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FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION 


“*A sacred Kinship I would not forego 
Binds me to all that breathes.” 
BoyEsEN 


SS a 


Spumophlue chayrodunut 
Plumas Co 
Some chipmunks of California, showing distinct species 
produced through isolation. 


From nature, by William Sacketon Atkinson. 


With the Compliments of 
THE AUTHOR. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION 
A SERIES OF POPULAR ADDRESSES ON 
THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 


BY 
DAVID STARR JORDAN, Pu. D. 


PRESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 


WITH SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS BY 
EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN, Pu. D. 


PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE EMBRYOLOGY 
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 


FRANK MACE McFARLAND, Px. D. 


ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTOLOGY 
IN LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 


JAMES PERRIN SMITH, Pu. D. 


PROFESSOR OF PALEONTOLOGY IN 
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 


NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1898 


Copyricnt, 1898, 
By DAVID STARR JORDAN. 


TO 


TIMOTHY HOPKINS, 


OF MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA, 
FOUNDER OF THE SEASIDE LABORATORY OF BIOLOGY 
ON MONTEREY BAY, 


IN RECOGNITION OF HIS FRIENDLY AID 


TO SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. 


PREFATORY NOTE. 
% 


THE present volume is made up of popular essays or 
addresses on the general subject of Organic Evolution, 
These were originally given as oral lectures before 
University Extension societies in California, having 
been condensed and written out in their present form 
after delivery. Three of these papers have already 
appeared in Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, and 
three in The Arena. To the editors of these periodicals 
I am indebted for the privilege of reprinting them. 

Besides the twelve essays of my own, it is my good 
fortune to enhance the value of the volume by the in- 
sertion of three papers of special importance, setting 
forth the present state of knowledge concerning the 
method of evolution and the method of heredity. The 
first of these, on the Factors of Organic Evolution as 
displayed in the Process of Development, is by Professor 
Edwin Grant Conklin, of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania; the second, on the Physical Basis of Heredity, 
is by Professor Frank Mace McFarland, of Leland Stan- 
ford Jr. University ; the third, on the Testimony from 


Paleontology, is by Professor James Perrin Smith, of 
vii 


Vili FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Leland Stanford Jr. University. The essay of Professor 
Conklin was read before the American Philosophical So- 
ciety. The others are here presented for the first time. 

I may add that the present volume is not intended 
as a text-book in Evolution, although most phases of 
organic development are in one way or another touched 
upon, some of them, however, mgst briefly. The treat- 
ment of different topics is necessarily unequal. The 
time is long past when any one man can master what is 
known in any science, least of all the universal science 
of life. In the supplementary essays I have asked my 
scientific friends to do for this volume certain work 
which I could not do except by the unsatisfactory 


method of compilation. 
Davip STARR JORDAN. 


Pato ALTO, CALIFORNIA, January 19, 1898. 


ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
I.—THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. ‘ F : 5 4 saan 


What is the cause of variety in life ?. What is a species ? 
The number of species. The unity of type. Unity in 
variety. The meaning of homology. The origin of va- 
riety and the origin of homology. The origin of life un- 
known. The answer of Linneus. The answer of Cuvier. 
The answer of Lamarck. The answer of Agassiz. What 
is special creation? All life from life. Uncertain bound- 
aries of species. The species of fishes of North Amer- 
ica. The species of the Galapagos. Do species change 
with space? The species of South American edentates. 
Do species change with time? Darwin’s answer. Dar- 
win’s method. The origin of species. The Darwinian 
theory. Artificial selection. Natural selection. The 
struggle for existence. Relation of bees to clover. Re- 
lation of cats to England’s greatness. The equilibrium 
of Nature. More organisms born than can mature. 
How the hare becomes white. How selection becomes 
adaptation. Acceleration of development. How bisex- 
ual parentage brings variety. ‘‘Vom Vater hab’ ich die 
Statur.” The value of death. The saving of time. Al- 
truism and its struggle for existence. Every fact has a 
meaning. Geographical distribution. Survival of the 
existing. Geological distribution. Epoch-making events. 
Change not progress. Vestigial organs. The pineal eye. 
Origin of complex structures. The individual repeats 
the history of the race. Embryology and evolution (John 
Sterling Kingsley). Similarity of early stages in embry- 
onic life. The egg of the mammal, Embryonic struc- 

ix 


x FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


PAGE 

tures in man. Gill slits in man. Objections to the the- 
ory of descent. Relation of present heredity to past 
environment. Darwin’s hope. The species of eel. The 
reality of species. The old idea of species has passed 
away. The acceptance of the theory of descent. The 
philosophy of evolution. Influence of theory of de- 
scent. Origin of man. Meaning of homology. Decay- 
ing scientific beliefs. Darwin’s words. The conception 
of God. Darwin’s home. Boyesen on evolution. 


II.—EVOLUTION : WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT . 54 


What evolution is. The science of organic evolution or 
bionomics. Meaning of law. Soundness and solvency 
of Nature. The indifference of Nature. Evolution asa 
theory of organic development. Each fact has a mean- 
ing. Evolution as a method of study. Evolution as a 
system of cosmic philosophy. Decay of formula. What 
evolution is not. Man not a developed monkey. Not 
progress, but adaptation. Humanity not the goal of evo- 
lution. Change by slow divergence. No innate tend- 
ency toward progression. Spontaneous generation. 
Evolution not a creed. Evolution not a religion. Sci- 
ence its own witness. 


III—THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. » 75 


Heredity. Irritability. Individuality. Natural selec- 
tion. Concessions of life. Self-activity. Altruism. Iso- 
lation. Nutrition in transmission. Survival of the exist- 
ing. Inheritance of acquired characters. The unknown 
factors. 


IV.—THE FACTORS OF EVOLUTION FROM THE STAND- 
POINT OF EMBRYOLOGY. By Professor Edwin 
Grant Conklin . 3 e : ; : Zi . 100 


Embryology shows the method of evolution. Statement 
of propositions, Causes of development. Intrinsic causes 
dependent on nature of protoplasm. Inherited charac- 
ters predetermined in structure of germ cell. Germinal 


ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xi 


PAGE 
protoplasm relatively but not absolutely stable. Do ex- 
trinsic factors affect germinal protoplasm? Diminished 
nutrition. Changes in environment. Use and disuse. 
Mechanical conditions. Results of impact. Value of 
direct experiment. Return to the position of Darwin. 


The final word still far distant. \ 


V.—THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE . 3 3 . 118 


Formation of character. Hereditary tendencies. In- 
heritance of humanity. Inheritance of race characters. 
Individual characters. The germ cell. Protoplasm. 
Chromatin. Inequality of Nature’s divisions. Atavism. 
The mid-parent. The thoroughbred. Changes through 
experience. Inheritance of acquired characters. Nature 
of acquired characters. Prenatal influences. Transmis- 
sion of impaired vitality. Ibsen’s ghosts. Potentialities 
not character. The higher heredity. The unity of the 
ego. The ego a co-operation, Fame not greatness. 
Counting one’s ancestors. Lineage of a little girl. All 
Englishmen of noble birth. Effect of primogeniture. 
Origin of the English character. Race types and the 
survival of the existing. 


VI.—THE PHYSICAL BaSIS OF HEREDITY. By Professor 
Frank Mace McFarland . : : : : . 147 


The cell theory. The meaning oftheterm ‘‘cell.” Uni- 
cellular and multicellular organisms. The essential 
parts of the cell. The protoplasm. The nucleus. Ka- 
ryokinesis. The chromosomes. Division of the centro- 
some. The spindle. Division of the chromosomes. 
Phases of cell division by karyokinesis. Direct division. 
Somatic and reproductive tissues. Differentiation of so- 
matic and reproductive tissues in Ascaris. Reproduction 
in Protozoa. Conjugation. Gradual differentiation of 
reproduictive cells. Reproduction in Eudorina. Repro- 
duction in Metazoa. Fundamental identity of the germ 
cells. The egg cell. Maturation. The sperm cell. 
Fertilization. Cleavage. The reduction of the chromo- 
somes. Theories as to structure and significance of the 


VIL—THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


chromosome. The ultimate vital units. Significance of 
reduction. Reduction in Ascaris. Reduction in Crusta- 
cea, The chromatin as the bearer of hereditary influence. 
Indirect evidence. Direct experimental evidence. 


Illustrations not arguments. Cumulative evidence. 
The fauna of the Galapagos. Island life. Effects of mi- 
gration on species. Effects of isolation. Barriers to diffu- 
sion. Holarctic realm. Neotropical realm. Ethiopian 
realm. Indianrealm, Australian realm. Anomalies in 
distribution. Adaptation of animals to environment. 
Invasion of the Australian realm. Trout in Yellowstone 
Park, Two-Ocean Pass. Laws of distribution of ani- 
mals. Barriers of land, sea, and climate. Interdepend- 
ence of species. The arctic birch. Crossing the bar- 
riers. The flying fish. Subspecies or geographical 
variations. Doubtful species. Darwin’s experience. 
The shore larks. Work of Dr. J. A. Allen. Species de- 
fined by missing links. Analogy between variations of 
species and of words. A fauna like a language. The 
survival of the existing. How species change with time. 
Physiological isolation. 


VIII.—LATITUDE AND VERTEBRE 


Northern fishes have most vertebrae. Fewest vertebre 
in shore fishes of the tropics. Fewer vertebre indicates 
greater specialization. Analogy of tropical waters to 
cities of men. Origin of eels. Coral reefs the centre of 
fish competition. Cephalization through competition. 


IX.—EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. By Pro- 


fessor James Perrin Smith 


Introduction: General evidence of paleontology; in- 
completeness of the record. Law of acceleration of de- 
velopment. Nomenclature of stages of growth. Paleon- 
togeny: General statement; Brachiopoda; Crustacea; 
Mollusca; Pelecypoda; Cephalopoda; Method of work- 


PAGE 


. 191 


221 


- 229 


ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xill 


PAGE 
ing. Development of Glyphioceras. Development of 
Schlenbachia, 

X.—THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND 5 : : . 256 


Mind the sum total of psychic changes. Mind not con- 
sciousness, Function precedes structure. Irritability 
the basis of mind. The brain adequate for the mind. 
The marvel of life. Activities of Protozoa. Sensation 
related to action. Mind of the plant. Locomotion de- 
mands sensation. Reflex action. The higher heredity. 
Realities and illusions. Selections of sensations. Ro- 
bust men make history. Relation of the child to the 
environment. The sensorium. Nature of instinct. In- 
stinct of the fur seal. Nature of the intellect. Effect of 
adversity on the intellect. Intellect of the monkey peo- 
ple. Intellect the choice of responses. Intellect of the 
furseal. The ‘‘Clavier” theory of mind. Colonial con- 
sciousness. ‘‘ Cogito, ergo sum.” Development of the 
ego. The building of the self. Sensation without action. 
Impulse and action. Degeneration. Power of attention. 
Defects in mental operation. Phenomena of hysteria. 
Effect of drugs. The mind of nations. 


XI.—DEGENERATION . ‘ P ‘ ‘ ‘ ei : 277 


Decline in range of activities. Quiescent animals. 
Tunicates. Parasiticanimals. Sacculina. Animal pau- 
perism homologous with human pauperism. Law of 
compensation. Degeneration of senility. Race de- 
generation. Lineage of degeneracy short. Withered 
branches. Degeneration through charity. The cretins 
of Aosta. Degeneration in isolation. The Jukes. The 
poor whites. Degeneration in slavery. Degeneration 
in the slums. Degeneration in the tropics. Degenera- 
tion in luxury. Mental dyspepsia. The higher foolish- 
ness. Nordau on degeneration. The mattoid. The 
normal man. Disease of the nerves not genius. De- 
cadence for mercantile purposes. Causes of decadence. 
The despondency of Europe. The wholesome world. 
Degeneration under institutions. Mental pauperism. 
Spiritual pauperism. 


xiv 


XII. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


—HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY . : F F ‘ 


The art of living. Mutual help preserves the incapa- 
ble. The easy world. Poverty not pauperism. Degen- 
eration of the inactive. The tribe of Ishmael. Paupers 
as parasites. Pauperism a factor in government. Cor- 
ruption fund of public charity. Foreign immigration, 
Taking away the ‘‘ freedom which is thraldom to sin.” 


XIIL—THE WoMAN OF EVOLUTION AND THE WOMAN 


XIV.—THE STABILITY OF TRUTH 


OF PESSIMISM 


Primary meaning of sex. Primal equality of sexes. 
Specialization of germ cells. Specialization of the em- 
bryo. Maternity and companionship. Woman not un- 
developed man. The altruism of parenthood. The 
philosophy of pessimism. The philosophy of evolution. 
Schopenhauer’s essay on woman. Woman a modified 
man. Inefficiency of woman. Beauty of young girls. 
Beauty as a weapon. Triviality of women. Early ma- 
turity of woman. Kindness of woman. Deceit of 
woman. Woman lives for the species. Trade jealousy 
among women. The unesthetic sex. No mastery of 
art. Philistinism of woman. Thé sexes unequal. 
Woman in European society. The lady-nuisance. The 
laws of marriage. Dependence of woman. The lord- 
nuisance. Blindness of pessimism. Woman from man’s 
standpoint. Unnatural competition. Evolution of the 
home. Freedom of man. For each defect a historic 
cause. Force breeds deceit. The equal marriage. Being 
awoman. Release from work not idleness. 


Assaults on the integrity of science. The secret of 
power. Human experience the basis of knowledge. 
Knowledge and belief. Views of the Marquis of Salis- 
bury. Views of Arthur J. Balfour. Human experience 
not objective. Ineffectiveness of reason. The nature of 
self. The terms of human experience. The measure of 
aman. Nature of sanity. The infinite understanding. 
The test of truth. The matter philosophy deals with. 


PAGE 


299 


=< BIZ 


- 334 


ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. XV 


PAGE 

Protyl. Religion and belief. Haeckel’s Confession of 
Faith. Monism. Unity of organic and inorganic Na- 
ture, Unity of chemical elements. Monism not science. 
Spontaneous generation not science. Reincarnation. 
Haeckel’s definition of belief. The inheritance of ac- 
quired characters. The courage of patience. Revision 
of science by philosophy. Science stops where facts stop. 
Primal motive of science. Message of science. Philo- 
sophic doubt and common sense. Each organism a link 
in the chain of life. Life deals in realities. Convention- 
ality. Authority. Instinct springs from past conditions. 
Intellect points forward. Practicality of sensations. The 
sober mind. The recrudescence of superstition. Life 
based on dreams and illusions. Sensation truthful in 
the degree that action is possible. Hyperzsthesia of sci- 
ence. Trust in reality makes life safe. Meaning of 
pain. Value of ideals. The course of life. The world 
as it is. Subordination of impulses. The search for 
truth. 


XV.—THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES . : . 366 


The price of truth. The mystic sanction. The strug- 
gle against tradition. The struggle against learning. 
The struggle in the human mind. Nature of the mind. 
Practicality of the senses. Suggestion and convention- 
ality. The forces outside ourselves. Fear and worship 
of the unseen powers. The science of our childhood. 
The world as it is. The conflict between science and re- 
ligion, The struggle between science and dogmatic the- 
ology. The essence of conservatism. The effort to limit 
thought. The effort to control action. The passing of 
institutions. 


INDEX . . F 3 : : ‘ : x x - 379 


FIG. 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


1. Pineal eye of lizard (Hatteria) (after Spencer) . 


wi nN 


. Pineal eye of lizard, in section (after Spencer) ‘ 
. Head of horned toad (Phrynosoma) (after nature, by 


W.S. Atkinson) . 


. Conjugation of Infusoria (after Leueleaty) 

. Karyokinesis of cell (after Driiner) . 

. Reduction of chromatin in egg-cleavage (ater Boveri) . 

. Development of Pandorina (after Pringsheim) 

. Colony of Eudorina with antherozooids (after Goebel) 

. Diagram of development of spermatozoa (after Boveri) . 
. Fertilization of egg (after Boveri) 

. Reduction of chromosomes in developing egg ter 


Brauer). o 


. Maturation of egg of ‘Bees (after Riickert) 

. Larva of Echinus (after Boveri) 

. Hybrid larva of Echinus and Spherechinus (after Bieri 
. The arctic birch (after nature, by Anne L. Brown). 

. Skeleton of greenling (Hexagrammos) (after nature, by 


W.S. Atkinson) 


. Skeleton of scarlet rock-fish (Sebastodes) atte nature, by 


W. S. Atkinson) . 


. Skeleton of angel fish (Angetichebys) (after 2 nature, by 


W. S. Atkinson) 


. Sacculina after leaving the egg (after Lang) 

. Sacculina attaching itself (after Lang) 

. Sacculina, an early stage (after Lang) ‘ 

. Sacculina after absorption of limbs (after Lang) 
. Adult Sacculina attached to crab (after Lang). 


2 xvii 


PAGE 
34 
34 


35 

g2 
155 
160 
165 
167 
172 
174 


180 
182 
187 
189 
209 


224 
224 


225 
279 
280 
280 
280 
281 


Xvill FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


FIG. PAGE 
24. Section of mature Sacculina (after Lang). . ‘ . 281 
25. Sacculina attached (after Lang) 5 : 3 3 . 282 
26. Sacculina with limbs absorbed (after Lang) . 282 
27. Cretin of Aosta (after a photograph by Dr. J. W. Jenks) 285 
28. Cretin of Aosta (after Edward Whymper) ‘ . 286 
FULL-PAGE PLATES. FACING 
PLATE PAGE 
Some chipmunks of California, showing distinct spe- 
cies produced through isolation (after nature, by 
William Sacketon Atkinson) Frontispiece 
I.—Cephalopoda; development of Glyphioceras (after na- 
ture, by Mrs. Frances Rand Smith). 240 
II.—Development of Glyphioceras (after nature, = Frances 
Rand Smith) ij 242 
IlI.—Development of Schloenbachia (efter nature, by Pian 
ces Rand Smith) 246 
IV.—Development of septa in searmanties (after nature, iy 
Frances Rand Smith) ‘ ‘ 248 


V.—Forms of Ammonites (after nature, by Frances Rand 
Smith) ‘ 5 2 : . i y . 252 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


I. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 


No one with good eyes and brains behind them has 
ever looked forth on the varied life of the world, on 
forest or meadow or brook or sea, with- 
What is the out at least once asking himself the ques- 
ory ree tion, “ What is the cause of Nature’s end- 
i less variety ?”” We see many kinds of 
birds and trees and insects and fishes and flowers and 
blades of grass, and yet when we look closely we find not 
one blade of grass in the meadow quite like another blade. 
The green cloak which covers the brown earth is the 
shield under which millions of organisms, brown or 
green, carry on their life work; yet not one organism 
in the world in body or mind is the exact measure of 
its neighbour. But with all this the real variety in life 
is far greater than that which appears. 

Each kind of animal or plant, that is, each set of 
forms which in the vicissitudes of the ages has become 
segregated and set off from its neigh- 
bours, is called in biology a species. 
The number of these species is great 
beyond any ordinary conception. I have an old book 


in my library, the tenth edition of the Systema Nature, 
I 


What is a 
species ? 


2 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


published by Linneus in 1758. This book treats of all 
the species of animals known a century and a half ago. 
In its eight hundred and twenty-three 
pages some four thousand different kinds 
of animals are named and described. 
But for every one of these enumérated by Linnzus, more 
than two hundred kinds are known to the modern natu- 
ralist, and the number of species still unknown doubt- 
less exceeds that of those already recorded. Every year 
since 1864 there has been published in London a plump 
octavo volume known as the Zodélogical Record. Each 
of these volumes, larger than the whole Systema Natura, 
contains the names of animals new to science added to 
our list during the year of which it treats. And in the 
record of each year we find the names of about three 
times as many animals as are mentioned in the Systema 
Nature. Yet the field shows no signs of exhaustion. 
As these volumes stand on the shelf together it is easy 
to see that the later volumes are the thickest, and that 
the record for the present year is the largest of all. 
Moreover, what is true of the increase of knowledge in 
systematic zodlogy is even more marked in the case of 
botany. Such, then, is the variety of life on the globe 
—a variety of which Linnzus and his successors had 
never dared to dream. 

And yet, great as this variety is, there are, after all, 
only a few types of structure among all animals and 
plants, some three or four or eight or 
ten general modes of development, and 
all the rest are modifications from 
these few types. It is, moreover, true that all living 
forms are but series of modifications and extensions of 
one single plan of structure. All have the same frame- 
work of cells, and in each cell we find the same ultimate 
substance—the mysterious semi-fluid network of proto- 


The number of 
species. 


The unity of 
type. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 3 


plasm, which is, so far as we know, the physical basis of 
all life; and the equally mysterious nuclear substance 
or chromatin which in some fashion presides over all 
the movements of the protoplasm and is the physical 
basis of the phenomena of heredity. The same laws of 
heredity, variability, and of response to outside stimulus 
hold in all parts of the organic world. All organisms 
have the same need of reproduction. All are forced to 
make concession after concession to their surroundings, 
and in these concessions all progress in life consists. 
And at last each organism or each alliance of organisms 
must come to the greatest concession of all, which we 
call death. 

The unity in life is then not less a fact than is life’s 
great diversity. Whatever the emphasis we may lay 
upon the diversity of life, the essential 
unity of all organisms must not be for- 
gotten. This fundamental likeness among widely varied 
forms stands as the basis of all classification. It is this 
only which makes classification possible or conceivable. 
These bonds of union, which are real as distinguished 
from resemblances which are merely superficial or ap- 
parent, are known to the naturalist as homology. The 
existence of homologies is the fundamental fact in bio- 
logical science. It has been regarded as a mystery of 
mysteries, but this mystery assumes the form of natural 
law in the light of the plain fact that identity of structure 
is the simple result of identity of parentage. Homology 
in any form is simply the stamp of heredity. In other 
words, homology means blood-relationship. The sim- 
plest explanation is the truest and would long ago have 
been recognized had it not been for prejudices of va- 
rious sorts—theological prejudices that saw the image 
of God in man only, and scientific prejudices which 
arose from the surface study of surfaces. For it is the 


Unity in variety. 


4 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


inside of an animal which tells the real history of its 
ancestry; its outside tells us only where its ancestors 
have been. 

It is perfectly certain that homology represents some 
real law of Nature, something other than the results of 
mere chance. When I compare my arm 
with that of my neighbour, I find differ- 
ences in size and proportions, But these 
are superficial, and there is the underlying correspond- 
ence of each bone and muscle, each nerve fibre, artery, 
and vein, When I compare my arm with the fore leg of 
a dog I find more striking differences, for the dog’s 
station in life is quite unlike my own, and he uses his 
arm for different purposes. When I compare my arm 
with the wing of a bird or the pectoral fin of a fish, the 
results are still similar. Though the differences in each 
succeeding case become more and more striking, and 
the resemblance less easy to trace, yet the same re- 
semblances exist, and a closer study shows that these 
resemblances far outweigh the differences. 

We say, then, that homology is real, and whatever 
power or cause has acted on fishes to provide them with 
pectoral fins has given to birds wings, to the dog fore 
legs, and to me and my neighbour arms. The arms are 
appendages more specialized—that is, more highly fin- 
ished and suited to more purposes than the others—but 
all are formed of the same pieces, arranged in the same 
way. When I compare my arm, however, with the claw 
of a lobster, the limb of a tree, or the arm of a star- 
fish, all resemblances in gross structure disappear, and 
we have only the analogies connected with similar- 
ity of function. The ultimate homology of cell for 
cell, however, remains even here with all that this may 
signify. 

Now the problem before us is this: What is the 


The meaning of 
homology. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 5 


origin of variety in life, and how does it come that this 
variety is based on essential unity? Or, in other words, 
what is the origin of species, and what 
is the origin of homology? Obviously, 
neither of these questions can be an- 
swered without considering the other, 
and obviously both presuppose the existence of life. 

As to the origin of life, we have as yet no basis for 
speculation. We can only say as a matter of fact that 
life exists on the earth, which was once 
lifeless. How the first organism came 
to be we can not even guess. By what 
clashing of elements the vital spark came forth, and 
whether like causes can or do still produce like effects, 
no one can say. The spontaneous generation of organ- 
isms has never been seen, nor with our dull senses 
and clumsy instruments could it ever be seen; for an 
organism without a history, untouched by heredity, un- 
selected by struggle, unaffected by environment, a coin 
fresh from the mint of creation, would be a fragment of 
pristine simplicity as far beyond our grasp as the mole- 
cules of the chemist. It is likely that it is indeed a 
molecule, and a molecule in size compares with a drop 
of water much as an orange compares with the sun. If 
spontaneous generation exists, such creatures as bacilli 
and infusoria, small though they are, are not the prod- 
ucts of it; for these little creatures have their life his- 
tory, their habits, and their heredity as firmly fixed as 
those of the dog or the oak. A life history presupposes 
a long ancestry, and it is absurd to expect such battle- 
scarred organisms as the least we know to spring full 
developed from the combination of any of the compo- 
nent atoms. 

The origin of life is as yet beyond the reach of spec- 
ulation, We can not even bring it under investigation, 


The origin of va- 
riety and the ori- 
gin of homology. 


The origin of life 
unknown. 


6 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


for we know too little of it to ask of Nature even an 
intelligent question which shall bear upon it. But sci- 
ence does not shrink from unanswered problems. What- 
ever exists may some time be found out, and some day 
the law of creation may become as much a part of our 
biological knowledge as the law of heredity bids fair 
soon to become. 

Having stated our problem of the origin of species, 
let us see what answers have been made to it by some 
of the great minds of the past. The past in biology is 
not far distant, for it is barely a century since biological 
problems were first treated as living questions. A cen- 
tury ago, as I have already said, comparatively few 
species, either of animals or plants, were known to the 
naturalist, as but few are now known to those who are 
not engaged in Nature study. Most of these were not 
known well. The question as to their origin could not 
be asked, for the very idea of origins was an unfamiliar 
one. The fact of the enormous succession of ages that 
makes up geological time, the thought that “time is as 
long as space is wide,” had scarcely entered the minds 
even of the boldest thinkers of that day. 

In this condition of knowledge the answer to our 
question was easy. Linnzus said a century and a half 
ago: “ There are as many different spe- 
cies now as there were different forms 
created in the beginning by the Infinite 
Being.” But Linnzus, with his few boxes of dried 
plants and his little cabinet of stuffed birds and dried 
fish skins, had scant conception of the range of variety 
in Nature, while of the underlying unity he had only 
occasional glimpses. That the animals and plants in his 
catalogue were the last in a long succession of life in 
which species after species had appeared and dropped 
out, dying or undergoing such changes as to seem to us 


The answer of 
Linneus. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 7 


like new creations, was wholly unknown to him. And 
surely these considerations, these discoveries of a cen- 
tury of scientific activity, can not be ignored in forming 
our answer to the question of the origin of species. 

Some half a century after Linnzeus, another natural- 
ist, still greater than he, gave himself to the study of 
homologies, and formed a classification 
of all animals on the basis of the resem- 
blances seen in their plans of organi- 
zation. It was known to him that there had been many 
changes in the history of life, and that the forms now 
living are but a tithe of the total number of those which 
have existed. 

So the answer of Cuvier was substantially this: There 
have been many creations and destructions of life in the 
history of the earth. So far as we can see, it appears that 
there are as many species now as there were different 
forms created by the Infinite Being at the beginning of 
the present geological era. 

But it was not easy to show just when the present 
era began, and the reasons for believing in the repeated 
total extinctions and creations became less and less 
strong the more closely the evidence was examined. 
Nor was it clear why the new creations should be as 
it were merely modified duplicates of the creatures which 
had preceded them. Why should the Creator, for in- 
stance, in covering the earth with a new creation, carry 
it right on in the same lines as the old one? Why 
should he give us not merely birds, reptiles, insects, 
shells, and ferns as before, but birds, reptiles, insects, 
shells, and ferns only to be distinguished from their pre- 
decessors by the most careful study of men who have 
given their lives to such discriminations ? 

And then there were some men in Cuvier’s time who 
were not satisfied with the answer of Cuvier. Such men 


The answer of 
Cuvier. 


8 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


were Lamarck and Saint-Hilaire, and with them was 
he who has been called “the sanest of men’—Geethe. 
There had been, they thought, in reality 
no new era and no new creation—only a 
gradual change from old to new, from 
old life under old conditions to new life with new envi- 
ronment. The natural tendency toward progress in life, 
the influence of the creatures’ own desires and needs, 
the attempt of creatures to fit themselves to new sur- 
roundings were, they thought, in some way the causes 
of the changes in forms which Cuvier ascribed to new 
creations. 

But there were some facts not easy to explain on 
these suppositions, and the causes of change suggested 
by Lamarck seemed to most thinkers of his time entirely 
disproportionate to the changes themselves, Again, the 
weight of the great names of Linnzus and Cuvier rested 
oh the other side, and authority has its weight in science 
as elsewhere when we come to estimate the relative 
probability of different conclusions. Besides, not enough 
of fact was in anybody’s possession to take these dis- 
cussions out of the region of speculation. There is rea- 
son to believe that Cuvier himself doubted his own dic- 
tum as to the special creation, unchanging permanence, 
and ultimate extinction of species. But Cuvier saw no 
way to any better view, and he believed that the advance- 
ment of science would come through the gathering and 
sorting of facts rather than from any hypotheses, how- 
ever ingenious, as to the origin of present conditions. 

But the permanence and persistence of type which 
Cuvier had demonstrated came to be a necessary ele- 
ment in the answer to the still vexed 
question of the origin of species. And 
this fact of unity formed the corner- 
stone in the answer given by Agassiz. The species rep- 


The answer of 
Lamarck. 


The answer of 
Agassiz. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 9 


resent the divine thoughts embodied in the act of crea- 
tion. The unity exists in the mind of the Creator. 
He made them all, and so all bear the stamp of his 
workmanship. He is infinite, and so they exist in in- 
finite variety. That “material form is the cover of 
spirit” was to Agassiz “a truth at once fundamental 
and self-evident.” Each species is, then, the material 
form which clothes a divine idea. Homologies arise 
not from diverging lines of descent, but from the asso- 
ciations of divine ideas, They are the stamp of uni- 
formity which must accompany all works of a single 
mind, even though that mind be infinite. To trace this 
out in Nature is for us to think again the thoughts 
of God. 

This was Agassiz’s answer, and it has the charm of 
poetry, besides breathing the spirit of deep reverence 
which characterized this great naturalist, to whom the 
laboratory was not less holy than the church, and “a 
physical fact not less sacred than a moral principle.” 

It is a beautiful conception, but one which can not 
be exactly measured or verified. All science at the bot- 
tom is quantitative, and whatever is true to us can be 
reduced to measurement. We may, moreover, say if we 
choose that the “ thought of God ” is not “ the unchang- 
ing species,” but the law under which species are modi- 
fied and changed. Nature is made up of changing beings 
produced and acted upon by unchanging laws. It is the 
mighty unseen force itself rather than the visible and 
transitory object of its action which, in the language of 
poetry, we may call the “ thought of God.” 

The progress of knowledge comes not from the 
growth of beautiful conceptions, but from the subjec- 
tion of all conceptions and theories to the crucial test 
of fact. A thought which can not be put to the test of 
human experience forms no part of science, 


1o FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


And so, without affirming or denying these views of 
Agassiz, scientific men have not been satisfied to rest 
with them. 

Admitting that each species has been created, the 
question of method is still pertinent. What is creation? 
How is it performed? What do we 
mean, for example, by “special crea- 
tion’ in opposition to the production of 
species through variations due to natural causes? What 
knowledge have we of the origin of species as distin- 
guished from the birth point of one of the individuals 
of this species? If each of the million species of ani- 
mals and plants which now live, and each of the mil- 
lions of kinds which have become extinct, has been the 
object of a “ special creation,” then “ special creation ” 
is but a name to cover our ignorance of the law by 
which species are produced. What has been done so 
many times must be done in some uniform way. All 
our experience in the universe tells us that everything 
is done in its way and in no other. We no longer pic- 
ture the Creator as forming dogs and horses and men 
out of clay and then breathing into them the breath of 
life. We no longer, with Milton, “imagine” the new 
created lion as pawing the earth “to free his hinder 
parts.” That is not the way we find lions made. The 
lion develops from the unborn lion kitten, and this un- 
born kitten, through heredity typifies its cat-like ances- 
tors. They were cat-like before they became lion-like. 

“All life comes from life,” is a maxim of the early 
naturalists. We understand in some measure the method 
of birth, the method by which individuals 
are created. Why should we think that 
the creation of species, special series of 
individuals, has come about in any way other than this, 
when we know of no other? 


What is special 
creation? 


All life from 
life. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE, Ir 


Then again, if species be the subject of special in- 
tervention such as some have imagined, how is it that 
after years of study we are still uncer- 


Uncertain tain as to their characters and bounda- 
boundaries of aerate 
species. ries? We have found that no two indi- 


viduals of any species are ever quite 
alike. We know that these variations group themselves 
together so as to form subordinate races or varieties— 
species within species. We know that again and again 
these minor forms or subspecies have been mistaken for 
real species. We know that in thousands of cases to- 
day the good and the true species of one writer will 
be only varieties with another. We know that every 
year intermediate forms are found which break down 
the walls between species, so that the better any group 
is known the smaller becomes its list of species and 
the greater the range of variations. ‘There is absolutely 
no test by which we can separate species from races or 
varieties. Our actual test is the test of ignorance. 
When we do not know any intervening forms we regard 
two given species as distinct. When we find intergrada- 
tions we unite these species. All naturalists have been 
forced to admit that species seem to be but varieties “of 
a larger growth,” while varieties seem tg be incipient 
species. These facts had been noticed and had been 
admitted long before most naturalists were willing 
to believe that such appearances were anything but 
most deceitful. Professor Cope tells us of a concholo- 
gist who kept his species of shells from varying by 
crushing under his heel all specimens which in any way 
tended to depart from the proper type. It is only by 
such methods as this that different species can be kept 
distinct from each other. 
Let us take an illustration out of many that come to 
hand. Continued explorations bring to light from year 


12 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


to year new species of fishes in North American rivers; 
but the number of new forms now discovered each year is 
usually less than the number of old spe- 
cies which are yearly proved intenable. 
Four complete lists of the fresh-water 
fishes of the United States have been 
published by the present writer and his associates. That 
of 1876 enumerated 670 species; that of 1878 contained 
665; the third, in 1885, only 587 species, although up- 
ward of 75 new species were detected in the nine years 
which elapsed between the first and the third list. The 
list of 1896, with 50 more additions, contains 599 spe- 
cies. Additional specimens from intervening localities: 
are found to form connecting links among the nominal 
species, and thus several supposed species become in 
time merged in one, while not unfrequently the sup- 
posed minor variations are the marks of what we must 
finally regard as real species. Their reality consists 
simply in the extinction of the intervening forms. 
We have briefly reviewed the condition of this prob- 
lem and its answers before 1836, when Charles Darwin 
returned to England after the voyage 
of the Beagle. While in South America 
.~ he had been greatly impressed by two 
phases of the question which came to his notice during 
his explorations there. The first of these was the fauna 
of the Galapagos Islands, a rocky cluster lying well out 
to sea some five hundred miles off the coast of Peru and 
Ecuador. The sea birds of these islands are essentially 
the same as those of the shores of Peru. So with most 
of the fishes. We can see how this might well be, for 
both sea birds and fishes can readily pass from the one 
region to the other. But the land birds, as well as the 
reptiles, insects, and plants, are mostly peculiar to the 
islands. The same species are found nowhere else; but 


The species of 
fishes of North 
America. 


The species of 
the Galapagos. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 13 


other species, very much like them in all respects, are 
found, and these live along the coast of Peru. In the 
Galapagos Islands, according to Darwin’s notes, “ there 
are twenty-six land birds. Of these, twenty-one, or 
perhaps twenty-three, are ranked as distinct species and 
would commonly have been assumed to have been here 
created, yet the close affinity of most of these birds to 
American species is manifest in every character, in their 
habits, gestures, and tones of voice. So it is with the 
other animals and with a large proportion of the plants. 
... The naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these 
volcanic islands in the Pacific, feels that he is standing 
on American land.” 

The question, then, is this: If these species have 
been created as we find them on the Galapagos Islands, 
why is it that they should all be very similar in type to 
other animals living under wholly different conditions 
but on a coast not so very far away? And, again, why 
are the animals and plants of another cluster of volcanic 
islands—the Cape Verde Islands—similarly related to 
those of the neighbouring coast of Africa and wholly un- 
like those of the Galapagos? If the animals were cre- 
ated to match their conditions of life, then those of the 
Galapagos should be like those of Cape Verde, the two 
archipelagos being extremely alike in respect to soil, 
climate, and physical surroundings. If the species on 
the islands are products of separate acts of creation, 
what is there in the nearness of the coasts of Africa or 
Peru to influence the act of, creation so as to cause 
the island species to be, as it were, echoes of those on 
shore? 

If, on the other hand, we should adopt the obvious 
conclusion that both of these clusters of islands have been 
at one time or another colonized by emigrants from the 
mainland, by the waifs of wind and storm, the fact of 


14 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


uniformity of type is accounted for. But what of the 
difference of species? If change of conditions may on 
the islands cause great and permanent changes in a spe- 

cies so as to transform it into a different 


Do species species, may not the same change take 
change with . 
ciate? place elsewhere? May it not happen on 


the mainland as well as on the islands? 
And if on the mainland, what guarantee have we of the 
permanence of species anywhere? May they not be con- 
stantly changing? May not what we consider asa distinct 
species be only the present phase in the changing history 
of the series of forms which constitutes the species ? 
The other phase of the problem which was presented 
to Darwin was that of the succession of fossil and re- 
cent mammalia, especially the edentates 
(ant-eaters, armadillos), etc. in South 
America. We find in the extinct species 
the same peculiarities of structure that 
we see in the forms still living. These peculiarities are 
not shown by animals either recent or fossil in other 
parts of the globe. If each of these species has been 
an independent creation, by what law should the re- 
cent forms duplicate the peculiarities of the extinct 
forms? Is the process of creation in some way influ- 
enced by the peculiarities of forms which have pre- 
ceded these in the same region and not by forms which 
live in other regions? The explanation is not to be 
found in the adjustment of species to their conditions 
of life, for under similar conditions in other regions, as 
in Australia, are found forms wholly 


The species of 
South American 
edentates, 


Do species different. But as edentate has suc- 
change with . 
ete ceeded edentate in South America, so 


marsupial has succeeded marsupial in 
Australia. Is the explanation in both cases to be found 
in the supposition that the recent forms in both of these 


N 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 15 


continents are modified descendants of extinct forms? 
But if this be so, what certainty have we that. other 
creatures have not been similarly modified? And may 
they not be still undergoing modification? Then why 
may not the origin of species be due to descent with 
modifications? The difference in species would then be 
the result of the influences which make for change, and 
the unity would be due simply to the action of the law 
of the heredity. 

And this is the theory which Darwin finally reached. 
The unity would be accounted for easily enough, for by 
this view homology is the simple index of common he- 
redity. The fact of variation could be shown, but what 
could be the cause of variations so universal and on 
such a grand scale as we find them in Nature? If this 
law could be worked out, then the innumerable facts 
of homology and variation would have a meaning in- ° 
stead of being as before so many isolated curiosities of 
Nature. To the working out of this law he gave 
twenty-five years of his life, gathering information from 
every source accessible to man. 

To the famous botanist, Joseph D. Hooker, Darwin 
wrote in 1844: “ Besides a general interest about the 
southern lands, I have been now ever 
since my return engaged in a very pre- 
sumptuous work, and I know no one 
individual who would not say a very foolish one. I was 
so struck with the distribution of the Galapagos organ- 
isms and with the character of the American fossil mam- 
mifers that I determined to collect blindly every sort of 
fact which could bear in any way on what are species. 
I have read heaps of agricultural and horticultural books 
and have never ceased collecting facts. At last gleams 
of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite 
contrary to the opinion I started with) that species are 

3 


Darwin’s 
answer. 


16 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven 
forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a tendency to 
‘progression,’ ‘adaptations from the slow willing of 
animals,’ etc. But the conclusions I am led to are not 
widely different from his, though the means of change 
are wholly so. I think I have found out (here’s pre- 
sumption!) the simple way by which species become 
exquisitely adapted to various ends.” 

In the preface to the Origin of Species, published in 
1859, he outlined his plan of work in the following 
words: 

“When on board H. M. S. Beagle as naturalist, I 
was much struck with certain facts in the distribution 
of the organic beings inhabiting South 
America, and in the geological relations 
of the present to the past inhabitants of 
the continent. These facts seem to throw some light 
on the origin of species, that mystery of mysteries, as it 
has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. 
On my return home it occurred to me (in 1837) that 
something might perhaps be made out on this question 
by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of 
facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. 
After five years I allowed myself to speculate on the 
subject, and drew up some short notes. These I en- 
larged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions which 
then seemed to me to be probable. From that period 
to the present day I have steadily pursued the same 
object. I hope that I may be excused for entering 
upon these personal details, as I give them to show 
that I have not been hasty in coming to a conclusion.” 

“Mother Nature,” says Huxley, “is singularly ob- 
durate to honeyed words. Only those who understand 
the ways of things, and can silently and effectively use 
them, get much good out of her.” 


Darwin’s 
method. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 17 


Let me speak of certain traits of this work, the Ori- 
gin of Species, which give it a position almost alone 
among books of science. There is in 
it no statement of fact of any import- 
ance which, during the nearly forty 
years since it was first published, has been shown to be 
false. In its theoretical part there is no argument 
which has been shown to be unfair or fallacious. In 
these forty years no serious objection has been raised a 
"e . 


The Origin of 
Species. 


f : : : 1 
to any important conclusion of his which was not at the | 


time fully anticipated and frankly met by him. Indeed, y, © 
there are but few of these objections which with our) 7, 
present knowledge are not much less weighty than Dar- ? 
win then admitted. The progress of science has bridged 
over many chasms in the evidence. 

There is in this work nowhere a suggestion of special 
pleading or of overstatement. The writer is a judge 
and not an advocate, and from his decisions there has 
been no successful appeal. There is in this or any other 
of Darwin’s works scarcely a line of controversial writ- 
ing. He has been the faithful mirror of Nature. The 
relations of Nature to metaphysics he has left to others. 
The tornados which have blown about the Origin of 
Species are not his work. He felt, perhaps, that most 
systems of philosophy are like air plants which thrive 
equally well in any soil; with just facts enough for their 
roots to cling to, they may grow and bloom perennially, 
without other food than the air. 

The “Darwinian theory,” as resulting from these 
many years of gathering of facts, may be briefly stated 
as follows: The various species of ani- 
mals and plants now on the earth are 
the descendants of pre-existing forms 
which have in various ways undergone modification. 
The homologies existing among them are the result of 


The Darwinian 
theory. 


