spencer, Herbert. First Principles 6th ed. London, 1900

Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Biology. 2 vols. 1864-6. Revised
ed., 1908.

Spitzer, Hugo. Beitrdge zur Descendenztheorie und zur Methodologie
der Naturwissenschaft. Leipzig, 1886, pp, 539

Stallo, J. B. The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics. Lon-
don, 1882

Stephen, Leslie. Ethics and the Struggle for Existence. Contem-
porary Review, 1893, pp 157-170

[Criticism of Huxley's thesis that the ethical progress of
society depends upon our combating the " cosmic process "
which we call the struggle for existence.]

Stoney, G. Johnstone. Survey of that part of the range of Nature's
operations which man is competent to study. Scient. Proc. R. Dublin
Soc, 1899, IX, pp. 79-96.

Stout, G. F. Manual of Psychology. London, 1904, pp. 661.

Stout, G. F. Instinct and Intelligence. British Journ. Psychology,
III (1910), pp, 237-249.

zur Strassen, 0. Die neuere Tierpsychologie. Leipzig, 1907.

Strong, Charles Augustus. The Origin of Consciousness An at-
tempt to conceive the mind as a product of evolution. London, 1918,
pp. viii -f 330.

Strong, Charles Augustus. Why the Mind has a Body. London, 1903.
"If the ego were not psychic, nothing would ever be given;
and a psychic ego can come by evolution only out of a
psychic world."

Strong, T. B. Lectures on the Method of Science. Edited by T. B.
Strong. Oxford, 1906.

Stumpf, W. Der Entwicklungsgedanhe in der gegenwdrtigen Phi-
losophic. Leipzig, 1900.

Sumner, Francis B. Some studies of environmental influence, hered-
ity, correlation, and growth in the white mouse. Journ. Exper. Zool.,
1915, XVIII, pp. .325-432.

Sumner, Francis B. Review of Driesch's " The Science and Phi-
losophy of the Organism." Journ. Philosophy, Psychology, and Scien-
tific Methods, 1910, V, pp. 309-330

Sutherland, Alexander. Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct.
2 vols. London, 1898, pp. 461 and 336.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 671

Taylor, A. E. Elements of Metaphysics London, 1903; 2nd ed ,
1909, pp. 419.

[With a valuable discussion of Science ]
Taylor, A. E. Mind and Body in Recent Psychology. Mind, 1904,
XIII, pp. 476-508.

Teggart, Frederick J. Proleffomena to History The Relation of

History to Literature, Philosophy, and Science. Berkeley, 1916, pp. 140

[A valuable essay, with good bibliography on "The Method of

Science" and "The Relation of Philosophy to Science."]

Teggart, Frederick J. The Processes of History. Yale University

Press, 1918, pp. 162.

Thompson, D'Arcy W. Magnalia NaturcB. Presidential Address to
Zoology vSection Report of the British Association, 1911. London,
1912, pp. 395-404.

Thompson, D'Arcy W. On Aristotle as Biologist, with a prooemion
on Herbert Spencer. The Herbert Spencer Lecture. Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1913, pp 31.

Thompson, D'Arcy W. On Growth and Form. Cambridge Univers-
ity Press, 1917, pp. 793, 407 figs

Thomson, J. Arthur. The ticience of Life. Glasgow, 1899, pp 246.
Thomson, J. Arthur. The Bible of Nature. Edinburgh, 1908, pp.
248

Thomson, J. Arthur. Professor Henri Bergson's Biology Presiden-
tial Address Royal Physical Society, Edinburgh. Proc. Roy. Phys.
Soc, Edinburgh, 1913, XIX, pp 79-92

Thomson, J. Arthur. The Biology of the Seasons. London, 1911,
pp 384, 12 pis

Thomson, J. Arthur. The Wonder of Life. London, 1914, pp. 658,
100 figs

Thomson, J. Arthur. Darwinism and Human Life. Rev ed. Lon-
don, 1916, pp. 263, 12 pis.

Thomson, J. Arthur. Introduction to Science. Home University
Library. London, 1912, pp. 256.

Thomson, J. Arthur. The Study of Animal Life. Murray, London,
1892; 4th rev. ed., 1917, pp. xvi + 477.

(See chapters on Web of Life, Struggle of Life, Social Life of

Animals, Domestic Life of Animals, Animal Behaviour,

Vitality, Evolution, Heredity, The Influence of Function

and Environment. )

Thomson, J. Arthur. On Sexual Selection Scientia, 1918, XXIV,

pp. Ml

Thomson, J. Arthur. Science for Life. Aberdeen University Review,
1918, V, pp. 97-110 Included in part in The Control of Life, Holt
(New York) and Melrose (London), 1920.

Thomson, J. Arthur. Is there one Science of Nature? Hibbcrt
Journal, 1911, X, pp. 110-129; 1912, X, pp 308-327.

Thomson, J. Arthur. Article Science in Hastings' Encyclopo'dia of
Religion and Ethics

fCf article Life, Struggle, etc.]
Thomson, J. Arthur. The Place and Function of Science, pp. 206-
240 in Problems of National Education, 1919, edited by John Clarke

Thomson, J. Arthur. Man and the Web of Life, in Animal Life and
Human Progress Edited by Arthur Den^dy London, 1919. pp 83-97
Thomson, J. Arthur. Heredity. London, 1908; rev ed., 1919, pp 606.

672 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomson, J. Arthur, iiome Secrets of Animal Life. London, 1919,
pp. 324.

[A useful introduction — of an informal kind — to the problems
of modern biology]

Thomson, J. J. The Atomic Theory. The Romanes Lecture, 1914.
Oxford, 1914, pp. 39.

[" We know that there are such things as atoms, ... we
know, too, the number of electrons in an atom. "J

Thorndike, Edward L. Animal Intelligence. Experimental Studies.
New York, 1911, pp. 297.

Tower, W. L. Evolution in Chrysomelid Beetles of the genus Lep'
tinotarsa. Carnegie Institution, Washington, 1906, pp 320.

Tower, W. L. The Mechanism of Evolution in Leptinotarsa. Car-
negie Institution, Washington, 1918, pp 340, 19 pis

Trotter, W. Instincts of the Uerd vn Peaoe and War. London, 1916,
pp 213.

[A book that every one must reckon with.]

Tschnlok, S. Zur Methodologie und Geschichtc der Descendenz-
theorie Biologisches Centralhlatt, 1908, XXVIII, pp. 79.

Tyndall, John. Fragments of Science. London, 1871.

TJexkiill, J. von. Vmwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin, 1909

Uexkiill, J. von, Bausteine zu einer hiologischen Weltanschauung.
Miinchen, 1913, pp 298 See also Biologisches Centralhlatt, XX, 1900;
and Ergebnisse der Physiologic, I, 1902.

Varigny, Henri de. Experimental Evolution. London, 1892, pp 271.

Vernon, H. M. Variation in Animals and Plants Internat Set.
Series London, 1903

Verworn, Max. General Physiology, an Outline of the Science of
Life Trans by F. S Lee. London, 1899, pp. xvi + 615, 28.'") figs

Verworn, Max. Prinzipienfragen in der Naturicissenschaft. Jena,
1905, pp. 28

Vries, H. de. Species and Varieties, their Origin by Mutation, Lon-
don. 1905, pp. 847.

Vries, H. de. The Mutation Theory. 2 vols. London, 1910 and 1911.

Wallace, Alfred Russel. Contributions to the Theory of Natural
Selection London, 1871.

Wallace, Alfred Rnssel. Darwinism London, 1889, pp 494

Ward, James. Naturalism and Agnosticism. Gifford Lectures- de-
livered in the University of Aberdeen 2 vols London, 1899, pp. 302
and 291.

Ward, James. The Realm of Ends; or. Pluralism and Theism. 2nd
ed Cambridge, 1912, pp 504

Ward, James. Heredity and Memory. Cambridge University Press,
1913, pp. 56.

Ward, James. Personality the Final Aim of Social Eugenics. Bib-
ber t Journal, 1917, XV, p. 529

Warren, Howard C. A Study of Purpose. Journ Philosophy, Psy-
chology, and Scientific Methods, 1916, XII, pp 1-26, 29-49, 57-72.

Washburn, Margaret F. The Animal Mind A textbook of Com-
parative Psychology. New York, 1909, pp. x + 333, 18 figs.

Watson, J. B. Behaviour, an Introduction to Comparative Psychol-
ogy New York, 1914, pp 439

Watson, J. B., and Lashley, K. S. Homing of Terns Papers from
the Department of Marine Zoology. Carnegie Institution, Washington,
VII, 1915, pp. 1-104, 7 pis., 9 figs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY C73

Watt, Henry J. The relation of mind and body. Brit Journ Psy-
chology, 1912, V, [){) 292-307.

Weismann, August. The Germ -Plasm Theory of Heredity Lon-
. don, 1893, pp 477, 24 figs

Weismann, August. The Evolution Theory. 2 vols. Trans I.on-
don, 1904, pp 410 and 405, 131 figs

Weismann, August. Biological Memoirs Trans Oxford, 1889, pp.
455

Westaway, F. W. Scientific Method. London, 1912, pp 439

Wheeler, Olive A. Anthropomorphism and Science. London, 1917

Wheeler, W. M. Ants Columbia University Series

Whetham, W. C. D. The Recent Development of Physical Science.
London.

White, A. D. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology
15th ed. London, 1903

Whitman, C. 0. Animal Behaviour. Wood's Holl Biological Lec-
tures, Boston, 1899, pp. 285-338

Wilde, Henry. On the resolution of elementary substances into their
ultimatea and on the spontaneous molecular activity of radium Mem-
oirs Manchester Lit. and Phil Soc , 1903, XLVIII, No 1, pp 12

[" Natural religion and natural science are as necessarily cor-
related as the dimensional properties of space and of sub-
stance "]
Cf " On the Evolution of the Mental Faculties in relation to some
fundamental properties of matter'' Ibid , 1902, XLVI, No 10, pp 34

Wille, Bruno. Das lebendige All: Idealistische Weltanschauung auf
iiaturwissenschaftlicher Grundlage im Sinne Fechner's. Leipzig, 1905,
pp 84

Willy, Arthur. Convergence in Evolution London, 1911.

Wilson, E. B. The Cell tn Development and Inheritance Columbia
University Biological Series. New ed. 1911, pp, 483, 194 figs,
[An indispensable masterpiece }

Wilson, E. B. Heredity and Microscopical Research. Science, 1913,
XXXVII, pp 814-826

Wilson, E. B. Some Aspects of Progress in Modern Zoology Na-
ture, 1915, XCIV, pp 574

Wilson, H. V. The nature of the Individual in the Animal King-
dom Journ. Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, 1910, XXXII, pp 1-18

Wilson, J. M. A lecture on some properties and peculiarities of
water: a chapter in Natural Theology. Whittaker & Co, London,
1881, pp. 34.

[A very interesting theological interpretation of water.]

Winterstein, Hans. Bandhuch der vergleichenden Physwlogie. 4
vols Jena, 1910-1914

Woodruff, L. L., and Rhoda Erdmann. A normal periodic reorgan-
isation process without cell fusion in Paramecium. Journ Exper.
Zool , 1914, XVIT, pp. 425-516, 4 pis, 22 figs

[The remarkable process of endomixis See Variation.]

Wundt, W. Vorlesungen iiher Menschen- und Tiersecle. 5th ed

Leipzig, 1911.

Wundt, W. Metaphysik. In Systematische Philosophic, pp 103-13L
Especially " Die Metaphvsik in der Naturwissenschaft der Gegenwart."
Ziegler, H. E. Der Begriff des Instmktes einst imd jetzt. 2nd ed.
Jena, 1910, pp. 1-112, 2 pis, 16 figs . t , •

[An excellent historical sketch, antivitalist, anti-Lamarckian,
emphasising biological rather than psychological concepts.]