18 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION, 


inheritance from their common ancestry. The differ- 
ences have come about through various natural influ- 
ences, chief among which is the competition in the 
struggle for existence between individuals and between 
species, whereby those best adapted to their surroundings 
live and reproduce their kind. Any advantage of the 
individual, no matter how small, must be a help in its life 
struggle. This advantage inherited becomes the gain of 
thespecies. The various influences connected with this 
struggle were summed up in the comprehensive term of 
“natural selection,” or, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has 
termed it, “the survival of the fittest.” The latter term 
is, however, only half as large as the former, because “ the 
survival of the existing” is in many regards a factor as 
potent as the actual survival of the fittest. To be onthe 
ground is a factor not less important in determining sur- 
vival than to have a special fitness for the conditions of 
life. The epithet “natural” in natural selection is also 
of vital importance as distinguished on the one hand from 
“ artificial,” or produced by human agency, and on the 
other hand from “supernatural,” or produced by un- 
knowable agencies. “Fitness” in this sense of course 
means simply the power to win in the particular kind of 
contest that may be in question, no moral element and 
no element of general progress being necessarily in- 
volved. The term “natural selection” originated from 
the use of the word “selection” by breeders of animals 
to indicate the process of “ weeding out” by which they 
improve their herds. For the method by which in 
Nature a new species is brought into existence seems 
to be precisely parallel to that by which we may arti- 
ficially produce a new breed of cows or of dogs, a new 
race of pigeons, or a new variety of roses. The record of 
man’s work in the creation of species covers some of the 
most glorious of human achievements, none the less won- 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 19 


derful because they have taken place before our very 
eyes. To know the laws of heredity and to select domes- 
tic animals and plants so to reach our ends in accord- 
ance with these laws is indeed a creation. Artificial 
selection, says Youatt, is the “ magician’s 
wand” by which the breeder can sum- 
mon up whatever animal form he will. 
One might, according to Somerville, chalk out on the 
wall the form of sheep he most desired, and then de- 
velop it by attention to selection of parentage. The 
processes of heredity would bring this about by laws as 
unvarying as that by which a stream is forced to turn a 
mill. Professor Goodale tells us that were all our fruit 
trees destroyed and the species exterminated, they could 
all be won back again by the selective culture of wild 
pomes and berries. 

“Natural selection” is, however, an affirmative 
phrase for what is largely a negative 
process. ‘Natural extinction,” or the 
destruction of the unfittest, would some- 
times express the same idea better. 

No more striking statement of the universality of 
the struggle for existence and of its power to compel some 
form of selection—natural, of course—has ever been 
made than that given by Darwin in the Origin of 
Species. From this I quote: 

“TI use this term, struggle for existence, in a large 
and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one 
being on another, and including (which 
is more important) not only the life of 
the individual, but success in leaving 
progeny. Two canine animals, in atime of dearth, may 
be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get 
food and live. Buta plant on the edge of a desert is 
said to struggle for life against the drouth, though more 


Artificial 
selection. 


Natural 
selection. 


The struggle for 
existence. 


20 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


properly it should be said to be dependent upon the 
moisture. A plant which annually produces a thousand 
seeds, of which only one on an average comes to matur- 
ity, may be more truly said to struggle with the plants 
of the same and other kinds which already clothe the 
ground. The mistletoe is dependent on the apple and 
a few other trees, but it can only in a far-fetched sense 
be said to struggle with these trees for if too many of 
these parasites grow on the same tree it languishes and 
dies. But several seedling mistletoes growing close 
together on the same branch may more truly be said to 
struggle with each other. As the mistletoe is dissemi- 
nated by birds, its existence depends upon them; and it 
may metaphorically be said to struggle with other fruit- 
bearing plants in tempting the birds to devour and thus 
disseminate its seeds. In these several senses, which 
pass into each other, I use for convenience’ sake the 
general term of ‘struggle for existence.’ ” 

Darwin says that there is nothing which people are 
more willing to concede than the struggle for existence, 
and yet nothing can be more inadequate than the ordi- 
nary conception of it. He further says: 

“A struggle for existence inevitably follows from 
the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase. 
Every being, which during its natural lifetime produces 
several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during 
some period of its life, and during some season or occa- 
sional year; otherwise, on the principle of geometric 
increase, the numbers would quickly become so inordi- 
nately great that no country could support the product.” 

It is one of the axioms of mathematics that any geo- 
metrical progression will in time outrun any arithmetical 
one. Multiplication outruns addition. 

“Hence . . . there must in every case be a struggle 
for existence, either one individual with another of the 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 21 


same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, 
or with the physical conditions of life. It is the 
doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the 
whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case 
there can be no artificial increase of food, and no pru- 
dential restraint from marriage. Although some species 
may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, 
all can not do so, for the world would not hold them. 
There is no exception to the rule that every organic 
being naturally increases at so high a rate that if not 
destroyed the earth would soon be covered with the 
progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has 
doubled in twenty-five years, and, at this rate, in less 
than a thousand years there would literally not be stand- 
ing room for his progeny. . . . The elephant is reckoned 
the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have 
taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate 
of increase; it will be safest to assume that it begins 
breeding when thirty years old, and goes on breeding 
until ninety years old, bringing forth six young in the 
interval, and surviving till one hundred years old; if 
this be so, after a period of from seven hundred and forty 
to eight hundred and fofty years there would be nearly 
nineteen million elephants alive, descended from the 
first pair.” 

Darwin continues: “I have found that the visits of 
bees are necessary for the fertilization of some kinds of 
clover; for instance, twenty heads of 
white clover (Zvifoltum repens) yielded 
two thousand two hundred and ninety 
seeds, but twenty other heads protected from bees pro- 
duced not one. Again, one hundred heads of red clover 
(Trifolium pratense) produced two thousand seven hun- 
dred seeds, but the same number of protected heads pro- 
duced not a single seed. Humble-bees alone visit red clo- 


Relation of bees 
to clover. 


22 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


ver, as other bees can not reach the nectar. .. . Hence 
we may infer as highly probable that, if the whole genus 
of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, 
the heartease and red clover would become very rare 
or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in 
any district depends in a great measure on the number 
of field mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and 
Col. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of 
humble-bees, believes that more than two thirds of them 
are thus destroyed all over England. Now the number 
of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the 
number of cats; and Col. Newman says, ‘ Near villages and 
small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more 
numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the num- 
ber of cats that destroy the mice.’ Hence it is quite 
credible that the presence of feline animals in large 
numbers in a district might determine, through the in- 
tervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency 
of certain flowers in that district.” 

Huxley carries this calculation still further by show- 
ing that the number of cats is dependent on the number 
of unmarried women. On the other 
hand, clover produces beef, and beef 
strength. Thus in a degree the prowess 
of England is related to the number of 
spinsters in its rural districts. This statement would be 
true in all seriousness were it not that so many other ele- 
ments come into the calculation. But whether true or 
not, it illustrates the way in which causes and effects in 
biology become intertangled. 

The calculation has been lately made by Prof. Rufus 
L. Green that at the normal rate of increase from a pair 
of English sparrows, if none were to die except of old 
age, it would take but twenty years to give one sparrow 
to every square inch in the State of Indiana. But such 


Relation of cats. 
to England’s 
greatness. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 23 


increase is actually impossible; for more than a hundred 
other species of similar birds are disputing the same ter- 
ritory, and there can not be place or food for all. With 
such conditions, the struggle for exist- 
ence between sparrow and sparrow, and 
between sparrows and other birds, grows 
yearly more severe. Each year now the sparrow gains a 
little and other birds lose correspondingly, but sooner or 
later with each species a point will be reached when the 
loss exactly balances the increase. This produces a 
condition of apparent equiliibrum—the equilibrium of 
Nature; a sort of armed neutrality which a superficial 
observer mistakes for real peace and permanence. But 
this equilibrium is broken as soon as any individual or 
group of individuals appears that can do something 
more than merely hold its own ina struggle for existence. 

It is thus evident that throughout all Nature the 
number of organisms born into life is far in excess of 
the number of those which can come to 
maturity. In every species the majority 
never reach their full growth, and this 
is because, for one reason or another, 
they can not do so. All live who can. Nature asks 
each organism, Why should you live? And those who 
can not give an answer pass away. “So careful of the 
type she seems; so careless of the single life.” It is 
also evident, to use the language of Professor Bergen, 
that “the killing will not be indiscriminate, but it will 
first and mainly comprise those individuals which are 
least able to resist the attack.” It is this “ weeding- 
out” process in Nature, this “natural selection,” which 
in Darwin’s view constitutes the essential cause of 
change and progress. Of the many possible illustra- 
tions of the action of “natural selection,” one may serve 
our purpose at present. ; 


The equilibrium 
of Nature, 


More organisms 
born than can 
mature. 


24 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


In the eastern United States there are two native 
species of hare or wild rabbit. These are the gray rabbit 
or “cotton-tail ” (Lepus sylvaticus) of the 
region south of Pennsylvania, and the 
white rabbit (ZLepus americanus) of the 
woodlands of the North. The southern hare is smaller 
than the other; it is much less shy, and its winter dress 
is not very different from its summer dress, the fur 
which comes in after the autumn shedding being of the 
same grayish colour. The northern hare is in summer 
not very different in colour from the other, but when it 
renews its fur in the fall its winter coat is pure snow- 
white. There are some other distinctions between the 
two species, but we need notice simply the difference in 
colour as showing the principle of “ natural selection.” 
We may presume the two species to have had one com- 
mon origin, probably in a form not very different from 
the gray rabbit as we know it. In every dozen rabbits 
which we may examine we shall find a considerable 
variation in shade of colour. Some will be darker than 
the average, some grayer, some browner, and others 
evidently paler. We shall find also differences in size 
and proportions, besides other differences, but for the 
present we need only consider the matter of colour. 
In the South, where the ground is mostly free from 
snow, even in winter, whiteness would be of no sort of 
advantage to a rabbit. The nearer the animal is in 
colour to the dead grass and dried leaves about him, the 
better are its chances of escaping detection, the greater 
the likelihood that it may elude its enemies and live out 
its days, leaving descendauts to inherit its peculiarities. 

Not so with the northern species. The nearer it is in 
winter to the colour of the snow, the less likely it is to 
fall a prey to carnivorous animals or birds. And so for 
ages in the northern winter the action of competition in 


How the hare 
becomes white. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 25 


Nature, of “natural selection,” has saved the whiter 
rabbits and condemned the darker ones to destruction. 
In the summer these conditions are changed; those in- 
dividuals who retain the ancestral gray are then the 
ones best fitted to live. And so after many centuries, 
as we may conceive, there has come about a gradual 
change in the fur of our hares, until now in the northern 
species the fur is white in winter, while all are alike 
gray or brown in the summer. 

Precisely similar is the change in the plumage of the 
arctic partridge, or ptarmigan, as well as in the various 
other northern birds. But this is not all. A change in 
colour such as enables the hare or the ptarmigan to evade 
its pursuers would also aid these pursuers to steal un- 
aware on their prey. Nature has no preferences, and 
helps alike victim and victor. And so it comes about 
that predatory weasels and owls in winter assume a 
snow-white garb, and that this is laid aside in the sum- 
mer. It is doubtless true that other influences co-oper- 
ate in producing these changes in colour. White fur is 
warmest in cold weather, for it radiates less heat. We 
may say that all these animals are dressed in white in 
winter to keep them warm. But this again would be sim- 
ply a phase of “natural selection.” If the animals suffer 
from cold, the dark ones will be chilled first. Thus in 
more ways than one the white animal has the advantage 
of the other in the winter. This advantage enables it 
to outlive the other. It causes its descendants to outlive 
and eventually to displace those of its darker rival. 

To such causes as these we must ascribe the nice 
adjustment of each species to its surroundings. If a 
species or a group of individuals can not adapt them- 
selves to their environment, they will be crowded out by 
others who can do so. The former will disappear en- 
tirely from the earth, or else they will be limited to 


26 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


surroundings in which they come into perfect adjust- 
ment. A partial adjustment must with time become a 
complete one, for the individuals not adapted will be 
exterminated in the struggle for life. 

Everywhere in Nature there is the closest adap- 
tation of life to its conditions. But this adaptation 

must come about through the survival 
How selection —_ of those organisms fittest to live under 
becomes adap- ie i : 
Sek way these conditions, while the unfit die out 
and leave no progeny. Thus, in the 

words of Professor Bergen, “ with much the same result 
as that which the farmer obtains by selecting his seed 
corn, the gardener by thinning out his beds, or the 
cattle-raiser by selling off his roughest calves for veal, 
Nature is at work on an inconceivably great scale, thin- 
ning out the least perfect individuals of each species.” 

But the thinning-out process is not the whole of 
“natural selection.” Other influences work in connec- 
tion with this. In the higher animals 
changes may be wrought by conscious 
or unconscious effort on the part of the 
creatures themselves, and the power to put forth such 
effort may be perpetuated by “natural selection.” Cer- 
tain organisms may carry their growth farther than their 
ancestors have done, so that the completed structures 
of their ancestors would be with them only a stage of 
development. And,as Professor Cope has shown, devel- 
opment may be hastened by the abridgment or omis- 
sion of useless stages. Thus the ultimate maturity of 
the animal may be carried to a degree of specialization 
beyond that of its ancestry. If this “accelerated de- 
velopment ” be for the gain of the species, “ natural 
selection ” will cause it to be retained. We may prop- 
erly include under “natural selection ” all those changes 
which come from the special use or disuse of any part 


Acceleration of 
development. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 27 


of the structure. For “natural selection” must, in a 
way, be operative among the organs of the body. “Die 
Kampf der Theile,” as it has been called by a German 
writer (“the battle of the parts”), is a real struggle in 
which fitness determines survival. 

It is not merely the simple structures and the com- 
mon instincts which may be developed and fixed by 
natural selection. 

The differentiation of the sexes is a result of the 
demand for greater variation. It is the fact of bisexual 
parentage that makes of each individual 
not simply an “elongation or continu- 
ance of the parent,” but a new life 
which shall be the resultant of the lives 
and experiences of its ancestors, a mosaic of the char- 
acters of its parents and its parents’ parentage. By the 
fact of sex no individual can be the mere slavish copy 
of any other. Through the operation of sex the law 
of heredity which is to promote sameness is made sub- 
servient to the equal need of the promotion of variety. 

This idea of the formation of the mosaic of per- 

sonal character is the motive of Goethe’s 


“Vom Vaterhab’ famous poem, Vom Vater hab’ ich die 
ich die Statur.” 


How bisexual 
parentage brings 
variety. 


Statur.* 


* “Vom Vater hab’ ich die Statur, 
Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren ; 
Vom Mutterchen die Frohnatur 
Und Lust zu fabuliren. 
Urahnherr war der schonsten Hold, 
Das spukt so hin und wieder. 
Urahnfrau liebte Schmuck und Gold, 
Das zuckt wohl durch die Glieder. 
Sind nun die Elemente nicht 
An dem Complex zu trennen ; 
Was ist denn an dem ganzen Wicht 
Original zu nennen?”—GoETHE, Zahme Xenien, vi, 


28 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Again, the fact of death has been shown by Weis- 
mann to be a simple necessity of the law of natural se- 
lection. Creatures of one cell are in 
a sense biological units; they may be 
killed but they do not die a natural 
death. They are wholly alive or else wholly dead: never 
dying. They multiply by self-division, and this process 
is supposably eternal, for natural death is known only 
among many-celled or colonial organisms. It is a ne- 
cessity arising from complexity of organization. Com- 
plication and specialization of structure as we know it 
in man and the other many-celled creatures is bought 
at the cost of mortality. These cells grouped in tis- 
sues and organs in one part or another must suffer in 
the struggle for existence. Every compound animal is 
in some part dead or dying. The old and mutilated 
organisms cumber the way of the young and fresh ones, 
and by the law of selection it comes about that for these 
to die of old age is useful to the species. Those spe- 
cies in which old age brings decay and in which the in- 
dividuals perish naturally when they cease to be self-de- 
pendent are then preserved in the struggle for existence. 

It is common in these days to speak of altruism as 
a means of doing away with the struggle for existence 
among’ men. But altruism itself is only 
a higher or more advanced result of the 
same struggle. Those who band to- 
gether win, be they wolves or men, and 
natural selection favours those qualities which make for 
mutual advantage. To band together against enemies 
or for protection from the elements is a most effective 
way in which the struggle for existence may be carried 
on. The law of love is not an abrogation of the law of 
struggle. It represents a better way to fight. The con- 
quests of science are simply the first results of co-opera- 


The value of 
death. 


Altruism and 
the struggle 
for existence. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 29 


tion. If we “put our heads together” we may know or 
do everything. If we stand apart we can do nothing, 
and in the struggle for existence those who can stand 
shoulder to shoulder loyally have the promise of the 
future. Those who can not hold together find every 
man’s hand raised against them. This principle holds 
good whether applied to the directors of a hospital or 
to a band of wolves. 

Whatever form the struggle for existence may take, 
it is a permanent factor in all operations of life. Each 
creature must take part in a threefold struggle—with 
like forms of life, with unlike forms of life or creatures 
unlike itself, and with the conditions of life themselves. 
Each man must, whether he will or not, compete with 
his neighbours, must compete with other creatures, and 
must be judged by the conditions of food, climate, and 
environment under which life exists. Sometimes one 
element will determine, sometimes another. In the city 
one competes with his neighbours, in the jungle with 
the beasts, and in the arctic with the elements of cold 
and storm. Ina similar way each animal has to justify 
its existence. Co-operation may modify and dignify the 
struggle for existence among men, but it can not set it 
aside. It may change its point of incidence, but it can 
not reduce its stress. Were it not for this struggle, which 
calls out from each generation its best and strongest for 
life purposes, there could be no progress in life. With- 
out competition there could be no adaptation, without 
selection there would not be a creature on earth to-day 
higher than a toadstool! 

It was a favourite saying of Agassiz that “Facts are 
stupid things until brought into connection with some 
general law.” The law of descent, with change through 
“natural selection,” brings into organic connection a 
host of facts hitherto isolated. Each one considered by 


30 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


itself would be without meaning or explanation. The 
essential argument in favour of “ Darwinism ” is that it 
brings all biological facts into unison from whatever 
field of investigation these facts may be derived. How- 
ever much evolutionists have at times 
seemed to drift away from Darwin’s con- 
clusions, it is always the most accurate 
research and the sanest thought which come nearest the 
opinions set forth in the Origin of Species. The body 
of facts has grown enormously year by year, but the 
conclusions we must accept are substantially those laid 
down by Darwin himself. 

The facts of “ geographical distribution,” for exam- 
ple, have a meaning to us when we view them as the 
results of centuries of the restlessness 
of individuals. Each species of animal 
or plant has been subjected to the vari- 
ous influences implied in the term “natural selection,” 
and under varying conditions its representatives have 
undergone many different modifications. Each species 
may be conceived as making each year inroads on terri- 
tory occupied by other species. If these colonies are 
able to hold their own in the struggle for possession 
they will multiply in the new conditions and the range 
of the species becomes widened. If the surroundings 
are different, new species or varieties may be formed 
with time, and these new forms may again invade the 
territory of the parent species. Again, colony after 
colony of species after species may be destroyed by 
other species or by uncongenial surroundings. 

Only in the most general way can the history of any 
species be traced; but, could we know it all, it would 
be as long and eventful a story as the history of the 
colonization and settlement of North America by immi- 
grants from Europe. Each region where animals or 


Every fact has 
a meaning. 


Geographical 
distribution. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 31 


plants can live has been thousands of times discovered, 
its colonization a thousand times attempted. In these 
efforts there is no co-operation. Every individual is for 
himself, every struggle a struggle for life and death. 
To each species each member of every other species is 
an alien and a savage. 

The study of geographical distribution shows the re- 
lations of creative processes to space. The forms in- 
habiting one district arethe children of 
the earlier inhabitants. The survival 
of these forms is due to that which I 
have elsewhere called the “ survival of the existing,” for 
it is certain that in any part of the world a totally dif- 
ferent grouping of animals or plants would have been 
equally fitted to the environment. The laws of geo- 
graphical distribution may be summed up thus: The 
reason why any given species of animal or plant is 
not found in a given district is (2) because it could not 
get there from its own habitat, or (4), being there, it 
could not maintain itself either in competition with 
others or from the stress of environment, or else (c) it 
‘has in maintaining itself- become altered into a distinct 
species. 

In like manner the facts of geological distribution 
have a meaning when we view them in the light of the 
theory of descent. The birth, increase, 
decline, and final change or disappear- 
ance of species or types in geological 
history are necessary parts of the Darwinian theory. 
They would be inexplicable on any other hypothesis. 
These changes represent the survival of the fittest as 
related to time. With the lapse of time come changes 
in environment, and these changes produce correspond- 
ing changes in animal or plant life. But these changes 
on the earth and in its life are for the most part gradual 

4 


Survival of 
the existing. 


Geological dis- 
tribution. 


32 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


ones. The evolution of the earth and its life has rarely 
been subject to great leaps and catastrophes. Yet 

epoch-making events have taken place 
Epoch making on the earth. Such changes in life, as 
a the acquisition of lungs, of wings, of 
speech, are marked by the increased rapidity of the pro- 
cesses of evolution. 

Professor Bergen says: “ Until an evolutionary rise 
of species had been assigned as an explanation of the 
succession of higher and higher animals and plants 
throughout the geological ages, what adequate reason 
for this progress of life could be given? Strike out 
from our present conception of the organic world, class 
after class, all notion of actual relationship by descent, 
and what have we left but a mighty host of extinct 
creatures whose rise, progress, and disappearance are 
far more unaccountable than that of the genii in the 
Arabian Nights?” 

But not all change has been progress. The idéa of 
some of the earlier evolutionists that the advance of 
life has been the simple result of an in- 
nate “uniform tendency toward pro- 
gression” can not be maintained. For 
progress, while general, is by no means uniform or uni- 
versal, Progress ceases when its direct cause ceases. 
In every group there are some members characterized 
by degeneration and loss of specialization. This is in- 
volved in the theory of “natural selection.” If prog- 
ress comes through competition, lack of competition 
would imply retrogression. When animals or plants are 
withdrawn from the stress of life to some protected con- 
dition, the character of the type is lowered. ‘There is 
less need for specialization when the range of wants is 
narrowed. Hence it is that all parasitic animals or 
plants—lice, leeches, dodders, mistletoe, Indian pipe—are 


Change not 
progress. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 33 


degenerate forms. So it is with cave animals, as well as 
with most organisms of the deep sea or the far North. 
All forms which are withdrawn from open competition 
to a solitary and secluded life lose one by one the ad- 
_ vantages which competition has gained for them, and 
are known as degenerate types. What is true of the 
lower animals is likewise true of man. The highest 
type of manhood, of human powers and human virtues, 
will come from victory in the struggle for existence and 
not from withdrawal from the struggle. Easy living 
always brings degeneration. The sheltered life is the 
source of weakness. The desire to get something for 
nothing is the bane of human society. 
Parallel with the case of general degeneration of 
type is that of the degeneration of individual parts of the 
organism. An organ well developed in 
one group of animals or plants may in 
some other be reduced to an imperfect organ or rudi- 
ment so small or incomplete as not to perform its nor- 
mal function, or, indeed, to serve any purpose whatever. 
Such rudimentary or functionless structures may be 
found in the body of any of the higher animals and in 
most or all of the higher plants. The appendix vermi- 
formis and the unused muscles of the ears in man are 
examples, Such are also the atrophied lung, pelvis, and 
limbs of the snake, the “thumb” of the bird, the splint 
bone of the horse, and the like, without mentioning less 
familiar internal organs. By the theory of descent we 
may understand how much structures may be retained 
by the action of the law of heredity, while their reduc- 
tion may be the result of long-continued disuse, or the 
growth and selection of other organs at the expense of 
these which are no longer needed. 
Among a multitude of examples I need refer espe- 
cially to but one—a recent discovery in homology. 


Vestigial organs. 


34 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Within the brain of man, resting on the optic lobes, is a 
little roundish structure scarcely larger than a pea, 
known as the pineal “ gland” or “ conari- 


Tne eoneateye: um.” It has no evident purpose or 


function, and a philosopher a : 
once suggested that it might = 
be the seat of the soul. It 
is larger in the embryo, and 2 —— ee 
still larger in the brains of yg, r.—Pineal body in the liz- 
some of the lower vertebrates.  ard_(Hatteria) developed as 
: : , rudimentary eye; /, pineal 
Recent investigations have eye. After Spencer. 
shown that it is especially de- 
veloped in certain lizards, and that in them it ends ina 
more or less perfect eye, which is placed between the 
others in the centre of 
the forehead. These 
lizards have in fact 
three eyes, and the pi- 
neal body is the optic 
nerve of thethird. In 
the common horned 
toad the pearl - like 
scale above the pineal 
eye can be readily rec- 
ognised. The shrunk- 
en rudiment found in 
man is therefore what 
is left of an ancestral 
third eye, probably 


; ——* once characteristic of 
Fic, 2.—Pineal eye of the lizard b 
(Hatteria). After Spencer. vertebrates, but now 


displaced and de- 
stroyed by the increased development and greater per- 
fection of the outer pair. By the theory of descent the 
presence of the pineal body in man is a simple result 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE, 35 


of heredity. If, however, man possessed no “ blood re- 
lationship ” to three-eyed vertebrates, the existence of 


Fic. 3.—Head of the lizard, or “horned toad” (Phrynosoma blani- 
willet), showing the translucent pearly scale covering the pineal eye. 
From Nature, by W. S. Atkinson. 


the pineal body in the human brain would be wholly 
inexplicable. 

It has been difficult to explain, on the theory of de- 
scent, how complex organs like the eyes and ears of the 
higher animals could develop from small 
beginnings. To embryology we must 
look for explanation. Embryology tells 
us that these organs do not in the individual reach per- 
fection “all at once.” In every case the embryonic his- 
tory of a highly specialized organ shows a succession of 


Origin of com- 
plex structures. 


36 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


stages of incompleteness before the organ is finished. 
Each of these stages finds a more or less perfect repre- 
sentation in the adult condition of some animal of less 
complexity. The long-continued “ survival of the fittest ” 
brings these organs to a greater and greater perfection. 
But by the side of these creatures with the most complex 
organs will be found those in which the development of 
some particular part may be less and less complete. 
An-organ highly developed in one animal may be quite 
rudimentary and imperfect in some other animal whose 
superior fitness may be in some other direction. Thus 
fitness for underground life relieves the mole from the 
need of good eyes. Skill to live by his wits relieves 
man from the need of the monkey’s power to climb 
trees. Somewhere in the animal kingdom we may find 
each degree of each organ’s development. These or- 
gans in their varying degrees of complexity corre- 
spond more or less perfectly to the 
several stages of development of the 
same organ in the individual of the 
highest type. The record of the devel- 
opment of the individual is in a way the recapitulation 
of the past history of its species. “ The physical life of 
the individual is an epitome of the history of the group 
to which it belongs.”” Thus the embryonic life of man 
corresponds, so far as we can trace it, to the history of 
that branch of the group of vertebrates which has cul- 
minated in man. Each individual lives over again the 
life of the race. ‘Under each grave lies a world his- 
tory,” * says a German proverb. This fact is, however, 
no mysterious or meaningless law. It is simply a natural 
result of the processes of heredity. Heredity repeats 
that which has been, and natural selection suppresses 


The individual 
repeats the his- 
tory of the race. 


* “Unter jedem Grab liegt eine Weltgeschichte.” 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 37 


that which is injurious. The process of development 
of any individual is that of its ancestors with the harm- 
ful stages abbreviated or suppressed. The young frog 
has the ancestral gill of the fish and so has the human 
child in embryo. This stage is useful to the frog; it is 
not harmful to the unborn child. It is thus retained by 
heredity, but its retention is always governed by its pos- 
sible harmfulness. 

It is not an easy task to put in a few words and popu- 
lar language even a hint of the wealth of evidence which 
embryology brings to the support of the 
theory of evolution. This evidence was 
in Mr. Darwin’s mind the most convinc- 
ing of all evidence, its force being even stronger than 
that derived from his own studies in geographical and 
geological distribution. In this connection the follow- 
ing paragraphs have been contributed by Dr. John Ster- 
ling Kingsley: 

“To appreciate the weight and extent of embryo- 
logical evidence, one needs the special training of the 
biological laboratory, for it is only by watching the won- 
derful changes which every egg goes through in its de- 
velopment that one can begin to realize the importance 
of the facts. The training of the metaphysician is here 
of no value, for it is not of the slightest avail in weigh- 
ing the evidence. 

“To state this evidence briefly, we may state that the 
history of every developing egg and embryo is utterly 
incapable of explanation from any other standpoint 
than that of evolution. Why should the young verte- 
brate have kidneys like those of worms? Why does 
man have muscles to move the ears? Why do young 
spiders develop legs which will utterly disappear in the 
adult? Why does the nervous system communicate 
with the alimentary canal in the young frog or bird? 


Embryology and 
evolution. 


38 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


All of these questions, and thousands more which will 
suggest themselves at once to every student of embry- 
ology, are problems which receive no adequate explana- 
tion on the supposition of special creations. With the 
theory of evolution as a basis, the answers are easy. 
They are inheritances from ancestral conditions. In 
the terms of evolution they remain because the history 
of the individual is a more or less detailed recapitula- 
tion of the history of the race. 

“ The truth of this assumption is easily tested. The 
conclusions of embryology must be in full accord with 
those of geology, or one or the other must be wrong. 
In the rocks we have an indisputable record of the suc- 
cession of the forms of life, and the conclusions of em- 
bryology must point to a similar succession. 

“While neither our limits nor the character of the 
present article will allow anything like a discussion of 
the embryological evidence in support of evolution, a 
few examples will serve to indicate its character. 

“In the development of all eggs the earlier stages 
are essentially alike, or easily reducible to a common 
type. It is only in the later stages that 
the variations occur that are to convert 
one egg into a fish, another into a 
chicken. There are, it is true, minor 
differences from the start, but these are largely to be 
explained on mechanical grounds. An egg differs from 
the other cells in the tissues of the parent chiefly in its 
capacity to reproduce the species. It divides again and 
again, and the resulting cells build anew the parent 
form, but in the character of this division or ‘segmenta- 
tion’ many variations are recognised. In some the 
eggs are small and composed entirely of protoplasm, 
and here the segmentation is regular, but other eggs are 
larger, and this increase in size is due to the addition of 


Similarity of 
early stages in 
embryonic life. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 390 


a larger amount of ‘food yolk’ stored up to supply the 
wants of the growing embryo till the time comes when 
it shall be able to shift for itself. Protoplasm is active, 
‘food yolk’ passive, and the relative amounts of these 
two and the positions which they occupy in the egg 
affect, in a purely mechanical manner, the segmentation, 
and interfere with or destroy its typical regularity. In 
the egg of the common hen this ‘food yolk’ forms 
almost the whole of the yolk, the really important pro- 
toplasm occurring only in the lighter yellow spot, which 
is always uppermost in the egg. Taking it for granted 
that this amount of food yolk influences the character 
of the early stages of development (a point easily proved 
by the embryologists), let us consider a special case in 
which conclusions drawn from development have re- 
ceived later confirmation from other sources. 

“In the mammals the eggs are very small and con- 
sist of pure protoplasm, food yolk being entirely absent. 
Indeed, nourished by the mother, as the 
young of most of these forms are, no 
store of food yolk is necessary. Hence, 
on @ priori grounds, one would say that the segmenta- 
tion of the mammalian egg would be regular in its char- 
acter. When, however, naturalists came to study the 
development of the mammalian egg, it was found that 
in its early stages it presented (in eggs without food 
yolk) some-astonishing peculiarities. How to explain 
these peculiarities was a problem. If, however, it were 
assumed that the mammals have descended from forms 
with larger eggs, and that in the course of evolution 
they have lost the yolk but had retained the tendencies 
of development, the explanation were easy. This ex- 
planation, however, seemed very improbable, for it had 
been held, on grounds of structure, that the mammals 
must have descended from the batrachia, a group con- 


The egg of the 
mammal. 


40 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


taining the frogs and salamanders, in which the eggs are 
not large enough to serve the conditions of the problem. 
So the matter was allowed to rest until new evidence 
should be found. It came in 1864. In that year Pro- 
fessor Cope found the remains of certain reptiles in the 
rocks of Texas which he, not being aware of the em- 
bryological problem, stated must be regarded as the 
ancestors of both birds and mammals. His evidence 
was solely derived from the bony structure. As ail 
reptiles have eggs in which there is a large amount of 
food yolk, this discovery answered all the requirements 
of the problem. Both embryology and geology were in 
full accord. But the end was not yet. In the same 
year, and a few weeks later, Caldwell and Haacke dis- 
covered that two of the species of monotremes, those 
wonderful bird-like mammals for which Australia is 
noted—the duckbill and the spiny ant-eater—do not 
nourish their embryos like other mammals, but that 
they, like birds, lay eggs. It was found, further, that 
these eggs are large; they contain a large amount of 
food yolk, and they develop at first in the same way as 
the eggs of reptiles. Here was additional confirmation 
of the embryological conclusions. 

‘There are many other features in the development 
of the mammals which are equally wonderful and con- 
clusive of the truth of the theory of 


cuuenin  eVOlution. According to the geological 
man. record, man must be descended from 


mammals with tails. We find that in 
the early stages of the embryo of man there is a time 
when there exists a regular tail supported by eight dis- 
tinct bones, like the tail bones of any other mammal. 
With growth, however, these bones unite and all disap- 
pear except three, which, joined in one, persist in the 
adult. On the theory of evolution this tail is easily ex- 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 41 


plained; special creation can not account for it. Going 
still further back in the history of the development of 
the mammals, the record shows that both these and the 
reptiles must have arisen from fish-like 
forms which breathed water by means 
of gills. To this embryology offers ample support. In 
the embryos of reptiles, birds, and mammals, soon after 
the heart is formed, there appear on the sides of the 
neck openings which in both origin and structure re- 
semble the gill arches of fishes, and through these gills 
the blood flows exactly as it does in the fish. Later the 
gill arches close up, the blood takes other courses, and 
of all the complicated apparatus which persists through- 
out life in the fish there remain only a few obscure 
traces in the adult reptile, bird, or mammal.” 

This fact must show that the higher mammals have 
had a water-breathing, fish-like ancestry. Only the force 
of heredity can explain the existence and retention of 
these structures. On any other supposition an explana- 
tion is inconceivable. 

Dr. Kingsley further says: “These examples are but 
a tithe of the evidence; thousands of pages might be 
written detailing similar facts not only in connection 
with the embryology of the vertebrates but of all groups 
of animals and plants. Every case would lead us to the 
same conclusions, but except for the special student of 
biology they would have but little interest. Each in- 
stance would be inexplicable except upon an evolu- 
tionary basis, but, if one adopt the hypothesis that the 
history of the individual is an epitome of that of the 
race, all is at once as clear as day. Special creation is 
utterly inadequate to explain embryological problems ; 
evolution leaves no room for doubt or question.” 

The difficulties and objections to the theory of de- 
scent will be found in the Origin of Species, stated by 


Gill slits in man. 


42 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Darwin himself with a fullness, fairness, and clearness 
which none of his opponents has been able to reach. 
Increasing knowledge has steadily di- 
minished the apparent value of these 
objections. None of them can now be 
regarded as of any serious importance. 
Our chief questions as to the origin of species relate to 
the relative importance of the various elements which 
enter into “natural selection,” to a better definition of 
the laws of variation, and especially to the existence of 
a possible unknown factor in evolution which causes the 
transmission of the results of the efforts and experiences 
of the individual. 

Just now evolutionists are nearly equally divided on 
this great question, on which even their conventional 

beliefs have been lately rudely shaken. 
Relation of pres- Are acquired characters ever inherited, 
ent heredity to and if so, under what conditions and 
past environ- re : : 
nek limitations? Is the experience of the 

parent part of the heritage of the child? 
Does the environment of the father enter into the hered- 
ity of the son? Are the reactions which follow the 
various external conditions restricted to the individual 
alone, and is the next generation untouched by its par- 
ents’ successes or failures, as though it were a new 
creation? 

To ask these questions is not to answer them, and 
and the final solution of the relation of present heredity 
to past environment will be the work of the student of 
the twentieth century. 

Darwin’s work was addressed at first only to natural- 
ists, with no expectation that the public would pay any 
attention to it. He had confidence that 
the younger and more observant of his 
fellow workers would find in their own work confirma- 


Objections to 
the theory of 
descent. 


Darwin’s hope. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 43 


tion of his conclusions. The times were riper than he 
had realized. He has outlived nearly all his scientific 
opponents, the greatest and perhaps the last of whom 
was Agassiz. To-day there is not one whose scien- 
tific studies have been such as to give him a right 
to speak, whose views are not in substantial accord 
with those of the Origin of Species. Darwin’s work 
has destroyed forever the closet-formed idea of a “spe- 
cies” in biology as something fundamentally different 
from a variety or a race. 

Let me take an illustration. Camille 
Dareste, writing of the hundred or 
more alleged species of the true eel 
(Anguilla), says: 

“There are at least four distinct types, resulting 
from the combination of a certain number of characters; 
but the study of a very large number of specimens be- 
longing to these four specific types has convinced me 
that each of these characters may vary independently, 
and that, consequently, certain individuals exhibit a com- 
bination of characters belonging to two distinct types. 
It is therefore possible to establish clearly defined bar- 
Tiers separating these two types. The genus Anguilla 
exhibits, then, a phenomenon which is found in many 
other genera, and even in the genus Homo itself, and 
which can be explained in only two ways: Either these 
four forms have had a common origin and are races 
merely, and not species; or else they are distinct in 
origin and are true species, but have been more or less 
commingled, and have produced by their mingling inter- 
mediate forms, which co-exist with those which are 
primitive. Science is not in the position to decide be- 
tween these two alternatives.” 

It is on idle problems like this as to the reality of 
species that the strength of the naturalists of the past 


The species of 
eel. 


44 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


century has been largely wasted. Which of the forms we 
study are species, and therefore represent separate acts 
of the Creator, and which are mere varieties, chance 
products of varying surroundings, and 
therefore to be despised and ignored? 
Scarcely ever did two earnest students 
of any group reach an agreement as to this question, for 
agreement is only possible when material is lacking. A 
single additional specimen often unsettles every conclu- 
sion, and the contents of all the museums are but the 
slightest fragment of the life of the globe. “We can 
only predicate and define species at all,” says Dr. Coues, 
“from the mere circumstance of missing links. Our 
species are twigs of a tree separated from the parent 
stem. We name and arrange them arbitrarily in default 
of means of reconstructing the whole tree in accordance 
with Nature’s ramifications.” Among Dareste’s eels we 
may have one species, or four, or forty, as our collection 
may be deficient in connecting forms, or as we may 
choose to magnify or disregard slight differences. There 
are just as many kinds of eels as there are races of men 
or of dogs. Future naturalists will again describe those 
eels; but they will know them for what they are—the 
varying descendants of some one degenerated type of 
fishes, crawling in the weeds and ooze of many seas 
and rivers, and thus variously modified by their sur- 
roundings. 

Meanwhile the old notion of a species has passed 
away forever. We can no more return to it than as- 
tronomers can return to the Ptolemaic 
notion of the solar system. The same 
lesson comes up from every hand. It is 
the common experience of all students 
of species. I do not know of a single naturalist in the 
world who has made a thoughtful study of the relations 


The reality of 
species, 


The old idea of 
species has 
passed away. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 45 


of species in any group who entertains the old notion 
as to their distinct origin. There is not one who could 
hold this view and look an animal in the face! 

And for this change we have to thank Darwin. “It 
is easy to plough where the field is cleared,” and what 
he first of all saw clearly we can not fail to see now. 
The fact is that every student of species and of the 
facts of geographical distribution has reached, willingly 
or unwillingly, the conclusion that species are not im- 
mutable; that those differences by which he tried to 
discriminate the groups of organisms which he calls spe- 
cies were not differences originating in the act of crea- 
tion, but produced in some way by outside influences 
or by the organism’s reaction in adjustment-to these in- 
fluences. One might safely pledge himself to convert 
to some phase of the development theory any honest 
and intelligent man who would spend a month in a care- 
ful study of a large collection of specimens in any group 
in which the existing species are found over wide areas 
on the surface of the earth. The study of squirrels, 
eels, catfishes, pine trees, asters, butterflies, clams, snails, 
horses, or men—any of these will serve to accomplish 
this purpose. 

The general acceptance of the Darwinian theory by 
naturalists is not due exclusively to the Origin of Spe- 
cies or to any of the numerous- com- 
mentaries and expositions which have 
come from other hands. It arises from 
the results of the studies themselves. 
No authority has compelled it, for Darwin’s influence 
was not, like that of Cuvier or of Agassiz, the force of an 
overmastering personality. He was rather the voice of 
Nature. His word was the impersonal word of Nature 
herself. To see truthfully is to see with Darwin’s eyes. 
The idea of development gives the only clew by which 


The acceptance 
of the theory 
of descent, 


46 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


the naturalist can be guided in his work. If the affini- 
ties of species are not related to the law of heredity 
they are unintelligible. If the variation of species is 
really immutability in disguise we can not trust our 
senses, It is said, I know not on what authority, that 
the distinguished ichthyologist, Albert Giinther, was 
converted to Darwinism by the study of the British sal- 
mon. Whether this is true or not, such a study could 
have no other effect. I was brought to the same be- 
liefs through a study of the minnows and darters of the 
Mississippi Valley. In the study of species one must 
choose between some form of development theory on 
the one hand and a hopeless, unscientific, impossible 
ignorance on the other; and in all forms of biological 
investigation, comparative anatomy, morphology, em- 
bryology, histology, we reach the same choice of alter- 
natives. 

The theory of descent by “natural selection” has 
become in the hands of Herbert Spencer a part of a 
general philosophy of evolution, a con- 
ception much older in time than the 
theory of Darwinism. Manifestly we 
could not imagine a homogeneous universe or a homo- 
geneous earth which could perpetually retain a homo- 
geneous condition. A cooling earth must lose its per- 
fect rotundity, its surface must become diversified, and 
its relation to the sun must cause its equatorial portion 
to become different from its poles. A single homogene- 
ous form of life could not remain single and uniform, 
because life must respond to the conditions of its envi- 
ronment. Any organism under a tropical sun is not 
what it would be, exposed to arctic cold. Diversity once 
begun, and a rate of increase more rapid than a limited 
earth could permit unchecked, the natural competition 
in the struggle for existence accounts for the rest. 


The philosophy 
of evolution. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 47 


The theory of evolution, in brief, is this: There ex- 
ists in all things a tendency to become specialized and 
differentiated. In accordance with this tendency nebu- 
lous masses have been concentrated into planets and the 
generalized creatures of early time have been special- 
ized into distinct forms. The formula of the process of 
evolution as stated by Mr. Spencer resolves itself into 
this: “Evolution is a change from an indefinite, inco- 
herent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity 
through successive differentiations and integrations,” 

That this is true in the world of life is beyond ques- 
tion, and we have reason to believe that something of 
the sort is true in the world outside of life, whether the 
laws and forces in question be in essential respects com- 
parable or not, 

The influence of the theory of descent on all forms 
of modern mental activity has been great beyond com- 
parison. The thoughts of every student 
have been more or less modified by it. 
In philosophy as in science the publica- 
tion of the Origin of Species has been 
the great event of the nineteenth century. Not only. 
have all the strictly biological sciences undergone a 
complete transformation since the year 1859, but such 
allied sciences as psychology, philology, sociology, and 
ethics have felt the same impulse and have fallen under 
the same influences. Even the organization of charities 
in every well-ordered community is avowedly based on 
the principles of Darwinism. 