INDEX

Abiogenesis, 384
Abundance of life, 53
Activity, organismal, 195
Adami, Prof. J. G , 493
Adaptations in animate nature,
319

structural, 320

intra-organismal, 321

origin of, 325

evolution of, 470
Adaptiveness, 60

and purposiveness, 319, 347
Adjustments, functional, 321
Adrenalin, 398

emotion and, 622
A E , 33
i4i]achylus, 1, 3
yEatht'tic delight, factors in, 267

emotion, general characters of,
260

emotion, bodily resonance and,
268

emotion, evolution of, 279
Agassiz, Louis, 488
Aliotta, 242, 637
Altruistic and egoistic activities,

314
Alevolar epithelium, 118
Ammophila, instincts of, 202
Amoeba, behaviour of, 97

reactions of, 180, 181

"mind" of, 182

and mind, 517
Amphimixis, 417, 429
Amphioxus, development of, 151
Anabolism and Metabolism, 84,

86
Analytical explanation, 115
Anaphylaxis, 85

Ancestral experiments, entailed re-
sults of,
Ansesthetic, 248
Animal behaviour, 122, 175

diverse views on, 177

summary, 222

purposiveness in, 335
Animal, the first, 388
Animal Mind, The, 215

Animate evolution, humanist value
of study of, 640

nature, correspondence of to
ideals of True, Beautiful and
Good, 634
Animism, early, 27

soul theory on, 240, 241
Animists, 102
Antholoha reticulata, 196
Anthony, Dr. R , 558
Anthropocentric theory, 6
Anthropoids and map, 568
"Anti-bodies" (in tapeworms),

581
Anti-locust league, 618
Anti-toxins, 493
D'Annunzio, 101
Apartness of life, 130

of living creatures, 110
Aphid peUucida, 593
Arboreal man, 559
Archegaeus, 431
Architecture, types of invertebrate,

394
Arcs, reflex, 187

Aristotle, 10, 247, 398. 449, 597
Aristotelean dictum, 169
Arrhenius formula, 114
Arthropods, nervous system of, 198
Artificers, animal, 285
Assheton, Prof. R., 150, 151, 152
Astronomy, 108

gravitational, 109
Atoms, 65

Attraction and repulsion, 151
Atwater (experiment), 112
" Automatic" regulation, 215
Automatic sifting, 327
Automatiaation, 194
Autonomy of biology, 35

of psychology, 36
Awareness of meaning, 237

Bacon, Historia Naturalis, 12
Backboned animala, rise of. 394
V. Baer, K. E., 429, 488. 526
Bain. 249
Baldwin, Prof. Mark, 483

675

676

INDEX

Balfour, Mr. A. J., 264, 279, 469,

565, 637
Batoson, Prof., 92, 95, 145, 363,
364, 365, 373, 411, 413, 416,
420
Bayliss, Prof., 12
Beauty, the fact of, 259
summary, 283
aspects of, 271
pervasiveness of, 62, 259
for ashes, 216
and love, 281
Beavers, 211
Becquerel, 89
Bees, homing of, 123
Behaviour, 101
what is it?, 175
effective, 97, 104
instinctive, 197
implicit, 216
and tropisms, 194
increased masterfulness of, 400
evolution of, 507, 510
Bellerophon, 387
Bergson, Prof., 21, 32, 38, 99, 169,

207, 208, 209, 234
Bernhardi, v., 241, 308, 359, 481
Bethe, 178
Big brain type, 197
Biochemistry, 160
Biococci, primitive, 15
Biogenesis, fundamental law of,

488
Biology, autonomy of, 36, 133

categories of, 165
Biological position, 166
Biological questions, two funda-
mental, 353
Biological side of body and mind

problem, 230, 231
Biometer, Tashiro's, 422
Biophysics, 160
Biosphere, 354
Birds and man, 239
Birthrate, high as cause of war,

311
Blake 269

Blewe'tt, Prof. J. G., 372, 375, 650
Bodies, the making of, 390
Body and mind, problem of, 227

summary, 254
" Body," 229
Body-mind, 228
Body and Mind (MacDougall ),

242
Bone, appearance of, 395

Bone, structure of, 60
Bosanquet, Prof., 260, 261, 262,

269, 277
Botys hyalinalis, development of

eggs of, 126
Bower birds, 263
Boyle's Law, 155
Brachet, 232
Brachydactylism, 487
Brain and behaviour, 233
Brain-life, thought-life and, 236
Brain in man, 553
Breath of Life, The, 399, 587
British Warblers, 459
Browne, Sir Thomas, 607, 652
Brownian movements, 176
BuflTon, 590

Bumpus, Prof., 444, 447
Burbank, Luther, 441
Biirger, 196
Burroughs, John, 587
Butler, Bishop, 401
Butler, Samuel, 72, 249, 361, 412,

441, 525

Cabanis, 236
Cairns, Prof. D. S ,
Ca/ndle of Vision, 33
Candle, processes involved in see-
ing a, 229
Cannon, 622

Carr, Prof Wildon, 23, 208
Carlson, 622
Castle, 412
"Categories," 110
Categories, psychological, 254

physical and chemical inade-
quate to explain life, 137
Cauchy, 148
Celandine, variation in greater,

409
Cell-cycle, 388
Cell-division, 24, 92-95, 150
Cellular organisation, types of, 388
Cephalisation, 393
Ceptors, 521
Cerebral cortex, 232

in man, 553
Cesnola, 443

Cetaceans, hind limb in, 368
Chaldeans, 3
Chambers, Robert, 556
Changes not lost, 99
Change, persistence in spite of, 86
" Chain-reflexes," 190, 222
Charcot, 524

INDEX

677

Chemical specificity of milk, 81

of blood, 84
Chemical and physical laws apply

to organisms, 110
Chick, development of, 20, 127

artificially reared, 198
Chickens, elimination among, 445
Child, Prof. C. M., 391, 422, 423,

610
Chinese primrose, variation in,

610
Chlamydozoa, 14
Chromosmes in man, 419

as vehicles of heritable qualities,
416
Circulation of matter, 66
Clifl'ord, W. K., 10, 99, 246
" Cockpit " view of Nature, 290
Cognitive and conative factors in

instinct,
Colaptes mexicanuSy storing in-
stinct in, 210
Coleridge, 28, 646
Collie-dog, intelligence in, 211
Colloids, 162
Comte, 15
Consciousness, 237
Conservation of energy, 155

and animism, 244, 245, 246
Conservation of values, 242
Consumption, criticism of, 614
Continuity, 355

of behaviour of lower and higher

organisms, 211
of evolution, 373
of germ-plasm.
Contractility, 176
Contrasts between realm of orga-
nisms and domain of inor-
ganic, 71
Control of life, 603
Control of nature, 39
Convolutas, 194
Copernicus, 5, 22
Correlation of organs, 320
of parts, 129
theory, 247
Cosmic shadows, 616
Cosmology, 6
Cosmosphere, 354
Courtship of Animals, 461, 465
Crab and anemone, 322
Crab-apple, 360
Crampton, Prof., 444
Crayfish, 82
Creationists and evolutionists, 5

Creative Evolution, 21, 234
Cresson, Prof., 3UG, 307
Crile, Prof., 521, 522, 622
Criteria of livingnesa, 79

(summary), 102
Criticism of consumption, G14
Criticism and Beauty^ 264
Croce, Signor, 277
Crooke's vacuum, 16
Cruelty of Nature, 585
Crystal, 71
Crystallisation, 386
Cultivated plants, 262
Cunningham, J. T., 425, 461
Cytolysis, 93
Cytolaxis, 151
Cytotropiam, 151

Dahl, 514
Dannewig, 113
Dantec, le, 525, 621
Darbishire, 51 1

Darwin, 13, 26, 51, 57, 235, 292,
298, 299, 300, 308, 325, 407,
411, 412, 451, 456

Erasmus, 291

Sir Francis, 374

More Letters, 594
Darwinism, 300

careless, 304

logical objections to, 490

recoil from, 492
Darwinism, 371, 460, 529
Darwinism, a/nd Human Life, 309,

445
Dastre, Prof., 386
Davenport, Prof C. R , 445
Dearborn, Prof., 622. 023
Death, old age and natural, 591

senescence and, 589
Deathrate, selective, 444
Deep-sea fauna, 295
Definitions, 478
Democritus, 169
Dendy, Prof. A., 425
Descartes, 178, 361. 525. 637
Descent of Man, 301, 457, 45H, 462.

561
Descriptive formulation the end »»f

science, 8
Design, argument from. 325, 468.

471
Design in Nature, 4(V.K 471
Deterniinist and free-will inttTpre-

tations, 222
Development, 103

678

INDEX

Development, difficulty of apply-
ing mechanistic formulae to,
126

Developmental mechanics, 130

Diatoms, numbers of, 44

Dichotomoics false, 147

Differentiation and integration as
standards of progress, 445
progressive, 392
in development, 128

Dipper or water-vuzel, 529

Discontinuity, 104, 167

Disease, 576

in "wild" nature, 577, 605
in controllability of, 605

Discourses on metabolism, 65

Disharmonies and other shadows,
573
(summary), 599

Disparateness of mind and body,
246

Diversions of a Naturalist, 27

Divine thought, Nature as expres-
sion of, 574

Dobell, Prof. Clifford, 421

Del bear, Prof A. E , 36

Domesticated animals, 262, 264

Domestication and cultivation, 607

Driesch, Prof Hans, 128, 120, 130,
152, 153, 154, 171, 200, 441

Drinkwater, H , 424

Drummond, Henry, 301

Dryewina, Miss, 212

Dudley, Prof. W. M., 5, 6

Duration of life, 593

Dwarfs, 408

Dyer, Sir W. Thistleton, 385

Dysteleologies, 576

Eagle and tortoise, 211

Earland, Mr. A., 185

Earth, stages of development of,

72
P^arthworm, behaviour of, 189
Ecclesiastes, 589
Educability, 556
Eel, migration of, 160
Effectitve response, life as, 165
Egg-eating snake, 323
Egg-cell, fertilisation of, 307
Egg-tooth, 61, 323
Egoistic and altruistic activities,

314
Elbinghaus, 247
Electrical theory of matter, 12
Electricity and matter, 22

Elementary functions, 80
Elements, 60

compared with species, 66
Elimination, instances of dis-
criminate, 445
Ellis, Dr. Havelock, 311, 312
Embryological evidences of evolu-
tion, 369
Embryos, 489
Emerson, 28, 550, 552, 646
Emotion, motion and, 624
Empirical knowledge, 38, 39
Endeavour after well-being, 57
Endomixis, 421
Energy, 1 63

Enriques, Prof., 70, 115, 166
Entelechy, 144, 146, 153, 154, 157,

158, 159, 160, 171, 243
Environment and Efficiency, 611
Environment, choice of, 528

transforming power of, 604
Ephemerides, brief adult life of,

426
Epicureanism, 373
Epigenesis, 366, 367
Epiphenomenalism, 227, 236
Epiphenomenalist theory, 236
Erdman, Miss, 421
Esquisse d* une philosophie de la.

nature, 519
Ether, 69, 70
Eugenics, 619
Eutopias, 619
Evening primrose, 413
Evolution, 366
Evolution, 463
L'Evolution cr^atrice, 208
Evolution and Adaptation, 460
Evolution, concept of, 353

(summary), 397

and development, 132

difficultites in regard to, 370

directive factors in, 439

fourfold, 400

human and animal contrasted,
559

lessons of, 603

of organic and human societies

originative factors in, 407
Evolution of Mind, 538
Evolutionists, creationists and, 5
Evolutionist outlook, 470
Excised fragments, continued life

of, 06
Experience, 101

registration of, 97

INDEX

679

Experimentation, non-intelligent,

193
Experiments in self-expression, 101
Explanation, 19, 36

analytic and synthetic, 115
Extinction of highly specialised

types, 575
Eye, 114

vertebrate, 320

Fabre, 201
Fatigue, 617
Fechnor, 247, 249
Feeling, function of, in our view
of Nature, 25, 26

for Nature, to conserve, 30
Fitness, 60, 454
Fitnesses, 329

Flowering plants, Darwin and, 51
Flowers and insects, 467
Fluctuations, 410
Foraminifera, 278

shellbuiiding among, 185
" Forbidden degrees," 614
** Forced movements," 17, 193
" Forces of Nature," 4
Foster, Sir Michael, 81, 95
Fruit-flies, abnormality in, 610
Fugue, 361

Function and environment, changes
of, 97

transforming power of, 604
Functions of the body, 117

everyday, of animal organism
Fiir Darioin, 488

Galeotti, 115

Calileo, 4, 5, 8

Galton, 411, 413, 479, 480, 485

Cammarus, tropism in, 193

Cianglionless animals, 196

Gaol fever, 625

Gates, Dr. R. R., 414, 430

Gauss, 148

Geddes, Prof. Patrick, 289, 302,
388
and Thomson, 566

General instinctive tendencies, 203

Genes, 424

Genetic method, 20

Geocentric theory, 5

Germ-cell a condensed individu-
ality, 326

Germ-cells as organisms, OS, 428

Germinal origin of improvements
in behaviour, 518

Gills and gill -clefts, 490

Glacier insects, 53

God or Ndtural Ht^lection, 37

Goethe, 26, 29, 52, 57, 261, 306,
594, 051

Golding, Louis, 587

Gojtz, 45S

Good, the True and the, 283, 285

Goose, story of wounded, 239

Grammar of Science, 459

Graptolites, 575

Gravitational Astronomy, 22

Gravitation, Law of, 19, 155

Gravity, 9

Grebe, great crested, 464, 465

Gregarines,

Groos, K , 459, 461, 464, 621

Ground-wasp, 198

Grouse-disease, 577

Growth, 103

Growth and Form, 112, 449

Growth, reproduction and develop-
ment, 91

Grundziige der Physiologic, 181

Gudernatsch, 609

Gulls, flight of, 270

Haldane, Dr. J S., 117, 119, 120,

121, 125, 157
Hamerton, Mr., 533
Hannaq, Cannon, 270
Harmony and discord, 62
Hart, Or Bernard, 524
Hartog, Prof M , 149, 150, 483
Harvey on development of chicks,