The various attacks on the theory of descent have 
been nearly all based on the question of the origin of 
man. For the human race is likewise a 
species of animals, and from its physical 
side it must be discussed with other species. If we sup- 


pose that the various forms of the lower animals and 
5 


Influence of 
theory of 
descent. 


Origin of man. 


48 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


plants had their origin in pre-existing forms more or 
less different, we may presume this to have been true 
of man also. That it is true of man in fact we know, 
for not many thousands of years ago our ancestors in 
Europe were barbarians, cave dwellers, lake dwellers, 
and dwellers in hollow trees, using only the rude imple- 
ments they shaped from metal and flint. The origin of 
civilized man from barbarous man gives the clew to the 
origin of barbarous man from forms still less specialized. 

The question of the origin of man, though perhaps 
the most interesting problem in science, offers to the stu- 
dent of Nature peculiar difficulties. Materials for exact 
knowledge are few and prejudices are strong, and all 
tendencies favour an immediate decision on doubtful 
points, though the evidence be far from sufficient. Of 
not one man, nor monkey, nor bird, nor beast in half a 
million does a trace remain after a thousand years—not 
a bone, nora relic, nor a thought. Living on the sur- 
face, we crumble into dust; and the current phases of 
human life, a few centuries out of hundreds, are all of 
man’s history we surely know. Many links are missing 
still, and most of these we can never find. Our early 
ancestry we can best infer from our knowledge -of the 
embryonic history and mental development of the man 
of to-day. 

But if anything in science is certain, it is that homol- 
ogy is a fact, and that it has a meaning. Among us 
backboned animals, all structures, all 
functions, and all mental operations 
show distinct homologies. The essence 
of the development theory is this: Homology is the 
stamp of heredity. Homology means blood relation- 
ship. No other meaning of homology has ever been 
shown, nor is there the slightest evidence that any other 
interpretation is possible. Blood relationship implies a 


Meaning of 
homology. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 49 


common action of heredity, and a common heredity is 
the only source yet known for the likenesses we call 
homology. 

I resemble my neighbour so closely that people say 
we look like brothers. My little boy shows similar ex- 
actness of homology to me, and people say that he is 
the very image of his father. My neighbour on the left 
shows wider divergencies, but then he too is evidently 
an Anglo-Saxon. Angle or Saxon, we were all of one 
blood not many centuries ago. Still farther away the 
whole Aryan race becomes one, and we are willing in 
Adam to recognise our homology even with our poor 
relations—the Bushman and the Hottentot. But still 
poorer relations we have, and they too carry on their 
faces the unmistakable evidences of kinship by blood. 
In every bone and muscle my dog shows his likeness to 
me, and even in every function of his feeble little brain 
the resemblance is apparent. We have no explanation 
of such homologies other than that of kinship by blood. 
For this reason we know that the various races of men 
and the various species of monkeys have some time had 
a common ancestry. For this reason we believe that at 
a period of time far back in the geological record all 
vertebrate animals sprang from a common stock. We 
have substantially the same evidence, differing only 
slightly in degree, for believing that my dog and my- 
self are related by blood in some form of distant cousin- 
ship, as there is to show a similar relationship between 
myself and any one of my neighbours. In neither case 
can we secure proof by appeal to history. Our records 
go back for a few generations only, and the great past 
is lost. In either case our acknowledged kinship is only 
an inference based on known facts of heredity and 
homology. 

No two groups can show homologies with each other 


50 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


more clearly than the members of the highest order of 
mammals, Either these homologies are real and thus 
show the existence of a real bond of union, or else they 
are mere mockeries like the face in the pansy flower. 
If homologies are mockeries, then indeed our science 
has made no progress, for this was the belief of the 
middle ages. 

So much for what we know. Our objections to rec- 
ognising our kinship with the lower forms—if we have 
any such objections—rest on considerations outside the 
domain of knowledge. They do not rest on religious 
grounds. Those who think so deceive themselves. 
“Secondary causes,” as the phrase is used, belong to 
the province of science. They are outside the domain 
of religion. “Theology and science,” says Darwin, 
“should each run its own course. .. . Iam not respon- 
sible if their meeting point should still be far off.” 

This is not a question of preference one way or 
another. Personal preference has no place in science. 
Man was not present at the foundation of the world. 
It is not a question to be decided one way or another 
by a majority vote. Truth cares nothing for majorities, 
and the majority of one age may be the wonder or the 
shame of the next. 

The only question is this: Is it true? And if it be 
the truth, nothing in the universe can be truer. “ Ex- 
tinguished theologians,” Huxley tells us, 
“lie about the cradle of every science 
as the strangled snakes beside that of 
the infant Hercules.” Looking along the history of 
human thought, we see the attempt to fasten to Chris- 
tianity each decaying belief in science, Every failing 
scientific notion has claimed orthodoxy for itself. That 
the earth is round, that it moves about the sun, that it is 
old, that granite ever was melted—all these beliefs, now 


Decaying 
scientific beliefs. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. Sle 
s 


part of our common knowledge, have been declared con- 
trary to religion, and Christian men who knew these 
things to be true have suffered all manner of evil for 
their sake. We see the hand of the Almighty in Nature 
everywhere; but everywhere he works with law and 
order. We have found that even comets have orbits; 
that valleys were dug out by water, and hills worn down 
by ice; and all that we have ever known to be done on 
earth has been done in accordance with law. 

Darwin says: “To my mind it accords better with 
what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the 
Creator, that the production and ex- 
tinction of the past and present inhab- 
itants of the world should have been due to secondary 
causes, like those determining the birth and death of an 
individual. When I view all beings, not as special crea- 
tions, but as lineal descendants of some few beings who 
lived before the first bed of the Silurian was deposited, 
they seem to me to become ennobled. 

“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its 
several powers having been originally breathed by the 
Creator into a few forms or into one, and that while 
this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed 
law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms 
most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are 
being evolved.” 

With the growth of the race has steadily grown our 
conception of the omnipotence of God. Our ancestors 

. felt, as many races of men still feel, that 
The conception they were forsaken unless each house- 
aeons hold had a god of its own, for, numer- 
ous as the greater gods were, they were busy with 
priests and kings. The people could hardly believe 
that the God of their tribe could be the God of the 
Gentiles also. That he could dwell in temples not made 


Darwin’s words. 


o 52 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


with hands, removed him from human sight. That 
there could be two continents was deemed impossible, 
for one God could not watch them both. That the 
earth was the central and sole inhabited planet rested 
on the same limited conception of God. That the be- 
ginning of all things was a little while ago is another 
phase of the same idea, as is the idea of special creation 
for every form of animal and plant. 

A Chinese sage, whose words remain while his name 
is lost in the ages between him and us, has said: “ He 
can not be concealed; he will appear without showing 
himself, effect renovation without moving, and create 
perfection without acting. It is the law of heaven and 
earth, whose way is solid, substantial, vast, and un- 
changing.” 

Not long ago I walked across the Kentish fields to 
Down, a pilgrim to the shrine of Darwin. I saw the 
stately mansion in which he lived—a 
great stone house surrounded by trees 
and shut in by an ivy-covered wall. Italked with the vil- 
lagers of Down, the landlord of the George Inn, and the 
working people who-had been his neighbours all their 
lives, and to whom Charles Darwin was not the world- 
renowned investigator, but the kindly friend. His love 
for his wife and family, his love for flowers and birds 
and trees, his love for all things true and beautiful—all 
this forms the fair background before which rises the 
noblest work in science. 

Forty years ago obloquy and derision were heaped 
upon the name of Darwin from all sides, sometimes even 
from his scientific associates. He outlived it all, and 
when he died his mother country paid him the highest 
tribute in her power. He lies in Westminster Abbey, by 
the side of Isaac Newton, one of the noblest of the long 
line of men of science whose lives have made his own 


Darwin’s home. 


THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 53 


life possible. For every truth that is won for humanity 
takes the life of a man. 

Among all who have written or spoken of Darwin 
since he died, by none has an unkind word been said. 
His was a gentle, patient, and reverent spirit, and by 
his life has not only science but our conception of Chris- 
tianity been advanced and ennobled. 


“*A sacred kinship I would not forego 
Binds me to all that breathes ; through endless strife 
The calm and deathless dignity of life 
Unites each bleeding victim to its foe. 
‘‘T am the child of earth and air and sea. 
My lullaby by hoarse Silurian storms 
Was chanted, and through endless changing forms 
Of tree and bird and beast unceasingly 
The toiling ages wrought to fashion me. 


“Lo! these large ancestors have left a breath 
Of their great souls in mine, defying death 
And change. I grow and blossom as the tree, 
And ever feel deep-delving earthy roots 
Binding me daily to the common clay ; 
Yet with its airy impulse upward shoots 
My soul into the realms of light and day. 
And thou, O sea, stern mother of my soul, 
Thy tempests ring in me, thy billows roll!” 
HyaLmar HjortH BOovEsEn. 


II. 
EVOLUTION: WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 


Tuis is the age of evolution. The word is used by 
many men in many senses, and still oftener perhaps in 
no sense at all: By some it is spoken 
with a haunting dread, as though it 
were another name for the downfall of 
religion and of social stability. Still others speak it 
glibly and joyously, as though progress and freedom 
were secured by the mere use of the name. “ The word 
evolution (Zxtwickelung),” says a German writer, “fills 
the vocal cords more perfectly than any other word.” 
It explains everything and “puts the key to the universe 
into one’s vest pocket.” 

So various has been the use of the word, so rarely is 
this use associated with any definite idea, that one hesi- 
tates to call himself an evolutionist. “ Evolution” and 
“evolutionist” are almost ready to be cast into that 
“limbo of spoiled phraseology’ which Matthew Arnold 
has found necessary for so many words in which other 
generations delighted and which they soiled or spoiled 
by careless usage. 

But as the word evolution is not yet put away, as it 
is the bugbear of many good people and the “religion” 
of as many more equally good, it may be worth while to 
consider what it still means and what it does not mean, 
for if we that use the word can agree on a definition 
half our quarrel is over. 

54 


What 
evolution is. 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 35 


It seems to me that the word evolution is now legiti- 
mately used in four different senses. It is the name of 
a branch of science; it is a theory of organic existence; 
it is a method of investigation; and it is the basis of a 
system of philosophy. 

As a science, evolution is the study of changing be- 
ings acted upon by unchanging laws. It is a matter of 
common observation that organisms 
change from day to day, and that day 
by day some alteration in their envi- 
ronment is produced. It is a conclusion 
from scientific investigation that these changes are 
greater than they appear, They affect not only the in- 
dividual animal or plant, but they affect all groups of 
living things, classes or races or species. No character 
iS permanent, no trait of life without change; and as 
the living organism and groups of organisms are under- 
going alteration, so does change take place in the ob- 
jects of the physical world about them. “Nothing 
endures,” says Huxley, ‘save the flow of energy and 
the rational order that pervades it.” The structures 
and objects change their forms and relations, and to 
forms and relations once abandoned they never return; 
but the methods of change are, so far as we can see, im- 
mutable. The laws of life, the laws of death, and the 
laws of matter never change. If the invisible forces 
which rule all visible things are themselves subject to 
modification and evolution we have not detected it. If 
these vary, their aberrations are so fine as to defy human 
observation and computation. In the control of the uni- 
verse we find no trace of “ variableness nor shadow of 
turning.” “It is the law of heaven and earth, whose 
way is solid, substantial, vast, and unchanging.” 

But the things we know do not endure. Only the 
shortness of human life allows us to speak of species or 


The science 
of organic 
evolution, 


56 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


even of individuals as permanent entities. The mountain 
chain is no more nearly eternal than the drift of sand. 
It endures beyond the period of human observation; it 
antedates and outlasts human history. So does the 
species of animal or plant outlast and antedate the life- 
time of one man. Its changes are slight even in the 
lifetime of the race. Thus the species, through the per- 
sistence of its type among its changing individuals, 
comes to be regarded as something which is beyond 
modification, unchanging so long as it exists. 

“T believe,’ said the rose to the lily in the parable, 
“JT believe that our gardener is immortal. I have 
watched him from day to day since I bloomed, and I see 
nochangein him. The tulip who died yesterday told me 
the same thing.” 

As a flash of lightning in the duration of the night, 
so is the life of man in the duration of Nature. When 
one looks out on a storm at night he sees for an instant 
the landscape illumined by the lightning flash. All seems 
at rest. The branches in the wind, the flying clouds, 
the falling rain, are all motionless in this instantaneous 
view. The record on the retina takes no account of 
change, and to the eye the change does not exist. 
Brief as the lightning flash in the storm is the life of 
man compared with the great time record of life upon 
earth. To the untrained man who has not learned to 
read these records, species and types in life are endur- 
ing. From this illusion arose the thecry of special crea- 
tion and permanence of type, a theory which could not 
persist when the fact of change and the forces causing 
it came to be studied in detail. 

But when man came to investigate the facts of indi- 
vidual variation and to think of their significance, the 
current of life no longer seemed at rest. Like the flow 
of a mighty river, ever sweeping steadily on, never re- 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 57 


turning, is the movement of all life. The changes in 
human history are only typical of the changes that take 
place in all living creatures. In fact, human history is 
only a part of one great life current, the movement of 
which is everywhere governed by the same laws, depends 
on the same forces, and brings about like results, 

The facts and generalizations of change constitute 
the subject matter of evolution; and as the fact of life 
is a fundamental one and in some degree modifies all 
phenomena which it concerns, we have as the central 
axis of the science in question the study of organic evo- 
lution. In fact, while inorganic evolution or orderly 
change in environment also exists, we do not know to 
what degree the laws and forces of organic evolution 
can be reduced to the same terms of expression. The 
theory of the essential and necessary unity of life and 
non-life, of mind and matter, is still a matter of phil- 
osophical speculation only. We can neither prove the 
truth of Monism nor understand it; nor is the contrary 
hypothesis either comprehensible or credible. The 
fundamental unity of organic evolution and inorganic 
evolution is likewise yet to be proved, while the laws 
which govern living matter are certainly in part peculiar 
to life. For this reason the evolution of astronomy, of 
dynamic geology, of geography, as well as the purely 
hypothetical evolution of chemistry, must be separated 
from life evolution. Cosmic evolution and organic evo- 
lution show or seem to show some divergence from each 
other. To regard them as identical is to introduce con- 
fusion and not order into our conception of evolution. 
There are some elements which are not held in com- 
mon, or which at least are not identical when measured 
in human terms. It is not evident that any force in 
the evolution of life is homologous with any which has 
brought about the evolution of stars and planets. This 


58 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


unity of forces may be a philosophical necessity ; it is 
not a fact. 

For the science which treats of organic evolution we 
are in great need of a distinctive term. This need was 
met by Prof. Patrick Geddes, who sug- 
gested the term bionomics. Bionomics 
(Bios, life; véuos, law or custom) is the science which 
treats of the changes in life forms and of the laws and 
forces on which these changes depend. 

Even as thus restricted, organic evolution, or bio- 
nomics, is the greatest of the sciences, including in its sub- 
ject matter not only all natural history, not only pro- 
cesses like cell division and nutrition, not only the laws 
of heredity, variation, natural selection, and mutual 
help, but all matters of human history, and the most 
complicated relations of civics, economics, and ethics. 
In this enormous science no fact can be without a mean- 
ing, and no fact or its underlying forces can be sepa- 
rated from the great forces whose interaction from mo- 
ment to moment writes the great story of life. 

And as the basis to the science of bionomics, as to 
all other science, must be taken the conception that 
nothing is due to chance or whim. Whatever occurs 
comes as the resultant of moving forces. Could we 
know and estimate these forces, we should have, so far 
as our estimate is accurate and our logic perfect, the 
gift of prophecy. Knowing the law, and knowing the 
facts, we should foretell the results. To be able in 
some degree to do this is the art of life. It is the ulti- 
mate end of science, which finds its final purpose in hu- 
man conduct. 

“A law,” according to Darwin, “is the ascertained 
sequence of events.” The necessary sequence of events 
it is, in fact, but man knows nothing of what is neces- 
sary, only of what has been ascertained to occur. Be- 


Bionomics. 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 59 


cause human observation and logic can be only partial, 
no law of life can be fully stated. Because the processes 
of the human mind are human, with organic limitations, 
the study of the mind itself becomes a 
part of the science of bionomics, For 
it is itself an instrument or a combination of instruments 
by which we acquire such knowledge of the world out- 
side of ourselves as may be needed in the art of liv- 
ing, in the degree in which we are able to practise 
that art. 

The necessary sequence of events exists, whether we 
are able to comprehend it or not. The fall of a leaf 
follows fixed laws as surely as the motion of a planet. 
It falls by chance because its short movement gives us 
no time for observation and calculation. It falls by 
chance because, its results being unimportant to us, we 
give no heed to the details of its motion. But as the 
hairs of our head are all numbered, so are numbered 
all the gyrations and undulations of every chance au- 
tumn leaf. All processes in the universe are alike nat- 
ural. The creation of man or the growth of a state 
is as natural as the formation of an apple or the 
growth of a snow bank. All are alike supernatural, 
for they all rest on the huge unseen solidity of the uni- 
verse, the imperishability of matter and the immanence 
of law. 

We sometimes classify sciences as exact and inexact, 
in accordance with our ability exactly to weigh forces 
and results. The exact sciences deal with simple data 
accessible and capable of measurement. The results of 
their interactions can be reduced to mathematics, Be- 
cause of their essential simplicity, the mathematical sci+ 
ences have been carried to great comparative perfection, 
It is easier to weigh an invisible planet than to measure the 
force of heredity in a grain of corn. The sciences of life 


Meaning of law. 


60 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


are inexact because the human mind can never grasp all 
their data. The combined effort of all men, the flower 
of the altruism of the ages, which we call science has 
made only a beginning in such study. But, however in- 
complete our realization of the laws of life, we may be 
sure that they are never broken. Each law is the ex- 
pression of the best possible way in which causes and 
results can be linked. It is the necessary sequence of 
events, therefore the dest sequence, if we may imagine 
for a moment that the human words “ good” and “ bad” 
are applicable to world processes. The laws of Nature 
are not executors of human justice. Each one has its 
own operation and no other. Each represents its own 
tendency toward cosmic order. A law’in this sense can 
not be “broken.” “If God should wink at a single act 
of injustice,” says the Arab proverb, “the whole uni- 
verse would shrivel up like a cast-off snake skin.” If 
God should wink at any violated law the universe would 
vanish. 

Not long ago, in an examination in a theological 
seminary, the question was asked of the candidates for 
the ministry, “Is it right to pray for a change of sea- 
son?” The candidates thought that it was not, for the 
relations which produce winter and summer are fixed in 
the structure of the solar system and can not be altered 
for man’s pleasure or man’s need. “Is it right to pray 
for rain?” The candidates generally thought that it 
was, because the conditions of rain are so unstable that 
a little change in one way or another would bring 
rain or fair weather. It is proper to ask for such a 
change, as it does not concern the economy of the 
universe. 

The third question was: “When the signal service 
of the United States is well established, so that weather 
conditions are perfectly known, will it then be right to 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 61 


pray * for rain?” And the candidates for the ministry 
could not tell, for they began to see that even simple 
changes of weather may have the strength of the whole 
universe behind them. It has never yet rained when by 
any possibility it could do otherwise. It has never failed 
to rain when rain was possible. 

We hear good men say sometimes that the crying 
need of this sceptical age is that it may see some law 
of Nature definitely broken, that it may rain when rain 
is impossible, or that some burning bush may, uncon- 
suming, proclaim that the force which is behind all law 
is also above it and can break or repeal all its own laws 
at will. 

Emerson somewhere speaks of the purpose in life-—— 
“to be sound and solvent.” As his life was in all ways 
“sound and solvent,” perhaps such 
rule of conduct was his own. But one 
may say, This is only a human resolu- 
tion. The man himself should be above 
all rules and requirements of his own making. Let Mr. 
Emerson show that his life is above his principles. Let 
him break these rules to show his power. Let him be 
“unsound and insolvent” for a time. Then only will 
his real greatness appear. But the soundness and sol- 
vency were the expression of Emerson’s life. Without 
these he would not be Emerson. 

The laws of Nature are the expression of the infinite 
soundness and solvency of the universe. They will not 
be broken, nor through their unsoundness and insol- 


Soundness and 
solvency of 
Nature. 


* “ The essence of prayer is to bring two things into unison— 
the will of God and the will of man. Superstition imagined, no 
doubt, that prayer would change the will of God, but the more 
spiritually minded have always understood that the will which 
must be modified in prayer was the will of man.”—Bernard 
Bosanquet. 


62 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


vency will the “heavens roll away asa scroll,” nor “the 
universe shrivel up as a cast-off snake skin.” 

In the growing recognition of law has lain the prog- 
ress of science. From the casting aside of human no- 
tions of chance and whim the “-warfare of science” has 
had its rise. For every fact carried over into the realm 
of law some man has given his life. Many a time in the 
growth of humanity it has been necessary that the wisest, 
clearest, most humane should die on the stake or the 
gibbet or the cross, that men should come to realize 
the power of an idea; that they’ should know the mean- 
ing of truth. 

Many men have been distressed over the insensibil- 
ity of Nature. She goes on with her own affairs. If 
the ship leaks, she drowns a prophet as 
she would a rat. The stones in the 
street should have cried out at the mur- 
der of Cesar. But they did not. It was only men who 
cried. Once, when a fugitive slave was seized in Massa- 
chusetts, there were those who felt outraged that Nature 
did not rebel against it. It was a surprise to Thoreau 
that the squirrels went on with their hoard and the wind 
rustled in the trees, as though nothing had happened. 
But what should Nature do? She attends only to her 
own affairs. She is only a figure of speech by which we 
personify her affairs. Her “just keeping on the same, 
calmer than clockwork and not caring,” is the expression 
of the solidity of the universe. She is as indifferent as 
the multiplication table is, for the multiplication table 
is only another expression of unchanging law. A law 
of Nature is “no respecter of persons.” A varying mul- 
tiplication table would be the destruction of mathe- 
matics. A varying law of Nature would be the destruc- 
tion of the universe, 

The laws of evolution have in themselves no neces- 


The indifference 
of Nature. 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 63 


sary principle of progress. Their functions each and all 
may be defined as cosmic order. The law of gravita- 
tion brings order in rest or motion. The laws of chemi- 
cal affinity bring about, molecular stability. Heredity | 
repeats strength or weakness, good or ill, with like in- 
difference. The past will not let go of us; we can not 
let go of the past. The law of mutual help brings the 
perpetuation of weakness as well as the strength of co- 
operation. Even the law of pity is pitiless, and the 
law of mercy merciless. The nerves carry sensations of 
pleasure or pain, themselves as indifferent as the tele- 
graph wire which is man’s invention to serve similar pur- 
poses. Some men who call themselves pessimists because 
they can not read good into the operations of Nature 
forget that they can not read evil. 

For both good and evil belong to man’s reaction 
from the influences of environment. It is the growth of 
love and wisdom through struggle and storm that makes 
this world the abode of righteousness. It is the effort 
of man that deifies Nature. It is this that raises the 
process of evolution above the level of the multiplica- 
tion table. It is this that makes the whole of Nature 
greater than the sum of all her parts. 

In a different sense the word evolution is applied to 
the theory of the origin of organs and of species by 

divergence and development. This the- 
Evolution asa = ory teaches that all forms of life now 
ees existing or that have existed on the 
development. 
earth have sprung from a common stock, 
which has undergone change in a multitude of ways and 
under varied conditions, the forces and influences pro- 
ducing such change being known as the “factors of 
organic evolution.” All characters and attributes of 
species and groups have developed with changing con- 
ditions of life. The homologies among animals are the 
6 


64 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


result of common descent. The differences are due to 
various influences, chief among these being competition 
in the struggle for existence between individuals and 
between species, whereby those best adapted to their 
surroundings live and reproduce their kind. 

This theory is now the central axis of all biological 

investigation in all its branches, from ethics to histology, 
from anthropology to bacteriology. In the light of this 
theory every peculiarity of structure, every character or 
quality of individual or species, has a meaning and a 
cause. It is the work of the investigator to find this 
meaning as well as to record the fact. “One of the 
noblest lessons left to the world” by Darwin, Frank 
Cramer says, “is this, which to him amounted to a pro- 
found, almost religious, conviction, that 
every fact in Nature, no matter how in- 
significant, every stripe of colour, every 
tint of flowers, the length of an orchid’s nectary, un- 
usual height in a: plant, all the infinite variety of appar- 
ently insignificant things, is full of significance. For 
him it was an historical record, the revelation of a cause, 
_ the lurking place of a principle.” 
, According to the theory of evolution every structure 
of to-day finds its meaning in some condition of the 
past. The inside of an animal tells what it really is, for 
it bears the record of heredity. The outside of an ani- 
mal tells where its ancestors have been, for it bears 
record of concessions to environment, Similarity in 
essential structure is known as homology. By the theory 
of evolution homology, wherever it is found, is proof of 
blood relationship. 

The theory of organic evolution through natural 
law was first placed on a stable footing by the observa- 
tions and inductions of Darwin. It has therefore been 
long known as Darwinism, although that term has been 


Each fact has a 
meaning. 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 65 


usually associated with the recognition of natural selec- 
tion as the great motive power in organic change. 
Darwinism was at first regarded as a “working hypoth- 
esis.” It is now an integral part of biological science, 
because all opposing hypotheses have long since ceased 
to work. It is as well attested as the theory of gravita- 
tion, and its elements are open to less doubt. All in- 
vestigations in biology must assume it, as without it 
most such investigations would be impossible. Natural- 
ists could no more go back to the old notion of special 
creation for each species and its organs than astrono- 
mers could go back to the old notion of guiding angels 
as directors of planetary motion. Without the theory 
of organic development through natural selection the 
biological science of to-day would be impossible. 

In a third sense the word evolution is applied toa 
method of investigation. It is the study of present con- 
ditions in the light of the past. The 
preliminary work of science is the de- 
scriptive part. This involves accuracy 
of observation and precision of statement, but makes 
no great demands on the powers of logical analysis and 
synthesis. The easy work of science is largely already 
done. Those who would continue investigation must 
study not only facts and structures, but the laws that 
govern them. In the words of John Fiske, “ Whether 
planets or mountains or molluscs or subjunctive modes 
or tribal confederacies be the things studied, the scholars 
who have studied them most fruitfully were those who 
have studied them as phases of development. Their 
work has directed the current of thought.” The most 
difficult problems in life are susceptible of more or less 
perfect solution if approached by the method of evolu- 
tion. They can not be even stated as problems in any 
other terms. In every science worthy of the name the 


Evolution as a 
method of study. 


66 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


history of origins and the study of developing forces 
must take a leading part. 

In a fourth sense the word evolution has been ap- 

plied to the philosophical conceptions to which the 

theory of evolution gives rise. Phi- 

Evolution as losophy is not truth. When it is so it 


cater becomes science. At the best it points 
philosophy. the way to truth, The broader: the in- 


ductive basis of any system of philoso- 
phy, the greater its value as an intellectual help. The 
system of Herbert Spencer, the greatest exponent of 
the philosophy of evolution, is based wholly on the re- 
sults of scientific investigation. It consists of a series 
of more or less broad and more or less probable de- 
ductions from the facts and laws already known. Sys- 
tems like these which rest on scientific knowledge do 
not rise high above it. They can therefore be revised 
or rewritten as knowledge increases. They provide the 
means for their own correction. Systems resting on 
aphorisms or assumptions or definitions must disappear 
as knowledge increases. 

Philosophy is never wholly identical with truth. The 
partial truth which it may contain becomes wholly error 
with the advance of science. The growth of exact 
knowledge transforms the truth in philosophy into 
science, leaving the absolute falsehood as the final re- 
siduum. 

From this necessary fact comes the ultimate decay 
of all creeds or philosophic formule. Throughout the 
ages science and philosophy have been 
in conflict. Science is the same to all 
minds capable of grasping its conclu- 
sions. Philosophy changes with the point of view. It 
is the evanescent perspective in which the facts and 
phenomena of the universe are seen. This can never 


Decay of 
formule. 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 67 


be the same under changing times and conditions. With 
the larger knowledge of to-morrow there will be large 
modifications in the accepted philosophy of evolution. 
Each succeeding generation will give to the applications 
of the laws of organic life a different philosophical ex- 
pression. 

In these four senses the word evolution is used with 
some degree of accuracy; but in the current literature 
of the day the word has many other 
meanings, some of them very far from 
any just basis. Some things which evo- 
lution is not we may here notice briefly. 

Evolution is not a theory that “man is a developed 
monkey.” The question of the immediate origin of man 

is not the central or overshadowing 


What evolution 
is not, 


Man not a question of evolution. This question 
developed ff ial difficulti in th 
cree offers no special difficulties in theory, 


although the materials for exact knowl- 
edge are in many directions incomplete. Homologies 
more perfect than those connecting man with the great 
group of monkeys could not exist. These imply the 
blood relationship of the human race with the great 
host of apes and monkeys. As to this there can be no 
shadow of a doubt, and, as similar homologies connect 
man with all members of the group of mammals, similar 
blood relationship must exist; and homologies less close 
but equally unmistakable connect all backboned ani- 
mals one with another, and the lowest backboned types 
are closely joined to wormlike forms not-usually classed 
as vertebrates. 

It is perfectly true that in the higher or anthro- 
poid apes the relations with man are extremely. inti- 
mate; but man is not simply “a developed ape.” Apes 
and men have diverged from the same primitive stock— 
apelike, manlike, but not exactly the one nor the other. 


68 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


No apes nor monkeys now extant could apparently have 
been ancestors of primitive man. None can ever “de- 
velop” into man. As man changes and diverges, race 
from race, so do they. The influence of effort, the in- 
fluence of surroundings, the influence of the sifting 
process of natural selection, each acts upon them as it 
acts upon man. 

The process of evolution is not progress, but better 
adaptation to conditions of life. As man becomes fitted 
for social and civic life, so does the ape 
become fitted for life in the tree tops. 
The movement of monkeys is toward 
“ simianity,” not humanity. The movement of cat life 
is toward felinity, that of the dog races toward caninity. 
Each step in evolution upward or downward, whatever 
it may be, carries each species or type farther from the 
primitive stock. These steps are never retraced. For 
an ape to become a man he must go back to the simple 
characters of the simple common type from which both 
have sprung. These characters are shown in the ape 
baby and in the human embryo in its corresponding 
stages, for ancestral traits lost in the adult are evident 
in the young. This persistence comes through the op- 
eration of the great force of cell memory which we call 
heredity. 

The evidence of biology points to the descent of all 
mammals, of all vertebrates, of all animals, of all or- 
ganic beings, from a common stock. Of all the races of 
animals the anthropoid apes are nearest man. Their 
divergence from the same stock must be comparatively 
recent. Man is the nomadic, the apes are the arboreal, 
branch of the same great family. 

Evolution does not teach that all or any living forms 
are tending toward humanity. It does not teach, as in 
Bishop Wilberforce’s burlesque, “that every favourable 


Not progress, 
but adaptation. 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 69 


variety of the turnip is tending to become man.” It is 
not true that evolutionists expect to find, as Dr. Seelye 
has affirmed, “the growth of the highest 
alga into a zoéphyte, a phenomenon for 
which sharp eyes have sought, and which 
is not only natural but inevitable on the 
Darwinian hypothesis, and whose discovery would make 
the fame of any observer.” 

It is no wonder that a clear thinker should have re- 
jected “ the Darwinian hypothesis’ when stated in such 
terms as this. The line of junction in evolution is al- 
ways at the bottom. It is the lowest mammals which 
approach the lowest reptiles; it is the lower types of 
plants which approach the lower types of animals; it 
would be the lowest alga, to use Dr. Seelye’s illustration, 
which would be transmutable into the lowest zoéphyte ; 
it is the unspecialized, undifferentiated type from which 
branches diverge in different ways. Humanity is not 
the “ goal of evolution,” not even that of human evolu- 
tion. There will be no second “creation of man” ex- 
cept from man’s own loins. There will not be a second 
Anglo-Saxon race unless it has the old Anglo-Saxon 
blood in its veins. 

Adaptation by divergence—for the most part by slow 
stages—is the movement of evolution. While occasional 
leaps or sudden changes occur in the 
process, they are by no means the rule. 
In most cases of “saltatory evolution ” 
the suddenness is in appearance only. It comes from 
our inability to trace the intermediate stages. When an 
epoch-making character is acquired, as the wings of a 
bird or the brain of man, the process of readjustment 
of other characters goes on with greatly increased 
rapidity. But this rapidity of evolution is along the 
same lines as the slower processes. Radical changes 


Humanity not 
the goal of 
evolution. 


Change by slow 
divergence. 


70 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


from generation to generation never occur. We do not 
expect to find birds arising from a “ flying-fish in the 
air, whose scales are disparting into feathers.” A flying- 
fish is no more of the nature of a bird than any other fish 
is. A cow will never give birth to a horse, nor a horse 
to acow. The slow operation of existing causes is the 
central fact of organic evolution, as it is of the evolu- 
tion of mountains and valleys. Seasons change as the 
relations which produce them change. But midsummer 
never gives way to midwinter in an instant. Nor does 
the child in an instant become a man, though in some 
periods of growth epoch-marking causes may make de- 
velopment more rapid. Life is conservative. The law 
of heredity is the expression of its conservatism. Life 
changes slowly, but it must constantly change, and all 
change is by necessity divergence. 
There is in Nature no single “law of progress,” nor 
is progress in any group a necessity regardless of con- 
ditions. That which we call progress 
No innate tend- rests simply on the survival of the better 
eee adapted, their survival being accom- 
progression. : if eo 
panied by their reproduction. Those 
that live repeat themselves. The “innate tendency 
toward progression” of the early evolutionists is a 
philosophic myth. Progress and degeneration are alike 
the resultants of the various forces at work from gen- 
eration to generation on and within a race or species. 
The same forces which bring progress to a group under 
one set of conditions will bring degradation under 
another. In their essence the factors of evolution are 
no more laws of progress than the attraction of gravita- 
tion is, Cosmic order comes from gravitation. Or- 
ganic order comes from the factors of evolution. Evo- 
lution is simply orderly change. 
Nor is evolution identical with the notion of sponta- 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 71 


neous generation. There is no necessary connection 
between the one theory and the other. Spontaneous 
generation, or birth without parentage, on the part of 
small or useless creatures was accepted 
in early times without question. As men 
began to observe these animals more 
carefully, the fact of their spontaneous generation was 
doubted. A great step was made when it was found 
that to screen meat from flies would protect it from 
maggots. A greater step came in our own time when it 
was proved that to screen infusions from air dust is to 
protect them from putrefaction or fermentation. Fer- 
mentation is “ life without air.” It is the decomposition 
of sugar by minute creatures who disintegrate it in their 
life processes. Putrefaction and decay are also the 
same in nature. There is literal truth in Carlyle’s state- 
ment that there is still force in a fallen leaf, “else how 
could it rot?” It is the force of the minute organisms 
hidden in the leaf, and whose life is the leaf’s decay. 
The decay and death of men from contagious diseases 
are known to be due to life processes of minute organ- 
isms, as is the gangrene which follows unskilful sur- 
gery. The study of the “fauna and flora” within living 
organisms has now become a science of itself, demand- 
ing the greatest care in observation and the most com- 
plete of appliances. ‘ Omne vivum ex vivo,” “all life from 
life,” was an aphorism of the naturalists of a century or 
two ago. It was to them a new and broad generali- 
zation. It has not yet been set aside. The classic ex- 
periments of Tyndall show that this law applies to all 
creatures we have yet recognised or classified. As far 
as science can tell, spontaneous generation is still a 
myth, having no basis in observation, no warrant in ex- 
periment. It remains as a pure deduction from the phi- 
losophical conception of Monism. It is incapable of 


Spontaneous 
generation. 


72 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


proof, insusceptible of refutation. The argument for it 
is chiefly this: Life exists on a globe once lifeless. How 
did life begin? If not through spontaneous generation, 
how did it come? Must it not have been by the opera- 
tion of those laws and forces which through all time 
change lifeless into living matter? Very likely, but we 
do not know. We know nothing whatever of such laws 
and forces, and we gain nothing by veiling our ignorance 
under a philosophical necessity. 

Moreover, if spontaneous generation occurs as a re- 
sultant of any forces, like forces would produce it again. 
We have never known it to occur. Should it occur, the 
organisms thus produced would have no bonds of blood 
relationship with those already in existence. With these 
they should show no homology, as they could have no 
inheritance in common. But all known organisms have 
common homologies. The factors of organic evolu- 
tion are essentially the same for all. The unity of life 
amid all its diversity seems to point to origin froma 
common stock. If not from one stock, the lines of 
division between one and another are hidden from us, 
The study of embryology breaks down the time-honoured 
branch lines of vertebrates, articulates, molluscs, and 
radiates. The groups of animals are more numerous, 
more complex, and more intertangled than Cuvier and 
Agassiz thought. The number of primary branches of 
animals or plants is uncertain, their boundaries unde- 
fined. 

If spontaneous generation exists, it is a factor in 
evolution. If it is a factor, our explanation of the 
meaning and nature of homology must be fundamentally 
changed. But it may be that it should be changed. We 
can not show that spontaneous generation does not 
exist. All we know is that we have no means of recog- 
nising it. If there is now spontaneous generation of 


WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT.. 73 


protoplasm, it can not take the form of any creature we 
know. An organism fresh from the mint of creation 
would be too small for us to see with any microscope. 
It would be too simple for us to trace by any instru- 
mentality now in our possession. It could contain but 
a few molecules, and a molecule in a drop of water is as 
small as an orange beside the sun. Such a race of crea- 
tures, spontaneously generated, without concessions to 
environment, would grow hoary with the centuries be- 
fore it came to our notice. Its descendants would have 
belonged for ages to the unnumbered hosts of microbes 
before we should be aware of its creation. 

Evolution is not a creed or a body of doctrine to be 
believed on authority. There is no saving grace in 
being an evolutionist. There are many 
who take this name and have no interest 
in finding out what it means or in mak- 
ing any application of its principles to the affairs of 
life. For one who cares not to master its ideas there 
is no power in the word. Evolution is not a panacea 
or a medicine to be applied to social or personal ills. 
It is simply an expression of the teaching of enlightened 
common sense as to the order of changes in life. If its 
principles are mastered a knowledge of evolution is an 
aid in the conduct of life, as knowledge of gravitation 
is essential in the building of machinery. 

Ther2 is nothing “occult ” in the science of evolu- 
tion. It is not the product of philosophic meditation or 
of speculative philosophy. It is based on hard facts, 
and with hard facts it must deal. 

It seems to me that it is not true that “ Evolution is 
a new religion, the religion of the future.” There are 
many definitions of religion, but evolution does not fit 
any of them, It is no more a religion than gravitation 
is. One may imagine that some enthusiastic follower of 


Evolution not a 
creed. 


74 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Newton may, for the first time, have seen the majestic 
order of the solar system, may have felt how futile was 
the old notion of guiding angels, one for each planet to 
hold it up in space. He may have re- 
ceived his first clear vision of the simple 
relations of the planets, each forever 
falling toward the sun and toward one another, each one 
by the same force forever preserved from collision. 
Such a man might have exclaimed, “ Great is gravita- 
tion; it is the new religion, the religion of the future!” 
In such manner, men trained in dead traditions, once 
brought to a clear insight of the noble simplicity and 
adequacy of the theory of evolution, may have exclaimed, 
“Great is evolution; it is the new religion, the religion 
of the future!” 

But evolution is religion in the same sense that every 
truth of the physical universe must be religion. That 
which is true is the truest thing in the world, and the 
recognition of the infinite soundness at the heart of the 
universe is an inseparable part of any worthy religion. 

But, whether religion or not, the truths of evolution 
must be their own witness. They can be neither 
strengthened nor controverted by any 
authority which may speak in the name 
of philosophy or of theology or of re- 
ligion or of reason. “ Roma locuta est ; causa finita est” 
is not a dictum which science can regard. Her causes 
are never finished. No power on earth can give before- 
hand the answer to her questions. Her only court of 
appeal is the experience of man. 


Evolution not a 
religion, 


Science its own 
witness. 


III. 
THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 


ALL the laws of life, whatever their nature, are valid 
throughout the organic world. They control the life 
processes of man, those of the lower animals, and those 
of “our brother organisms, the plants.” They extend 
to each in its degree. The fact that the laws of hered- 
ity, for example, extend unchanged in essence from one 
extreme of organic life to another is most vital to our 
understanding of the nature of life. For such homology 
as this, for any fact of homology whatsoever, we have 
found but one cause, the influence of common descent. 

There are many elements or factors which enter into 
the processes of organic evolution, and they stand in 
varied relations to one another. It is not possible to 
make a classification of them in which there shall not 
be inequality and overlapping of elements. For the 
purpose of our present discussion we may group these 
forces and factors under eight principal heads. 

I. Heredity—This is the “law of persistence in a se- 
ries of organisms.” Throughout Nature each creature 
tends to reproduce its own qualities and those of its an- 
cestors. “Like begets like.” Creatures resemble their 
ancestors. The germ cell specialized for purposes of 
reproduction is capable in its development “ of repeat- 
ing the whole with the precision of a work of art.” 
Heredity is the great conservative force of evolution.. 

75 


76 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Its influence is shown in the persistence of type, in the 
existence of broad homologies among living forms, in 
the possibility of natural systems of classification in 
any group, in the retention of vestigial organs, in the 
early development and subsequent obliteration of out- 
worn structures once useful to the race or type. 

The physical basis of heredity has been in recent 
years the subject of many elaborate investigations, The 
complete homology of the germ cell with the one-celled 
animals, or protozoa, is now generally recognised, and 
there is large reason to believe that in the bands and 
loops of the nucleus of the germ cell is found the visible 
vehicle by which hereditary tendencies are transmitted. 

II. Lrritability.—All living beings are affected by 
their environment. Living matter must always respond 
in some degree to every external stimulus. All living 
beings are moved by or react from every phase of their 
surroundings. The nervous system and its associated 
sense organs are directly related to the conditions of 
life. They are concessions made to the environment. 
The power of motion, whatever it may be, requires the 
guidance obtained from the impressions made by ex- 
ternal things. In all animals this knowledge, whatever 
its degree of completeness, tends to work itself out in 
action, In plants the same thing is in some degree 
true. The essential difference is that, having no power 
of locomotion, the plant is without a general sensorium. 
The parts that move—growing rootlets, tips of branches, 
and the like—have sensibility and power of motion in 
the same series of cells. The animal, a colony of cells 
which move as a whole, has a specialized nervous sys- 
tem which guides the whole. 