127
Healing power of Nature, 537

psychological aspect of, 633
Hegel, 261
Heliiun, 357, 477
Henderson, Prof. L. J., 73, 331
Henri, Madame, 414
Herbst, 151
Heredity, 482
Heredity, 477, 501

and personality, 498

the first determinant of life, 606

definition of, 478

role of, 480

a condition of evolution, 480

other side of, 495
Heritage, external, 494

social, 562
Hermit crabs behaviour of, 212
Heron-Allen, E. A., 185
Hertz, 148

680

INDEX

Heterogeneity in domain of inor-
ganic, 61

Hewlett, 555

Hickson, S. J., 428

Hippopotamus, 267

Historical method, 20

History, 356

Hives-bees (homing), 198

Hobbes, 36, 236

Hobhouse, Prof., 62, 215, 512, 530,
554, 595, 627

Hodgson, Ralph, 651

Hoge, Miss, 610

Holmes, S J., 458, 465

Homologies, 368

Howard, H. Eliot, 459

Hudson, 238

Human behaviour, purposefulness
in, 331

Human Body, The, 557

Human life, apartness of, 305
society, 252

Humanist side of body and mind
problem, 234, 235

Hume, 132, 178, 539

Humphrey, Prof, 590

" Hunger and Love," 290, 292

"Hunting" in unicellulars, 180,
185

Huxley, 19, 82, 84, 93, 95, 289,
293, 384, 548, 558, 565

Huxley's epiphenomcnalism, 236

Huxley, Julian S , 54, 464

Hydra, 592

Hylopsychism, 252, 253

Ichthyosaurus, 575
Idealism, subjective, 239
" Ideal systems," 19
Identity theory, 240, 247
Imperfect adaptations, 575
Implicit behaviour, 215
Inbreeding, 560
Incommersurables, 41
Individual and the race, 477

subordination of, to species, 306
Individuality, 85, 101

of dog, 221

absence of in inorganic, 72

of species, 52
Individualities, living creatures as,
319

multitude of, 51
Indeterminism, experimental, 220
Infusorians, 183

complexity of, 54

Ingrained hereditary capacities,
218

Inheritance, natural, 494

" Inorganic," 49

Inorganic aspect of living ( rea
tures, 110
suitability of, for basis of or-
ganic, 73
domain of the, 49-75, 335
genesis of, 356

Insignia of organisms, 97

Instinctive behaviour, 197, 514
general characters of, 200
grades of, 204

Instinct and Experience, 203

Instinct, theories of, 203

Instinct and intelligence, 206, 207,
208, 522

Insurgence of life, 53, 55

Integration and differentiation,
392

Integrative Action of the Nervous
System, 238

Intelligence and instinct, 205

Intelligent behaviour in animals,
211

Interaction, 242

Interactions between organic and
inorganic, 399

Interdependence of mind and body,
233

Interpretation of Nature, 387

Interpretation of Nature, towards
a philosophical, 34

Inter-relatedness in realm of or-
ganisms, 66

Inter-relations, 399

Intuition, 32

Irreducibility, 138

Irritability, 176

Isolation, 560

Issues of life, 289
(summary), 314

James, Prof. William, 92, 290,

688
Jennings, Prof., 97, 99, 158, 180,

181, 182, 183, 184, 190, 194,

195, 196, 219, 222, 432, 453,

499, 600, 510
Johannsen, 411, 453
Joly, Prof Wm , 96
Jones, Prof F. Wood, 558
Joussain, 377
Joy, psychology of, 621
Jungle Books, 301

INDEX

681

Kainogenetic characters, 488

Kant, 110, 135, 504

Katabolism, anabolism and, 84, 86

Keats, 28

Keibel, Prof. Franz, 323

Kelvin, Lord, 11, 148

Keith, Prof. A., 401, 541, 548, 549,

557
Kepler, 22
Kessler, 301
Kingsley, 328
Kipling, 301
Kirchoff. 8, 19, 107
Krogh, 113, 114
Kropotkin, Prince, 302, 558
Kurtus, 321

egg-clusters of, 61

Labyrinth, experiments with ani-
mals, 214
Labyrinthodonts, 575
Lachelier, 636
Lamarck ians, 492, 493
Land, transition to dry, 396
Lankester, Sir E. Ray, 27, 198,

328, 425, 556, 626
Lapsed intelligence, 216
Lashley, Dr. K. S , 125, 337
"Laws of Nature," 4, 9
Learning, 213

Lehfeldt (trans, of Nernst's Theo-
retical Chemistry )f 168
Leibniz, 36
Lessing, 272
Leuckart, 92
Levick, Dr , 533
Life, the control of, 603

duration of, 593
Life and Finite Individuality, 117

121, 126, 135, 159
Life, issues of, 289

limitations of, 296

and mind, 102

mind and purpose, 344

two-fold business of, 291
TAfe Worth lAviny, Is, 290
Limits of Training in Animals,

538
Lingula, persistence of, 361
Linnaja truncatula, 123
Linnaeus, 52, 54
Liver-fluke, 579

life history of, 123
Liver-rot in sheep, 455
Lives, a system of inter-related,
58

Living organisms, essential char-
acteristics of, 86
and not living, 79

Livingness, criteria of, 79

Little brain type, 178

Lodge, Sir Oliver, 64, 68, 70

Loeb, Prof Jacques, 108, 192, 193,
194, 235, 620

Logos, 235, 637

Lost races, 377, 574, 575

Lotsy, 417

Lotze, 37, 246, 282, 377

Lovejoy, Prof. A O , 38, 164, 312,
325, 445, 469

Loves of the Plants, 292, 595, 596

Luther, 597

Lyell, 401

MacBride, Prof. E VV., 483
MacDougall, Prof. W , 205, 211,

242, 418, 525
MacGillivray, 306
MacNamara, Dr. N. C, 522
Mach, 8

Magic, early, 27
Making of mankind, 637
Maine, 311
Maitland, 163
Malthus, 293
Mammalian stock, man's affiliation

to, 235
McCaJbe, 538
Mclntyre, Dr. J. L , 234
Mclver, Prof. L., 561
Man, as an adaptive mechanism,
521

antiquity of, 401

apartness of, 553

ascent of, 397

kingdom of, 355

interpreter of Nature,

Nature crowned in, 545, 565

Neandcrtal, 548

phylogeny of, 546

unique position of, 552
Man's Place in Nature, 18
Man's solidarity with primate

stock, 551
Mantis, praying. 44
Manual of Psychology, 243
Marchant, .James. 385
Markham, Gervase, 522
Marshall, Prof Milnes. 488
Marsh, 575

Marsipiella spiralis, 185
Marsupials, adaptations in, 322

682

INDEX

MaBon-bee, limited instincts of, 200

Master activities of animal or-
ganism, 176

Materialism, 236, 373
danger of, 620

Materialists, 102

Matter, 20, 21, 67, 163

Matter and Energy, 20, 68

Matter and Motion, 236

Maxwell, Clerk, 65, 66, 120

Mayflies, 296

Mechanism of Mendel ian inherit-
ance, 425

Mechanistic descriptions, criticism
of, 107, 122
of organs, inadequacy of, 108, 143

Mechanistic and vital istic theory,
169

Mechanism, vitalism or, 144

Meckel, 488

Memory, 194

Mendel, 54, 354, 362

Mendel's law, 10

Mendel ian or unit characters, 498

Mental factors in nervous disor-
ders, 524

Mental processes and brain proc-
esses, interdependence of, 248

Meredith, 277, 282, 455, 646

Mermaid's purse,60

Merogony, 127

Mery, 25, 28

Metabolism, mind and, 243
persistence of complex, 81
of proteids, 83

Metakinetic aspect, 153

Metchnikoff, 589

Methodological vitalism, 159

Michelson-Morley experiment, 23

Microscope, 15

Minchin, Prof. E. A., 387, 403

Minima sensibilia, 14

Minkiewicz. 206

Mind, 229, 230

Mind-body, 228

Mind in everyday life, 520
in evolution (summary), 541

Mi/nd in Evolution, 512, 530

Mind, increasing dominance of in
evolution, 400, 567
life and, 102
metabolism and, 243

" Miscellanies of Miracles," 221

Mitchell, Sir Arthur, 554

Mitchell, Dr. Chalmers, 279, 309,
310, 420, 557, 564, 634

Mitokinetism, 149
Modern man, 550
Modifiability, 604
Modification and variation, 100
Mole, adaptations of, 321
Molecules, 65

Mongoose and snake-poison, 60
Monism, psychical, 240
Monsters, 326, 327
Montague, W P., 253, 531
Montaigne, 178, 525
Morgan, Prof. C Lloyd, 168, 178,
199, 202, 205, 206, 228, 247,
253, 333, 386, 483, 513, 532,
534

T. H., 424, 460
Morphogenesis, facts of, 154
Moth and candle, 192
Movement as an element of beauty,

274
Movements, enrythmic, 275
Myers, Prof C S, 207
Mysticism, 33

and logic, 377
Myxine, 580
Muller, Fritz, 488
Multiverse, 291
Munsterburg, A., 181
Musculus complexus, 324
Mussels, fish and, 59

and minnows, 58
Mutations, 410, 411, 430

theory of, 451

man greatest of, 235

transmission of, 412

and variations, 326
Mutual aid, Kropotkin on, 302

Naturalism, 565

and agnosticism, 232
Naturalism and Agnosticism, 240,

527
Natural inheritance, 479
Natural selectionism, 300

theology, 102, 103, 319
Natural selection, 57, 62, 325, 439,
442

(summary). 473, 573, 612

and struggle, 297
Naturo crowned in man, 545

( summary ) , 567

flowing with purpose, 60

and nurture, 495

poetry, 29

tactics of, 289

three voices of, 646

INDEX

683

Neanderthal man, 547

Nematode worms, suspended ani-
mation in, 89

Nernst, 168

Nerve-cells interrelations between,
232

Nervous system in anthropods and
vertebrates, 108
establishment of, 186
progressive evolution of, 641
retarded development of, 233

Neurosis, 247 ^^

New departures, 100 >'^

Newton, 4, 9, 22, 28

New World monkeys, 546

Neitzsche, 100, 314

Noddy Tern, 534

Notochord, 491

" Nurture," definition of, 479
importance of, for the indi-
vidual, 610

Nutritive chains, 58

Objectivity of beauty, 271
Observations on Sexual Selection
in Spiders of the Family At-
tidce, 461
Ohm's laws, 10
Old age and natural death, 590,

591
Old World monkeys, 546
Ontogeny, 378, 488, 492
Order of 'Nature, 331
Order, growth of scientific, 5
in inorganic, 65
physic-chemical, 133
biological, 133
social, 133
Organic evolution, diflBculty of
applying mechanistic formulae
to, 131
defined, 360
in what sense continuous,

373
great steps in, 383
Organic inertia, 165
registration, 216
retention, 165
memory, 519
"Organism," 102
Organism as agent, 132

as a historic being, 125, 160
Organism and mechanism (sum-
mary ) , 1 39
Organism transcending mechanism,
107, 159

Organismal registration of past,

163
Organisms and the inorganic, re-
semblances and contrasts, 74

criteria of, 193

complexity of, 147

evolution of, 356

origin of, 383

nature of first, 387
Organisms, realm of, 355

contrasted with inorganic, 49-7S

characteristic features of the, 50
Organogenesis, recapitulation in,

491
Originative factors in evolution

(summary), 433
Origin of life, 14
Origin of Man, 559
Origin of Species, 273, 325, 407
Outlook on Nature, man's early, 3
Over-population, 294
Ovum of rabbit, 232
Owen, Sir Richard, 274
Osborn, Prof H F., 399, 449, 483
Orthogenesis, 449
Ostwald, 152

Paley, 200

Palingenetic characters, 488
Parallelism, psycho-physical, 249
Paramecium, 421, 511

behaviour of, 182, 183
Parasites, 260

life histories of, 580

ugliness of, 583
Parasitism, 376, 578
Parker, Prof G. H., 451, 610

Theodore, 386
Parsimony, law of, 214
Pasteur, 604
Passenger pigeon, behaviour of,