Asa rule, the environment does not act directly on 
the individual. Its influence is felt chiefly in modifying 
its action, in increasing, diminishing, or changing its 


THE ELEMENTS.OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION, 77 


efforts, The effects of environment are practically rec- 
ognised in processes of education, of agriculture, the 
care and nurture of men and of horses and trees and 
wheat. Evil surroundings produce evil effects. Easy 
surroundings, reducing the stimulus to effort, tend to 
produce organic degeneration. In larger ways response 
to environment produces a long series of “ concessions.” 
A character or condition in itself of the nature of a re- 
sponse to outside stimulus may be called a concession. 
Among such concessions are the skin, the eyes, the 
brain, the sense of pain, in fact, in the ultimate analysis, 
every organ and every function of the body. For with- 
out environment all these would be unnecessary. Their 
existence would be inconceivable. 

The fitness by which organisms have been perpetu- 
ated is simply obedience or adaptation. Those which 
survive are fitted to the conditions of life. In other 
words, they are obedient to these conditions. Hence 
we may define the process as one of the survival of the 
obedient. The force which commands obedience is that 
of the environment, and the obedience demanded is 
that of such a reaction or relation to this environment 
as will not obstruct the processes of life. 

Every form or phase of obedience shows itself as 
adaptation. Every adaptation is a concession to the 
actual environment on the one hand, to 
the laws of lifeon the other. The func- 
tion of the eye, for example, is to give 
information as to the nature of objects more or less re- 
mote from the organism. The purpose of giving this 
knowledge is to enable the organism to act upon it. 
To be able to act demands that the action must be safe. 
If the creature could not act, it would have no need for 
such knowledge. If its acts were not in accord with 
knowledge, the knowledge would be useless. If there 


Concessions of 
life. 


78 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


were no break in the uniformity of the environment, 
there would be no need of such knowledge. If there 
were no variation in lights and shadows, the eye would 
be powerless to bring information. The senses deal 
with changes or breaks in reality rather than with reali- 
ties themselves. Because, in action, the organism must 
be obedient to the demands of its environment, it is the 
function of the eye to make known these demands. 
The existence of the eye is therefore a concession to the 
environment. A concession of like nature is the brain 
itself, of which the eye and the sense organs in general 
may be considered as prolongations. These appendages 
of the brain carry to it truth of varying kind or degree. 
This truth as to external nature furnishes the basis of 
that obedience which in the animal expresses itself in 
action. 

The respiratory apparatus is an adaptation for the 
purpose of purifying the blood from the waste produced 
in the processes of life. It is a concession on the one 
hand to the demands of life in cell and tissue, and on 
the other hand to the nature of the surrounding medium. 
A change in the atmosphere would demand a correspond- 
ing change in the organs of breathing. If such a con- 
cession were impossible, the species in question would 
become extinct, as its individuals would perish. If the 
concessions necessary to continued existence should in- 
volve changes in other organs, the process of the sur- 
vival of the obedient would in time produce these 
changes. 

If there were no surrounding medium there would be 
no organ of respiration. If there were no light there 
would be no organ of vision. If there were no sound 
there would be no ear. If there were no motion there 
would be no need for knowledge, and therefore no sen- 
sation. If there were no power of locomotion there 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 79 


would be no sensorium. If there were no environment 
there would be no concessions to it. Without conces- 
sion there would be no specialization of functions or 
organs. Without variation in environment there could 
be no choice in action. The concessions to the environ- 
ment constitute, therefore, practically the whole structure 
of any animal and the whole of the functions of its life. 
It is in the response to environment, the concession, the 
adaptation, the specialization, that the progress of life 
consists. It is in characters thus produced that man and 
the higher animals differ from the protozoa. Even the 
protozoan has its concessions. The phenomenon of 
growth causes the substance of the one-celled animal to 
increase faster than its absorptive power. The waste of 
the body varies as the substance—that is, as the cube 
of the diameter of the creature. The absorptive power 
of its surface must increase as the square of the diameter 
—that is, as the surface. Hence, a one-celled animal 
passing a given small size must either starve to death 
or else make some concession to its surroundings. 
This concession is reproduction—the one-celled crea- 
ture must split into two animals. This increases the 
digestive power, with no increase of substance. Even 
the presence of skin on a protozoan is a concession to 
its surroundings. That a given protozoan is developed 
with an outside covering shows that natural selection 
has been long at work on its ancestry in preparing such 
a concession to external demands. 

A creature which had known no environment and 
which had inherited no concession would be formless and 
structureless. It could be little if anything more than 
an organic molecule, or at the most a nebulous mist of 
organic molecules without parts or form or function. 
We know no such nebulous life as this. All the ani- 
mals and plants on the records of science show traces of 

7 


80 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


a long ancestral history. Their bodies are full of con- 
cessions to environment, and their functions are all in 
the line of obedience to those conditions in life in which 
their ancestors have been thrown. 

We recognise that man is the highest in structure 
among living beings. This fact implies that in his phys- 
ical structure are the greatest concessions to environ- 
ment. In his functions the most perfect obedience is 
made possible. His power of choice among competing 
lines of action but emphasizes the need of choosing the 
best action. The best action is the safe action—safe 
for the individual, safe for the species, for only those 
races survive who care for their young as they care for 
themselves. 

The greatness of the human intellect depends on the 
progressive concessions to environment by which the 
human brain through the ages has been gradually 
built up. 

Ill. Zudividuality—-No two organisms are exactly 
alike. There is in each individual of whatever species 
“a divine initiative” which prevents it from being the 
slavish copy of any which have gone before. The “sur- 
vival of the fittest’ rests on the existence of different 
degrees and kinds of fitness. This it is the part of the 
laws of variation to produce. Every step in divergence 
or specialization gives room for more life. The abun- 
dance of life is dependent upon its variety. Thus the 
world is never full, for there is always room for organ- 
isms better or differently adapted to each set of its 
varied conditions. The arrangement of double parent- 
age tends to promote variety in life. Each new indi- 
vidual has all the ancestors of its father as well as all 
those of its mother, and with each one these are brought 
into new combinations. The process of amphimixis, the 
mingling of the hereditary characters of the two germ 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 8r 


cells, male and female, to form a new fertilized cell, has 
as its essential function the promotion of variation. 
The processes of karyokinesis, the subdivision of the 
nuclear material in the formation of a new cell, tend in 
the same direction. By the result of the subdivisions 
incident in forming the sperm cell or the ovum, no one 
of these is left exactly like any other. From this point 
of view we say that variation is, as Professor Osborn has 
pointed out, “in reality a phase of heredity.” The 
same structures that provide for the continuance of the 
species prevent the actual repetition of the individual. 

Besides these sources of germinal variation there are 
the forces or laws which produce acceleration or retar- 
dation in growth. Much of the advance in power or 
specialization among organisms comes from the saving 
of time in the process of development. As growth goes 
on, the forms we call lower pass slowly through the 
various stages of life. Their development is finished 
before any high degree of specialization is reached. 
The embryo of the higher form passes through the same 
course, but with a rapidity in some degree proportioned 
to its future possibility. Less time is spent on non- 
essentials, and we may say that by the saving of time 
and force it is enabled to push on to higher devel- 
opment, 

The gill structures of the fish by which its blood is 
purified by contact with air dissolved in water last its 
whole lifetime. The fish never outgrows this structure 
and never acquires the function of breathing atmospheric 
air. The frog is fish-like for a period in its life, but the 
development is accelerated, organs for breathing atmos- 
pheric air are produced, and the gills become atrophied 
and disappear from view. Their traces remain, for by 
the law of heredity no creature can ever wholly let go 
of its past. That its ancestors once breathed in water 


82 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


can never be forgotten. With bird or mammal the ac- 
celeration is still more marked, and the gill structure 
has passed into atrophy before the egg is hatched or the 
animal born. The force of acceleration hurries the em- 
bryo along through these temporary stages, and with 
this shortening of useless steps comes the possibility of 
higher development. 

Conversely retarded development brings about de- 
generation, while variations in any direction with species 
or organs has the larger purpose of increasing variety, 
of promoting individuality. 

Similar results are brought about by variations in 
use or in effort. The organ which is used thrives, while 
the unused organ disappears with its function. These 
changes affect the individual vitally and directly. 
Whether they are transmitted from generation to gen- 
eration in any degree is still unknown. Characters re- 
sulting from the use, effort, or experience of the indi- 
vidual are known as acquired characters. Such acquired 
characters are the strong arm of the blacksmith, the 
skilled hand of the artist, the trained ear of the musi- 
cian. These characters are not subject to inheritance 
by the laws of heredity in the same way or in the same 
degree that inborn characters are. Nevertheless, it is 
claimed by a large number of evolutionists, the so-called 
Neo-Lamarckian school, that there is a law of the trans- 
mission of acquired characters. Such a law was formu- 
lated by Lamarck as his fourth law of evolution in these 
words: 

“All that has been acquired, begun, or changed in 
the structure of individuals in their lifetime is pre- 
served in reproduction and transmitted to the new in- 
dividuals which spring from those who have inherited 
the change.” 

In the words of Herbert Spencer, the leader of the 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 83 


Neo-Lamarckians, “‘ Change of function produces changes 
of structure; it is a tenable hypothesis that changes of 
structure so produced are inheritable.” 

The transmission of acquired characters is still one 
of the hypothetical factors of evolution, but we may 
here give it only this passing reference. Among the 
remaining factors which promote variety in life must be 
reckoned variation in environment. No two organisms 
can have exactly the same surroundings, and the sur- 
roundings modify development. With this goes the 
destruction of the unadapted, the various phases of the 
great sifting process known collectively as natural 
selection. The “survival of the fittest” must rest on 
the existence of the fittest. The “origin of the fittest” 
involves a series of difficult problems, some of them still 
unsolved. 

IV. Natural Selection—The great motive power of 
organic evolution is the force or process of natural selec- 
tion. In the conditions of life those organisms last long- 
est which are best fitted to these conditions. The term 
“natural selection” originated from the use of the word 
“selection ”’ by breeders of animals to indicate the 
process of “ weeding out” by which they improve their 
breeds. For the method by which in Nature a new spe- 
cies is brought into existence seems to be precisely par- 
allel to that by which we may artificially produce a new 
breed of cows or of dogs, a new race of pigeons, or a 
new variety of roses. 

Throughout all Nature the number of organisms 
brought into life is far in excess of the number of those 
which can come to maturity. All live that can live, 
and in general those that can not live are those whose 
individual variations are least favourable. Only a small 
minority of the whole reach their full growth. The 
destruction of the others, to use Bergen’s words, is 


84 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


“not indiscriminate, but it will first and mainly com- 
prise those individuals least able to resist attack.” 

This is the essential fact upon which rests Herbert 
Spencer’s law of “the survival of the fittest.” At the 
same time the survival of the fittest does not tell the 
whole story of natural selection. But a small part of 
the actual characters of animals and plants can be 
traced directly and solely to the principle of utility. 
The survival of the existing likewise is a large element 
in the ‘great process of natural selection. Thus, a water 
bird has webbed feet. The webbing is useful in swim- 
ming. Its presence is due to its-utility. The survival 
of the fittest in water birds may mean the survival of 
the best swimmer, and the best swimmer is the one with 
the most useful webbing. But a character quite as per- 
sistent may be a perfectly useless one, as a special ar- 
rangement of the plates on the tarsus, or the flattening 
of a single claw. This may have in itself no utility at 
all. Its presence may not be due to the survival of the 
fittest. It persists because such a character was pos- 
sessed by some ancestor. It has been retained through 
heredity. The nails must have some form, the plates 
some arrangement, the wing coverts some colour. This 
ancestral form or colour is as good as some other would 
be. Hence comes its persistence, which is simply a szr- 
vival of the existing, no question of relative fitness being 
involved. 

From the “survival of the existing” arises the per- 
sistence of those forms which actually inhabit a given 
district whether they be ideally the fittest or not. By 
such means the faune of isolated regions are perpetu- 
ated, the barriers of land or sea or climate excluding 
them from competition with the “ fitter’ organisms that 
may inhabit other regions. “ Possession is nine points 
of the law” of organic survival, as it is said to be else- 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 85 


where. Possession and not abstract fitness has deter- 
mined the nature of the island faune, lake faune, and 
isolated faunz and flore generally. This is shown by 
the rapidity by which the species composing these be- 
come extinct when brought into competition with the 
more persistent forms which the continent has developed. 

But as all this represents a natural adjustment pro- 
duced by natural relations as distinguished from artifi- 
cial selection produced by the act of man, we may still 
include it under the head of natural selection. What- 
ever result is brought about in the struggle for exist- 
ence by the action of natural forces without human aid 
is natural selection in the sense in which Darwin used 
the term. 

The term “fitness” as used in these discussions 
means, of course, only the power to win in the peculiar 
kind of contest that may be in question, no moral ele- 
ment and no element of general progress being necessa- 
rily involved. 

In the question of fitness or unfitness the question 
of goodness or badness is only incidentally concerned. 
To be fit, in the biological sense, is not necessarily to 
be good, except as in the long run altruism promotes 
individual power and strength. 

The struggle for existence appears under a three- 
fold form: the struggle of creatures with like creatures, 
the struggle with unlike forms, and the struggle with 
the conditions of environment. In general, when the 
environment is most favourable, the competition of in- 
dividual with individual will be most severe. Where 
this environment is alike favourable for many different 
forms or species, the struggle between species and spe- 
cies becomes intensified. Where conditions are adverse, 
the number of forms able to maintain themselves will 
be smaller, but those which acquire adaptation, not 


86 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


being crowded by competing forms, often exist in count- 
less numbers. . 

The distribution of fishes may illustrate this. The 
most favourable condition for fish life is found about 
coral reefs, in the clear, equable waters of the tropics. 
Here many forms find favourable conditions, but the 
competition among their individuals is severe. In 
arctic waters but few species appear; the most are ex- 
cluded by the temperature itself. But these few forms 
are represented each by myriads of individuals. Only 
a few kinds can enter into competition. The struggle is 
not that of species against species; it is the survival of 
those that can react from the environment, that can 
maintain themselves against the hard conditions of life. 
But these conditions are not hard to these individuals 
who survive. The arctic life is the life they are fitted 
for. The struggle for existence is not felt as a stress or 
strain by the adapted. 

Hence comes the fact noticed by Darwin, that, while 
all intelligent men admit the struggle for existence, very 
few realize it. Men in general are fitted to the struggle 
endured by their ancestors, as they are fitted to the 
pressure of the air. They do not realize the pressure 
itself, but only its fluctuations. Hence it comes that 
many writers have supposed that the struggle for exist- 
ence belonged only to animals and that man is or should 
be exempt from it. Competition has been identified with 
injustice, fraud, or trickery, and it has been supposed 
that some act of legislation would put an end to it for- 
ever. But competition is inseparable from life. The 
struggle for existence may be hidden in social conven- 
tions, but it can never be extinguished. Nor should it 
be, for it is the essential force in the progress of life. 

Malthus’s law of population, often quoted, is in sub- 
stance this: Man tends to increase by a geometrical 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 87 


ratio—that is, by multiplication. The increase of food 
supply is by arithmetical ratio—that is, by addition; 
hence, whatever may be the ratio of increase, a geo- 
metrical progression will sooner or later outrun an arith- 
metical one. Hence, sooner or later the world must 
be overstocked, did not vice, misery, or prudence come 
in as checks, reducing the ratio of multiplication. This 
law has been criticised as a partial truth, so far as man 
is concerned. This means simply that there are factors 
also in evolution other than those recognised by Mal- 
thus. Nevertheless, Malthus’s law is a sound statement 
of one great factor. And this law is simply the ex- 
pression of the struggle for existence as it appears 
among men. 

In a world limited in extent and in possibilities, any 
rate of increase among organisms must bring about a 
struggle for existence. The ratio of increase is a mat- 
ter of minor importance, for each species would fill up 
the whole world at last. It is the ratio of actual net 
increase above loss which determines the fate of a spe- 
cies. Those increase and maintain themselves in which 
the death rate does not exceed the rate of increase. 
Those who live “beyond their means”’ must sooner or 
later perish. 

Thus it comes about through natural selection that 
there is everywhere seemingly perfect adaptation, the 
“fitting of the dough to the pan,” of the river to its bed. 
But this fitting is never wholly perfect, for still more 
complete adaptation may come; and as conditions change 
adaptations must changealso. Progress follows organic 
dissatisfaction. Where there is no reason for change 
there is no progress; degeneration may set in, and de- 
generation of one sort or another follows withdrawal 
from the current of the struggle for existence. ‘ What- 
ever is desirable,” says Weismann, “ becomes necessary 


83 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


as soon as it is possible.” Whatever is not needed tends 
to decline and disappear. 

In our discussion of social evolution we need some- 
times to remember that the very perfection of society 
must always appear as imperfection; for a highly devel- 
oped society is dynamic. It is moving on. A static 
society, no matter how perfect it may seem, whether a 
Utopia, Icaria, or City of the Sun, is in a condition of ar- 
rested development. Its growth has ceased, and its per- 
fection is that of death. The most highly advanced 
social conditions are the most unstable. The individual 
man counts for most under those conditions; for the 
growth of the individual man is the only justification for 
the institutions of which he forms part. The most 
highly developed organism shows the greatest imperfec- 
tions. The most perfect adaptation to conditions needs 
readaptation, as conditions themselves speedily change. 
The dream of a static millennium, when struggle and 
change shall be over, when all shall be secure and happy, 
finds no warrant in our knowledge of man and the world. 
Self-realization in life is only possible when self-per- 
dition is also possible. When cruelty and hate are 
excluded by force, charity and helpfulness will go with 
them. Strength and virtue have their roots within man, 
not without. They may be checked but they can not 
be greatly stimulated by institutions and statutes. 

In this connection we have also to remember that 
the struggle for existence in human society does not mean 
brutality. It is not necessarily a war to the knife, nor 
a struggle with fists nor with balances of trade. The 
elements of ultimate success in the struggle are not 
teeth, nor claws, nor brute strength, nor trickery. 
Through all the ages love has been stronger than force; 
and those creatures who could help each other have 
been stronger than those who could only fight. 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 89 


By good or right in human development we mean 
simply the opportunity for more life or higher life. 
That is good which makes me strong and gives strength 
tomy neighbours. Might does not make right, but what- 
ever is right will justify itself in persistence, and per- 
sistence is strength. That which is weak dies. We 
only know God’s purposes by what he permits. That 
which persists and grows must be in line with such pur- 
poses. A law is only an observed generalization of 
what is. There is no law which reads, “ This and this 

_ought to be, but is not.” 

V. Self-activity—Another factor in evolution is fur- 
nished by the functional activity of the individual. 
Nature is a thrifty investor. She withdraws all unused 
capital. The old parable of the talents, wherein the 
owner of the unused talent lost all that he had, describes 
the workings of Nature. The unused organ loses its 
power and dwindles away. What comes out of a man de- 
termines his character. What he has done in the past 
furnishes the law of his future. The essence of indi- 
vidual character building, with the lower animals as with 
man, lies in action. Whatever he is he must make of 
himself. Heredity only furnishes the tools, and the en- 
vironment is the leverage. Nor is this great law con- 
fined to animals alone. Even with plants the function 
must justify the organ. The branch which does not 
carry sap withers and dies. The fruit which does not 
ripen is cast to the ground. In a sense, too, the func- 
tion must precede the organ. Where something is to 
be done, there will arise a special method of doing it, 
and the organ which supplies this better method will 
survive in natural selection. 

Among the higher animals functional activity is the 
basis of individual happiness. There is no permanent 
feeling of joy except through functional activity. Dis- 


go FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


sipation, Stimulation, tricks on the nervous system of 
any sort whatever give only a counterfeit happiness. 
Subjective joys are followed by subjective misery. 
There is “no pleasure in them.” “The very fiends 
weave ropes of sand rather than taste pure hell in idle- 
ness.” 

There is a wild joy in “ Nature red in tooth and 
claw” that is not found in static life. And while higher 
development brings higher pleasures, these bear the 
same relation to self-activity. The pressure of envi- 
ronment gives only pain in itself. Ennui is chronic 
pain, Nature’s warning against the dry rot of functional 
inactivity. To enjoy life, man or animal must be doing, 
working, thinking, fighting, loving, helping—something 
positive. And no thought or feeling of the mind is com- 
plete till it has somehow wrought itself into action. 

VI. Altruism—Another of the great forces in or- 
ganic development is mutual help, or altruism. Where 
organisms come into any sort of relation one with an- 
other, there must be some conditions more favourable 
than others. The law of altruism is the expression of 
the best relation of one organism to another of its own 
kind or type. The words good, better, are expressive 
of human affairs. They are subjective terms, referring 
to the welfare of the individual. In the general sense, 
that is good which makes more or higher life possible. 
That is good in Nature which “ gives life more abun- 
dantly.” It is good to “make two blades of grass grow 
where only one grew before.” It is good also to make 
possible the growth of a specialized and highly adapted 
form, where only creatures of a lowly organization had 
existed before. Altruism is the expression of the per- 
manence of mutual respect and mutual forbearance. 
The rule we call golden is the expression of strength as 
well as of right. It is not true that “might is right” 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. gI 


in the narrow sense in which that phase is commonly 
used ; but it is true that what is right will justify itself 
sooner or later by becoming might. Cruelty, vice, and 
selfishness are wrong as the expression of weakness, of 
low vitality, of conditions which make abundance of 
life impossible. 

Altruism is in no sense confined to man. There is 
no part of the animal kingdom in which it is unknown, 
no part of the vegetable kingdom without its traces. 
Favourable interrelations are possible wherever life is. 
The expression of such relations is altruism. 

It can be shown that social virtues are powerful aids 
to survival in the struggle for existence. The race is 
not “to the swift’ nor “the battle to the strong,” but 
“to them who can keep together.” The care of the 
young is a far more effective agency in the survival of 
the species than iron muscles or huge jaws. The will- 
ingness to die for the young is a guarantee that the 
young may live. 

“ More ancient than competition,” says Oscar Mc- 
Culloch, “is combination. The little, feeble, fluttering 
folk of God, like the spinning insects, the little mice in 
the meadow, the rat in the cellar, the crane on the 
marshes, or the booming bittern—all these have learned 
that God’s greatest word is together and not alone. 
He who is striving to make God’s blessing and bounty 
possible to most is stepping into line with Nature. The 
selfish man is the isolated man.” 

Altruism is a robust sentiment set deep in the breast 
of organic life, and not in danger of extinction. It is 
as old as selfishness and as hard to eradicate. It no 
more needs coddling than hunger does. It depends on 
no external sanction, for the creatures without altruism 
pass away, leaving no descendants. There is a bounty 
on their heads, whether they be wolves or hawks or men. 


92 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Altruism expresses itself in all that make the human 
life sane, joyous, effective. Science is herself a con- 
summate result of the altruism of the ages, whereby no 
man’s experiences belong to himself alone, but become 
part of the heritage of those who follow him. Human 
‘institutions have grown out of the social instinct. They 
are the fossils of past altruism. All forms of art, litera- 
ture, music, religion, arise and are developed through 
mutual help. And while the relations of altruism tend 
to limit the freedom of the individual, it is only through 
such limitations that the individual can develop in 
security or in realfreedom. 

In the very beginnings of life appear the beginnings 
of altruism. Among the one-celled animals or pro- 
tozoa is seen the rela- 
tion of mutual help. 
In the conjugation of 
cells among these crea- 
tures appear the begin- 
nings of the gigantic 
fact of sex. By this pro- 
cess two minute one- 
celled creatures come 
together, and part of the 
hereditary substance of 
the one is exchanged 
for that of the other. 
After this exchange 
neither the one nor th 
other is exactly what it 
was before. The results of this change are propagated 
in the descendants of each. The ultimate purpose of 
the exchange is to produce and promote variety in life. 
That is the ultimate purpose of the whole sex relation. 
From the beginning to the end it is essentially altruistic, 


Fic. 4.—Conjugation of infusoria. 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 93 


It never becomes selfish except in its perversion. Its 
perversion is its destruction. And from the simple altru- 
istic beginnings of the conjugation of cells in those 
simple organisms arise with evolution all the complex 
possibilities of love, conjugal, filial, and parental. 

In another way the altruistic tendencies are shown 
in the aggregation of cells. Among animals of one cell 
the ordinary processes of division give rise to a new 
organism for each division. But if the new cells formed 
by such subdivision still remain attached to each other, 
a complex organism is built up. It is thus that the 
single germ cell in the higher animals grows into the 
embryo, and the embryo through the stages of infancy 
and youth into the adult organism. 

The co-operation of the members of the colony of 
cells of which the compound animal is composed makes 
possible all the various forms of organic differentiation. 
A single cell is a unit, complete in itself and inde- 
pendent. All the functions possible to it are united in 
a single structure. With a complex organism the dif- 
ferent cells are gathered into groups to form tissues. 
Out of these tissues different organs are built up, and 
each different organ performs a distinct function. In 
the compound structure of man a multitude of cells are 
joined to perform the work of assimilation, and a host 
of others purify the blood; to another multitude is as- 
signed the task of locomotion. Still others, of finer tex- 
ture, receive impressions of external things and trans- 
mit these impressions into the phenomena of motion. 
Specialization, differentiation, organization, and the ex- 
quisite functions of nerve tissue, are all resultants of the 
altruistic co-operation of cells. As individual men under 
altruistic impulses unite together to form societies and 
states, so are individual cells gathered together to form 
the human body. The conjugation of cells is a method 


04 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


by which life is continued and renewed in an endless 
chain which death has never broken. The aggregation 
of cells gives rise to all that makes life effective. But 
the division of labour and specialization of parts brings 
death to the individual. Sooner or later the correlation 
of parts must be broken and the outworn individual 
must give place to one freshly formed. 

The gains through altruism as a factor in evolution 
can not be overstated. Love and kindness, specializa- 
tion and adaptation, instinct and intelligence—all these 
belong to its biological results. In human society 
mutual help has given science, which is the garnered 
wisdom of society. It has given art, education, religion. 
All these are in one way or another related to the good 
or pleasure of others. From altruism institutions arise, 
and institutions bring security and effectiveness, 

To all this there is, of necessity, another side. All 
the gifts of the gods have some drawback connected 
with them. This is the so-called law of compensation. 
Mutual help leads to mutual dependence. Combination 
destroys absolute freedom in making freedom worth 
having. Alliances degrade as well as help, for the needs 
and functions of the individual are lost in those of the 
alliance. The single cell is self-sufficient, independent, 
and, until altruisic relations come in, immortal. As 
Weismann has shown, the subdivision of the single cell, 
by which it divides into two similar cells, is not homol- 
ogous with death. Death is a necessary attribute of 
compound animals only. It is the price paid for special- 
ization. If it be true, as is claimed, that the cells pre- 
vented from conjugation ultimately die a natural death, 
still this death is a price paid for altruism. It did not 
exist before combination became possible. 

In like fashion the growth of society has abridged 
the freedom of the individual man in making that free- 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 95 


dom worth having. Mutual help in society has brought 
about mutual dependence. It has at the same time 
brought a security and strength which must be forever 
impossible under purely individualistic conditions. The 
tendency for organisms to join together for mutual aid 
is therefore one of the primal tendencies of life. It is 
involved in the very definition of life itself. It can 
never become outworn or exhausted. It must in greater 
and greater degree rule the hearts of men, as men be- 
come wiser, purer, stronger in the progress of evolution. 
“In the very nature of things God has made this law of 
mutual aid so strong that he has impressed and stamped 
it on the life of everything that breathes.” 

As the cell is related to the tissue, so is the individual 
man connected with society. The essential difference 
is the obvious one that the individual man moves, lives, 
and dies as an individual, while the individual cell is 
confined to its place by physical limitations. 

In recognising the fact that the parallelism exists, 
it is not necessary to push it too far. From the aggre- 
gation of cells results specialization of parts, division of 
labour among organs, progress, and adaptation; and 
ultimately from the same source springs the necessity 
for organic death. Being bound together by physical 
bonds, the wearing out of one organ means the decay 
of the whole. In like manner, from the altruism of the 
individual results the strength of the state, the division 
of labour among men, and the consequent increase of 
effectiveness, the progress of knowledge, and the ameni- 
ties of life. Wedo not need to say that a society or a 
nation must die for like reasons, for its units are bound 
not by physical bonds, but by invisible forces, and the 
wearing out of one organ could not necessarily destroy 
the whole. But the complex animal and the complex 


society are alike manifestations of the law of altruism, 
8 


96 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


And, as Dr. Amos Griswold Warner has wisely observed, 
no species and “‘no race ever became extinct through 
an excess of brotherly love.” 

VII. Lsolation—A great factor in the production of 
variant forms is the isolation of groups of individuals 
from the mass of their species. The barriers of the 
earth, separating one group of individuals from other 
individuals of the same kind, cause them to be exposed 
to different influences. The reaction from environment 
is different in one case from another. Asa result, the 
presence of barriers shows itself in specific variation. 

Each species of animal or plant tends to extend and 
to cover the world. That a given species has not occu- 
pied any certain area is due to one of three causes: 
either (2) the species has never entered the district; or 
(4), having entered it, it could not maintain itself; or (¢), 
having maintained itself the changed conditions have 
made of it another species. 

Thus we may say that the reason why the civet cat 
is not found in New England is because it has never 
been able to reach that district in its movements, The 
skylark, which has been brought there, has not main- 
tained itself because, in the individual cases at least, it 
could not; while the European rabbit, introduced years 
ago into Porto Santo in the Madeiras, does not exist 
because its descendants are so much altered that we can 
not recognise them as the same species. 

With one of these three general propositions, self- 
evident, no doubt, all the facts of geographical distribu- 
tion may be connected. Each species extends its range 
wherever it can, maintains itself if it can, and undergoes 
change wherever its members are brought into new 
conditions or separated by barriers from the mass of 
their kind. 

The characters to be attributed directly to isolation 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 97 


are for the most part those of minor importance, the 
superficial traits of the species rather than the deep- 
seated qualities of the group, But these are none the 
less real, and to this series of influences much of the 
variety of the life of the globe must be attributed. 

The survival of the existing, which is the basis of 
most of the distinctions between one species and another, 
is not less real than the survival of the 
fittest. In making up the fauna or flora 
of any region, those creatures actually 
present must leave their qualities as an inheritance. If 
they can not maintain themselves, their type passes 
away as unfit. If they maintain themselves in isolation, 
their characters become persistent as those of the new 
species. 

Still other factors in organic evolution may be more 
or less clearly defined, either in connection with those 
above mentioned or as fundamentally distinct. 

One of these is the following: The transmission of 
characters of the parent as distinct from proper hered- 
ity. A starved hill of corn means ill- 
nourished grains. The plants produced 
from ill-nourished seeds may be stunted 
by lack of vitality or lack of starch without any change 
or deficiency in the germ itself. In like manner feeble 
children may owe their traits to the temporary illnesses 
of a strong mother. A sound mind demands a sound 
body, and a sound body is necessary to well-nourished 
offspring. With the characters of the germ cell these 
conditions have nothing to do, and their homologue is 
found in such defects as insufficiency of milk. 

VIII. Lxheritance of Acquired Characters—The in- 
heritance of acquired characters mentioned above, a 
process of transmission possibly different from germ 
heredity, has been lately the subject of much discussion. 


Survival of the 
existing. 


Nutrition in 
transmission. 


08 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


To this the present writer does not care to add. Ac- 
cording to some writers, as Herbert Spencer, this inheri- 
tance is a prominent factor in evolution itself. Accord- 
ing to August Weismann, it is simply a myth invented 
to explain phenomena the causes of which are unknown. 
Most of the arguments on both sides, thus far, have 
been theoretical only, based on no inductive evidence, 
and in science arguments of this sort are without value. 
Both suppositions rest, as Prof. Henry Fairfield Os- 
born has said, less “in fact than the logical improbabili- 
ties of other theories.” “Certainly,” Professor Osborn 
goes on to say, “we shall not assist research with any 
evolution factor grounded upon logic rather than upon 
inductive demonstration. A retrograde chapter in the 
history of science would open if we should do so, and 
should accept, as established, laws which rest so largely 
upon negative reasoning. Darwin’s survival of the fit- 
test we may alone regard as absolutely demonstated as 
a real factor without committing ourselves as to the ori- 
gin of fitness. The (next) step is to 
recognise that there may be an unknown 
factor or factors which will cause quite 
as great a surprise as Darwin’s. The feeling that there 
is such first came to the writer in 1890, in considering 
the want of an explanation for the definite and appar- 
ently purposeful character of certain variations. Since 
then a similar feeling has been voiced by Romanes and 
others, and quite lately by Scott, but the most extreme 
expression of it has recently come from Dr. Driesch in 
the implication that there is a factor not unknown but 
unknowable! . . . We are far from finally testing or dis- 
missing these old factors, but the reaction from specula- 
tion upon them is itself a silent admission that we must 
reach out for some unknown quantity. If such does 
exist there is little hope that we shall discover it except 


The unknown 
factors. 


THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 99 


by the most laborious research; and while we may pre- 
dict that conclusive evidence of its existence will be 
found in morphology, it is safe to add that the fortunate 
discoverer will be a physiologist. 

“ Chief among the unknown factors are the relations 
between the various stages of development and the en- 
vironment.” 

Professor Osborn concludes this discussion with the 
belief that “‘ progressive inheritance is rather a process 
of substitution of certain characters and potentialities 
than the actual elimination implied by Weismann. ‘“ My 
last word is,” he says, ‘“‘ that we are entering the thresh- 
old of the evolution problem instead of standing within 
the portals. The harder tasks lie before us, not behind 
us, and their solution will carry us well into the twenti- 
eth century.” 


IV. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION FROM 
THE STANDPOINT OF EMBRYOLOGY. 


By Pror. EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN, 


Our knowledge of the mechanics of evolution must 
always depend in large part upon the ‘study of indi- 
vidual development. More than any 
other science, embryology holds the 
keys to the method of evolution. If on- 
togeny (life history of the individual) is 
not a true recapitulation it is at least a true type of evo- 
lution, and the study of the causes of development will 
go far to determine the factors of phylogeny or race 
development. 

The causes and methods of evolution are intimately 
bound up with those general phenomena of life, such as 
assimilation, growth, differentiation, metabolism, inher- 
itance, and variation; and the evolution problem can 
never be solved except through a study of these general 
phenomena of life itself. Our great need at present is 
not to know more of the course of evolution, but to dis- 
cover, if possible, the causes of growth, differentiation, 
repetition, and variation. All these general phenomena 
are most beautifully illustrated in the development of 
individual organisms, and because they are fundamental 


to any theory of evolution I shall dwell upon them 
100 


Embryology 
shows the meth- 
od of evolution. 


THE FAGTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. jo, 


rather than upon the evidences for the Lamarckian or 
the Darwinian factors. 

I call attention very briefly to the following propo- 
sitions: 1. Development, and consequently evolution, is 
the result of the interaction of extrin- 
sic and intrinsic causes. 2. Intrinsic 
causes are dependent upon protoplas- 
mic structure. 3. Inherited characters must be prede- 
termined in the structure of the germinal protoplasm. 
4. Germinal, as compared with somatic,* protoplasm is 
relatively stable and continuous, but not absolutely so, 
as maintained by Weismann; therefore, extrinsic causes 
may modify both germinal and somatic protoplasm. 
5. It is extremely difficult to determine whether or not 
extrinsic factors have modified the structure of the 
germinal protoplasm. This is illustrated by some of 
the evidences advanced for the inherited effects of 
diminished nutrition, changes in environment, use and 
disuse. 6, Experiment alone can furnish the crucial 
tests of these Lamarckian factors. 

1. The causes of development in general are usually 
recognised as twofold—extrinsic and intrinsic. As ex- 
amples of extrinsic causes may be men- 
tioned gravity, surface tension, light, 
heat, moisture, and chemism in general; 
examples of intrinsic causes are the non-exosmosis of 
salts from living bodies in water, the pouring of a glan- 
dular secretion or the sap of plants into a cavity under 
high pressure, the active changes in shape and position 
on the part of cells, assimilation, growth, division, etc. 
There is not, however, a uniformly sharp and distinct 
line of demarcation between these two factors of develop- 


Statement of 
propositions, 


Causes of de- 
velopment. 


* Somatic cells are those composing the tissues of the body 
as distinguished from germ cells—those destined to form the new 
organism. 


102 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


ment. Phenomena once supposed to be due entirely to 
intrinsic causes are now known to be the result of ex- 
trinsic ones, and it is practically certain that this will be 
found true of still other phenomena. But although it 
is not possible to draw any hard and fast line between 
these two classes of causes, one can, in general, recog- 
nise a very marked difference between them. Extrinsic 
causes may, in large part, supply the stimulus and the 
energy for development, and may more or less modify 
its course; the intrinsic causes are of a much more com- 
plex character than the extrinsic ones, they are inher- 
ent in the living matter and in large part predetermine 
the course of development. In one form or another the 
distinction between these two classes of causes is recog- 
nised by all naturalists. Professor His calls the intrinsic 
causes “ the law of growth,” the extrinsic ones the con- 
ditions under which that law operates. These designa- 
tions correspond, at least in part, to Professor Cope’s 
anagenesis and katagenesis, and to Roux’s “ simple and 
complex components” of developmental processes. 
While it is necessary to emphasize the differences 
between these two classes of causes, it is not intended 
thereby to dogmatically assert their total difference in 
kind. It may well be that these extrinsic and intrinsic 
causes are totally different in kind, but in our present 
state of ignorance it would be unjustifiable to affirm it. 
On the other hand, it would be just as unwarrantable to 
dogmatically affirm that there is no difference in kind 
between these two classes of causes, and that, therefore, 
all vital phenomena are only the manifestations of heat, 
light, electricity, attraction, repulsion, chemism, and the 
like. It may be that this is true, but there is as yet no 
sufficient evidence for it, and to attempt, as certain 
dynamical and mechanical hypotheses do, to refer all 
vital phenomena directly to such simple components as 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 103 


those named above is practically to make impossible at 
present any explanation of vital phenomena. “If we 
would advance without interruption,” says Roux,* “we 
must be content, for many years to come, with an analy- 
sis into complex components,” 

2. We need not now further concern ourselves with 
an explanation of extrinsic causes or simple components, 
since this subject properly belongs to 
chemistry and physics. If, however, we 
examine more closely some of the zz- 
trinsic causes or complex components, we 
will find that they are always associated with more or 
less complex structures ; in fact, they are dependent upon 
structure, 

The smallest and simplest mass of protoplasm that 
can manifest all the fundamental phenomena of life, 
such as assimilation, growth, division, and metabolism, 
is an entire cell, nucleus and cytoplasm, and probably 
centrosome. The cell is composed, as microscopic study 
plainly reveals, of many dissimilar but perfectly co- 
adapted parts, each performing its specific function, and 
it may therefore properly be called an organism. Some 
phenomena of cell life may be directly referred to 
the various visible constituents of the cell, but many of 
them are evidently connected with structures which we 
can not see, structures which may perhaps never be 
seen, and yet which must be vastly more complex than 
the most complex molecules known to chemistry, and 
yet much more simple than the microsomes, centro- 
somes, and chromosomes which are visible in the cell. 
With these ultra-microscopical particles many of the 
most fundamental phenomena of life are associated— 
viz., assimilation, growth, metabolism, and probably 


Intrinsic causes 
arise from nature 
of protoplasm. 


; * Wilhelm Roux. Einleitung: Archiv fiir Entwickelungsmecha- 
nik der Organism. 


104 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


differentiation, repetition, and variation. These func- 
tions are so co-ordinated that there can be no question 
that the ultra-microscopical structure is an organization, 
with part coadapted to part. The, organization of the 
cell, therefore, does not stop with what the microscope 
reveals, hut must be supposed to extend to the small- 
est ultimate particles of living matter which manifest 
specific functions. These are the vital units so gener- 
ally postulated, the “smallest parts” of living matter, 
as they were called by Briicke, who first demonstrated 
that they must exist; the “physiological units” of 
Spencer, the “gemmules” of Darwin, the “ micella 
groups” of Nageli, the “pangenes” of De Vries, the 
“plasomes” of Wiesner, the “idioblasts” of Hertwig, 
the “biophores” of Weismann. Such ultimate units 
have been found absolutely necessary to explain those 
- most fundamental of all vital phenomena, assimilation 
and growth, while many other phenomena, especially 
particulate inheritance, the independent variability of parts, 
and the hereditary transmission of /atent and patent char- 
acters, can at present only be explained by referring them 
to ultra-microscopical units of structure. To deny that 
there are such units does not simplify the problem, as 
some seem to suppose, but renders it impossible of ap- 
proach. A corpuscular hypothesis of life, like that of 
light, may be only a temporary makeshift, but it is 
better than nothing. , 

Whitman * well says: “ Briicke’s great merit consists 
in this, that he taught us the necessity of assuming 
structure as the basis of vital phenomena, in spite of 
the negative testimony of our imperfect microscopes. 
That function presupposes structure is now an accepted 
axiom, and we need only extend Briicke’s method of 


*C,O. Whitman. The Inadequacy of the Cell Theory of De- 
velopment. Biological Lectures, 1893. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 105 


reasoning from the tissue cell to the egg cell in order 
to see that there is no escape from the conclusion that 
the whole course of developmental phenomena must be 
referred to organization of some sort. Development, 
no less than other vital phenomena, is a function of 
organization.” 

3. A study of the phenomena of development, as 
well as.the principle of causality, make it certain that 

all the characters of the species are pre- 
Inherited charac- determined within the protoplasm of the 
ters predeter- fertilized egg cell. From a frog’s egg 
mined in struc- f : 
rare of eermicell: only a frog will develop, from an echino- 

derm egg only an echinoderm, and the 
course of the development is, under normal circum- 
stances, definitely marked out in each case, even down to 
the minutest details. All the results of experiment, as 
well as observation and induction, only serve to render 
this conclusion the more certain. It should be observed 
that to affirm that characters are predetermined is a 
very different thing from saying they are preformed. 
The one merely asserts that the cause of the transforma- 
tions which lead from one step to another in the devel- 
opment is determined by the initial conditions of the 
fertilized egg cell; the other affirms that those trans- 
formations have already taken place. 

'The absolute determinism of development depends 
primarily upon the constant structure of the egg cell, 
but also to a certain extent upon a definite relation to 
extrinsic factors. Since, however, these extrinsic fac- 
tors may be exactly the same in two cases, and yet the 
result of development be very different (e.g., the egg 
of the starfish and that of the sea urchin), we can only 
conclude that while ontogenetic differences may be 
caused by a disturbance of the extrinsic factors, inherited 
characters are always the result of a definite structure of 


106 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


the germinal protoplasm, and that, therefore, develop- 
ment is, in the words of Professor Whitman, “a function 
of organization.” 

Inheritance and variation are general terms which 
include a great many different kinds of phenomena, 
many of which seem to be due to entirely different fac- 
tors. A great many phenomena of inheritance seem to 
be due entirely to extrinsic forces, but a more.careful 
inquiry always reveals the fact that they are invariably 
due to the reaction of certain extrinsic causes on a per- 
fectly definite living structure. As examples may be 
mentioned the following: 

(2) The tiger-like striping of the egg of Fundulus, 
which is very characteristic and would certainly be re- 
garded as an inherited character, has been shown by 
Loeb * to be due entirely to the position of the blood 
vessels of the blastoderm. The pigment cells are at first 
uniformly distributed, but when the blood vessels are 
formed they gather around them, probably through 
chemotropic action, and thus the characteristic banded 
appearance is produced. Graft has since shown that 
the colour patterns of ,leeches are produced in the same 
way. It is not necessary, therefore, to assume that the 
colour patterns in these cases are specifically represented 
in the germinal protoplasm; it may even be that the 
position of the blood vessels is not so represented, but 
there must be some ultimate cause back in the germinal 
plasm itself which determines the series of causes which 
finally produces the colour patterns, In short, this fea- 
ture, like most others, was predetermined from the be- 
ginning. 


* Jacques Loeb. Some Facts and Principles of Physiological 
Morphology. Biological Lectures, 1893. 

+ Arnold Graf. Ueber den Ursprung des Pigments und der 
Zeichnung bei den Hirudineen. Zool. Anzciger, No, 468, 1895. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 107 


(2) Herbst * has shown in a series of interesting ex- 
periments that by the use of various chemical substances 
the development of echinoderms may be profoundly 
modified. For example, in sea water deficient in cal- 
cium chloride, or in which there is an excess of potas- 
sium chloride, the Pluteus larva, instead of developing 
calcareous spicules and the long ciliated arms which 
give the normal larva an angular, easel-shaped appear- 
ance, remains rounded in shape much like the larva of 
Balanoglossus, in which no spicular skeleton is developed. 
The withdrawal, therefore, of certain normally present 
substances from the environment may profoundly modi- 
fy the final result. But in this case, as in the other, it is 
absolutely certain that the calcareous spicules were pre- 
determined in the egg cell, although in the absence of 
calcareous matter from the water those spicules could 
not be built—the plan was there, but the building ma- 
terial was lacking. 

Such modifications resulting from unusual conditions 
of pressure, temperature, density, nutrition—in fact, any 
alteration of the chemical or physical environment—may 
appear in any stage of development from the unseg- 
mented egg to the adult condition, but it must not be 
supposed that the entire development can be reduced to 
such factors. Loeb argues that we do not inherit our 
body heat from our parents because it depends upon 
certain chemical processes; but is it not absolutely cer- 
tain that we inherit a certain protoplasmic structure 
which determines those chemical processes, and hence 
the body temperature? To assume that extrinsic causes 
determine whether there shall hatch from an egg a 
chicken or an eagle is the sheerest nonsense. The 
study of extrinsic factors in relation to inheritance will 


* Zeit. wiss. Zool., Bd. lv. 


108 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


serve to simplify some of the intricate problems to be 
explained, but surely no one believes that development 
can ever be referred entirely to such factors. The fact 
is that determinism, which is the most fundamental 
characteristic of inheritance, is manifested at every step 
of development, and there is certainly no escape from 
the conclusion that this determinism depends upon pro- 
toplasmic structure, and that this structure it is which is 
transmitted from generation to generation, and which 
forms the physical basis of inheritance. 

All really inherited characters must, therefore, be 
represented in the structure of the germinal protoplasm, 
and must consequently be present from the beginning of 
development. ‘We must consider it as a law derivable 
from the causality principle,” says Hatschek,* “that in 
the phylogenetic alterations of an animal form the end 
stages are not alone altered, but the entire series from 
the egg cell to the end stage. Every alteration of an 
end stage or addition of a new one must be caused by 
an alteration of the egg cell itself.” Ndagelit has ex- 
pressed a similar view in the following famous sentence: 
“ Egg cells must contain all the essential characteristics 
of the species as perfectly as do adult organisms, and 
hence they must differ from one another no less as egg 
cells than in the fully developed state. The species is 
contained in the egg of the hen as completely as in the 
hen, and the hen’s egg differs as much from the frog’s 
egg as the hen from the frog.” 

4. The remarkable tenacity of inheritance, as shown 
especially in reversions and the preservation of useless 
and embryonic characters through many hundreds or 


* Berthold Hatschek. Ueber die Entwickelungsgeschichte von 
Toredo, Arb. Zool. Inst., Wien, 1880, 

+ Nageli. Mechanisch-physiologische Theorie der Abstam- 
mungslehre, 1884. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 109 


thousands of generations, and amid the most diverse 
circumstances, bears strong testimony to the great sta- 
bility of that living structure which is the basis of in- 
heritance. On the other hand, all experience goes to 
prove that the living substance of the body cells in gen- 
eral is readily modified, and that in a surprisingly short 
time. The fact of this great difference can not fail to 
be recognised ; its cause is at present merely a matter of 
conjecture. 

Weismann at one time supposed the cause of this to 
be an absolutely stable, absolutely separate, and per- 

petually continuous germ plasm. How- 
Germinal proto- ever, there is the most convincing and 
plasm relatively ahundant evidence that although the 
but not abso- s z 
lately stable, germ plasm is relatively very stable and 

continuous, it does not possess those 
divinely perfect characters ascribed to it. More re- 
cently Weismann has practically abandoned each and 
all of these characters,* and now, like a good Lamarck- 
ian, finds “the cause of hereditary variation in the 
direct effects of external influences on the biophores 
and determinants.” 

The outcome of the whole matter, then, is that we 
find ourselves much in the same position as we were be- 
fore Weismann denied the possibility of the inheritance 
of acquired characters. All hereditary variations are 
caused by the action of extrinstc forces on the germinal pro- 
toplasm, producing changes in its structure. Strangely 
enough, this proposition was admitted as a logical neces- 
sity by one who undertook by rigorous logic to prove 
the reverse. Since almost the only objection to this 
position was the one raised by Weismann, it may now 
be considered as definitely settled, and the only ques- 


* See Romanes’s Examination of Weismannism, 1893. 


110 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


tion before us, then, is: How can extrinsic causes 
modify the structure of the germinal protoplasm ? 

Since by his own admissions, as Romanes has shown, 
the most characteristic features of Weismann’s system, 
both as to inheritance and evolution, have been virtually 
abandoned, it seems to some that his theories have been 
of no real value, and that, like an zgnis fatuus, they have 
only served to lead biologists astray far from the path 
of science into the dangerous quagmires of speculation. 
I do not share any such opinion. Apart from his splen- 
did observations and the great stimulus to investigation 
which Weismann’s theories have furnished, there remain 
many elements of permanent value in his work. 

Osborn * thinks that Weismann’s most “permanent 
service to biology is his demand for direct evidence of 
the Lamarckian principle.” It seems to me that his 
greatest service consists in the emphasis which he has 
laid upon the intrinsic factors of development and evo- 
lution as opposed to the extrinsic factors, a thing which 
he has indeed overemphasized but which has sadly 
needed a strong defender in these later years. Largely 
as an outcome of his work we now recognise the possi- 
bilities and the limitations of the selection theory as 
never before, and we also recognise that many of the 
evidences which were adduced in support of the La- 
marckian factors are not conclusive, while the method 
of securing conclusive evidence is clearly marked out. 
Whatever we may think of his theories, this certainly is 
no slight service. 

5. It is by no means an easy task to determine 
whether the influence of extrinsic forces has really 
reached the germinal protoplasm and modified its struc- 
ture; much more difficult is it to determine how that 


* Osborn. The Unknown Factors of Evolution. Biological 
Lectures, 1894. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. [rr 


modification takes place. I believe it is safe to say that 
a majority of the cases which are supposed to prove the 
inheritance of acquired characters prove only that char- 
acters are acquired, not that they are 
: inherited. There is great need of cau- 
ea tion against supposing that any charac- 
proteplaem'? ter is inherited unless it repeats itself 
under many and different conditions. 
Apart altogether from inheritance, similar conditions 
may produce similar results, and consequently this 
source of error must be eliminated if we would be cer- 
tain that the structure of the germinal protoplasm has 
really been modified. Many of the alleged cases of the 
inheritance of mutilations, of the direct influence of the 
environment, and of use and disuse, fall away under this 
precaution. 

The general evidence for the inheritance of mutila- 
tions is so notoriously bad that I pass it by altogether 
and select for consideration a few cases, chosen from a 
recent work on the subject,* which have by various 
writers been alleged as showing the direct influence of 
environment in modifying species and also the inherited 
effects of use and disuse. 

(2) It is well known that certain gasteropods if 
reared in small vessels are smaller than when grown in 
large ones, and this case has been cited 
as showing the influence of environment 
in modifying species. There is good 
evidence, however, that this modification does not affect 
the germinal protoplasm, for these same gasteropods 
will grow larger if placed in larger vessels. It seems 
very probable that the diminished size of these animals 
is due to deficient food supply, but this has so little 


Do external 


Diminished 
nutrition. 


*E, D. Cope. The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, 
1896. 
9 


I1I2 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


modified the somatic protoplasm that, although they 
may be fully developed as shown by sexual maturity, 
they at once increase in size as soon as more abundant 
food is provided, and this takes place by the active 
growth and division of all the cells of the body. In 
higher animals, once maturity has been reached, there is 
little chance for growth, apparently because many of 
the cells are so highly differentiated that they can no 
longer divide; consequently the growth is limited, and 
hence the size of the adult may depend in part upon the 
amount of nutriment furnished to the embryo. This 
limitation of growth is due to the high degree of dif- 
ferentiation of the somatic cells, But as the germ 
cells are not highly differentiated and are capable of di- 
vision, it follows that they would not be permanently 
modified by starving. It may be, as Professor Brewer 
argues, that long-continued starving and consequent 
dwarfing of animals may leave its mark on the germinal 
plasm; but, as he also remarks, this influence must be 
very slight as compared with the cumulative effects of 
selection in breeding, and it is safe to assert that there 
is no such wholesale and immediate modification of the 
germinal plasm due to the influence of nutrition as some 
people seem to suppose. 

(4) The interesting experiments of Schmankewitsch 
in transforming one species of Artemia into another by 
gradually increasing the salinity of the 
water, or in transforming Artemia into 
another genus, Branchinecta, by decreas- 
ing the salinity of the water, are well known and are 
often cited. as illustrations of the fact that specific and 
even generic differences may suddenly be produced 
under the influence of the environment. The very fact, 
however, that these changes are suddenly produced, and 
that they can at will be quickly modified in one direction 


Changes in 
environment. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 113 


or the other, is evidence that they are not represented in 
the structure of the germinal plasm; and the fact that 
definite extrinsic causes, such as salt or fresh water, act- 
ing upon this plasm, produce results which are con- 
stantly the same is the best evidence that the internal 
mechanism—i. e., the structure of the germinal plasm— 
is constantly the same. The same ‘can be said of many 
artificially produced modifications, such as the exogas- 
trulas and potassium larve of Herbst, all of which pro- 
“found changes are due entirely to extrinsic and not to. 
intrinsic causes, as is shown by the fact that they disap- 
pear as soon as the immediate extrinsic cause is with- 
drawn. The same thing is shown in Poulton’s experi- 
ments on the colours of lepidopterous larve, and in this 
case also it is known that the changes are not inherited, 
at least during the limited period through which the 
experiments were conducted ; and it should be observed 
that to assume that this would take place at the end of. 
an indefinite number of generations is simply to beg the 
question. 

Very many other cases of a similar character might 
be instanced under this head, but I hasten on to another 
class of evidence. 

(¢) Under the subject of the inherited effects of use 
and disuse the following cases may be 
mentioned as showing how inconclusive 
much of the evidence is: : 

(x) In the first place, this whole line of argument 
starts with the asfumption that the individual habits of 
an animal are inherited, and that these habits ultimately 
determine the structure, an assumption which really 
begs the whole question ; for, after all, the substratum 
of any habit must be some physical structure, and if 
modified habits are inherited it must be because some 
modified structure is inherited. I take an example 


Use and disuse. 


114 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


which will serve as an illustration of a whole class: 
Jackson * says that the elongated siphon of Mya, the 
long-necked clam, is due to its habit of burrowing in 
the mud, or to quote his words: “It seems very evi- 
dent that the long siphon of this genus was brought 
about by the effort to reach the surface, induced by the 
habit of deep burial.” It certainly would be pertinent to 
inquire where it got this habit, and how it happened to 
be transmitted. It is surely as difficult to explain the 
acquisition and inheritance of habits, the basis of which , 
we do not know, as it is to explain the acquisition and 
inheritance of structures which are tangible and visible. 
Such a method of procedure, in addition to begging the 
whole question, commits the further sin of reasoning 
from the relatively unknown to the relatively known. 

This case is but a fair sample of a whole class, 
among which may be mentioned the following: The 
derivation of the long hind legs of jumping animals, the 
long fore legs of climbing animals, and the elongation of 
. all the legs of running animals through the influence of 
an inherited habit. All such cases are open to the very 
serious objection mentioned above. 

(y) Another whole class of arguments may be re- 
duced to this proposition: Because necessary mechan- 
ical conditions are never violated by. 
organisms, therefore modifications due 
to such conditions show the inheritance 
of acquired characters. Plainly, the alternative propo- 
sition is this: If acquired characters are not inherited, 
organisms ought to do impossible things. 

(2) Many of the arguments advanced to prove the 
inheritance of characters acquired through use or dis- 
use seem to me to prove entirely too much. For ex- 


Mechanical 
conditions. 


*R. T. Jackson. Memoirs Boston Soc, Nat. Hist., 1890. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 115 


ample, Professor Cope argues very ably that bones are 
lengthened by both stretch and impact, and that modifi- 
cations thus produced are inherited. Even granting 
that this is true, how would it be possible for this pro- 
cess of lengthening to cease, since in active animals the 
stretch and impact must be continual? Professor Cope 
answers that the growth ceases when “ equilibrium ”’ is 
reached. I confess I can not understand this explana- 
tion, since the assumed stimulus to growth must be con- 
tinual. But, granting again that growth may stop when 
an animal’s legs become long enough to “satisfy its 
needs,” how on this principle are we to account for the 
shortening of legs, as, for example, in the turnspit dog 
and the ancon sheep and numberless cases occurring in 
Nature? If any one species was able, by taking thought 
of mechanical stresses and strains, to add one cubit unto 
its stature, how could the same stresses and strains be 
invoked to decrease its stature? 

These evidences are, I know, not the strongest ones 
which can be adduced in support of the Lamarckian 
factors. There are at present a relatively small num- 
ber of such arguments which seem to be valid and the 
great force of which I fully admit. But the cases which 
I have cited are, I believe, fair samples of the majority 
of the evidences so far presented, and in the face of 
such “evidence” it is not surprising that one who is 
himself a profound student of the subject and a con- 
vinced Lamarckian prays that the Lamarckian theory 
may be delivered from its friends.* 

6. Another line of evidence, and by far the most 
promising, is that of direct experiment. So far, most 
of the experiments which have been carried on to deter- 
mine this question have been carried only halfway to a 


*H. F. Osborn. Evolution and Heredity. Biological Lec- 
tures, 1890. 


116 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


conclusion—they have shown that characters are ac- 
quired, they have usually failed to show that they are 
transmitted to descendants. Among animals one of the 
best-known cases is the inheritance of 
epilepsy and other disorders in guinea- 
pigs, due to certain nervous lesions of 
the parents. But Romanes,* who spent much time in 
trying to corroborate these results, concludes as fol- 
lows: “On the whole, then, as regards Brown-Séquard’s 
experiments, it will be seen that I have not been able to 
furnish any approach to a full corroboration.” 

.Among plants, on the other hand, there is more and 
better experimental evidence, but it is not by any means 
as full or satisfactory as could be wished. Of one thing 
we may be certain—a satisfactory solution of the prob- 
lem can be reached only by experiment, The mere 
observations and inductions of the morphologist, while 
affording valuable collateral evidence, can never furnish 
the crucial test. As long as we deal merely with proba- 
bilities of a low order there will be profound differences 
of opinion—e. g., Cope believes in all the Lamarckian 
factors ; Romanes rejects use and disuse, but believes in 
the others; Weismann rejects all of them. Why? Is 
it because each does not know the facts upon which the 
others build? Certainly not. Those so-called facts are 
merely probabilities of a higher or lower order, and to 
one man they seem more important than to another. 
No conviction based even upon a high degree of proba- 
bility can ever be reached in this way. There is here 
a deadlock of opinion, each challenging the other to 
produce indubitable proof. This can never be furnished 
by observation alone. Possibly even experiment may 
fail in it, but at least it is the only hope. 


Value of direct 
experiment. 


*G.J. Romanes. Post-Darwinian Questions, 1895. 


THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 117 


On the whole, then, I believe the facts which are at 
present at our disposal justify a return to the position 
of Darwin. Neither Weismannism nor 
Lamarckism alone can explain the causes 
of evolution. But Darwinism can ex- 
plain those causes. Darwin endeavoured 
to show that variations, perhaps even adaptations, were 
the result of extrinsic factors acting upon the organism, 
and that these variations or adaptations were increased 
and improved by natural selection. This is, I believe, 
the only ground which is at present tenable, and it is 
but another testimony to the greatness of that man of 
men that, after exploring for a score of years all the 
ins and outs of pure selection and pure adaptation, men 
are now coming back to the position outlined and un- 
swervingly maintained by him. 

Finally, we ought not to suppose that we have al- 
ready reached a satisfactory solution of the evolution 
problem, or are, indeed, near such a 
solution. “We must not conceal from 
ourselves the fact,” says Roux, “that 
the causal investigation of organism is one of the most 
difficult, if not the most difficult, problem which the 
human intellect has attempted to solve, and that this 
investigation, like every causal science, can never reach 
completeness, since every new cause ascertained only 
gives rise to fresh questions concerning the cause of 
this cause.” 


Return to the 
position of 
Darwin, 


The final word 
still far distant. 


V. 
THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 
“*Vom Vater hab’ ich die Statur.” *—GoETHE. 


Wuen Richard Roe was born, “the gate of gifts was 
closed” to him. Henceforth he must expect nothing 
new and must devote himself to the 
development of the heritage he had 
received from his father and mother. 
He must bring its discordant elements into some sort of - 
harmony. He must form his Ego by the union of these 
elements. He must soften down their contradictions. 
He must train his elements of strength to be helpful 
to some one in some way, that others may be helpful 


Formation of 
character. 


* “ Stature from father and the mood 
Stern views of life compelling ; 
From mother, I take the joyous heart 
And the love of story-telling. 


“* Great-grandsire’s passion was the fair, 
What if I still reveal it? 
Great-granddam’s, pomp and gold and show, 
And in my bones I feel it. 


“ Of all the various elements 
That make up this complexity, 
What is there left when all is done, 
To call originality?” 


GOETHE: Zahme Xenien, vi; Bayard Taylor’s translation in 
part. 
118 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE, 119 


to him. He must give his weak powers exercise, so 
that their weakness shall not bring him disaster in 
the competition of life. For it is likely that some- 
where, somehow, it will be proved that no chain is 
stronger than its weakest link. Other powers not too 
weak, nor over strong, Richard Roe must perforce 
neglect, because in the hurry of life there is not time 
for every desirable thing. In these ways the character 
of Richard Roe’s inheritance is steadily changing under 
his hands. As he grows older, one after another of the 
careers that might have been his, the men he might 
have been, vanish from his path forever. On the other 
hand, by steady usage a slender thread of capacity has so 
grown as to become like strong cordage. Thus Richard 
Roe learns anew the old parable of the talents. The 
power he hid in a napkin is taken away altogether, while 
that which is placed at usury is returned a hundredfold. 

Now, for the purpose of this discussion, you, gentle 
reader, ‘who are an achievement of importance,” or I, 
ungentle writer, concerning whom the less said the bet- 
ter, may be Richard Roe. So might any of your friends 
or acquaintances. So far as methods and principles are 
concerned, Richard Roe may be your lapdog or your 
favourite horse—or even your Jdé¢e noire, if you cherish 
beasts of that character. Any beast will do. With Al- 
gernon Fitzclarence de Courcy or Clara Vere de Vere the 
case would be just the same. Let Richard Roe stand at 
present for the lay figure of heredity—or, if it seems best 
to you to humanize this discussion, let him be a man. 

The man Richard Roe enters life with a series of 
qualities and tendencies granted him by heredity. Let 
us examine this series. Let us ana- 
lyze the contents of this pack which 
he is to carry through life to the gates 
of the Golden City. 


Hereditary 
tendencies. 


120 FOOT-NOTES. TO EVOLUTION. 


First, from his parents, Richard Roe has inherited 
humanity, the parts and organs and feelings of a man, 
“Hath henot eyes? Hath he not hands, 
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, 
passions? fed with the same food, hurt 
with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, 
healed by the same means, warmed and cooled’ by the 
same winter and summer” as you or I or any other 
king or beggar we know of? “If you prick us, do we 
not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you 
poison us, do we not die? if you wrong us, shall we not 
revenge?” All this, the common heritage of Jew or 
Gentile, goes to the making of Richard Roe. His an- 
cestors on both sides have been human, and that for 
many and many generations, so that “the knowledge of 
man runneth not to thecontrary.” Even the prehuman 
ancestry, dimly seen by the faith of science, had in it 
the potentialities of manhood. Descended for countless 
ages from man and woman, man born of woman Richard 
Roe surely is. 

We may go farther with certainty. Richard Roe will 
follow the race type of his parentage. If he is Anglo- 
Saxon, as his name seems to denote, all 
Anglo-Saxon by blood, he will be all 
Anglo-Saxon in quality. To his charac- 
ters of common humanity we may add those common to 
the race. He will not be negro nor Mongolian, and he 
will have at least some traits and tendencies not found 
in the Latin races of southern Europe. 

But his friends will know Richard Roe best not by 
the great mass of his human traits nor by his race 
characteristics. These may be predomi- 
nant and ineradicable, but they are not 
distinctive. He must be known by his 
peculiarities, by his specialties and his deficiencies, 


Inheritance of 
humanity. 


Inheritance of 
race characters, 


Individual 
characters, 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 121 


Within the narrowest type there is room for an almost 
infinite play in the minor variations. For almost any 
possible one of these, Richard Roe could find warrant 
in his ancestry. His combination of them must be his 
own. That is his individuality. Colour of the eyes and 
hair, length of nose, hue of skin, form of ears, size of 
hands, character of thumb prints, in all these and ten 
thousand other particulars some allotment must fall to 
Richard Roe. 

He must have some combination of his own, for 
Nature has “broken the die” in moulding each of his 
ancestors, and will tolerate no servile copy of any of 
her works. By the law of sex, Richard Roe has twice 
as many ancestors as his father or mother had. There- 
fore these could give him anything they had severally 
received from their own parents. The hereditary gifts 
must be divided in some way, else Richard Roe would 
be speedily overborne by them. Furthermore, any 
system of division Nature may adopt could only be on 
the average an equal division. Richard Roe’s father 
might supply half his endowment of inborn characters, 
his mother furnishing the other half. Nature tries to 
arrange for some partition like this. But she can never 
divide evenly, and some qualities will not bear division. 
Richard Roe’s share forms a sort of mosaic, made partly 
of unchanged characters standing side by side in new 
combinations, partly a mixture of characters, and part 
of characters in perfect blending. 

The physical reason for all this the physiologists are 
just beginning to trace. The machinery of division and 
integration they find in the germ cell 
itself—the egg and its male cognate. 
At the same time they find that Nature’s love of varia- 
tion is operative even here. She has never yet made 
two eggs or two sperm cells exactly alike. 


t 


The germ cell. 


122 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


The germ cell, male or female—and the two are alike 
in all characters essential to this discussion—is one of 
the vital units or body cells set apart for a special pur- 
pose. It is not essentially different from other cells, 
either in structure or in.origin. But in its growth it is 
capable of repeating the whole organism from which it 
came, “ with the precision of a work of art.” 

The germ cell is made up of protoplasm, a jelly-like 
substance, less simple than it appears, not a “ sub- 
stance” at all, in fact, but a structure 
as complex as any in Nature. In con- 
nection with this structure all known phenomena of life 
are shown. Inside the germ cell, or in any other cell, is 
a smaller cellule called the nucleus. In connection 
with the nucleus appear most of the phenomena of 
hereditary transmission. Its structure in the higher 
animals is a complicated arrangement of loops and 
bands, the material of which these are made being 
called chromatin. This name, chromatin, is given be- 
cause its substance takes a deeper 
stain or colour (chroma in Greek) than 
ordinary protoplasm or other cell materials. In the 
chromatin are the determinants of heredity, and these 
preside in some way over all movements and all changes 
of the protoplasm. In the fertilized egg, the mixed 
chromatin * of the two cells which have been fused into 
one may be said to contain the architect’s plan by which 
the coming animal is to be built up. In the mixed 
chromatin of the cell which is to grow and to divide, to 
separate and integrate, till it forms Richard Roe, the 
potentialities of Richard Roe all lie in some way hidden. 
How this is we can not tell. We know that the struc- 
ture of a single cell is a highly complex matter, more 


Protoplasm. 


Chromatin. 


* For a discussion of this and other views more or less hy- 
pothetical, see the essay on the Physical Basis of Heredity. 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 123 


complex than the Constitution of the United States, 
with a far more perfect system of checks and balances, 
When we can understand all that takes place in a single 
cell we shall “know what God is and what man is.” It 
is not, like the Constitution of our nation, a simple 
written document with definite powers and definite limi- 
tations. It may rather be compared to the unwritten 
constitution of civilization, and a single cell may hold 
in potentiality even all that this supposed constitution 
may embrace. It is not easy, for example, to understand 
how Richard’s tone of voice, or the colour of his hair, 
or his ear for music, or other hereditary qualities can 
be thus hidden. But so they seem to be, and if Science 
should stop whenever she came to a problem we cannot 
think out, the growth of knowledge would be hemmed 
in more closely than it is now. 

When Nature is getting the germ cells ready, the 
hereditary material or chromatin is increased in each 
one and then again divided and subdivided, till in the 
ripened cell but half the usual amount is present.* The 
cell is then ready to unite with its fellow to form a per- 
fect cell, from which, under favourable circumstances, 
the great alliance of cells which constitute the body of 
Richard Roe can be built up. 

Nature makes her divisions evenly enough, but never 
quite equally. She is satisfied with an approximate 
equality, better satisfied than if she 
could make a perfect division. She 
knows no straight lines, she never made 
a perfect sphere, and she takes the cor- 
ner away from every angle. It satisfies her desire for 
likeness to have her children almost alike. Exact sym- 
metry would exclude variation, for which she cares 


Inequality of 
Nature’s 
divisions. 


* This explanation is probable but not certain. 


124 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


still more than for likeness, and for good reason. If 
her creatures are left unlike, it is so much the easier for 
her to find places for them in the crowded world of life. 
Moreover, unlikeness gives play for selection. She can 
save her favourites and discard her failures. 

So in the chromatin of his two parents Richard Roe 
finds his potentialities, his capacities, and his limita- 
tions. But latent in these are other 
capacities and other limitations handed 
down from other generations before them. Each grand- 
father and grandmother has some claim on Richard 
Roe, and behind these dead hands from older graves 
are still beckoning in his direction. The past will not 
let go, but with each generation the dust or the crust 
grows deeper over it, Moreover, these old claims grow 
less and less with time, because with each new genera- 
tion there are twice as many competitors. Besides this, 
as we shall see beyond, these past generations can make 
no claim on him except through the agency of ‘his 
own parents.* 


Atavism. 


* We may sum up Richard Roe’s inheritance by making use 
of the formule of algebra, a science which deals with unknown 
characters that bear definite relations to each other. 

Let A be the aggregate of species and race characters inherited 
from the father. Let A’ be the species and race characters inher- 
ited from the mother. Then a x as A = A’, will amount to 
Aagain. A forms the greater part of Richard Roe in numerical 
aggregate, but in the Anglo-Saxon race it is an invariable quan- 
tity, and therefore not of importance in making up the character 
by which we know him from his fellows. 

Let B be the recognisable peculiarities of the father, and B’ 


the recognisable peculiarities of the mother. How shall these be 
# 


divided? Obviously not more than a+ 2 


for a body can not be made up of peculiarities. We may infer 
from Galton’s studies that these figures are in excess of the 


should be expected, 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 125 


Out of these elements Mr. Galton frames the idea of a 
“ mid-parent,” a sort of centre of gravity of heredity, 
which in language, not algebra, would 
represent the same set of ideas. But, as 
Dr. Brooks has observed, “It may be well to ask what 
evidence there is that the child does inherit from any 
ancestor except its parents, for descent from a long line 
of ancestors is not necessarily equivalent to inheritance 
from them, and it is quite possible that the conception 
of a ‘mid-parent’ may be nothing but a logical abstrac- 
tion.” * The parents of Richard Roe were his father and 


The mid-parent. 


fact. In each process of generation, half these qualities, al- 
ready once divided, are lost or rendered unrecognisable by indi- 
vidual variations or by contradictory blendings. To each parent 
Galton assigns about twenty-five per cent of these personal 


B, B’ 
qualities. Accepting this as approximate, a + Fc be nearer 


the actual fact, and we may so take it. But the latent influence 
of the grandparents must come in, these represented by C, C’, C”, 
and C’" respectively. In this case the divisor may apparently 
be 16, which corresponds to Galton’s estimate of 63 per cent. 
Should we wish to go farther back, the influence of the great- 
grandparents, D, D’ D”, etc., eight of them, could be added, each 
with 64 as its divisor. 

It is evident that these divisors are all proximate only, and 
varying at each cleavage of the germinal chromatin. The un- 
known and fluctuating element in this division we may designate 


would represent the direct heritage of his 
B’. Cc Cc 
nt 36 +n? 


B 
as + 7. a 


B 
father to Richard Roe. ThenA ta a E ers z 


Cc" Cc” | 8Detc. 16 Eete. 
1 + 16 +n? 6442 + 356 +n" 
draft of the hereditary framework of Richard Roe. 

' In that case the formula given in the above note would be 
modified to this extent. The value of C, D, E, etc., would be 
limited to the hereditary characters latent but undeveloped in B, 
etc. Their value would be less than B, for some part of B would 


etc., will be our first rough 


126 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


mother, not his grandfather or grandmother, nor yet, 
the whole human race, in one of the chains of which he 
forms a single link. When a son inherits his maternal 
grandfather’s beard it is really his mother’s beard which 
he acquires. It is the beard which his mother would 
have had had she been a man, 

Dr. Brooks says: “ When the son of a beardless boy 
grows up and acquires a beard, we may be permitted to 
say that he has inherited his grandfather’s beard; but 
this is only a figure of speech, and he actually inherits 
the beard his father might have acquired had he lived; 
nor would the case of a child descended from a series of 
ten or a hundred beardless boys be any different.” * 

The species and race characters being the same for 
father and mother, must be the same for the son. They 


have to be subtracted from each of them. For it is evident that 
the inheritance from the grandparents and from far-off ancestors 
came through the parents. If not active in them, these qualities 
must have been latent, and in either case they came from them 
to Richard Roe. In strictness the inheritance of C, D, E, etc., 
is included in B, as are also the race qualities and the qualities 
of the species. 

* Setting aside these considerations, it is evident that, as A + B, 
A+B’,A+C,A+D’, etc., represent each a distinct personality, 
Richard Roe from the first will differ notably from A + B, as- 
sumed as the original formula of his father. To what extent 
this difference goes depends on the value of A as compared with 
B, B’, etc. ; in other words, on the uniformity of the pedigree. 
If B, C, D and the rest were very closely alike, as is the case 
with ‘‘thoroughbreds,” the differential elements will be small, 
and the complete Richard Roe will be very like the rest of them. 
If B, C, D are small quantities, and A + B essentially similar to 


A +D, the addition of will count for but little in the ag- 


Cc 
weétn 
gregate. To be thoroughbred is to be bred so as to exclude indi- 
vidual variation. It tends to prevent failures or deficiencies, and 


at the same time it tends to limit advance, 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 127 


are added together and divided by two. Half comes 
from each side in the process of inheritance, but the 
two halves are alike. But the personal peculiarities 
recognisable in the father are different from those seen 
in the mother. The son can not inherit all from both 
sources. Certainly not more than half could come from 
either source, for the new generation could not be built 
of peculiarities alone. The old large, common heritage 
must always have precedence. Galton has made a cal- 
culation (referred to in the note above), based on wide 
observations, that on the average 25 per cent of the 
individual peculiarities are directly inherited from each 
parent. On the average, each parent exerts the same 
force of heredity. Half the characters come from each, 
but in each half it would appear that about one half is 
lost or rendered unrecognisable by other variation or by 
contradictory blendings. The first division of qualities in 
half is necessary and natural, for there are two parents. 
The second division in half is an arbitrary assumption 
which seems to find its warrant in Galton’s studies. We 
might assume without theoretical difficulty a third or a 
fifth as being preserved intact among possible variations 
and combinations. One half, however, seems nearer the 
fact, and to find the fact is the only purpose of theory. 
To the characters received from the parents we must 
add the latent influence of grandparents, great-grand- 
parents, and the long array of dead hands which, how- 
ever impotent, can never wholly let go. As the small- 
est wave must go on, in theory at least, till it crosses 
the ocean, so the influence of every ancestor must go on 
to the end of the generation. Each’ of us must feel in a 
degree the strength or weakness of each one of them. 
To each grandparent Galton assigns 6% per cent. There 
are four grandparents and two stages of generation sepa- 


rate them from Richard Roe. Half the force of each, 
10 


128 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


twice lost, seems to give to each grandparent one fourth 
the potency in heredity the father or mother has. In 
the same way to the great grandparent we must assign 
the relation of 17% per cent (one sixty-fourth), and 
so on. 

The “bluer” the blood—that is, the more closely 
alike these ancestors are—the greater will be the com- 
moni factor, the less the amount derived 
from the individual. In perfect thor- 
oughbreedings the individual should 
have no peculiarities at all. This condition is never 
reached, but it may sometimes be approximated. In such 
case the addition of an ancestral sixteenth or sixty fourth 
could make no visible change. This may be true among 
the very bad as well as among the very good. Weak- 
ness or badness are more often thoroughbred than 
strength or virtue. The bluest of blood may run in the 
veins of the pauper as well as in the aristocrat who 


WwW 2 . 
boasts that —————————__ in his formula stands for 
21474736482 + 


William the Norman. And for Richard Roe’s own sake 
let us hope that he is not too thoroughbred, and that he 
has no record of W and W”’, nor even of E. Too nar- 
row a line of descent tends to intensify weaknesses. 
Vigour and originality come from the mingling of vari- 
ant elements, Nature does not favour “ in-and-in breed- 
ing.” There is no loss to the individual if decided and 
different qualities come from father or mother. Con- 
tradictory or even incongruous peculiarities are better 
than none at all. 

Ancestry, too, like wine, becomes stale if it remains 
too long in the sunshine. An ancestry which is readily 
traced has lived too long in easy places. A few genera- 
tions of successful dealing with small matters may pre- 
pare the way for the power to deal with great ones. 


The thorough- 
bred. 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 129 


Wisdom is knowing what to do next, and wisdom may 
exist in humble as well as conspicuous fields of action. 

Again, at the time of Richard Roe’s birth, the for- 
mula of his father was slowly changed, under the re- 
action toward activity or to idleness, 
resulting from his efforts and his en- 
vironment. If it was originally and 
potentially A+B, and that of his father A’+ B, it is 
now no longer so. Changes constantly arise from the 
experiences of life, the stress of environment, the re- 
duction of “mental friction,” the formation of auto- 
matic nervous connections or habits, the growth through 
voluntary effort, the depression from involuntary work 
or idleness, the degeneration through the vitiation of 
nerve honesty caused by stimulants or vice, the deteri- 
oration due to spurious pleasures that burn and burn 
out. 

Each of these may have come to the father of Rich- 
ard Roe, and each one had left its mark on him. The 
fairy’s wand and the fool-killer’s club each leaves an 
indelible trace whenever it is used. Through these in- 
fluences* every man is changed from what he was or 
what he might have been to what he is. 


Changes through 
experience. 


* Let X be the aggregate of gains and Y of losses due to these 
acquired qualities. In the case of the mother these may be X’ 
and Y’. In this case X and Y, X' and Y’, represent large fac- 
tors, but excessively diverse and varying, affecting in some de- 
gree all the qualities contained in the symbols Band B’. Richard 
Roe’s father would then be A+B+X-—Y. His mother A + B'+ 
X’—Y’. These added numbers mark the change from what these 
two ought to have been or would naturally have been toward 
what they are. How much of this is inherited? How do these 
characters affect Richard Roe? How much of X and Y shall we 
place in his formula? Some learned investigators, notably 
August Weismann and Alfred Russell Wallace, say that these 
changes count for nothing in heredity. X and Y spend their 


130 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Lamarck’s much-discussed “ fourth law ” of develop- 
ment reads as follows: “All that has been acquired, 
begun, or changed in the structure of the 
individuals in their lifetime is preserved 
in reproduction and transmitted to the 
new individuals which spring from those 
who have inherited the change.” 

“Change of function produces change of structure,” 
so Herbert Spencer tells us; “it is a tenable hypothesis 
that changes of structure thus produced are inheritable,” 

But though this may be a tenable hypothesis, the 
opposite hypothesis has not been clearly shown to be 
intenable. It seems to be true that any great physical 
weakness on the part of Richard Roe’s parents would 
tend to lower his constitutional vigour, whatever the 
origin of such weakness might be. If so, such weakness 
might appear as a large deficiency in his power of using 
his equipment. It may be, too, that any extreme degree 
of training, as in music or mathematics, might determine 
in the offspring the line of least resistance for the move- 
ment of his faculties. Perhaps Richard Roe would find 


Inheritance of 
acquired charac- 
ters. 


force on the generation that develops them. Acquired characters 
are never inherited. Other investigators, equally wise, Herbert 
Spencer and Lester F. Ward, for example, do not admit that any 
gain or loss to the individual is without its effect on succeeding 
generations, and thus on the species. X and Y are inherited just 
as B or B' may be. 

Let us assume that they are inherited in some degree, and let us 
X+X'-Y-Y’, 
Q 
The divisor Q reducing all acquired characters of the parent is an 
unknown quantity of large and perhaps variable value. If large, 
the value of the fraction will be correspondingly small. In Weis- 


represent this inheritance of acquired characters as 


mann’s view, Q should equal infinity, in which case 5 or 5 would 


be nothing at all. This would be the symbol of non-inheritance. 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 131 


mathematics easier had his father devoted his life to 
exercise of that kind. But we are not sure that this is 
so. Wedo not know yet on what terms X and Y and 
X' and Y’ are passed over to Richard Roe, or whether 
they are passed on to him at all. In the view of Her- 
bert Spencer (“ Neo-Lamarckism”) X and Y are inher- 
ited, just as A and Bare. According to Weismann and 
his followers they are not subjects of heredity at all. 

I can not pretend to say what will be the final de- 
cision of science in regard to this vexed question, I 
venture to suggest that in Lamarck’s law and in the 
theories of many of his modern followers, too high value 


has been set, not on X and Y, but on 7 and On the 
other hand, if these fractions are really equal to zero, if 
acquired characters are absolutely of no value in hered- 
ity, some problems in biology we have thought easy. 
become tremendously complicated. We must rewrite a 
large portion of the literature of sociology. We must 
give a new diagnosis to Ibsen’s Ghosts. We must, in 
fact, do this in any event, for inheritance such as the 
Norwegian dramatist pictures it, belongs not to heredity 
at all, but is to be sought for among the phenomena of 
transmission and nutrition. They are matters of vege- 
tative development rather than of true heredity. Of 
the same nature is probably the recurrence of “spent 
passions and vanished sins”’ that certain peychologints 
ascribe to heredity. 
We may, I think, set aside the inheritance of ac- 
quired characters as not being a large factor in the 
changes of the higher animals. Prop- 
Nature of erly speaking, as Mr. Archdall Reid has 
pet ee well shown, nearly all the ‘characters of 
the adult are “acquired characters” as 
distinguished from innate characters. Heredity, for ex- 


132 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


ample, does not give to the grown man his characteris- 
tics. It gives only the power to acquire them. Just as 
excessive muscular development requires excessive use 
of the arm, so average development of any organ is con- 
‘ditioned on an average degree of normal activity. 

“ Therefore,” says Mr. Reid, “7¢ zs clear that the full 
development of the normal adult arm as well as many other 
important structures 1s acquired, differing in this from 
eyes, ears, teeth, nails, etc., which are wholly inborn 
and do not owe their development in the least to use 
and exercise. It will be found that adult man differs 
physically from the infant almost wholly in characters 
which are acquired, not in those which are inborn. In 
teeth, hair, skull bones, and some other respects he dif- 
fers from the infant as regards inborn characters, but as 
regards almost all of the structures of the trunk and 
limbs and most of those of the head, the difference is in 
characters which have been acquired by the adult as a 
response to the stimulation of exercise and use.... 
But variations acquired as a result of use and disuse are 
plainly never transmitted. Thus an infant's limb never 
attains the adult standard except in response to the 
same stimulation (exercise) as that which developed the 
parent’s limb. The same is true of all the other struc- 
tures which in the parent underwent development as a 
result of use or subsequent retrogression in the absence 
of it. These, like the limbs, do not develop or retro- 
gress in the infant except asa result of similar causes. 
Plainly, then, what is transmitted to the infant is not the 
modification, but only the power of acquiring it under simi- 
lar circumstances, a power which has undergone such an 
evolution in high animal organisms that, as I say in man, 
for instance, almost all the development changes which 
occur between infancy and manhood are attributable to it. 

“ The power of acquiring fit modifications in response 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 133 


to appropriate stimulation is that which especially dif- 
ferentiates high animal organisms from low animal or- 
ganisms., 

“Without this power and the plasticity which results 
from it the multitudinous parts of high animals could 
not well be co-ordinate, and therefore without it their 
evolution could scarcely have been possible. Indeed, it 
is not too much to say, so vitally important is this 
power to the higher animals, that as regards them the 
chief aim (if I may use the expression) of natural se- 
lection has been to evolve it.” * 

One more element, likewise of doubtful value, must 

be added to the inventory of Richard 
Prenatal Roe. This is the element of prenatal 
influences. ‘ ; 

influence on the part of his mother. 

In the process of evolution the development of the 
female has brought her to be more and more the pro- 
tector and helper of the young. She gives to her prog- 
eny not only her share of its heredity, but she becomes 
more and more a factor in its development. 

In the mammalia the little egg is retained long in 
the body and fed, not with food yolk, but with the 
mother’s blood. The “gate of gifts” is not closed with 
the process of fertilization as it is in the lower forms. 
If the help of favourable environment can be counted 
as a gift, this gate is not closed at birth nor so long as 
the influence of the mother remains. By the growth of 
the human family the parental environment becomes a 
lifelong influence. The father as well as the mother 
becomes a part of it. In Walt Whitman’s words: 

‘His own parents (he that had fathered him and she that had 
conceived him in her womb and birth’d him), 


They gave this child more of themselves than that, 
They gave afterward every day, they became part of him.” 


* Archdall Reid, Science, December 17, 1897, p. got. 