536
Pathways to reality, 29
Pavlov, 622

Pearl, Prof. R, 191, 453, 498
Pearson, Prof. K., 308, 312, 444,
459, 460, 609

Mr. Norman, 247
Peckham, Prof, and Mrs. 202, 461
Pedigrees of animals, 360
Penard, 387

Penguins, play among, 534, 535
Peppered moth, imitations of. 427
Perceptival factors in esthetic

emotion, 209
Periodic classification, 20

684

INDEX

PersisteDce in spite of cliange, 86

of characters, 495

or organisms, 90
Personality, 5, 230

•transcending organism, 599
Pervasive beauty of animate na-
ture, significance of, 287
Pettigrew, Prof., 471
Petrovitch, Prof. Ivan, 621
Philanthus, 588
Philosophical interpretation of

Nature, 34, 35
Philosophy of the As If, 261, 262
Philosophy, science and, 31
Phylogeny, 378, 488, 489, 492, (of

man ) , 546
"Physical order," 50
Physiological registration of ex-
perience, 182

state influencing action, 191
Pittdown skull, 548
Pithecanthropus, 547
Planaria, 19

Planarian, rejuvenescence in, 422
Planck, Prof. Max, 23
Plants, divergence of green, 389

evolution of, 390
Plasticity of animals, 55

of instinct, 205
Plastosomes, 127
Plato, 361, 614
Play, 621

of animals, 464
Play of AnimalSy 461
Plesiosaurs, 575
Poincar^, 3

Pollen-basket of bee, 60
Poynting, Prof J. H., 9, 245, 256
Poulton, Prof., 444
Pre-awareness, 532
Preconditions of behaviour, 176
Pressures, 16
Preyer, Prof., 196
Primate stem, 556

stock, 361
Primordial organisms, 389
Principles of Physiology, 112
Pringle Pattison, Prof. A., 17, 18,

38, 262, 367, 378
Probability, law of, 153
Procession caterpillars, 201
Productitvity of animals, 53
Promise, 643-644
Prospectitve significance, 333
Proteids, metabolism of, 83
Proteins, 110

Protoplasm, 111
Protoplasmic inertia, 96
Protozoa, cell-division in, 93
Protozoa and natural death, 591
Prouho, 196
Psychoid, 245

Psychology, autonomy of, 36
Psychological categories, 254
Psychology experimental, 179
Psycho-physical individuality, 169

life, 247
Psychosis, 247

Psychoses and neuroses, 236
Ptarmigan and high altitudes, 60
Pterodactyls, 575
Punnett, Prof., 418, 447, 611
" Pure lines," 453
"Pure perception," 31
Purpose, 642, 643
Purpose in the inorganic domain,

330
Purposiveness of Nature, 14
Purposiveness, adaptivenees and,
and, 319-347

instinctive, 338

organic, 340
Purposefulness, perceptual, 338
Purposelikeness and adaptation,

341
Pycraft, W. P., 461, 465

Race, the individual and the, 477
Radium, 357, 477
Rankine, 10

Rat, black and brown, 298, 299
Rat, fertility of, 53
Rational conduct, 217, 515
Reactions varying in difi"erent in-
dividuals, 190, 191
" Reality " of the " atom," 1 1
The New Realism, 168
Realms of Ends, 617
Recapitulation doctrine, 488
Regenerative capacity, 632
Reflex action, 186, 512

responses, 188

theory of instinctive behaviour,
204
Reflexes and tropisms, 6

combination of, 187

control of, 523

succession of tentative, 190
Registration, 189
Reichert and Brown, 485
Reighard, 448
Relation with nature, 33

INDEX

685

Relativity, principle of, 11

Religion, 40
natural, 42
science and, 39

Religious interpretation of Nature,
difficulties, 573
scientific description not con-
sistent with, 449

Reproduction, 103

" Republic of reflexes," 187

Resemblance between realm of
organisms and domain of in-
organic, 62

Rhythms, 268

Rhythmic activities, 94

Richet, Prof. Charles, 85

Ritter, Prof W E , 4, 31, 154, 170

Rock record, 368

Romanes, 60, 212

Rook and mussel, 211

Rouband, 339

Rousseau, 554

Roux, 80, 128, 150

Rowland, Prof., 16

Royal Fern, 267, 268

Royce, 38

Rubner, 112

Ruffed grouse, 60

Ruskin, 274, 282, 649

Russell, Bertrand, 271, 377
G. S , 159, 160, 161, 431

Sacculina, 582

Sanderson, Sir J. B., 270, 283

Sage, Le, 11

Salp, heartbeat of, 126

Schelling, 37, 261, 282

Schiller, F. C, 282, 443

Science, Arms of, 8

Science and Life, 279

Science and Philosophy of the Or-
ganism, 130

Science and philosophy, relation
between, 37
and religion, 39

Scientific description not incon-
sistent with religious inter-
pretation, 649

Scientific inquiry, motives of,

Scientific order, growing recogni-
tion of a, 4

Schuster and Shipley, 21

Sea-anemone, 187

behaviour of, 188, 189

Sea-urchin, development of in ab-
normal conditions, 15

Sea-urchin, a republic of reflexes,
187

and starfish, 196
Secondary sex characters, 456
Selection a detirminanl of life, 612

indiscriminate, 613

lethal, 440

mutual, 465

and progressiveness, 466

reproductive, 446

sexual, 456

social, 563
Selection theory, 472

criticism of, 451

subtlety of, 454
Self-development, 81
Sclf-disassimilation, 81
Self-expression, 101
Self-maintenance, 136

of organs not perfect, 87
Self -multiplication, 81
Self-preservation, 81
Self-preservative devices, 87
Self-regulation, 136
Self-repair, 88, 89
Selons, 587
Semon, 483
Semper, 409

Senescence and death, 589
Senescence and rejuvenescence, 391,

422, 591, 592
Senility, 590, 593
Sense-experience, 40
Sensori-motor experiments, 195
Sensory factors in aesthetic delight,

268
Sequence of activitites, 199
Sequoia trees, 56, 631
Serpent, beauty of (Ruskin), 274
Sexual Diamorphism, 392, 461
Sexual selection, 456
Sex-difl'erenceB in instinctive be-
haviour, 201
Sexes, divergence of, 391
" Seven Riddles of the Universe,"