134 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


It has long been a matter of common belief that 
among mammals a special formative influence is exerted 
by the mother in the period between conception and 
birth. The patriarch Jacob is reputed to have made a 
thrifty use of this influence in relation to the herds of 
his father-in-law Laban. This belief is part of the folk- 
lore of almost every race of intelligent men. In the 
translations of Carmen Silva, that gentle woman whom 
kind Nature made a poet and cruel fortune a queen, we 
find these words of a Roumanian peasant woman: 


‘* My little child is lying in the grass, 
His face is covered with the blades of grass. 
While I did bear the child, I ever watched 
The reaper work, that it might love the harvests ; 
And when the boy was born, the meadow said, 
‘This is my child.’” 


In the current literature of hysterical ethics we find 
all sorts of exhortations to mothers to do this and not 
to do that, to cherish this and avoid that on account of 
its supposed effect on the coming progeny. Long lists 
of cases have been reported illustrating the law of pre- 
natal influences. Most of these records serve only to 
induce scepticism. Many of these are mere coinci- 
dences, some are unverifiable, some grossly impossible, 
and some read like the certificates of patent medicines. 
There is an evident desire to make a case rather than 
to tell the truth. The whole matter is much in need of 
serious study, and the entire record of alleged facts 
must be set aside to make an honest beginning. 

Dr. Weismann ridicules it all and believes that all 
forms of mother’s marks, prenatal influences, and the 
like, are relics of medizeval superstition. Other authori- 
ties of equal rank, as Henry Fairfield Osborn, believe 
that these supposed influences exist and are occasional- 
ly made evident. Doubtless most of the current stories 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 135 


are products of self-deception or plain lying.* Probably 
the period of gestation is too short for peculiar nervous 
states to produce far-reaching changes in hereditary en- 
dowments. On the other hand, doubt and ridicule are 
not argument, and there may be some reality in influ- 
ences in which the world has so long believed; but these 
phenomena, if existing, belong to the realm of abnormal 

nerve action or of altered nutrition, not to heredity. 
The value of the prenatal influences acting upon 
Richard Roe we may indicate as Z, giving the symbol 
an indefinite and, if you please, a low value. But this 
is not the whole story. There are many phenomena of 
transmitted qualities that can not be charged to hered- 
ity. Just as a sound mind demands a 


PramsmussIGH sound body, so does a sound child de- 
of impaired ee 
vitality. mand a sound mother. Bad nutrition 


before as well as after birth may neu- 
tralize the most vigorous inheritance within the germ 
cell. A child well conceived may yet be stunted in de- 
velopment. Even the father may transmit weakness 
in development as a handicap to hereditary strength. 
The many physical vicissitudes between conception and 
birth may determine the rate of early growth or the im- 
petus of early development. In a sense, the impulse of 


* For example, Dr. Fearn cites the following case: **A mother 
witnessed the removal of one of the bones (metacarpal) from her 
husband’s hand which greatly shocked and alarmed her. A short 
time after she had a child who was born without the correspond- 
ing bone which was removed from the father.” (Report of Med- 
ical Association of Alabama, 1850, as quoted by Dr. S. B. Elliott 
in the Arena, March, 1894.) If this report is true, our ideas of 
the formation and dissolution of parts of the skeleton must be 
materially changed. We must believe either that the metacarpal 
bones are formed just before birth, after all the rest of the skele- 
ton, or else that bones once formed may be reabsorbed under the 
influence of nervous shock or hysteria. Either view is nonsense. 


136 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


life comes from such sources outside the germ cell and 
outside of heredity. All powers may be affected by it. 
Perfect development demands the highest nutrition, an 

ideal never reached. In such fashion 

the child may bear the incubus of Ibsen’s 
“Ghosts ” for which it had no personal responsibility. 
“Spent passions and vanished sins” may impair germ 
cells, male or female, as they injure the organs that pro- 
duce them. We must then represent the perfection of 
transmission by T, and T is a fraction, large or small, 
but always less than unity. It would stand as a re- 
ducing agency, and as such in algebra it would be best 
represented as a divisor. The whole formula may be 


Ibsen’s Ghosts. 


multiplied by 7 a process that, like the process Z, 


which if it exists is an extension of T, must intervene 
between conception and birth. 

This formula indicates simply the possibilities of 
Richard Roe as the sexless embryo, the joined proto- 
plasm and united chromatin of the two 
parent germ cells. This germ has now 
to grow and expand by cell division. 
But besides its vegetative growth two possible lines of 
development lie before it, one of which it must take. It 
must assume sex. It must become either male or female. 
The choice of the one at the critical time is as feasible as 
that of the other. But once made the choice is irrevoc- 
able. Thus far man has found no way to control this 
choice and Nature makesit for him. The sexless embryo 
is, as it were, suspended on a hair, to be turned to male or 
female by the first stimulus which may reach it. In the 
human race, such impulses must come through the moth- 
er. Certain of these forces have been partially defined. 

It has long been known that with certain insects and 
crustaceans full nutrition increases the number of fe- 


Determination 
of sex. 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 137 


males; starvation of the mother makes the young male. 
It may be so with the human race. In accordance with 
certain known facts and certain plausible theories, Dr. 
Schenck, of Vienna, has formulated certain rules for the 
control of sex in offspring. Among other things a 
proteid or “ training-table ” diet before and through the 
critical period of early pregnancy should increase the 
probability of male offspring; a fat-producing diet 
should tend to insure a daughter. Other suggestions 
have been made which need not be discussed here. In 
general, we may say that the determination at will of 
sex in offspring is not theoretically impossible. The 
elements involved are too obscure and complex for 
certainty to be probable. It is, moreover, an open 
question whether the general diffusion of such power 
would be a boon to mankind. 

In any event, Richard Roe became male. Whether 
through the lean diet of his mother or the late union of 
his parent germ cells, or through some hidden cause or 
impulse need not concern us now. The fact of mascu- 
linity becomes more and more dominant as his growth 
goes on. At last it affects all his activities, modifies all 
his structures, and permeates every fiber of his being. 
Then is Richard Roe a man, and our formula of his pos- 
sibilities is multiplied or modified by an overshadowing 
M. (male). But his hereditary characters are arranged 
and assigned before the question of his sex is deter- 
mined by Nature. Thus at birth we 
may designate Richard Roe by the for- 

B’ C 
maule (a+ raat pastwantwan 
D D’ E F 
Tian) tee Cy Toe a cor Tea ee 
x. x YY 
etc., aT 6 9) 5 +2.) xM. 


Formula of life. 


= etc., 


138 FOOT-NOTES TO. EVOLUTION. 


This formula may be translated into intelligibility as 
follows: Richard Roe has the sum of species characters: 
race characters; one unequal fourth of father’s pecul- 
iarities; one unequal fourth of mother’s peculiarities; 
one sixteenth of paternal grandfather’s peculiarities; 
one sixteenth from maternal grandfather; one sixteenth 
from each grandparent; one sixty-fourth from each 
great-grandparent, etc.; an unknown part of the gain 
through the father’s activity; an unknown part of gain 
through the mother’s activity ; an unknown part of loss 
the idleness or non-development of each; an unknown 
chance through prenatal influences received through 
the mother; the whole multiplied or divided by the 
influences arising from transmission or early nutrition 
and to be modified in every part by the fact that he 
is a man. 

But these symbols indicate only potentialities. These 
make up the architect’s plan on which his life is to be 
built. The plan admits of much play 
for deviation. Every wind that blows 
will change it a little. These elements 
themselves are of varied character. They do not be- 
long together nor are they held in place, so far as we 
know, by any “ego” except that made by the cell alli- 
ance on which they depend. Some of these elements 
the experiences of life will tend to reduce or destroy. 
Some of them will be systematically fostered or checked 
by those who determine Richard Roe’s early environ- 
ment. The final details will be beyond prediction. 
The ego or self in the life of Richard Roe is the sum 
of his inheritance, bound together by the resultant of 
the consequences of the thoughts and deeds which have 
been performed by him and perhaps by others also. 
Thus each day in his life goes to form a link in the 
chain which binds his conscious processes together. The 


Potentialities 
not character. 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 139 


“vanished yestetdays”’ are the tyrants of to-morrow. 
The higher heredity is the heredity from ourselves. The 
art of life is in a large degree the process of “hold- 
ing one’s self together.” The ego is the expression of 
the result of this process, Just as “ Eng- 
land” exists only as the co-operation 
of all Englishmen, so does the mental 
“ego” exist only in the co-ordination of working nerve 
cells, The theory that the ego is a separate being 
which plays on the organs of the brain as a musician on 
the keys of a piano, belongs not to science but to poe- 
try. As well think of England as a disembodied organ- 
ism that plays on the hearts of Englishmen, leading them 
to acts of glory orof shame. This, too, might be poetry ; 
it is not fact. . 

The unity of life, which is its sanity, depends on 
bringing the various elements to work as one force. 
Duality or plurality in life, the “leading 
of a double life” of any sort, is an evi- 
dence of some kind of failure or disin- 
tegration. “Science finds no ego, self, or will that can 
maintain itself against the past.” In other words, from 
the past, its inheritance, and its experience, the elements 
of the present are always drawn. The consciousness of 
man is not'the whole of man. It is not an entity work- 
ing among materials foreign to itself. It is rather the 
flame that flickers over embers set on fire long before 
and whose byrning may go on long after the individual 
flame has ceased to be. 

“The soul,” says Dr. Edward A. Ross, “is not a 
spiritual unit, but a treacherous compound of strange 
contradiction and warring elements, with traces of spent 
passions and vestiges of ancient sins, with echoes of 
forgotten deeds and survivals of vanished habits.” 
Moreover, “science tells us of the conscious and sub- 


The higher 
heredity. 


The unity of 
the ego. 


140 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


conscious, of higher nerve cells and lower, of double 
cerebrum and wayward ganglia. It hints at many 
voiceless beings that live out in our body their joy and 
pain and scarce give sign dwellers in the subcentres, 
with whom it may be often lies the initiative when the 
conscious centre itself is free. This / is no doubt a 
hierarchy or commonwealth of physical units that at 
death dissolves and sinks below the threshold of con- 
sciousness.” ‘We see that never again can there be 
such an orgy of the ego (in philosophic thought) as that 
led by Fichte and Hegel.” 

Of course, some of the above-quoted phraseology 
is figurative, and could not be applied literally to the 
personality of Richard Roe. His self- 
consciousness arose from the co-opera- 
tive action of his higher nerve cells. 
That it arose from many, not from any particular 
one, gave it in some degree the semblance of being 
apart from them all. But this was only a semblance, 
and the elements of which his personality- was made 
had been in one way used before him by many 
others. 

With all this, we may be sure that the stream of 
Richard Roe’s life will not rise much above its potential 
fountain. He will have no powers far beyond those 
potential in his ancestors. But who can tell what pow- 
ers have remained latent in these ancestors? It takes a 
series of peculiar circumstances to bring any group of 
qualities into general notice. These men who are famous 
in spite of an unknown ancestry are not 
necessarily very different from this an- 
cestry. Fame is a jutting crag which 
may project from a very low mountain. Far higher 
elevations may not catch the eye if their outline is not 
unusual, Even under the plebeian name by which “ Fate 


The ego a 
co-operation. 


Fame not 
greatness, 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. I4I 


tried to conceal him,” Richard Roe may receive a noble 
heritage. Doubtless it may be passed on to the next 
generation, not the less noble because it has not been 
exposed to the distortions of fame. Real greatness is 
as-often the expression of the wisdom of the mother as 
of anything the father may have been or done. B’ and 
X’ are just as potent as B and X, though less known to 
the public. As society is now constituted, the great 
hearts and brains of the future may be looked for any- 
where. They will not fail to come when needed, and 
in most cases they will appear unheralded by ancestral 
notoriety. 

I made the statement above that Richard Roe had 
twice as many ancestors as his father or his mother. 
This is self-evident, but it is not literally 
true. The error comes from the inter- 

locking of families. Over and over 
again in any line of ancestry strains of blood have 
crossed, and the same person, and therefore the whole 
of this person’s ancestors, will be found in different 
places in the individual pedigree. This must happen 
dozens of times in most lines of ancestry. The lack of 
old records obscures this fact. That something of the 
sort must occur is evident from the fact that the child 
of to-day must have had at the time of Alfred the Great 
an ancestry of 870,672,000,000 persons. In the time of 
William the Conqueror (thirty generations) this number 
reaches 8,598,094,592. This is shown by the ordinary 
process of computation—two parents, four grandparents, 
eight great-grandparents, and so on. As the aggregate 
of Englishmen in Alfred’s time, or even in William’s, was 
but a very small fraction of these numbers, most of these 
ancestors must have been repeated many times in the 
calculation. Each person who leaves descendants is a 
link in the great chain of life, or rather a strand in life's 


Counting one’s 
ancestors. 


142 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


great network. It is certain that the blood of each per- 
son in Alfred’s time who left capable descendants is 
represented in every family of England of strict Eng- 
lish descent. In other words, every Englishman is de- 
scended from Alfred the Great; as very likely also 
from the peasant women whose cakes Alfred is reputed 
to have allowed to burn. Moreover, there are few if 
any who do not share the blood of William the Con- 
queror, and most ancestral lines, if they could be traced, 
would go back to him by a hundred different strains. 
In fact, there are few families in the south and east 
of England who have not more Norman blood than 
the present royal family. The house of Guelph holds 
the throne not through nearness to William, but 
through primogeniture, a thing very different from 
heredity. 

Mr. Edward J. Edwards, of Minneapolis, has re- 
cently sent me some very interesting studies in gene- 
alogy yet unpublished. These concern the lineage 
of his little daughter, my niece, Mary Stockton Ed- 
wards. 

Mr. Edwards find that the little girl, like millions of 
others, is descended through at least two different lines 
from William the Conqueror, The line- 
age, on the one hand, leads back in 
thirty-two generations through the fam- 
ily names of Jordan, Hawley, Waldo, Elderkin, Drake, 
Grenville, Courteney, de Bohun, and Plantagenet to Wil- 
liam. Sir Humphrey de Bohun married Elizabeth Plan- 
tagenet, daughter of King Edward I. In the ancestry 
of King Edward are the Saxon kings Cedric, Egbert, 
Alfred, and Ethelred, while intermarriage with other 
royal lines brings in Hengest, Hugh Capet, Charlemagne, 
Otho the Great, Duncan, Rurik, Igor, San Fernando, and 
a host of other notables of whom one would have less 


Lineage of a 
little girl. 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE. 143 


right to be proud. The Courteneys, Earls of Devon, 
are again descended from the royal lines of France 
(Hugh Capet) and Russia, but not from William the 
Conqueror. To Courteney and Plantagenet the lineage 
of the Edwards family along other lines has been traced. 

The seventy family names, more or less, with per- 
haps a thousand representatives, in the first line traced 
out by Mr. Edwards, are only so many out of billions, 
if there were no duplications. If there were no repeti- 
tions, there would be instead of the thousand known 
ancestors, four billions of persons between Mary Stock- 
ton Edwards and the time of William the Conqueror. 
This genealogy is therefore but a strand from an enor- 
mous network, which, if written out in full, would cover 
the earth with names. Only the family pride of the 
Courteneys and Drakes caused even this little of per- 
sonal descent and personal history to be retained. 
Their pride permitted this plebeian record of the ple- 
beian descendants of the Puritan John Drake of Wind- 
sor to be joined to the sacred annals of the English 
peerage. 

Most of the English people named in these records 
lived in Devon and Sussex, from which regions the 
American representatives came to Amer- 
ica. The subordinate lines traced out 
lead to the earls of these countries. 
They lead also to many other noble lines in England 
and Scotland. It is certain, however, that in this there 
is nothing whatever that is exceptional or even unusual. 
These people in America were Massachusetts Puritans, 
plain farmers, squires, and shipwrights, with a lineage 
or character in no wise singular. Their sole important 
heritage was the Puritan conscience, not their Norman 
blood, which they shared with all their neighbours. 


Studies of this kind show clearly that primogeniture is 
II 


All Englishmen 
of noble birth. 


144 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


mainly responsible for the difference between Roundhead 
and Cavalier, between Royalist and Puritan. Round- 
heads and Puritans were descended from daughters and 
younger brothers. The “blue blood” flows oniy in the 
veins of the eldest son. But the eldest son of the eldest 
son forms but a very small fragment of the whole. 
Galton’s remark to the effect that the character of Eng- 
land has suffered through the segregation of its strong- 
est representatives as nobility and their exposure to the 
deteriorating influences of ease and unearned power is 
scarcely justified. A few individuals have suffered, but 
not England. They are only the conspicuous few. The 
rest have joined the mass of common men whose great- 
ness makes England great. 

One of the many daughters of some king marries a 
nobleman; a later scion of nobility is joined to some 
squire; some daughter of a squire is 
married to a farmer. The farmer’s chil- 
dren thus have royal blood in their 

veins. Or, by reverse process, plebeian blood may 
enter—and to its advantage—the bluest of nobility. 
The thirty generations since William’s time each con- 
tain a far and wide mixture of blood. That the de- 
scendants of these crosses are alive to-day indicates 
that in the main each individual has a sound heredity. 
‘For a rotten link means the breaking of the chain. 
‘Even royal blood is not necessarily degenerate. That 
, which was so has been strengthened by plebeian strains. 
There can be few if any Englishmen or Americans to- 
day but have royal blood in their veins. There is 
probably not a king living who has not somewhere 
in his ancestry the bar sinister of the common peas- 
ant. For of one blood, after all, are all the nations 
of the earth, as well as the men that make up these 
nations. 


Effect of 
primogeniture. 


THE HEREDITY OF RICHARD ROE, 145 


Another necessary conclusion is this, that race char- 
acteristics imply direct personal relationship among 
those who exhibit them. The English- 
men of to-day are such because they 
are related by blood. They are the 
variously intermingled descendants of 
some few. robust families of a thousand years ago, a 
hundred thousand of them at the most, “Saxon and 
Norman and Dane are we.” From these families— 
Dane, Norman, and Saxon—the weak, the infertile, and 
the unfortunate are constantly undergoing elimination, 
leaving the strong and fecund to persist. The withered 
branches are only kept in existence through misplaced 
charity which continues the pauper; or through bad so- 
cial conditions which propagate the criminal. Pauper- 
ism, criminality, and folly have their lineage, but it is 
not a long one; and wiser councils will make it shorter 
than it now is. This persistence of the strong shows 
itself in the prevalence of the leading qualities in the 
dominate strains. To these dominant ancestors every 
line of deviation will be found to lead, when we come to 
follow it, backward. In following the pedigree of an 
individual backward for a thousand years, we find that 
millions of duplications must occur in his ancestry. 
That is, thousands of persons would be reached from 
one to a thousand times each in the following up of 
different ancestral lines. The growth of colonial types 
comes from the narrowing of the range of crossing 
and from intermarriage with lines not English, which 
occurs most frequently outside of England. This is 
especially true in the United States. But in a few 
centuries these same conditions will unite to form 
a “Brother Jonathan” as definite in qualities and as 
“set in his ways’ as his ancestor, the traditional 
“John Bull.” 


Origin of the 
English charac- 
ter. 


146 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Race types thus arise from the “ survival of the ex- 
isting,” its best results modified and preserved by the 
“survival of the fittest.” Actual pres- 
Race typesand ence in a country of certain ancestral 
the survival of J : 
che existing, stocks is the first element. Their char- 
acters become workable, durable, and at 
last “ineradicable” by the survival of those in whom 
those characters are elements of life. An “ unwork- 
able” heredity destroys its possessor, and with him the 
line of possible descent. 


VI. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 
By FRANK MAcE McFaRLanD. 


ALt living organisms, animals as well as plants, are 
built up of certain elementary parts or units termed 
cells. No matter how widely divergent 
in external appearance or habitat they 
may be, the elephant and the lily, the sponge and the 
palm, are each aggregations of structural units, funda- 
mentally alike, and no form of animal or plant life is 
known to exist which does not conform to this general 
law. To the studies of Schleiden upon plants and of 
Schwann upon animals (1838-39) we owe the foundation 
of the “cell theory,” more precisely formulated by Max 
Schultze in 1861. Since the time of these pioneer 
studies upon the cell, investigation has been carried on 
by a constantly increasing number of students with 
methods and instruments steadily improved in their 
efficiency, and the accumulated results already throw a 
wealth of light upon some of the most abstruse prob- 
lems of biology. Yet the most enthusiastic and san- 
guine of these workers will not assert that we have 
advanced further than the threshold of this domain in 
which are concealed the answers to the questions as to 
the ultimate structure of living matter and even to the 
very nature of life itself. 


The cell theory. 


147 


148 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


The accumulating results of patient study have 
totally changed the earlier conceptions of the cell. Two 
and a quarter centuries ago, by the aid of the newly in- 
vented microscope, minute cavities were discovered in 
certain plant tissues, and from their resemblance to a 
honeycomb were termed “cells.” This study of such 
substances as ordinary cork, in which the cells are dead 
and empty, easily led to the idea that the cell wall was 
the all-important feature, and it has not been until 
within the past forty years that this error has been set 
aside. The name “cell” itself is some- 
what misleading in that it implies, in the 
ordinary usage, a cavity with definite 
walls of considerable firmness, which is by no means 
always true. Great groups of cells have no solid walls 
whatever, but are soft and changeable in form, and the 
majority of cells have no cavities, but are masses of 
semifluid consistence. The appearance of empty cavi- 
ties, or clear fluid-filled spaces, is a condition which 
comes about in plant cells late in life, and scarcely ever 
in animal ones. The unwearied study of biologists, 
aided by constantly improved instruments and methods 
of research, have shown that it is the contents of the 
cell which form the essential living substance. But, 
although the cell wall has lost the significance which it 
formerly was held to possess, the term cell has become 
firmly fixed by usage, and such terms as “ Energide,” 
as proposed by Sachs, though much more happily chosen, 
are very slow of adoption. 

The simplest forms of life of which we know any- 
thing are minute microscopic organisms found in both 
fresh and salt water and under the most varied condi- 
tions. Each one of these is composed of a single cell, 
and each one carries out in a general way the varied 
functions of movement, respiration, growth and multi- 


The meaning of 
the term ‘‘ cell.” 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 149 


plication, assimilation, secretion, excretion, irritability, 
etc., functions which, in multicellular organisms, are di- 
vided up among a vast number of the 
constituent cells. Thus while the one- 
celled amceba has its muscular, nervous, 
and digestive systems united within the 
limits of a single microscopic mass of protoplasm, the 
higher animals have their various functions divided up 
among definite groups of thousands and millions of cells, 
each group carrying out some particular function. In 
response to this physiological division of labour among 
the cells has come about a corresponding modification 
in their structure, so that we find certain forms and types 
characteristic of the particular function which the re- 
spective cells carry out. The muscle cell, for example, 
is one whose special work is that of contraction. Within 
its substance has been developed a system of highly con- 
tractile fibrils, and the whole cell has assumed an elon- 
gated shape. For this one function of contractility have 
been sacrificed more or less completely the other prop- 
erties of protoplasm, and thus it has become dependent 
upon its fellows which have assumed various other 
functions. The bone cell, the gland cell, the epithelial 
cell—all have equally complicated specializations of 
structure in other directions and, all united together 
into an organic community, are co-ordinated and di- 
rected in their various activities by the nerve cells. 
However diverse the form and function of the adult 
tissues may be, they all have the same fundamental 
structure, and they all have a common 
The essential = Grigin and descent from the fertilized 
parts of the cell. : 
egg cell. The essential parts of a cell 
consist of the cell body and the cell nucleus, which to- 
gether make up the living substance. The body of the 
cell is made up principally of a granular, viscid, semi- 


Unicellular and 
multicellular 
organisms, 


150 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


fluid substance termed protoplasm or cytoplasm. By 
this term is understood not a homogeneous, definite 
chemical substance, but rather an organ- 
ized association of extremely complex. 
organic compounds, belonging mainly to the group of 
proteids. The majority of these substances are but lit- 
tle understood as yet, nor is this at all surprising when 
we reflect that the living cell is the theater of constant 
changes, both synthetic and analytic, and that the dead 
protoplasm subjected to the chemist’s analyses is no 
longer protoplasm, but has suffered profound transfor- 
mations in passing from the living to the lifeless con- 
dition. 

In its simplest form the cell is an approximately 
spherical, viscid, granular structure in which oftentimes 
there may be made out, in the living state, more solid 
substances in the form of threads or networks of delicate 
filaments. This threadwork is probably made up of 
rows of granules, and varies in arrangement in different 
cells and in different parts of the same cell. Within 
the meshes of this reticulum is inclosed a clearer fluid- 
like portion—the cytolymph or hyaloplasm. 

Inclosed in the cytoplasm lies a spherical or ovoidal 
body—the nucleus—set off from the rest of the cell by 
amore or less distinct boundary mem- 
brane. This structure is of constant 
occurrence in all cells, and plays an extremely impor- 
tant part in their life history, forming apparently the 
controlling centre of the constructive processes in growth 
and multiplication, Its significance will be better un- 
derstood further on in connection with the problems of 
cell development and heredity. 

In chemical and physical properties the nucleus 
differs markedly from the rest of the protoplasm. When 
studied in detail by the aid of suitable reagents and 


The protoplasm. 


The nucleus. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. ISI 


magnification, it is found to consist essentially of a 
delicate network or system of threads, the “linin net- 
work,” bearing granules of a substance rich in phos- 
phorus, which, from its affinity for certain staining 
fluids, has been termed “chromatin,” One or more 
rounded structures, behaving in certain definite ways 
toward reagents, may also be found in the nucleus. 
These, the “nucleoli,” are probably not always of the 
same nature in different cells, and their significance is 
at present much less clearly understood than is the case 
with the other nuclear structures. Filling the meshes 
of the nuclear network is found a clear semi-fluid ma- 
terial, the “ karyolymph,” and a more or less clearly de- 
fined wall, the nuclear membrane, incloses the nuclear 
substances and separates them from the cytoplasm. 

In 1876 Van Beneden announced the discovery of a 
minute rounded body at the poles of the spindle in the 
dividing eggs of Dicyemids, which has since been found 
in nearly all kinds of animal cells, both in division and 
in the “resting condition,” and may probably be re- 
garded as of universal occurrence, so far at least as 
animal cells are concerned. In plants, however, it has 
thus far been identified with certainty in but few forms. 
To this structure Boveri, in 1888, gave 
the name of “centrosome,” and showed 
it to be a cell organ of probably constant occurrence 
and of the greatest significance in cell multiplication. 
It often lies in a more or less specialized area of the 
cytoplasm, the ‘attraction sphere,” or “archoplasm,” 
near the nucleus, but in some forms it is doubtless with- 
out any such surrounding structure. 

The foregoing paragraphs must be taken merely as 
the briefest outline of cell structure. It would far ex- 
ceed the limits of this article to attempt to discuss the 
finer detail of the subject, or to enter upon the many 


The centrosome. 


152 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


points of interest which are still a matter of contro-- 
versy. 

According to many earlier observers, and especially 
clearly enunciated by the pioneers of the cell theory, 
Schleiden and Schwann, it was generally assumed that 
cells arose by a sort of crystallization out of an unorgan- 
ized ground substance—the “cytoblastema” of Schlei- 
den. This idea, however, was soon overthrown by the 
more complete observations of von Mohl, Unger, 
Naegeli, Remak, Kélliker, and others, and the founda- 
tion was laid for the important generalization of Vir- 
chow, “ omnis cellula e cellula,”’ which has since become one 
of the most fundamental principles of 
biology. Every cell is derived from a 
pre-existing cell by a process of division, 
and this process has gone on unceasingly from the time 
when life first began down to the present moment. All 
life comes from pre-existing life, and, whatever may have 
in some past time occurred, the spontaneous production 
of living substance from a non-living condition does not 
now exist. 

One of the earliest results of the study of cell multi- 
plication was the discovery that division of the nucleus 
precedes the division of the cell body. Furthermore, a 
careful examination of the different phases of the pro- 
cess offers the strongest proof that the most important 
feature of this division, an end to which all the other 
processes are subsidiary, is the exact halving of a certain 
nuclear substance, the chromatin, between the two 
daughter cells which result from the division. To gain 
a clear conception of this process of in- 
direct cell division, or “ karyokinesis,” 
let us consider the changes which take place in typical 
cell multiplication. Two parallel series of changes oc- 
cur nearly simultaneously, the one affecting the nucleus, 


Cell multipli- 
cation, 


Karyokinesis. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 153 


the other the cytoplasm. In the so-called “resting” 
nucleus—i. e., the nucleus not in active division—the 
chromatin, as we have seen, exists usually in the form 
of scattered granules arranged along the linin network, 
and does not colour readily with nuclear stains (Fig. 
5,4). As division approaches these chromatin gran- 
ules become aggregated together in certain definite © 
areas, forming usually a convoluted thread or skein, 
which now readily takes up the nuclear stains which may 
be used. In some nuclei this skein is in the form of a 
single long filament, in others the chromatin is divided 
up from the first into a series of segments, a condition 
which soon follows in the case of a single filament (Fig. 
5, 8). By transverse fission the latter breaks up into a 
series of segments, the “ chromosomes,” 
the number of which is constant for each 
species of animal or plant. Thus in the 
common mouse there are twenty-four, in the onion 
sixteen, in the sea urchin eighteen, and in certain sharks 
thirty-six. The number may be quite small, as, for ex- 
ample, in Ascaris, a cylindrical parasitic worm inhabiting 
the alimentary canal of the horse. Here the number is 
either two or four, depending upon the variety exam- 
ined. In other forms the number may be so large as 
to render counting exceedingly difficult or impossible. 
In all cases, however, one fact is to be especially noted 
—viz., the number is always an evez one, a striking fact 
which finds its explanation in the phenomena of fertil- 
ization to be discussed later on. 

While the chromatin is collecting into the form of 
the chromosomes the nuclear membrane has disappeared. 
The chromosomes soon reach their maximum staining 
capacity, and appear usually as a collection of rods or 
bands of deeply staining substance lying free in the 
cytoplasm (Fig. 5, C). 


The chromo- 
somes, 


154 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


While this is taking place in the nucleus, another 
series of changes has been gone through with by the 
centrosome and the cytoplasm immedi- 
ately surrounding it. We have already 
indicated the presence of the centrosome 
as a minute spherical structure lying at one side of the 
nucleus. This body assumes an ellipsoidal form, con- 
stricts transversely into a dumbbell-shaped figure, and 
divides into two daughter centrosomes, which at first lie 
side by side but soon move apart (Fig. 5, 4). Around 
each of them is gradually developed a stellate figure 
composed of a countless number of delicate fibrils radi- 
ating out in all directions from the centrosome as a 
centre. This “aster” or ‘astrosphere ” is at first small 
in extent, but grows in size progressively as the two 
centres move apart, apparently being derived from a re- 
arrangement and modification of the thread-like net- 
work of the cytoplasm under the influence of the cen- 
trosomes (Fig. 5, B and C). 

Between these two asters, which lie a short distance 
apart and at one side of the nucleus, a spindle-shaped 
system of delicate fibrils may often be 
made out, stretching from the centre of 
one aster to that of the other. This fusiform figure is 
termed the “central spindle” (Fig. 5, D). The two 
asters, together with the central spindle, form what is 
termed the “amphiaster ” or the “achromatic” portion 
of the karyokinetic figure. The two series of changes 
in nucleus and cytoplasm, which have thus far gone on 
apparently independently of each other, now become 
closely interrelated in that, as the nuclear membrane 
disappears, a ‘system of fibrils grows out from each 
astrosphere which attach themselves to the individual 
chromosomes (Fig. 5, .). These “ mantle fibres” insert 
themselves along the chromosomes in such a way that 


Division of the 
centrosome. 


The spindle. 


Fic. 5.—Cell division in the Salamander. (After Drier.) 


A, resting nucleus stage, centrosome below divided. B, skein stage, th i 
2 ; e 
visible as a computed Band} ihe on nee centrosomes have ep ge, ; chromate. 
membrane has disappeared, a few of the chromosomes lying free in the cytopl 
central spindle complete, the chromosomes, already splitting are bein; drawn Eeweie 
le. E, metaph , anap The chromosomes are drawn to the poles, 


155 


156 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


each segment receives a series of fibrils from each pole 
of the amphiaster, the two series being attached along 
opposite sides of the chromosomes, Under the influence 
of these fibres, probably by direct pulling, the chromo- 
somes, now bent into V- or U-shaped loops, tend to place 
themselves in a circle around the centre of the spindle, 
transversely to its long axis, and form the “ equatorial 
plate” (Fig. 5, 2). 

The changes thus far constitute the “ prophases ” of 
the division. The “metaphases” following these con- 
sist primarily in the longitudinal splitting 
of each chromosome and the moving 
apart of the halves. This longitudinal 
splitting of theechromosome into two equivalent parts 
forms the most important act of the whole cell division, 
and is of the greatest theoretical significance. By it 
the chromatin substance of the original nucleus is equally 
distributed between the two daughter nuclei, so that 
each receives a half of each original chromosome. The 
elaborate mechanism and consequent expenditure of 
energy involved in this careful longitudinal division of 
each chromosome, rather than a simple mass division, 
such as might be brought about by far less complicated 
means, indicates clearly that the distribution of the defi- 
nite organization of the chromatin to the daughter cells 
is of primary importance, a conclusion which is further 
strengthened by much evidence too extended to be en- 
tered upon here. 

In the ““anaphases” and “telophases,” which in- 
clude the closing stages of division, the daughter chro- 
mosomes migrate along the fibres of the central spindle 
toward its poles, perhaps through the direct contraction 
of the mantle fibres under the influence of the centro- 
some, though this and many other points regarding the 
forces at work must be left for future investigation 


Splitting of the 
chromosomes. 


¢ 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 157 


to decide (Fig. 5, #). Arrived at the poles the V- 
shaped chromosomes become grouped in a star-shaped 
figure, the “aster,” their outer ends become again 
joined together in the form of a tangled skein, the in- 
dividual chromatin granules separate somewhat along 
the threads of the linin network, their deeply staining 
quality is decreased, and a new nuclear membrane devel- 
ops around each group of chromosomes. Simultaneous- 
ly with this the cytoplasm constricts across the middle 
of a somewhat elongated cell, resulting in complete di- 
vision in the equatorial plane of the spindle, and two 
separate daughter cells result. Each of these is made 
up of cytoplasm containing a centrosome and a nucleus, 
similar in all respects to the parent cell from which it 
-has arisen. 

A simple tabulation of the changes just described is 
as follows: 


Phases of Cell Division by Karyokinesis. 


I. Prophases.... Skein stage of chromatin. 


1. Resting nucleus. 
2; 

3. Segmented skein. 
4. 


II. Metaphase.... | Equatorial plate and splitting of 


chromosomes. 

5. Movement of chromosomes to poles 
III. Anaphases.... and formation of 

6. Segmented daughter skeins. 


IV. Telophases.... ) 7: Reconstruction of nucleus. 
8. Division of cytoplasm. 


It is readily seen that the culmination of the process 
lies in the splitting of the chromosomes and the separa- 
tion of their component halves to form the two new 
daughter nuclei. 

In the foregoing description of the changes typ- ° 
ically passed through by an animal cell in division, 


158 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


no attempt has been made even to indicate the many 
variations in detail which occur in different animals and 
plants. These are numerous, but do not affect the gen- 
eral plan nor the fundamental goal, which is always and 
invariably the same—viz., the equal, longitudinal divi- 
sion of the chromosomes or the chromatin band of the 
parent nucleus between the two daughter nuclei. 
Another method of cell division, formerly taken to 
be the universal one, has since been shown to occur 
solely as a stage in the degenerative 
changes of cells which are upon the 
downward road to disintegration, and in 
which the power of multiplication is about at an end. 
In this, the “direct ” or “amitotic”” form of cell divi- 
sion, the cell nucleus is simply constricted into two por- 
tions preceding the constriction of the cytoplasm. This 
method stands in marked contrast to the elaborate 
mechanism which insures the exact distribution of the 
nuclear substance in the karyokinetic or indirect method. 


‘* Direct ” 
division. 


Every multicellular organism arises by a process of 
division from a single cell, the fertilized germ or egg 
cell, which in turn has been cut off from the cells of a 
pre-existing individual. Out of the group of cells which 
result from the continued division of the germ cell and 
its descendants are differentiated the various tissues and 
organs of the body through which the vital functions are 
carried on. Those tissues and organs which perform 
functions pertaining directly to the existence of the indi- 
vidual have been termed “ somatic,” and 
their constituent cells the “somatic ” or 
body cells, in contradistinction to the 
reproductive tissues or cells whose func- 
tion concerns the continuance of the species. In some 
forms these two groups of cells, the somatic and the 


‘“Somatic ” and 
reproductive 
tissues. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 159 


reproductive, become isolated from each other quite 
early in development; in one case, indeed, the differen- 
tiation of reproductive cells from the somatic ones has 
been traced by Boveri back to the first division of the egg. 
This case of Ascaris megalocephala is so striking and of such 
fundamental theoretical importance that it must not be 
passed without notice, for in it we find marked differences 
‘between the somatic and reproductive cells in their nu- 
clear structure, their relative amount of chromatin, and 
mode of division. The egg of Ascaris has been the 
classical object for cytological studies on account of its 
small number of chromosomes (two in variety univalens, 
four in Jivalens), their large size, and the diagrammatic 
clearness of the changes which take place in division. 
In the division of the fertilized egg cell we have two 
(in univalens) long chromosomes handed over to each 
‘daughter cell. As these two cells in 
Differentiation of turn divide, a striking difference is seen 
reproductive and in the karyokinetic figures. In Fig. 6, 
somatic tissues Z 
a ional: A, such a two-celled stage is seen from 
the pole; in Fig. 6, 4, a slightly later 
stage in side view of the spindle. In the upper cell 
of Fig. 6, 4, the division is of the usual form, the two 
chromosomes split longitudinally, and their two halves 
travel to opposite poles of the spindle (Fig. 6, 2). But 
in the lower cell this is not the case. The central por- 
tion of the two chromosomes is broken up into a large 
number of minute chromatin granules which divide, and, 
as shown in Fig. 6, B, form the only portion of the chro- 
mosomes drawn up to the poles and entering into the 
structure of the resting nuclei after the division is com- 
plete. The large swollen outer ends of the chromo- 
somes are cast off into the cytoplasm and are eventually 
absorbed, playing no further part as nuclear structures. 
Fig. 6, C, shows the four-celled stage, in which a marked 
12 


160 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


difference in the size of the nuclei of the upper and lower 
cells is visible. Lying near the margins of the lower 


Fic. 6.—Reduction of the chromatin in the cleavage of the egg of Ascaris 
megalocephala var. univalens. (After Boveri.) 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 161 


cells are the remnants of the ends of the chromosomes 
which have been cast off in the division. In Fig. 6, D, 
the four-celled stage is shown with the karyokinetic 
figures of the next division. In the lower cells the 
spindles are seen from the pole, the chromatin is pres- 
ent in the reduced amount in the form of small granules. 
In the upper left-hand cell the two full chromosomes 
are seen, each split longitudinally, while the upper right- 
hand cell shows a repetition of the reduction phenomenon 
—viz., the central portion of the two chromosomes, 
broken up into granules, alone enters into the spindle 
figure, the outer ends being cast off into the cytoplasm, 
where they suffer a similar fate to those of the lower 
cell in the previous division. The next division repeats 
the process, one cell retaining two full chromosomes, 
while all the others have the reduced amount. This 
takes place for five successive divisions and then ceases; 
from the one cell having the two full chromosomes, 
the reproductive tissues develop, the others with reduced 
chromatin form the somatic tissues. Thus is accom- 
plished a wéstble structural differentiation of the nuclei of 
the reproductive cells which distinguishes them sharply 
from all the somatic tissues in Ascarzs, We shall see 
further on that there is abundant evidence in favour of 
the theory that the nucleus—i. e., the chromatin—is the 
bearer of hereditary influences from one generation to 
the next, and that the specific development and functions 
of each individual cell are dependent upon the specific 
changes which take place in the chromatin of its nucleus. 
In this light the almost isolated case of Ascaris pos- 
sesses a value and interest that can not be overesti- 
mated. 

While in the higher forms of animals and plants we 
find a sharp differentiation of their tissues into somatic 
and reproductive or germ cells, we must bear in mind 


162 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


that not in all forms is this power of the reproduction 
of the whole organism so sharply limited to the germ 
cells alone. The familiar propagation of plants by cut- 
tings, the regeneration of complete animals from small 
portions of their somatic tissues in many lower forms, 
and numerous other considerations such as these, show 
clearly that the difference between the powers of somatic 
and germinal cells is but one of degree; that while in 
higher organisms the two seem sharply defined from 
each other, a series of lower forms may be taken which 
will show the intermediate steps in this gradual speciali- 
zation of function. 

In the unicellular organisms we have most interest- 
ing examples of the fundamental facts of reproduction, 
and through an examination of these 
we may gain an insight into the more 
complicated processes of the Metazoa. 
Each of these lowest forms consists of a single cell in 
which are carried out in a generalized way the complex 
physiological functions which, in many celled animals, 
are divided up among cell groups. In reproduction the 
animal simply divides into two, the division of the 
nucleus preceding that of the cytoplasm, and the 
method is usually a more or less modified karyokinetic 
one. This mode of multiplication continues in most 
forms for a certain number of generations, and then the » 
necessity for conjugation—i.e., a temporary or perma- 
nent fusion with another individual—sets in. If this 
conjugation be prevented, the animal 
soon shows increasing signs of degen- 
eration which result in death. This “senescence” of 
the powers of growth and multiplication can only be 
checked by the admixture of new zuclear substances 
from an entirely different individual by conjugation. 
In its simplest terms this process is found in Chzlodon, 


Reproduction in 
Protozoa. 


Conjugation. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 163 


according to Henneguy. CAilodon is a minute fresh- 
water infusorian, which multiplies for a considerable 
period of time by transverse division. After a time, 
however, the physiological necessity for conjugation 
ensues. The animals having placed themselves side by 
side in pairs and partly fused together, the nucleus of 
each individual divides into two portions, one of which 
passes from each infusor into the other to unite with the 
half remaining stationary. The two then separate, each 
having received a half of the nucleus of the other. 
After thus trading experiences, as it might be termed, a 
period of renewed vigour and activity for each sets in, 
manifested in rapid growth and multiplication by divis- 
ion, producing a large number of generations, which 
continues until weakening vital activities indicate the 
periodically recurring necessity for conjugation. In gen- 
eral, among the Infusoria we find the same process tak- 
ing place in regular cyclical order, with more or less 
complicated variations of the phenomena just outlined 
for Chilodon. In all of them the aim of the conjugation 
is the same, the exchange of a certain amount of nuclear 
substance between the two conjugating individuals, and the 
same physiological effect is reached, a rejuvenescence, 
as it were, of the two organisms which manifests itself 
in renewed vigour of growth and multiplication. 

In some of the lowest forms of unicellular life—for 
example, the Schizomycetes or bacteria and their allies 
—this necessity for conjugation does not appear to 
exist, but for the vast majority of forms this cyclical 
law of development holds good. In the Protozoa no 
division into somatic and germinal cells is found, both 
functions being united in the one cell which forms the 
whole body of the organism. .In the Metazoa, however, 
this differentiation has taken place; the germinal cells 
are set apart for the preservation of the race; the so- 


164 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


matic cells carry on their various functions for a time, 
grow old, die, and disappear, certain of the germ cells 
alone surviving in the production of new individuals. 
On the borderland between the unicellular and the mul- 
ticellular organisms, however, stand certain colonial 
forms, which show an exquisitely graded series of steps, 
from the conditions of unicellular multiplication to 
those of the multicellular forms. Let us examine a 
few examples of these. Pandorina morum is a minute 
fresh-water Alga, consisting of a colony 
of sixteen ovoid cells imbedded in a 
spherical mass of a jelly-like substance. 
From each of these cells two long, hair- 
like flagelle extend out freely into the water, and by 
their lashing to and fro the colony is propelled from 
place to place (Fig. 7, 4). In multiplication by simple 
division each one of these cells divides into a group 
of sixteen daughter cells, the general gelatinous inter- 
cellular substance of the parent colony dissolves, the 
sixteen daughter colonies become free, and by continu- 
ous growth soon attain the size of the parent colony 
(Fig. 7, 2). After a certain number of generations 
produced in this manner, the necessity for reproduction 
by conjugation ensues. In this method the sixteen cells 
of a colony divide, each one usually into eight minute 
cells, which are set free in the water by the dissolution 
of the common gelatinous envelope (Fig. 7, C). Each 
one of these swarm spores, or “ zoospores,” consists of 
an oval, greenish cell, the pointed end of which is hya- 
line and bears two long cilia, by means of which the 
spore swims through the water (Fig. 7, K). These zoo- 
spores are not all of exactly the same size, but no great 
difference is noticeable. If the zoospores from two 
different colonies come near each other, they unite in 
pairs made up of individuals of the same or of different 


Gradual differ- 
entiation of re- 
ductive cells. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 165 


sizes (Fig. 7,.D). These coalesce, round up into a spher- 
ical cell (Fig. 7, £, F), which soon develops an envelop- 
ing cellulose wall, and passes as a “zygote” into a rest- 
ing stage (Fig. 7, G). In this condition the organism 


Fic. 7.—Development of Pandorina morum. A, a swarming family ; 
B, a similar family divided into sixteen daughter families ; C, a sex- 
ual family, the individual cells of which are escaping from the com- 
mon gelatinous investment; D, E, conjugation of pairs of swarm 
spores ; F, a young zygote; G,a mature zygote; H, transformation 
of the contents of a zygote into a large swarm cell; I, the same, 
free; J,a young family developed from the latter; K, a free swim- 
ming swarm spore, (After Pringsheim.) 


166. FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


may remain dormant for a long time, thus tiding over 
a period of drouth, the winter months, etc. After this 
resting period, if brought under suitable conditions of 
moisture, the outer wall of the zygote ruptures, the con- 
tents escape in the form of a large swarm spore, which 
swims about for a time and then divides into the sixteen 
cells of a new colony (Fig. 7, A, 7, /). 

In Ludorina elegans, a form closely related to Pan- 
dorina, there is a striking difference in the s¢ze of the 
conjugating zoospores. In this form 
sixteen or thirty-two cells are imbedded 
together in a common spherical gelat- 
inous mass. The asexual mode of reproduction is the 
same as in Pandorina, just described, each cell of a 
colony being transformed by successive divisions into a 
new colony of sixteen or thirty-two cells which becomes 
free from the parent colony. The sexual mode presents 
a difference in that the colonies differentiate into two 
sorts termed male and female. In the female colonies 
the cells become transformed into spherical egg cells or 
oospheres without further division. In the male colo- 
nies, however, each cell divides into sixteen or thirty- 
two antherozooids, minute, elongated cells, each pro- 
vided with two long cilia projecting from its anterior end 
(Fig. 8,4, B,C). These remain slightly united together 
in bundles and, escaping from the parent colony, swarm 
for a time in the water together. Coming in contact 
with a colony of oospheres, they break apart, penetrate 
into the gelatinous envelope, and find their way to the 
egg cells (Fig. 8, ). A single antherozooid fuses with 
each egg cell, and the conjugated pair form a resting 
zygote around which a cellulose wall forms, and from 
which, after a certain period of time, a new colony of 
sixteen or thirty-two cells develops. 

A third stage in the differentiation of the conjugating 


Reproduction in 
Eudorina, 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 167 


reproductive cells is found in Volvox globator. This form , 
consists of a hollow spherical colony of as many as 
twenty-two thousand cells placed in a 
single layer in a hyaline jelly-like sub- 
stance, and connected with each other by cytoplasmic 
processes. Each one of the cells is a somewhat ovoid 


Volvox. 


Fic. 8.—Zudorina elegans,a female colony around which antherozooids 
are swarming: A, cluster of antherozooids still united ; B, cluster 
of antherozooids just separating ; C, swarming antherozooids, some 
of which have already penetrated into the female colony D. (After 
Goebel.) 


mass of green-coloured protoplasm, and bears two long 
cilia upon its outer, pointed, hyaline end which project 
out into the water and, lashing to and fro, give to the 
whole colony a rotary motion. At'the time of reproduc- 
tion, certain cells of the colony undergo profound modi- 
fications. Some of them increase in size enormously, 
having reserve food material stored up in them, and 
become the egg cells or oospheres. Other cells divide 


168 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


into bundles of minute antherozooids (sixty-four to a 
hundred and twenty-eight). The remaining cells of the 
colony, remain in a vegetative condition, and eventu- 
ally die. In reproduction, one of the antherozooids 
fuses with one of the oospheres, a resting zygote is 
formed from which develops later a newcolony. Thus 
in the Volvox colony we meet with a differentiation into 
somatic or vegetative cells and reproductive cells, a dif- 
ferentiation which persists through all the multicellular 
plants and animals. 

A much larger series of forms might be cited to 
illustrate the phenomena of multiplication among uni- 
cellular organisms, which would show all stages of gra- 
dation in the relative size of the conjugating cells from 
those in which both are of equal size and are equally 
active, to such forms as Volvox, in which a great dif- 
ference in size exists, the larger, the oosphere, being 
non-motile and laden with food material, the smaller, 
the antherozooid, having the cytoplasm reduced to 
a very small amount and being endowed with high 
mobility. 

In multicellular organisms we meet with a continua- 
tion of the same facts. The animal egg is a single cell 
laden with a large amount of food yolk, 
and made up of nucleus and cytoplasm 
as the living elements. For the develop- 
ment of this egg, conjugation with another germ cell, 
derived from a different individual, is necessary. This 
germ cell is the spermatozooid, a minute cell consisting 
of nucleus and centrosome with a small amount of cyto- 
plasm modified primarily into an organ of locomotion, 
the tail. A physiological division of labour is here met 
with which admirably meets two diametrically opposed 
requirements, The one of these demands that the con- 
jugating cells be highly motile, and consequently small, 


Reproduction in 
Metazoa. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 169 


in order that they may be able to come together in the 
water in which they are usually set free. The second 
requires that there be furnished a sufficient amount of 
nutritive material for the nourishment of the embryo 
until it arrives at a stage of growth in which it can shift 
for itself. These two necessities have been met by a 
physiological division of labour between the two con- 
jugating cells. The one, the sperm cell, has become 
reduced in size with a corresponding gain in motility, 
the other, the egg cell, has had food yolk stored up in 
it, and its consequent increased size prevents any more 
than a very slight degree of independent movement, if 
any. Different stages of these modifications may be 
met with among unicellular forms, as illustrated above 
in Pandorina, Eudorina, and Volvox, to which might be 
added many others. In Pandorina the conjugating cells 
are of nearly equal size, in Audorina an intermediate 
condition is reached, while in Vo/vox the egg and sperm 
cells are sharply differentiated in size and motility. 
Again, in the first two and their allies a// of the cells are 
at first vegetative and afterward reproductive, while in 
Volvox the definite separation into vegetative or 
somatic, and reproductive or germinal cells makes its 

appearance. 
We arrive then at the conclusion, from the considera- 
tion of these and many other lines of evidence, that the 
germ cells were primitively exactly alike, 


Seon ara and that the differences between them 
e . . . . 
aaa have arisen in the process of differentia- 
germ cells. 


tion along two separate lines. Further- 

more, it is clear that the differences between the two 

sexes, which become strongly characterized in the higher 
vertebrates, are all of a purely secondary nature. 

In their early development the germ cells are indis- 

tinguishable from each other, and both pass through 


170 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


certain stages preliminary to their union, which are 
essentially alike. The animal egg is a large, more or 
less spherical cell, enveloped usually by 
certain membranes, containing a large 
nucleus and cytoplasm. The vast bulk of the egg 
cell, however, is made up of inert food material in the 
form of yolk granules, which are stored up in it as 
nourishment for the developing embryo. The nucleus, 
or germinal vesicle, is large, and contains a network of 
chromatin together with one or more conspicuous nucle- 
oli. There are three periods usually recognised in the 
development of the egg cell, viz.: 1. The period of 
multiplication; 2, the period of growth; and, 3, the 
period of maturation. The first period is characterized 
by a continued series of divisions of the primitive repro- 
ductive cell and its descendants, which produces a large 
number of “ovogonia.”’ Succeeding this is a period of 
growth in which the ovogonia increase greatly in size, 
mainly through the production and storing up of food 
yolk. At the close of this period the germ cell, now 
termed a “primary ovocyte,” enters upon the matura- 
tion period, in which it undergoes two divisions in rapid 
succession, by means of which two minute 
cells, the polar bodies, are cut off from 
the egg. Through these two divisions the number of 
chromosomes in the egg nucleus is reduced to one half 
that which is found in the other cells of the body. The 
first polar body also usually divides, and thus, at the 
close of the period of maturation, four cells result, one 
large mature egg cell, ready for the fertilization which 
initiates the development of the embryo, and three 
minute polar bodies, which are to be regarded simply as 
rudimentary eggs. The nuclei of these four cells are 
exactly alike in that they all contain the same number 
of chromosomes—i. e., one half the number in the somatic 


The egg cell. 


Maturation. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 171 


cells of the individual. The difference in size is due 
simply to the concentration of the food yolk and most 
of the cytoplasm in one of the cells, the other three de- 
generating, being sacrificed to the production of an egg 
cell with the largest possible supply of nutritive sub- 
stance in it. ‘ 

Turning to the development of the sperm cell we find 
an exactly parallel series of stages, the end results, how- 
ever, differing much in size. The mature 
spermatozoon is an exceedingly minute 
cell, consisting typically of a cylindrical or conical 
“head’’ containing a nucleus, a short cytoplasmic 
“middle piece,” and a long vibratile “ tail,” an organ 
of locomotion differentiated out of the cytoplasm of the 
cell from which the spermatozoon is derived. The 
stages of multiplication, growth, and maturation are 
passed through in the development of the spermatozoon 
in the same order as in the egg development, save that 
the period of growth does not include the storage of 
food yolk in the primary spermatocyte, and the two divis- 
ions of the maturation stages are equal ones, resulting 
in the production of four cells of the same size, each of 
which develops into a complete spermatozoon. The 
accompanying diagrams of Fig. 9, taken from Boveri, 
illustrate clearly the homologies existing between the 
life histories of the two sorts of germ cells. The earlier 
stages of ovogonia and spermatogonia are indistinguish- 
able from each other; later in the period of growth the 
increase in the size of the ovocyte marks it off from the 
minute spermatocyte, but this distinction is merely one 
due to non-living food material, and in no wise affects 
the fundamental identity of the two. In the maturation 
period the number of chromosomes in the nuclei of both 
egg and sperm is reduced one half—on the one hand, the 
ripe egg cell and three rudimentary egg cells (the polar 


The sperm cell. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


172 


on the other, four equal “ sperma- 


tids” are produced, which develop into four mature 


? 


bodies) being formed 


*poriad uoneinyeyy ] 


yonur 


jo Joguinu ou) 


“porta: 


(‘waA0g ayy) ‘33a ay} Jo 
quawudojaaap ay} Suneajsnyp wer8erq 


ere Per 


*porrad yyMorr) 


(‘x978013 
ST .SUOISTAIP 


nopeordry Nyy 
‘ 


6 ‘Oly 


(usa0g ayy) ‘uoozoyeuntads ayy 
Jo juowdopaap ay} Suneajsnyr wesserg 


‘pouad uoneanqeyy my 


“potad yyaiorn 


AVY] 


(‘x9ye013 


yonu st suorstaip 
jo Jaquinu oul) 
“ported woHeoyen [nA e 


‘ 


wee teeenees ete ane 


The contrast in size which exists between 


the two mature reproductive cells is enormous, the 


spermatozoa. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 173 


spermatozoon in some cases containing less than zgq4599 
(Wilson), and in extreme cases less than zo5pho005 
(Hertwig) of the volume of the egg cell. 

A discussion of the method by which the reduction 
of the chromosomes in the germ nuclei is brought about 
may profitably be deferred until the es- 
sential features of fertilization have been 
examined. The phenomena of the fusion of egg and 
sperm can best be studied in some such form as the sea 
urchin, in which the egg is very small and, in some spe- 
cies, quite transparent. As fertilization takes place free 
in the sea water, the germinal cells being cast out from 
the parents, it is possible to collect the eggs and sperm 
separately from mature individuals and bring them to- 
gether in small dishes of sea water, and at such times 
as may suit one’s convenience. Then in the living egg 
much of the process may be followed under the micro- 
scope, and properly prepared sections of the eggs killed 
by reagents at the various stages enable conclusions to 
be drawn as to matters of minute detail. Fig. 10, 4 to 
fF, presents a series of diagrams, taken from Boveri, illus- 
trating the principal facts in the process of fertiliza- 
tion. In Fig. 10, A, the egg is represented with its 
clear nucleus in the centre, surrounded by the egg mem- 
brane. Clustered around the periphery are a number of 
spermatozoa endeavouring to find their way into the 
substance of the egg. On the right-hand side in the 
figure one has penetrated the membrane and is shown 
passing into the egg cytoplasm, which puts forth a 
small conical prominence to meet it. As soon as the 
head of one sperm enters the egg cytoplasm a new 
membrane is formed around the egg which effectually 
prevents the entrance of any others. The head and 
middle piece penetrate into the egg, the tail usually re- 
maining imbedded in the membrane where it soon de- 


Fertilization. 


ct gy: 
ae 


h 


Fic. 10.—Diagrams illustrating the fertilization of the egg. 


‘ 

A, egg surrounded by spermatozoa ; on the right, one has just penetrated the egg 
membranes and is entering the egg cytoplasm; egg nucleus in the centre. B, egg 
nucleus with chromatin reticulum on left ; on right, the sperm nucleus preceded by 
its centrosome and attraction sphere. C, egg nucleus on the left, sperm nucleus on 
the right of the centre of the egg; stage immediately preceding the division of the 
centrosome. D, the centrosome has divided, the two attraction spheres separate to 
form the first cleavage spindle ; the chromosomes of the egg and sperm nuclei clearly 
visible and indistinguishable (in the figure the egg chromosomes are black, the sperm 
chromosomes shaded). E, the first cleavage spindle, with splitting of chromosomes. 
F, completion of first cleavage ; two-celled stage, each nucleus contains four chromo- 
somes—two from the egg and two from the sperm. (After Boveri.) 


174 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 175 


generates. A few moments after the sperm has entered 
a system of radiations appears around the middle piece, 
which develops into an aster surrounding the centrosome 
of the sperm (Fig. 10, &). The sperm nucleus swells 
up and rapidly increases in size, its chromatin changing 
from the compact condition in which it is arranged 
in the sperm head to a reticulate condition (Fig. 10, C). 
The chromatin reticulum of the egg nucleus becomes 
also more clearly visible. Sperm aster and sperm nu- 
cleus now move in toward the egg nucleus, the aster 
usually preceding. As the nuclei approach the sperm 
nucleus increases still more in size until it becomes in- 
distinguishable from the egg nucleus (Fig. 10, C). The 
chromatin network of each now breaks up into a number 
of chromosomes, one half of the number found in the 
somatic cells, and the nuclei come into contact, fusing 
together in some cases. In the sea urchin, Zchinus, the 
number of chromosomes is eighteen, nine would there- 
fore be found inthe germ nuclei; for the sake of clear- 
ness and simplicity but two are represented in the dia- 
gram, those of the sperm nucleus being slightly shaded 
while those of the egg nucleus are black. The centro- 
some divides together with its aster 
(Fig. 10, D), the two daughter centro- 
somes move apart to opposite poles of the egg, and the 
typical amphaster of cell division is formed (Fig. 10, Z), 
the nuclear membranes disappearing and the chromo- 
somes being drawn together into the equatorial plate 
where each splits longitudinally. The halves are drawn 
by the mantle fibrils toward the opposite poles and the 
egg divides transversely into two cells (Fig. 10, /). This 
process of division is repeated continuously in each of 
the resulting generations of cells, and from the mass 
‘of cells thus formed develops the new organism. Each 


cell in the two-celled stage has received half of its 
13 


Cleavage. 


176 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


chromosomes from the egg nucleus and half from the 
sperm, thus containing equal amounts from each par- 
ent. The centrosome, which, as we have seen, is to be 
regarded as the dynamic centre of the cell division, 
comes from the spermatozoon alone; the egg, on the 
other hand, furnishes the yolk and practically all of the 
cytoplasm. 

After this preliminary outline of the facts of fertiliza- 
tion we are in a better position to understand the details 
of a process which occurs in the develop- 
ment of both egg and sperm cells, name- 
ly, the reduction of the chromosomes. 
The necessity for such a reduction is 
evident from a moment’s reflection. We have seen that 
the number of chromosomes in the nucleus is a con- 
stant and typical one for each animal and plant species 
so far as known. As fertilization consists in the union 
of two cells into one, from which the young organism 
develops, it is plain that, were there no reduction, 
the number of chromosomes would be doubled in each 
succeeding generation. However simple this necessity 
for reduction may appear, the minutiz of the processes 
through which it is brought about, and the theoretical 
significance of these facts, form the most involved prob- 
lem of biology to-day. Ina few forms, especially among 
the lower Crustacea, the facts of the reduction are clear 
and relatively simple; in other forms they thus far stand 
in direct contradiction, and, for the present, a compre- 
hensive explanation applicable to all forms must be left 
to further investigation. 

The significance of reduction turns upon the concep- 
tion of a definite organization and individuality in the 
chromosomes and the assumption that they represent 
the physical basis of heredity—i. e., that they influence 
and determine into what the fertilized egg shall develop. 


The reduction 
of the chromo- 
somes, 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 177 


Fifteen years ago Wilhelm Roux showed with convincing 
clearness that the complicated facts of nuclear division, 
the careful longitudinal halving of the chromatin thread 
: and its equal distribution between the 
Theories asto two daughter cells, can only be explained 
structureandsig- on the basis that the chromosomes pos- 
nificance of the ; : . 
chromosomes,  S€88 different structure in different parts 
of their extent, and that these structures, 
representing tendencies in development, are distributed 
in definite ways to the daughter cells. Were this not 
the case a simple direct mass division of nucleus and 
cytoplasm instead of the complicated process of Karyo- 
kinesis with its consequent much greater expenditure of 
energy would serve all purposes. 

The theories of Weismann are all based upon an ex- 
tension of Roux’s ideas. Briefly, he assumes a definite 
architecture of the chromatin filament, each nuclear rod 
or zdant being composed of a number of “ancestral 
germ plasms or ids, the vital units of the third order. 
Each id in the germ plasm is built up of thousands or 
hundreds of thousands of determinants, the vital units 
of the second order, which in turn are composed of 
the actual bearers of vitality or dophors, the ultimate 
vital units. The biophors are of various kinds, and 
each kind corresponds to a different part of a cell; 
they are therefore the bearers of the characters or 
qualities of cells. Various but perfectly definite num- 
bers and combinations of these form the determi- 
nants, each of which is the primary constituent of a par- 
ticular cell, or of a small or even large group of cells— 
e. g., blood corpuscles.” 

“ These determinants control the cell by breaking up 
into biophors, which migrate into the cell body through 
the pores of the nuclear membrane, multiply there, ar- 
range themselves according to the forces within them, 


178 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


and determine the histological structure of the cell. 
But they only do so after a certain definitely prescribed 
period of development, during which they reach the cell 
which they have to control.” (Weismann, The Germ 
Plasm, pp. 75, 76.) 

Cell division, then, is a process of qualitative analysis 
through which the determinants, in virtue of possessing 
a certain definite location in the archi- 
tecture of the chromosome, are dis- 
tributed ultimately to that portion of 
the body which they are to direct. Weismann has devel- 
oped this theory to a most elaborate degree of compli- 
cation in explaining the various phenomena of heredity 
—to a degree, it need hardly be remarked, which passes 
far beyond our present knowledge of the facts of cytol- 
ogy. Just as the chemist and physicist, however, are 
forced to the assumption of the existence of ultimate 
atoms and molecules to explain the phenomena of non- 
living matter, so the biologist must in some form or 
‘other .assume the reality of ultimate self-propagating 
vital units, be they called “biophors” with Weismann, 
“micelle” with Negeli, ““pangenes” with De Vries, 
“ plasomes ” with Wiesner, or “ physiological units” with 
Herbert Spencer 

In the light of this probable individuality and mor- 
phological organization of the chromosomes the method 
of their reduction in umber, preparatory 
to the fusion of the germ cells, becomes 
of the greatest significance; to those 
who may deny this individuality and definite architec- 
ture, the phenomena can have no great importance save 
as concerns a general mass reduction in the amount of 
the chromatin present in the germ nuclei. It may be 
assumed as true, in the majority of cases now accu- 
rately known, that the reduction takes place somewhere 


‘ The ultimate 
vital units. 


Significance of 
reduction. 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 179 


in or near the last two divisions of the germ cells pre- 
vious to their fusion—that is, in the egg—in the di- 
visions forming the polar bodies, and in the sperm, in 
the last two divisions of the spermatocyte which pro- 
duce the four spermatids out of which develop as many 
mature spermatozoa. The phenomenaare exactly homol- 
ogous in both cases, as has already been pointed out, 
differing only in the minor details which do not affect 
the end result. Two peculiar features mark these di- 
visions off from all the others which precede and follow 
them. One of these is the absence of an intermediate 
resting stage between them, the second division follow- 
ing immediately upon the first without the reconstitu- 
tion of the chromosomes into the skein stages. The 
second peculiarity lies in the fact that the chromatin 
masses (not the individual chromosomes) appear in one 
half the typical number of the chromosomes in the first 
division, and are usually arranged in “tetrads,” or 
groups of four rounded, deeply staining bodies connected 
by linin fibres. These tetrads are always one half the 
number of the original rod or thread-like chromosomes. 
Thus in Fig. 11, 4 represents a sperma- 

pres togonium nucleus of Ascaris with the 
scaris. A a 
7 four chromosomes, showing the longi- 
tudinal splitting preparatory to division. Fig. 11, 2, rep- 
resents an early spindle stage in the division of the 
primary spermatocyte, in which not four band-like 
chromosomes, but ‘wo tetrads, or chromatin groups of 
four rounded bodies are found. Fig. 11, C to /, show 
clearly the further steps in the spermatogenesis. In Fig. 
11, C, the tetrads are grouped in the equatorial plate, 
and in Fig. 11, D, in the closing stages of the first divi- 
sion into two spermatocytes, each tetrad has divided into 
two “dyads,” which are drawn to the poles, and the 
division of the cell body follows. Without an interven- 


Reduction in 


180 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


ing resting stage each spermatocyte now divided again, 
as in Fig. 11, # and F, each dyad now being separated 
into halves, so that in the spermatids of Fig. 11, #, but 


Fic. 11.—Reduction of chromosomes in the spermatogenesis of Ascaris 
megalocephala, var. bivalens; A, nucleus of a spermatogonium ; the 
typical number of chromosomes (four) is seen, each split longitu- 
dinally preparatory to the next division. B, young spindle stage of 
primary spermatocyte ; two tetrads are present, each formed by the 
double longitudinal splitting of a chromatin thread. C, the tetrads 
in the equatorial stage of the division. D, separation of dyads. 
E, the dyads in the succeeding division of the secondary spermato- 
cyte. F, completion of the division of the same ; each cell (sperma- 
tid) contains the reduced number of chromosomes (two). (After 
Brauer.) 


two chromatin masses are present. Thus the tetrads of 
the primary spermatocyte are divided up among the four 
spermatids, so that each of the latter receives one fourth 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 181 


of each tetrad. Since later stages show that the two 
chromatin masses in each spermatid of Fig. 11, /, repre- 
sents two chromosomes, we see that the number of chro- 
mosomes has been reduced from the four in Fig. 11, 4, to 
two in Fig. 11, /. Manifestly the key to the explanation 
lies in the relations which exist between the four chro- 
mosomes of Fig. 11, 4, and the tetrads of Fig. 11, 2. 
The two divisions consist merely in the distribution of 
the already separated parts of the tetrads; in the vear- 
rangement of the four chromosomes into the two tetrads 
lies the possibility of the reduction which is carried out 
by the following divisions. The problem thus resolves 
itself into the question, What ts the nature of each tetrad? 
Is it made up of a single chromosome, of two, of four, 
or have the constituent parts of the original four chro- 
mosomes become so completely rearranged and redis- 
tributed that their identity as such is completely lost ? 
Turning for a moment to the lower Crustacea, we find 
among the Copepods forms admirably suited for the 
careful following out of the changes 
taking place in the rearrangement of 
the chromosomes into the tetrads. To 
Riickert we owe the clearest account of the process as 
exhibited in the egg maturation of Cyc/ofs. Here the 
normal number is 22, or perhaps 24, the minute size 
rendering counting difficult. In Fig. 12, A to F, taken 
from Riickert, give the essential points of the forma- 
tion of the tetrads and their following divisions, not 
all the chromosomes being represented. In Fig. 12, A, 
the chromatin filament has broken up into one half the 
usual number of segments (chromosomes), and each 
shows the precocious longitudinal splitting. These 
segments shorten up into the double rods of Fig. 12, B, 
which in Fig. 12, C, are being arranged in the developing 
spindle. A comparison of these three figures will show 


Reduction in 
Crustacea. 


WN Spa 


ONS NAG 13? 
DYNAN 1/47 330 
da | AeGBy 


ee 


eps BEehrv 
ESF TIWSS SB 


LAT ANNS OLS 
BEL! KS: 


OgGos Ko! 7, O 
OOo NNT ee is 
CPs S530 

SRS 


Fic. 12.—Maturation of the egg of Cyclops (the full number of chromo- 
somes is not shown): A, germinal vesicle with the chromosomes 
already split longitudinally. B, the chromatin masses shortened, 
with indication of transverse division to form the tetrads. C, the 
young tetrads arranging themselves on the first polar-body spindle. 
D, tetrads in first polar-body spindle. E, separation of the dyads 
in the same. F, position of the dyads in second polar-body spindle ; 


the first polar body is shown above the margin of the egg. (After 
Rickert.) 


182 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 183 


clearly that each chromatin segment has divided both 
longitudinally and transversely, its parts shortening and ° 
arranging themselves in the tetrad formation of Fig. 12, 
D. The first division following separates the tetrad 
along the dongitudinal plane of its former splitting (Fig. 
12, £), and the second division along the ¢ransverse 
plane (Fig. 12, /). 

In Cyclops then the tetrads are formed by the chro- 
matin thread of the resting nucleus breaking up into one 
half the usual number of segments, and each of these in 
turn dividing longitudinally and transversely. A tetrad 
here is made up of ¢wo chromosomes slightly united end 
to end and split longitudinally. Thus if adcdef ---n rep- 
resent the unsegmented filament of the resting nucleus, 
a-b-c-d-e-f would show its breaking up into the normal 
number of chromosomes which split lengthwise, forming 
PPCLOF in the equatorial plate. In the Cyclops 
nucleus of Fig. A the filament has separated into the 
segments ad-cd-ef - - m, each of which has split longi- 
tudinally into = = z, 
subsequently becoming more apparent, gives to each 
. ele “ie, etc. By the first 
division, in the longitudinal plane, each daughter cell 
receives a half of each chromosome; in the second, 
however, in the vertical plane, this is not the case, as 
can be readily seen. This is clearly a qualitative di- 
vision, and the daughter cells receive unlike chromo- 
somes. This forms the “reducing division” in Weis- 
mann’s sense, and as such is a most beautiful demon- 
stration of his postulated reduction of the ancestral 
plasm. 

In Ascaris, however, the evidence is just as clear 


etc., and its transverse division, 


.  @ 
tetrad the composition 2 


184 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


that no reducing division in Weismann's sense takes 
place, though the actual number, of the chromosomes is 
also reduced. 

Boveri has shown for the egg and Brauer for the 
sperm that the tetrads arise by a double, longitudinal 
splitting of the chromatin filament which later breaks 
into two segments. Thus adcd would again represent 
the unsegmented filament, a-d-c-d the individual chromo- 
abe 
@ee 
dinary division. In the maturation of the egg and in 
spermatogenesis, however, the thread segments into ad, 
cd, and splits twice longitudinally into a. = 2s the 
two tetrads of Bin Fig. 11. The reduction of chromatin 
here is only a reduction in mass and not a qualitative 
one, in Weismann’s sense, as in the Crustacea and in- 
sects. In Ascaris the actual reduction in number of 
chromosomes takes place in the nucleus previous to the 
maturation divisions of the ovocyte and spermatocyte 
respectively. In Cyclops the formation of the tetrads is 
merely a pseudo-reduction, the actual reduction taking 
place in the second division which gives rise to the ma- 
ture egg on the one hand, or to the spermatids, which 
develop into the spermatozoa, on the other. 

One fundamental fact is clear in these divergent 
accounts. The number of the chromosomes is reduced 
in both sorts of the germinal cells as a preliminary to 
their union. Whether there is likewise a guaditative dis- 
tribution of the chromatin elements remains for future 
investigation to decide. 

From the facts of ordinary cell division we have seen 
the probability of the hypothesis that the chromatin of 
the nucleus is to be regarded as the bearer of hereditary 
qualities in the cell. The phenomena of fertilization 


somes, and & their splitting longitudinally in or- 


THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HEREDITY. 185 


greatly increase this probability. The offspring resem- 
bles both of its parents, and the paternal tendencies 
can be conveyed in the minute sperma- 
The chromatin tozoan head alone, which is constituted 
as the bearer of : : 
hereditary alle almost entirely of chromatin. The scrup- 
ences: ulous exactitude with which, in both 
germ cells, the chromosomes are reduced 
to one half the normal number preparatory to the union 
of the pronuclei in fertilization, and the distribution of 
the paternal and maternal chromatin 
equally to the resulting cells of cleav- 
age, lend added weight to the theory. It 
remained for the genius of Boveri by a brilliant experi- 
ment to raise this hypothesis to the plane of almost ab- 
solute certainty. The crucial test of the theory would 
be to remove the nucleus from one cell 
and to substitute it in the place of the 
nucleus of another. If the nucleus and 
cytoplasm thus brought into union are so constituted 
that they can exist together, then one of three things 
will happen. Either the qualities of the cell from which 
the nucleus was taken will develop, or those of the 
cytoplasm, or those formed by the union of both nucleus 
and cytoplasm. 

In this first case nuclear control will be demon- 
strated; in the second, cytoplasmic; and in the third, 
an interaction of both nucleus and cytoplasm will deter- 
mine the activities of the cell. 

Such an experiment was first tried by Rauber in en- 
deavouring to remove the nucleus of the fertilized frog’s 
egg, and to substitute for it the nucleus from a toad’s 
egg in the same stage of development. If the nucleus 
contains the hereditary influences, then a toad must 
develop from the union of frog’s cytoplasm and toad 
nucleus. The profound disturbances set up in the 


Indirect evi- 
dence. 


Direct experi- 
mental evidence. 


186 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


operation, however, effectively precluded any success, 
and the eggs did not develop. 

Boveri selected for his experiments the eggs of two 
different species of sea urchins, Echinus microtuberculatus 
and Stherechinus granularis, both found in abundance at 
Naples. He found that, if the minute eggs of either of 
these were shaken vigorously in a test tube, in a small 
amount of sea-water, for a few minutes, they would 
break up into variously sized fragments, some of which 
contained nuclei while others did not.. These fragments 
could be fertilized, and development would proceed reg- 
ularly, the dwarf larve resulting resembling in all par- 
ticulars the normal larve, save for a small percentage 
of deformation caused by the shaking. This develop- 
ment took place in the xon-nucleate fragments as well as 
in those which contained nuclei, the spermatozoa pene- 
trating into both with equal readiness. The larval 
forms of the two genera Lchinus and Shpherechinus are 
so sharply defined that they can be recognised at the 
end of the second or third day’s development with un- 
failing accuracy. Fig. 13, C and J, illustrate in front 
and side view a normal larva of Spherechinus, Fig. 13, 
A and B, the same of Echinus. The general contour 
and shape of the larva, and more especially the widely 
differing calcareous skeletons of the two forms, render 
their ready distinction a very easy matter, and a closer 
analysis will reveal a large number of minor points of 
difference. 

After determining these facts, Boveri’s next step was 
to cross-fertilize the eggs of Spherechinus with sperm 
from Echinus. In asmall percentage of cases this suc- 
ceeded, and the resulting larve were uniformly of a 
type as shown in Fig. 14, 4 and JZ, in front and side 
view—a form which stands midway between the nor- 
mal larve of the parents, and combines the character- 


Fic. 13.—A, normal larva of Echinus microtuberculatus ; front view. 
B, the same; side view. C, Normal larva of Spherechinus granu- 
Jaris ; front view. 1D, the same; side view. (After Boveri.) 


187 


188 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


istics of both. Thus the hybrid presents a new type, 
which was found to be likewise constant, and in no 
case did it approach the likeness of either the Zchinus 
or Spherechinus type, so as to be mistaken for them. 
Thus were established four preliminary essentials to 
the experiment, viz.: 

1. The constancy of the normal Zchinus larval type. 

2. The constancy of the normal Sphe@rechinus larval 
type. 

3. The constancy of the new hybrid type between 
Echinus & and Spherechinus 9 . 

4. The possibility of securing non-nucleated frag- 
ments of Spherechinus eggs by shaking, which were 
capable of fertilization, and from which dwarf larve 
might be reared. 

The crucial point in the experiment, as may have 
been already anticipated, was to cross-fertilize non-nu- 
cleated fragments of Spherechinus eggs with Echinus 
sperm. The type of larva resulting would decide the 
point in question. Here we may have a nucleus from 
one species introduced into the non-nucleated cyto- 
plasm of another species by a perfectly normal process 
—i. e., by the penetration of the spermatozoan into the 
egg. If the resulting larva be of the hybrid type, as 
shown in Fig. 14, A and B, then nucleus and cytoplasm 
both unite in determining the hereditary characteristics ; 
if the pure Spherechinus type of Fig. 13, Cand J, results, 
then the cytoplasm alone bears these influences; while, 
finally, if the type be that of Fig. 13, 4 and B, to the 
spermatozoan nucleus alone must be ascribed the heredi- 
tary qualities. The larve secured by Boveri were of 
the pure Echinus or paternal type, as is well shown in 
Fig. 14, Cand D. A comparison of these figures with 
Fig. 13, 4 and £&, show unmistakably that this is the 
case. No trace of the Spherechinus, or maternal, char- 


Fic. 14.—A, hybrid larva of Spherechinus 9, and Echinus 6; front 
view. B, the same; oblique, side view. C, dwarf hybrid larva of 
Spherechinus 9 (non-nucleated egg fragment), and Zchinus 6, of 
pure Lchinus type. D, the same larva in side view. (After 
Boveri.) 


189 


190 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


acteristics can be seen. The development of this larva 
has hence been determined solely by the nucleus of 
the spermatozoan—i.e., by the chromatin, which is thus 
experimentally demonstrated to be the bearer of the 
hereditary qualities in the cell, the material basis of 


heredity. 


VIL. 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 


In the present paper I shall consider certain facts 
of animal distribution as related to the origin of spe- 
: cies. There are many difficulties in 
eee aoe bringing the facts of geographical distri- 
bution down to the needs of concrete il- 
lustration. And in this connection it is especially im- 
portant to distinguish single illustrations from argu- 
ments. Isolated cases of geographical variations in 
species, for example, would not have great value as ar- 
guments for the development theory were the cases 
really isolated. The force lies in this fact, that these 
cases are typical; that what may be said of one is true 
of a thousand. In like manner the full force of the 
laws of homology and heredity can only be felt when 
their effect is cumulative, asin the mind of the anato- 
mist who has followed each organ through its protean 
disguises in a wide range of forms. Again, the force 
of the argument drawn from embryology does not come 
from a knowledge of the changes in a single egg. All 
these studies need the second premise, obtained by years 
of comparison in different fields of investigation, that 
no case is isolated. Without this premise, the argument 
would be incomplete. The few cases of development 
or change which can be brought to popular notice are 
simply illustrations and not proofs. 
14 IgI 


192 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


As Professor Bergen has well said, “It is important 
that we should understand that none of the kinds of 
evidence in favour of evolution loses so 
much by being represented only by 
scattered instances as the argument from 
distribution.” And, conversely, no argument is more 
conclusive when all the known facts are brought into 
consideration together. The universal fact of the muta- 
bility of species can be really understood or appreciated 
only by him who has seen with his own eyes the changes 
in multitudes of species. To the ordinary observer the 
species seem constant, just as the face of a cliff seems 
constant. To the student of Nature, mutability is 
everywhere. Just as the wind and rain and frost quietly 
but surely change the face of a cliff, so do other forces 
of Nature as quietly but as surely change the face of a 
species. 

It was this phase of the subject, the relation of spe- 
cies to geography, which first attracted the attention 
both of Darwin and Wallace. Both these observers 
noticed that island life is neither strictly like nor unlike 
the life of the nearest land, and that the degree of 
difference differs with the degree of isolation. Both 
were led from this fact to the theory of derivation, and 
to lay the greatest stress on the progressive modifica- 
tion resulting from the struggle for existence. 

In the voyage of the Beagle Darwin was brought 
in contact with the singular fauna of the Galapagos 
Islands, that cluster of volcanic rocks 
which lies in the open sea about six hun- 
dred miles west of the coasts of Ecuador 
and Peru. Thesea birds of these islands are essentially 
the same as those of the coast of Peru. So with most 
of the fishes. We can see how this might well be, for 
both sea birds and fishes can readily pass from the 


Cumulative 
evidence. 


The fauna of the 
Galapagos. 


' 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 193 


one region to the other. But the land birds, as well as 
the reptiles, insects, and plants, are mostly peculiar to 
the islands. The same species are found nowhere else. 
But other species very much like them in all respects 
are found, and these all live along the coast of Peru. 
In the Galapagos Islands, according to Darwin’s notes, 
“there are twenty-six land birds; of these, twenty-one, 
or perhaps twenty-three, are ranked as distinct species, 
and would commonly be assumed to have been here 
created; yet the close affinity of most of these birds to 
American species is manifest in every character, in their 
habits, gestures, and tones of voice. So it is with the 
other animals and with a large proportion of the plants. 
... The naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these 
volcanic islands in the Pacific, feels that he is standing 
on American land.” 

This question naturally arises: If these species have 
been created as we find them on the Galapagos, why is 
it that they should all be very similar in type to other 
animals, ving under wholly different conditions, but on a 
coast not far away? And, again, why are the ani- 
mals and plants of another cluster of volcanic islands— 
the Cape Verde Islands—similarly related to those of 
the neighbouring coast of Africa, and wholly unlike 
those of the Galapagos? If the animals were created 
to match their conditions of life, then those of the 
Galapagos should be like those of Cape Verde, the two 
archipelagoes being extremely alike in soil, climate, and 
physical surroundings. If the species on the islands 
are products of separate acts of creation, what is there 
in the nearness of the coasts of Africa or Peru to in- 
fluence the act of creation so as to cause the island 
species to be, as it were, echoes of those on shore ? 

If, on the other hand, we should adopt the obvious 
suggestion that both these clusters of islands have been 


“194 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


colonized by immigrants from the mainland, the fact of 
‘uniformity of type is accounted for, but what of the 
difference of species? If the change of conditions from 
‘continent to island cause such great and permanent 
changes as to form new species from the old, why may 
not like changes take place on the mainlands as well as 
on the islands? Andif possible on the mainland of South 
America, what evidence have we that species are per- 
manent anywhere? May they not be constantly chang- 
ing? May not what we now consider as distinct species 
be only the present phase in the changing history of the 
series of forms which constitute the species ? 

The studies of these and many similar facts can lead 
but to one conclusion: 

These volcanic islands rose from the sea destitute of 
land life. They were settled by the waifs of wind and 
of storm, birds and insects blown from 
the shore by trade winds, lizards car- 
ried on drift logs and floating vegetation. Of these 
waifs few came perhaps in any one year, and few per- 
haps of those who came made the islands their home; 
yet, as the centuries passed on, suitable inhabitants 
were found. That this is not fancy we know, for we 
have the knowledge of many ways in which animals are 
carried from their natural homes. One example of this 
may be seen by those who have approached our eastern 
shores by sea in the face of a storm. Hosts of land 
birds—sparrows, warblers, chickadees, and even wood- 
peckers—are carried out by the wind, a few falling ex- 
hausted on the decks of ships, a few others falling on 
off-shore islands, like the Bermudas, the remainder 
drowned in the sea. 

Of the immigrants to the Galapagos the majority 
doubtless die and leave no sign. A few will remain, 
multiply, and take possession, and their descendants are 


Island life. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 195 


thus native to the islands. But, isolated from the great 
mass of their species and bred under new surroundings, 
these island birds come to differ from 
their parents, and still more from the 
great mass of the land species of which 
their ancestors. were members. Separated from these, 
their individuality would manifest itself. ‘They would 
assume with new environment new friends, new. foes,. 
new conditions. They would develop qualities peculiar 
to themselves—qualities intensified by isolation. “Mi- 
gration,” says Dr. Coues, “holds species true; localiza~ 
tion lets them slip.” This would be more exactly: the 
truth should we say that localization holds peculiarities 
true; migration lets them slip. Local peculiarities dis- 
appear with wide association, and are intensified when 
individuals of similar peculiarities are kept together.: 
Should later migrations of the original land species. come 
to the islands, the individuals surviving would in time 
form new species, or, more likely, mixing with the mass: 
of those already arrived, their special characters would 
be lost in those of the majority. 

The Galapagos, first studied by Darwin, serve to 
us only as an illustration. The same problems come up 
in one guise or another in all questions 
of geographical distribution, whether of 
continent or island. The relation of 
the fauna of one region to that of another depends on. 
the ease with which barriers may be crossed. Distinct- 
ness is in direct proportion to isolation. What is true in’ 
this regard of the faunaof any region as a whole is like- 
wise true of any of its individual species. The degree of 
resemblance among individuals is in direct’ proportion 
to the freedom of their movements, and variations. within 
what we call specific limits is again proportionate to the. 
barriers which prevent equal and perfect diffusion. 


Effects of migra- 
tion on species. 