13
Shaw, 495

Shell-building (Foraminifera), 185
Sherrington, Prof., 238, 268, 523
Shipley, Dr. A , 21, 55
Silkworm disease, 604
Size and distance, 30, 31
Simplicity, false, 620
Simplifying, evolution as a process

of analytic, 361
Slipper-animalcule, 54

686

INDEX

Snail, freshwater, and liver-fluke,

123
Social animals, 359
Social heritage, 479, 497

selection, 563
Sociosphere, 354
Soddy, Prof. F., 19, 68, 69, 114,

153
Solar system, 71
Solipsism, 12, 240
Sollas, Prof., 401, 547
Sorley, Prof., W. R., 373
"Sorting demons" (Clerk Max-
well), 120
"Soul," 229
Soul -theory or animism,
Specialised types, extinction of,

574
Specificity of instinctive behaviour,

200
of metabolism, 84
Spectroscope, 15
Spencer, Herbert, 92, 301, 613
Spenser on numbers of sea-animals,

51
Spiders, 213
Spinoza, 267, 294
Spirals, 272

Spiritual influx theory, 372
" Spontaneity," 70

of animal behaviour, 220
Spontaneous division, 103
Sponge, 89

Starfish attacking sea-urchin, 196
behaviour of, 99
(Luidia), fertility of, 53
Starfishes, tentative movements in,

190
Stars, Chaldeans knowledge of, 3
Stentor, 184, 511
Stimulation, eflfects of repeated,

213
Stoicism, 373

Stout, Prof., 22, 38, 207, 243
Strategy behind evolution, 574
Struggle for existence, 57, 293-296,

588
forms of, 299, 300
interspecific, 297
intra-germinal, 429
misconception of, 301
Studies in Animal Behaviour, 458,

465
Study of Nature and the Vision

of God, Blewett, 375
Stumpf, Prof., 250

Subjective idealism, 239

Successful expression, beauty as,
277

Sully, Prof. James, 358

Supremacy of mind, 242

Suspended animation, 89

Swallow, homing of, 122

Symbolism in beauty, 283

Symbols, thought-economising, 11

Synthetic explanation, 115

Synthesis, creative, 355

Systema Naturae, 52, 234

Systematisation in organic do-
main, 66

Tashiro's " Viometer," 422

Taylor, Prof. A. E., 37, 38, 129
Mr. Dixie, 538

Technitella, 185, 279, 432

Teleological Faculty of Judgment,
110

Teleological Interpretation, 333

Temporal Variations, 425, 557

Temperature of blood, 120

Tentative reflexes, succession of,
190

Terns, homing of, 125, 198

Time, relativity of, 23
trafficking with, 180

Theism, 373

Theodicy, 30

Theology, 13, 313

Therodynamics, laws of, 114,
164

Theromorphists, 554

Theromorphism, 620

Things-in-general (Butler), 72

Things and living creatures, 49

Thompson, Prof. D'Arcy, 112, 135,
159, 449

Thomson, Geddes and, 463
Sir J. J., 10, 648
Miss M H, 611

Thorndike, Prof., 215

Thought-life and brain-life, 236

Torpedo-fish, 115

Tower, Prof, 414, 419

Transfer of energy, 96

Transformism, experimental, 60

Transilient variations, 411

Transmissibility of minute varia-
tions, 412

Trees, eff"ect of snow on, 445

Trial and error, method of, 182,
196, 217, 511
movements, 195

INDEX

687

Trilobites, 575

Trophallaxis, 339

Tropisms, 6, 17, 192, 512
and behaviour, 195

Tropism theory of animal beha-
viour, 108

Tse-tse fly, 582

True, the Beautiful and the Good,
The, 283, 319, 635

Trypansomes, 583

Two aspects theory, 229, 240, 247,
25 1

Tyndall's "Matter," 17, 118

UexkuU, von, 187

Ugliness, 266

Unconscious cerebration, 243

Unfathomed universe (summary),
43

Unicellulars, general organismal
activity among, 179

Unicellular organic reaction, 179

Uniformity of Nature, 24, 598

Unit characters, 424

Uniqueness of life, 145, (sum-
mary), 170
of organisms, 167

Uranium, 357, 477

Usher, Archbishop, 547

Vaihinger, 261
Variability, 97, 99, 104

definiteness in, 420
Variation, 357

and modification, 100
Variations, discontinuous, 410, 412

Mendelian, 453

origin of, 415

origin of heritable, 407

single individual, value of,
608
Van't Hoff's Law, 113, 114
Varigny, de, 409
Velocities, 16
Venus' flower-basket, 275
Venus' fly-trap, 60
Vertebrates, origin of, 396
Verworn, 83

Vestigial structures, 486
Vicarious functioning. 87
Visceral resonance. 268
Vision, habit of, 34
Vis modicatrix naturte, 631-652
Vital agency, is there a non-per-
ceptual, 153

Vital agency, force, 149

impulse, 144

principle, 144
Vitalism, descriptive or methodo-
logical. 159, 163
Vitalism, History and Theory of,

441
Vitalism or mechanism, 144

objections to, 155

three grades of, 149
Voices of Nature, the three, 646
Voltaire, 597

Vortex, living being as a, 95
Vries, de, 411, 413, 450, 453

Wallace, A. R, 370, 371, 372, 379,

385. 460, 462, 528, 587
Waller, Prof., 90
War among savages, 311
War, " Nature's sanction " for, 308
Ward, Prof, .lames, 38, 240, 244,

254, 266, 484, 527, 528, 617
Washburn, Miss, 182, 214, 215
Wasps, instinct of, 202

instinctive [lurposiveness in, 338
Wastefulness in Nature, 594
Watson, Prof. J. B , 125, 337, 534,
538

William, 651
Web of life, 59
Weber, Prof Max, 61
Weismann, 61, 417, 446, 480, 481,

558
Weldon, Prof , 444
Well-being, endeavour after, 304
Wheeler, 339

Whelk, egg-capsules of, 303
Whirlpool, living being as a,

82
White, Gilbert, 282
Whitman, 282, 536. 538, 539, 650

Walt, 33
Wild traits in tame animals, 486
Will, 156

as guiding power, 245

to live, 53, 56
Winwarter. 420
Wonder, 2S
\Vonder of Life, 122
Woodruir. Prof, 54. 421
Woodward, Dr Smith. 549
Wordsworth, 2H. .'{2. 268. 282

Yucca flower and moth, 109, 199
Yung, Prof K , 198

N