Effects of 
isolation. 


196 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


The various divisions or realms into which the sur- 
face of the earth may be divided on the basis of the 
differences in animal life, each has its 
boundary in the obstacles offered to 
the spread of the average animal. Each 
species broadens its range as far asitcan. It struggles, 
knowingly or not, to overcome the barriers of ocean or 
river, of mountain or plain, of woodland or desert, of 
moisture or drought, of cold or heat, of lack of food or 
abundance of enemies—whatever these barriers may be. 
Were it not for these barriers, every species would be- 
come what only man now is, practically cosmopolitan. 
Man is pre-eminently the barrier-crossing animal. The 
degree of hindrance offered by any barrier to the exten- 
sion of species is only relative. That which constitutes 
an impassable barrier to some groups is a high road to 
others. The river which opposes the passage of the 
monkey or the cat would be the king’s highway to the 
frog or the turtle. The waterfall which checks the ascent 
of the fish is the chosen home of the ouzel. 

In spite of the great variety among the barriers ex- 
isting on the earth, we may divide the globe roughly 
into five realms or areas of distribution, having their 
boundaries in the sea or in differences of climate. One 
or two of these realms are sharply defined; the others 
are surrounded by a broad fringe of debatable ground, 
which forms a region of transition to some other zone. 

The largest of these realms is the holarctic realm, 
which comprises nearly all of Asia, Europe, and North 
America, the arctic and north temperate 
zones. The north temperate zone has 
practically a continuous climate, the chief variations 
being in elevation and rainfall. The close union of 
Alaska to Siberia forms an almost unbroken land area 
from the eastern coast of America around to western 


Barriers to 
diffusion. 


Holarctic realm. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 197 


Europe. To the south the species increase in number 
and variety ; the arctic regions are remarkable for what 
they lack, yet the general character of the life is almost 
unbroken over this vast district. Alfred Russell Wal- 
lace refers to this unity of northern life in these words: 

“When an Englishman travels by the nearest sea 
route from Great Britain to northern Japan, he passes 
by countries very unlike his own both in aspect and in 
natural productions, The sunny isles of the Mediter- 
ranean, the sands and date palms of Egypt, the arid 
rocks of Aden, the cocoa groves of Ceylon, the tiger- 
haunted jungles of Malacca and Singapore, the fertile 
plains and volcanic peaks of Luzon, the forest-clad moun- 
tains of Formosa, the bare hills of China pass succes- 
sively in review, until after a circuitous journey of thir- 
teen thousand miles he finds himself at Hakodate, in 
Japan. He is now separated from his starting point by 
an almost endless succession of plains and mountains, 
arid deserts or icy plateaus; yet, when he visits the 
interior of the country, he sees so many familiar natural 
objects that he can hardly help fancying he is close to 
his home. He finds the woods and fields tenanted by 
tits, hedge sparrows, wrens, wagtails, larks, redbreasts, 
thrushes, buntings, and house sparrows, some absolutely 
identical with our own feathered friends, others so 
closely resembling them that it requires a practised 
ornithologist to tell the difference. . . . There are also, 
of course, many birds and insects which are quite new 
and peculiar, but these are by no means so numerous or 
conspicuous as to remove the general impression of a 
wonderful resemblance between the productions of such 
remote islands as Britain and Yesso.” (Island Life.) 

A journey to the southward from Britain or Japan. 
or Illinois, or any point within the holarctic realm, 
would show the successive changes in the character of 


198 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


life, though gradual, to be more rapid. The barrier of 
frost which keeps the fauna of the tropics from en- 
croaching on the northern regions once crossed, we 
come to the multitude of animals whose life depends on 
sunshine, the characteristic forms of the neotropical 
realm. 

The neotropical realm includes South America, the 
West Indies, and the hot coast lands of Mexico and 
Central America. To the northward this 
realm overlaps the holarctic in the tran- 
sition regions of Sonora, Arizona, Texas, 
and Florida; but to the southward the barrier of the 
broad ocean keeps it practically distinct from all others. 
The richness of this fauna in forms and species makes 
the great forests of the Amazon the dream of the 
naturalist. Joaquin Miller gives a vivid picture of the 
life of tropical America: 


Neotropical 
realm. 


“ Birds hung and swung, green-robed and red, 
Or drooped in curved lines dreamily, 
Rainbows reversed from tree to tree; 

Or sang, low hanging overhead, 
Sang soft as if they sang and slept, 
Sang low like some far waterfall, 
And took no note of us at all.” 


Corresponding to the neotropical realm in position, 
but with a less rich and varied fauna, is the Ethiopian 
realm. This includes the greater part 
of Africa, merging gradually on the 
north into the holarctic realm, through the transition 
regions of Barbary, Italy, and Spain. In monkeys, her- 
bivorous animals, and reptiles, this region is wonderfully 
rich. In variety of birds and fishes the neotropical 
region far surpasses it. 

The Indian realm comprises southern Asia and the 
neighbouring islands. Its rich fauna has much in com- 


‘Ethiopian realm. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 199 


mon with that of Africa, and it is, moreover, surrounded 
by transition districts which lead on the north to the 
holarctic and on the west to the Ethiop- 
ian. On the east the Indian realm is 
lost in the islands of Polynesia, which represents each 
one its own degree of transition and isolation. 

The Australian realm of Australia and its islands is 
more isolated than any of the others. It shows a sin- 
gular development of low or primitive 
types of vertebrate life, as though in the 
progress of evolution this continent had 
been left a whole geological age behind the.others. It 
is certain that, could the closely competing fauna of the 
holarctic or Indian realms have been able to invade 
Australia, the dominant mammals and birds of that ré- 
gion would not have been marsupials and parrots. Un- 
specialized types abound only where barriers have pre- 
vented competition. The larger the land area the greater 
the competition and the more specialized its character- 
istic forms. As part of this specialization is in the di- 
rection of hardiness, the species of the large experience 
are the more persistent and less easy of extermination. 
The rapid multiplication which certain holarctic animals 
and plants have shown when transported to the Aus- 
tralian realm, demonstrates what might have taken place 
if impassable barriers had not previously shut them out. 

Each of these great realms may be indefinitely sub- 
divided into provinces and sections, for there is no end 
to the possibility of analysis. No township or school 
district has exactly the same animals or plants as any 
other ; and, finally, in ultimate analysis, no two animals 
or plants are alike. Modification comes with the growth 
of each new individual, and steadily increases with the 
individual’s separation in time or space from the parent 
stock. Moreover, we observe apparent anomalies of 


Indian realm. 


Australian 
realm. 


200 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


distribution in every realm; here appears an animal, 
there a plant, which seems to have a character or place 
which it ought not to hold. To the result of unexpected 
or chance crossing of barriers these ap- 
parent anomalies in geographical dis- 
tribution aredue. Anomalies in distribu- 
tion, like anomalies in evolution, would cease to be such 
if we knew all the facts and circumstances of their pre- 
vious history. The present range of the tapir in farther 
India and in the northern part of South America, two 
widely separated regions, is at first sight an anomaly of 
distribution. This anomaly disappears when we know 
that formerly the tapir ranged over the holarctic realm, 
and became gradually extinct with the changing climate. 
The bones of a tapir, much like one of the South Amer- 
ican species, are found in recent clays in Indiana (Elletts- 
ville, Monroe County), and similar remains exist in 
France, in China, and in Burmah. The isolated, unex- 
terminated colonies are now left at the extreme of the 
animal’s former range, and these colonies at present 
constitute what we call distinct species. 

The more extended are our studies the fewer are the 
anomalies which arrest our attention, and the fewer are 
the distinctive or characteristic forms. 
There is little foundation for the current 
belief that each species of animal has 
originated in the area it now occupies, for 
in many cases our knowledge of paleontology shows 
the reverse of this to be true. Even more incorrect is 
the belief that each species occupies the district or the 
surroundings best fitted for its habitation. This is mani- 
fest in the fact of the extraordinary fertility and persist- 
ence shown by many kinds of animals and plants in 
taking possession of new lands, which have become, 
through the voluntary or involuntary interference of 


Anomalies in 
distribution. 


Adaptation of 
animals to envi- 
ronment. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 201 


man, open to their invasion. Facts of this sort are the 
“enormous increase of rabbits and pigs in Australia 
and New Zealand, of horses and cattle in South America, 
and of the sparrow in North America, though in none 
of these cases are the animals natives of the countries 
in which they thrive so well.” (Wallace.) The persist- 
ent spreading of European weeds to the exclusion of 
our native plants is a fact too well known to every 
farmer in America. The constant movement westward 
of the whiteweed and the Canada thistle marks the 
steady deterioration of our grass fields. Especially 
noteworthy has been this change in Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand. In New Zea- 
land the weeds of Europe, toughened by 
centuries of struggle, have won an easy 
victory over the native plants. Edward Wakefield, in 
his history of New Zealand, says that “many animals 
and birds acquire peculiarities in the new country which 
would indeed astonish those accustomed to them in the 
old. They usually run to a much larger size and breed 
oftener. They also take to strange kinds of food. 
Birds deemed granivorous at home become insectivorous 
here, and vice versa. Some learn the habits of the na- 
tive species. Skylarks imitate the native wagtail, and 
may often be seen perching on fences and telegraph 
wires. ‘They sing in the nighttime, too, a thing un- 
heard of in the old country, and doubtless acquired from 
the nocturnal habits of the New Zealand birds.” 

The European house fly in New Zealand has com- 
pletely extirpated the large bluebottle fly, which was 
formerly a source of great annoyance to the settlers. 
An account is given of a farmer who filled a bottle with 
house flies and carried them eighty miles into the coun- 
try, liberating them, one by one, in the vicinity of his 
sheepfolds, in order to let them take the place of the 


Invasion of the 
Australian 
realm, 


202 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


\ 


native flies. It is said that red clover would not grow 
in New Zealand until bumblebees were introduced to 
fertilize its flowers. Wakefield estimates that the intro- 
duction of these large wild bees has been worth five mil- 
lion dollars to the farmers in New Zealand. 

Dr. Edward L. Youmans quotes from Dr. Hooker 
the statement that, in New Zealand, “the cow grass has 
taken possession of the roadsides; dock and water cress 
choke the rivers; the sow thistle is spread all over the 
country, growing luxuriantly up to six thousand feet; 
white clover in the mountain districts displaces the na- 
tive grasses.” The native (Maori) saying is, “Asthe white 
man’s rat has driven away the native rat, as the European 
fly drives away our own, and the clover kills our fern, so 
will the Maoris disappear before the white man himself.” 

Prof. Sidney Dickinson gives the following valuable 
notes on the rabbit and other plagues of Australia: 

“The average annual cost to Australasia of the 
rabbit plague is £700,000, or nearly $3,500,000. 

“ The work which these enormous figures represent 
has a marked effect in reducing the number of rabbits 
in the better districts, although there is little reason to 
suppose that their extermination will ever be more than 
partial. Most of the larger runs show very few at pres- 
ent, and rabbit-proof fencing, which has been set around ' 
thousands of square miles, has done much to check 
further inroads. Until this invention began to be 
utilized it was not uncommon to find as many as a 
hundred rabbiters employed on a single property, whose 
working average was from three hundred to four hundred 
rabbits per day. As they received five shillings a hun- 
dred from the station owner, and were also able to sell 
the skins at eight shillings a hundred, their profession 
was most lucrative. Seventy-five dollars a week was not 
an uncommon wage, and many an unfortunate squatter . 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 203 


looked with envy upon his rabbiters, who were heaping 
up modest fortunes, while he himself was slowly being 
eaten out of house and home. 

“ The professional rabbiter is not an agreeable com- 
panion. He is covered with the fluffy fur of his quarry 
until he bears much of the appearance of a mouldy 
cheese; his clothing is streaked with blood and dirt, 
and from his hair and beard, and, in fact, from his 
entire person, exhales a strong leporine odor. Not until 
he attains this consummation can he hope for the highest 
success in his profession, for the game on which he wars 
is gifted with keen sensibilities, and will avoid the trap 
or the fatal phosphorized grain that has been placed in 
its way by hands ordinarily clean. 

“The fecundity of the rabbit is amazing, and his 
invasion of remote districts swift and mysterious. 
Careful estimates show that, under favourable condi- 
tions, a pair of Australian rabbits will produce six 
litters a year, averaging five individuals each. As the 
offspring themselves begin breeding at the age of six 
months, it is shown that, at this rate, the original pair 
might be responsible in five years for a progeny of over 
twenty millions. That the original score that were 
brought to the country have propagated after some 
such ratio, no one can doubt who has seen the enormous 
hordes that now devastate the land in certain districts, 
In all but the remoter sections, however, the rabbits 
are now fairly under control; one rabbiter with a pack 
of dogs supervises stations where one hundred were 
employed ten years ago, and with ordinary vigilance 
the squatters have little to fear. Millions of the animals 
have been killed by fencing in the water holes and dams 
during a dry season, whereby they died of thirst, and 
lay in enormous piles against the obstructions they had 
frantically and vainly striven to climb, and poisoned 


204 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


grain and fruit have killed myriads more. A fortune of 
425,000 offered by the New South Wales Government 
still awaits the man who can invent some means of 
general destruction, and the knowledge of this fact has 
brought to the notice of the various colonial govern- 
ments some very original devices. 

“ Another great pest to the squatters is developing 
in the foxes, two of which were imported from Cumber- 
land some years ago by a wealthy station owner, who 
thought that they might breed, and give himself and 
friends an occasional day with the hounds. His modest 
desires were soon met in the development of a race of 
foxes far surpassing the English variety in strength and 
aggressiveness, which not only devour many sheep, but 
out of pure depravity worry and kill ten times as many 
as they can eat. When to these plagues is added the 
ruin of thousands of acres from the spread of the 
thistle, which a canny Scot brought from the Highlands 
to keep alive in his breast the memories of Wallace and 
Bruce; the well-nigh resistless inroads of furze; and, in 
New Zealand, the blocking up of rivers by the English 
watercress, which in its new home grows a dozen feet 
in length, and has to be dredged out to keep navigation 
open, it may be understood that colonials look with 
jaundiced eye upon suggestions of any further interfer- 
ence with Australian nature. : 

“Not to be outdone by foreign importations, the 
country itself has shown in the humble locust a nuisance 
quite as potent as rabbit, fox, or thistle. This bane of 
all men who pasture sheep on grass has not been much 
in evidence until within the last few years, when the 
great destruction of indigenous birds by the gun and by 
poisoned grain strewn for rabbits has facilitated its in- 
crease. The devastation caused by these insects last 
year was enormous, and befell a district a thousand 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 205 


miles long and two hundred wide. For days they passed 
in clouds that darkened the earth with the gloomy hue of 
an eclipse, while the ground was covered with crawling 
millions, devouring every green thing, and giving to the 
country the appearance of being carpeted with scales. 
It has been discovered, however, that before they attain 
their winged state they can easily be destroyed, and en- 
ergetic measures will be taken against them throughout 
all the inhabited districts of Australia whenever they 
make another appearance.” (Station Life in Australia, 
Scribner’s Magazine, February, 1892, pp. 136-154.) 

I was lately called to examine a specially interesting 
problem in geographical distribution, that of the disper- 
sion of fishes in the Yellowstone Park. 
This region is a high volcanic plateau, 
formed by the filling of a mountain basin 
with a vast deposit of lava. The streams of the park are 
for the most part among the coldest and clearest of the 
Rocky Mountains, and apparently in every way suitable 
for the growth of trout. All the hot springs of the great 
geyser basin are not sufficient to warm the waters of 
the Firehole River. Yet, with the exception of the Yel- 
lowstone itself, all these streams are destitute of fish life. 
A reason for this is apparent in the fact that the plateau 
is fringed with cataracts which no fish can ascend. Each 
stream has a cafion and waterfall near the point where 
it exchanges the hard bed of lava for the rock below. 
So the best of trout streams, for an area of fifteen hun- 
dred square miles, are left without trout, because their 
natural inhabitants can not get to them.* 


Trout in Yellow- 
stone Park. 


* Since this was written, the principal waters of this region 
have been stocked with trout of different species, and these have 
multiplied with great rapidity. There is now an abundance of 
trout in the Firehole, Gibbon, Gardiner, and Lewis Rivers, as well 
as in Shoshone Lake. 


206 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


On the theory that each species occupies those places 
best suited to its life, this fact would represent a great 
oversight on the part of Mother Nature. But with this 
is the curious fact that the Yellowstone itself, both 
above and below its falls, is well stocked with trout and 
with no other fish. This is an anomaly of distribution, 
but this anomaly disappears when we examine the con- 
tinental divide at the head of the Yellowstone. At 
one point, as Dr. Barton W. Evermann, 
Dr. Oliver P. Jenkins, and others have 
shown, the Two-ocean Pass, only about an eighth of a 
mile of wet meadow and marsh, separates the drainage 
of the Yellowstone from that of the Columbia, From 
the Columbia the Yellowstone has therefore received its 
trout. No doubt every anomaly of distribution would 
become perfectly simple could we only know all the 
facts concerned in the case. 

The laws of geographical distribu- 
tion of animals reduce themselves to 
these very simple propositions: 

Every species of animal may be found in any part of 
the earth, unless: 

1. It has been unable to reach that region, through 
barriers of some sort, or, 

2. Having reached it, it is unable to maintain itself, 
in competition with other forms, or on account of the 
conditions of environment, or else, 

3. Having maintained itself, it has become so altered 
through natural selection as to become a species distinct 
from its ancestors. 

The primary barriers to distribution are the heights 
of the land and the depths of the sea—physical obstacles 
not to be crossed. Next in importance is the barrier of 
climate. With some forms of life this is absolute, for the 
palm and the banana are the index of the torrid zone as 


Two-ocean Pass. 


Laws of distribu- 
tion of animals. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 207 


the dwarf birch and reindeer moss are the index of the 
frigid. ‘“ Plants,” says Dr. Gray, “are the thermometers 
of the ages by which climatic extremes and climates in 
general are best measured.” In many groups anatom- 
ical characters are not more profound or 
of longer standing than are the adapta- 
tions to heat and cold. Heat-loving ani- 
mals are far more numerous in species than animals of 
cold climates, though the latter often make up by greater 
abundance of individuals. Barriers less important than 
those of climate arise from external surroundings—from 
absence of means of defence, from character of food, of 
air, of water, and the presence of various enemies. These 
conditions vary in their importance with each group of 
animals, yet apparently the least of them may be able 
to limit the range of species. To limit the range is the 
first step toward extinction, for to cease to advance is 
to retreat. Adverse conditions may invade even the 
heart of its distribution, causing reduction of numbers, 
which, if long continued, must mean rarity and final ex- 
termination. Extinction comes to those species we call 
rare, and its advent must be unnoticed. Circumstances 
become unfavourable to the growth or reproduction of 
some animal. Its numbers are reduced—it is rare—it 
is gone. 

The air in Indiana and Kentucky but a few years since 
was dark with the hordes of passenger pigeons at the 
time of their fall migrations. The advance of a tree-de- 
stroying, pigeon-shooting civilization has gone steadily 
on, and now the bird which once filled our western 
forests is in the same region an ornithological curiosity. 

A very slight change in the environment of any species 
may bea matter of the greatest moment as regards its in- 
crease or permanence. The dependence of the clover 


on the number of cats in a certain neighbourhood is an 
15 


Barriers of land, 
sea, and climate, 


208 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


illustration given us by Mr. Darwin. The clover depends 
on the bumble-bee for the fertilization of its pods. The 
nests of the bumblebee are destroyed by 
the field mouse, which is thus an enemy 
of the clover. The balance is restored 
by the work of the cat, who captures the mouse and pre- 
vents its ravages on the nests of the bee. The old nur- 
sery jingle of “the cow that tossed the dog that worried 
the cat that killed the rat” is repeated throughout Na- 
ture. With any change in any of the elements in this 
series the whole equilibrium of Nature is interrupted. 
For this equilibrium is apparent only—a sort of armed 
neutrality, an established order of things which the 
superficial observer mistakes for real peace and per- 
manence. 

In some groups we find evidence of a progressive 
adaptation of individuals to circumstances—for example, 
to climate, ending in the formation of 
new species to accord with changed con- 
ditions of temperature. We may illustrate this by 
means of the arctic birches. In Norway, as in most 
northern regions with a moist climate, there are large 
forests of birches. In the valleys, where the summers 
are warm and reasonably long, the birches of different 
species grow to be considerable trees. Farther to the 
north, or higher up the mountains, the summer is too 
short for the growth of birch trees and their place is 
taken by birches which never pass beyond the size of 
small bushes. Still higher up there are birches even 
where snow falls every month of the year, and the dis- 
tant sun gives only a glimpse of summer in July. Com- 
petition with other plants is, of course, not severe in 
such regions, but the birches must struggle against the 
weather. They can live and multiply if only they can 
adjust themselves to the conditions of life. They must 


Interdependence 
of species. 


The arctic birch. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 209 


keep down their size, they must carry as little foliage 
as possible, and their stems must be tough enough to 
resist snow and hardy enough to withstand almost per- 
petual frost. Their year’s growth must be finished 
in a very short time, 
and leaves, flowers, 
and seeds must fol- 
low in the most rapid 
succession. In short, 
there is room for 
birch trees here, if 
only the trees can be 
reduced to their low- 
est terms. And so 
birch trees have crept 
up the mountain sides 
even to the very 
edges of the perpet- 
ual snow. But such 


trees! All trees re- Fic. 15.—The arctic 

uiring sunshine, or birch, Suletind, 
q § ae Norway. (After 
long time for their nature.) 


summer’s growth, are 
rigidly kept away by 
“natural selection.” 
The cold climate dwarfs the individual, and the hard 
conditions exclude every individual not dwarfed. I have 
before me three birch trees from a Norwegian mountain 
called the “Suletind”’—the little trees known to the 
Norwegian peasants as “ Hundsdire, or “dogs’-ears.” 
The trunk of each tree is barely an inch in height. 
There are no branches and but three leaves. Half in- 
closed by the uppermost leaf is the single little catkin 
of flowers, Leaves in June, blossoms in July, fruit in 
August, and then the little tree is ready for its nine 


210 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


months’ sleep. These little trees are the Lapps of forest 
vegetation. 

All natural history is full of similar cases of modifi- 
cations, Everywhere there is the most perfect adapta- 
tion of life to its conditions, But this adaptation must 
come about through the survival of those organisms 
fittest to live under the conditions, while the unfit die 
out and leave no progeny. But fitness is a relative 
term; for in many cases, as with the Norwegian dwarf 
birches, the deformed or stunted may be the only ones 
fitted to survive. An advantage ever so slight must in 
: the long run conquer. 

The arctic birches serve as one illustration only of 
the spread and change of organisms in the face of bar- 
riers apparently insurmountable. I can 
not enter into details as to the many 
ways in which individuals manage to 
cross the barriers which usually limit the species. These 
ways are as varied as the creatures themselves, and in- 
finitely more varied than the barriers. By the long- 
continued process of adjustment to circumstances, with 
the incessant destruction of the unadapted, the various 
organisms have become so well fitted to their surround- 
ings as to give rise to the popular impression that each 
species now inhabits that part of the world best fitted 
for its occupation, Yet the very reverse of this must 
be true, for in the growth of any species it is these 
features of adaptation which are the last to appear. 
If the history of the individual is an epitome of the 
history of the group to which the individual belongs, 
then adaptive characters appearing late in the growth 
of the individual must have appeared late in the his- 
tory of the group. They are the last changes made 
in the organism—mere after-thoughts in the work of 
creation. 


Crossing the 
barriers. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 211 


For example, the long pectoral fins of the flying fish 
enable it to make long leaps through the air, after the 
manner of the grasshopper. Yet we 
can not say that the flying fish was 
meant to be the bird among fishes, for its nearest rela- 
tives are without wings, and the wing development is 
one of the latest acquisitions of the individual. Its 
flight is simply an exaggeration of the leaping or skim- 
ming which related forms with shorter fins accomplish. 
The growth of the fins goes on with the increase of this 
power, and greater power comes with the growth of the 
fins. Morphologically, a flying fish is even less like a 
bird than the humbler fishes from which it is de- 
scended, 

No phase in the history of systematic science is 
more instructive than the varying attitudes of the 
naturalist toward those local modifications of species 
called subspecies or geographical variations. 


The flying fish. 


It was early noticed that, while individuals of any. 


one species in any limited region are substantially alike, 
this apparent identity disappears with the 
examination of wider extent of territory. 
These differences were often too small 
to justify the formation or recognition 
of a new species, but too evident to be wholly neglected. 
Such subordinate species were termed by Linnzus varie- 
ties, and their geographical basis was often recognised. 
Thus under Homo sapiens, or aboriginal man, Linnzeus 
recognised four varieties—americanus, europaeus, asiaticus, 
and afer, besides the half-mythical monstrosus, based on 
traveller’s tales of Patagonians, Hottentots, and dwarfs. 
As with the varieties of man, so with those of other 
animals and plants, The individuals of England were 
not quite those of the same species in Italy, and those 
in more distant lands showed still greater peculiarities. 


Subspecies or 
geographical 
variations. 


212 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Sometimes these qualities could be exactly meas- 
ured, in which case a new species was described. Some- 
times they proved elusive, and the sup- 
posed new species were added to the 
great dust heap of synonymy. The 
work of the systematic zoologists of the last generation 
was chiefly in museum cataloguing and labelling. To 
them these half-tangible varieties were the object of 
special opprobrium. On the museum shelves they were 
simply a nuisance, obscuring the characters of the real 
species and throwing closet-formed ideas of Nature into 
utter confusion. Professor Cope tells us how variant 
shells have been crushed under the heel of the indignant 
conchologist because they would go neither into species 
“A” nor species “ B.” Specimens were often preserved 
from “typical localities,” so that no confusion might be 
introduced among the cherished specific characters. 
That Nature went on producing these varying and inter- 
mediate forms was no concern of the zoologist. That 
such forms were any part of Nature’s real plan appar- 
ently never occurred to the followers of Linnzus. 

Says the botanist De Candolle: “They are mistaken 
who suppose that the greater part of our species are 
clearly limited, and that the doubtful species are in a 
feeble minority. This seemed to be true as long asa 
genus was imperfectly known, and its species were 
founded on a few specimens—that is to say, were pro- 
visional only; just as we come to know them better, 
intermediate forms flow in, and doubts as to the limits 
of the species become more numerous.” 

The ease with which slight variations have deceived 
and confused naturalists has been one of the most dis- 
couraging features in the history of science. Such va- 
riations have formed the basis of thousands of useless 
and distracting names. 


Doubtful 
species. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 213 


When Darwin was at work upon his monograph of 
the barnacles (Cirripedia), he wrote to a friend: “Sys- 
tematic work would be easy were it not 
for this confounded variation, which, 
however, is pleasant to me as a special- 
ist, though odious as a systematist. .. . How painfully 
true is your remark that no one has hardly a right to 
examine the question of species who has not minutely 
described many! ... Certainly I have felt it humil- 
iating, discussing and doubting and examining, over and 
over again, when in my mind the only doubt has been 
whether the form varied from to-day or yesterday. ... 
After describing a set of forms as distinct species, tear- 
ing up my manuscripts and making them one species, 
tearing that up and making them separate, and then 
making them one again (which has happened to me), I 
have gnashed my teeth, cursed species, and asked what 
sin I had committed to be so treated.” 

An epoch in systematic zoology began with the study 
of the collections made by the United States Pacific 

. _ Railway survey some forty years ago. 

on eer ae Then for the first time was opened to 
naturalists the details of the fauna of a 

vast district under the same parallels of latitude, but 
showing every variation in rainfall, elevation, and phys- 
ical surroundings. The most valuable results of these 
collections were seen in the study of birds. It was 
found in general that each bird of the Atlantic States 
had its counterpart on the prairies, the sage plains, the 
mountains, and the Pacific slope. Differences were care- 
fully sought for and found, for the followers of Professor 
Baird allowed nothing to escape their analysis, There 
were differences in size, in form and colour—slight in de- 
gree, but nevertheless really existing—and these were 
made the basis of as many distinct species. Still further 


Darwin’s 
experience. 


214 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


studies increased the number of these species, until at 
last a large proportion of our birds were represented by 
Eastern, Western, sage brush, and prairie species. Some- 
times these closely connected forms were distinguish- 
able at first sight, as in the case of the yellowhammer 
and its double, the red-shafted flicker; in other cases 
baffling the most skilful, as with the two species of 
crow-blackbird. 

An illustration of these forms and their relation may 
be taken from the common shore lark and its varieties, 
although it is fair to say that some of these variations 
have never been regarded as species. 

The shore lark or horned lark (Ofocoris alpestris), 
ranges widely over the colder and open parts of Europe, 
Asia, and America. The common form, 
called a/festris, is familiar to most of us. 
In the northwestern region, as far south as Utah, is 
another form, equally large but paler in colour (Zeuco- 
lema). In the prairie region the lark is of the ordinary 
colour but smaller (frazicola). In the sage plains it is a 
similarly small but pale lark, with brighter yellow in its 
throat; this is arenicola. In Texas the bird is still 
smaller and grayer (g¢vaudi) ; while the small form found 
in New Mexico and Arizona has its plumage strongly 
washed with red; this is chrysolema. In the interior of 
California the shore larks are still smaller and redder 
(variety rzdea), while northward and coastwise appears 
a small lark with more streaked plumage—this is s¢rz- 
gata, All these can be generally recognised by an ex- 
pert ornithologist, and doubtless a closer analysis would 
reveal the basis for still finer subdivisions.* 


The shore larks. 


* In the Auk for April, 1890, is an essay on the Horned Larks 
of North America, by Jonathan Dwight, Jr. Mr. Dwight’s con- 
clusions are based on two thousand and twelve specimens ; those 
of Mr. H. W. Henshaw, above given, on three hundred and fifty. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 215 


In 1871, Dr. Joel A. Allen published his masterly 
paper on the Mammals and Winter Birds of Florida. 
This memoir has had the practical effect 
of making all our ornithologists, for the 
most part against their will, believers in 
the theory of derivation of species. Dr. Allen took up, 
as a matter of serious study, the variations in individual 
birds. He showed that the variation of individuals of 
the same species was far greater than had been sup- 
posed, and that the characters relied upon to distinguish 
species were often due to slight increase in these varia- 
tions. For example, in Northern birds the bodies would 
be larger, the bills smaller than in birds of the same spe- 
cies from the South, and the coloration of birds was 
often directly related to the degree of rainfall. He 
showed, in brief, that each one of these many variations 
must be held to define a distinct species, or else that the 
number of species of American birds would have to be 
greatly reduced and the range of variation inside the 
species would need to be correspondingly extended. 

This claim for attention on the part of the despised 
variety produced much consternation among students of 
birds. But facts must be recognised, and 
the final result has been that we have 
now extended our idea of each species 
until it is broad enough to include all that we know of 
intermediate and varying forms. But these intermediate 
forms must be known, not guessed at, before the status 
of a species is questioned. When a hiatus appears, 
whether existing either in fact or in our material for 


Work of Dr. 
J. A. Allen. 


Species defined 
by missing links. 


To the forms mentioned above Mr. Dwight adds var. adusta, 
small and ‘‘scorched pink” in general hue, from southern Ari- 
zona and northern Mexico; var. meniili, large and dusky, in 
Idaho and neighbouring regions ; and var. pallida, very small and 
pale, from Lower California. 


216 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


study, there we put our line of definition. ‘“ We can 
only predicate and define species at all,” says Dr. Coues, 
“from the mere circumstance of missing links. Species 
are the twigs of a tree separated from the parent stem. 
We name and arrange them arbitrarily, in default of 
means of reconstructing the whole tree in accordance 
with Nature’s ramifications.” * 

What is true of birds is equally the case with other 
groups of animals. Continued explorations bring to 
light each year new species of American fishes, but the 
number of new forms discovered each year is usually 
less than the number of old supposed species which are 
found to intergrade with each other, and have so become 
intenable. 

There is the closest possible analogy between the 
variations of species of animals or plants in different 

districts and that of words in different 
Beraleey De. languages. The language of any people 
tween variations . . . 
ei apedeoana 2° not a unit. It is made up of words 
words: which have at various times and under 

various conditions come into it from the 
speech of other people. The grammar of a language is 
an expression of the mutual relations of these words. 
The word as it exists in any one language represents the 
species. Its cognate or its ancestor in any other lan- 
guage is a related species. The words used in a given 
district at any one time constitute its philological fauna. 


* Dr, Allen says: ‘‘ We arbitrarily define a species as a group 
of individuals standing out distinct and disconnected from any 
similar group within which, though occupying different parts of 
the common habitat, we recognise other forms characteristic of 
and restricted to particular areas, These reach a maximum de- 
gree of differentiation at some point in the habitat, and thence 
gradually shade into other non-specific forms geographically con- 
tiguous.”—The Auk, January, 1890, p. 7. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 217 


There is a struggle for existence between words as 
among animals. For example, the words deginz and com- 
mence, Saxon and French, are in the English language 
constantly brought into competition. The fittest, the 
one that suits English purposes best, will at last sur- 
vive. If both have elements of fitness, the field will be 
divided between them. The silent letters in words tell 
their past history, as rudimentary organs tell what an 
animal’s ancestry has been. This analogy, of course, 
is not perfect in all regards, as the passing of words 
from mouth to mouth is not homologous with the gen- 
eration of animals. 

We may illustrate the formation of species of ani- 
mals by following any widely used word across Europe. 
Thus the Greek aster becomes in Latin and Italian 
stella ; hence the Spanish estrella and the French éovle. 
In Germany it becomes Stern, in Danish Sern ; whence 
the Scottish starz and English star. 

In like manner, the name cherry may be traced from 
country to country to which it has been taken in culti- 
vation. Its Greek name, Kerasos, becomes cerasus, cere- 
sta, certso, cereso, cérise, among the Latin nations. This 
word is shortened to Kzrsch and Kers with the people of 
the North. In England, cherys, cherry, are obviously de- 
rived from cérise. 

The study. of a fauna or a flora as a whole is thus 
analogous to the study of a living language. The evo- 
lution of a language corresponds to the 
history of the life of some region. Phi- 
lology, systematic zoology, and botany 
are alike intimately related to geography. The spread 
of a language, like the spread of a fauna, is limited by 
natural barriers. It is the work of civilization to break 
down these barriers as limiting the distribution of civi- 
lized man. The dominant languages cross these barri- 


A fauna like a 
language. 


218 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


ers with the races of men who use them, and with them 
go the domesticated animals and plants and the weeds 
and vermin man has brought unwillingly into relations 
of domination. 

The process of natural selection has been summed 
up in the phrase “survival of the fittest.” This, how- 
ever, tells only part of the story. “ Sur- 
vival of the existing” in many cases 
covers more of the truth. For in hosts 
of cases the survival of characters rests not on any spe- 
cial usefulness or fitness, but on the fact that individuals 
possessing these characters have inhabited or invaded 
a certain area, The principle of utility explains sur- 
vivals among competing structures. It rarely accounts 
for qualities associated with geographic distribution. 

The nature of the animals which first colonize a dis- 
trict must determine what the future fauna shall be. 
From their specific characters, which are neither useful 
nor harmful, will be derived for the most part the spe- 
cific characters of their successors, 

It is not essential to the meadow lark that he should 
have a black blotch on the breast or the outer tail- 
feather white. Yet all meadow larks have these charac- 
ters just as all shore larks have the tiny plume behind 
the ear. Those characters of the parent stock, which 
may be harmful in the new relations, will be eliminated 
by natural selection. “Those especially helpful will be 
intensified and modified, but the great body of charac- 
ters, the marks by which we know the species, will be 
neither helpful nor hurtful. These will be meaningless 
streaks and spots, variations in size of parts, peculiar 
relations of scales or hair or feathers, little matters 
which can neither help nor hurt, but which have all the 
persistence heredity can give. 

The species of animals change with space and change 


The survival of 
the existing. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 219 


with time. They change with space because, as they 
move over the globe, with distance comes barriers, with 
barriers isolation, and any degree of isolation brings 
some change of conditions. This means, sooner or later, 
a distinction of species. 

Species change with time, because time brings changes 
in conditions. Epoch-making events of one sort or an- 
other come in to break even the most 
monotonous existence. If time could 
flow on evenly there need arise no 
change in life, adaptation being once 
established. If space were absolutely uniform without 
barriers or variation of conditions, life would flow on 
as uniformly. Where there is most monotony in condi- 
tions, as in the depths of the sea, there is least change 
in life, least formation of new species, and least tendency 
to progress through natural selection. 

Similar to geographical isolation in its nature and 
effects is physiologicalisolation. This appears in the de- 
velopment, in isolated races, of antipa- 
thies which serve as barriers to prevent 
the interbreeding with allied races or 
species. This condition among animals is the homo- 
logue of race hostility among men. Such a feeling of 
mutual aversion, whether accompanied by anatomical 
distinctions or not, must be at times a strong factor in 
the differentiation of species. 

The study of the problems of geographical distribu- 
tion is possible only on the theory of the derivation of 
species.. If we view all animals and 
plants as the results of special creations 
in the regions assigned to them, we have, 
instead of laws, only a jumble of arbitrary and meaning- 
less facts. We have been too fully accustomed to the 
recognition of law to believe that any facts are arbitrary 


How species 
change with 
time. 


Physiological 
isolation. 


Meaning of facts 
of distribution. 


220 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


and meaningless. We know no facts which lie beyond 
the realm of law. I may close with the language of 
Asa Gray: 

“When we gather into one line the several threads 
of evidence of this sort to which we have here barely 
alluded we find that they lead in the same direction 
with the views furnished by [other lines of investigation]. 
Slender indeed each thread may be, but they are mani- 
fold, and together they bind us firmly to the doctrine of 
the derivation of the species.” 


¢ 


VIII. 


LATITUDE AND VERTEBRA. 


A STUDY IN THE EVOLUTION OF FISHES. 


In this paper is given an account of a curious bio- 
logical problem and of the progress which has been made 
toward its solution. The discussion may have a certain 
popular interest from the fact that it is a type of many 
problems in the structure and distribution of animals 
and plants which seem to be associated with the laws of 
evolution. In the light of these laws they may be more 
or less perfectly solved. On any other hypothesis than 
that of the derivation of species the solution of the 
present problem, for example, would be impossible. On 
the hypothesis of special creation a solution would be 
not only impossible but inconceivable. 

It has been known for some years that in several 
groups of fishes (wrasse fishes, flounders, and “rock 
cod,” for example) those species which 
inhabit northern waters have more ver- 
tebre than those living in the tropics. 
Certain arctic flounders, for example, 
have sixty vertebra; tropical flounders have, on the 
average, thirty. The significance of this fact is the 
problem at issue. In science it is assumed that all facts 
have significance, else they would not exist. It becomes 
necessary, then, to find out first just what the facts are 
in this regard. 


Northern fishes 
have most 
vertebre, 


221 


222 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Going through the various groups of non-migratory 
marine fishes we find that such relations are common. 
In almost every group the number of vertebre grows 
smaller as we approach the equator, and grows larger 
again as we pass into southern latitudes. 

It would be tedious to show this here by statistical 
tables, but the value of generalization in science de- 
pends on such evidence. This proof I have elsewhere * 
given in detail. Suffice it to say that, taking an average 
netful of fishes of different kinds at different places 
along the coast, the variation would be evident. At 
Point Barrow or Cape Farewell or North Cape a seine- 
ful of fishes would perhaps average eighty vertebrae 
each, the body lengthened to make room for them; at 
Sitka or St. Johns or Bergen, perhaps, sixty vertebre; 
at San Francisco or New York or St. Malo, thirty-five; 
at Mazatlan or Pensacola or Naples, twenty-eight; and 
at Panama or Havana or Sierra Leone, twenty-five. 
Under the equator the usual number of vertebrz in 
shore fishes is twenty-four. Outside the tropics this 
number is the exception. North of Cape Cod it is virtu- 
ally unknown. 

The next question which arises is whether we can 
find other conditions that may affect these numbers. 
These readily appear. Fresh-water fishes 
have in general more vertebrz than salt- 
water fishes of the same group. Deep- 
sea fishes have more vertebre than fishes 
of shallow waters. Pelagic fishes and free-swimming 
fishes have more than those which live along the shores, 


Fewest vertebre 
in shore fishes of 
the tropics. 


* In a more technical paper on this subject entitled Relations 
of Temperature to Vertebree among Fishes, published in the Pro- 
ceedings of the United States National Museum for 1891, pp. 107- 
120. Still fuller details are given in a paper contained in the 
Wilder Quarter-Century Book, 1893. 


LATITUDE AND VERTEBRA. 223 


and more than localized or non-migratory forms.* The 
extinct fishes of earlier geological periods had more ver- 
tebree than the corresponding modern forms which are 
regarded as their descendants. To each of these gener- 
alizations there are occasional partial exceptions, but not 
such as to invalidate the rule. 

All these effects should be referable to the same 
group of causes. They may, in fact, be combined in 
one statement. All other fishes have a larger number 
of vertebre than the marine shore fishes of the tropics. 
The cause of the reduction in numbers of vertebre must 
therefore be sought in conditions peculiar to the tropical 
seas. If the retention of the primitive large number is 
in any case a phase of degeneration, the cause of such 
degeneration must be sought in the colder seas, in the 
rivers, and in oceanic abysses. What have these waters 


* This is especially true among those fishes which swim for 
long distances, as, for example, many of the mackerel family. 
Among such there is often found a high grade of muscular power, 
or even of activity, associated with a large number of vertebra, 
these vertebre being individually small and little differentiated. 
For long-continued muscular action of a uniform kind there would 
be perhaps an advantage in the low development of the vertebral 
column. For muscular alertness, moving short distances with 
great speed, the action of a fish constantly on its guard against 
enemies or watching for its prey, the advantage would be on the - 
side of few vertebre. There is often a correlation between the 
freeswimming habit and slenderness and suppleness of body, 
which again is often dependent on an increase in numbers of the 
vertebral segments. These correlations appear as a disturbing 
element in the problem rather than as furnishing a clew to its 
solution. In some groups of fresh-water fishes there is a reduc- 
tion in numbers of vertebre, not associated with any degree of 
specialization of the individual bone, but correlated with simple 
reduction in size of body. This is apparently a phenomenon of 
degeneration, a survival of dwarfs where conditions are unfavor- 
able in full growth. 

16 


224 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


in common that the coral reefs, rocky islands, and tide 
pools of the tropics have not? 


Mf mh 
a 


Fic. 16.—Skeleton of the spotted greenling (Hexagrammos decagram- 
mus). From nature, by W. S. Atkinson. A northern fish, with 
vertebrz numerous and small, 


CK 


CK « ‘ 


QS epee 


In this connection we are to remember that the fewer 
vertebre indicates generally the higher rank. When 
vertebre are few in number, as a rule 
each one is larger. Its structure is more 
complicated, its appendages are larger 
and more useful, and the fins with which 
it is connected are better developed. In other words, 
the tropical fish is more intensely and compactly a fish, 


Fewer vertebrz 
indicates greater 
specialization. 


Md cS LL, Lf 


« 


(SN Ka 


Fic. 17.—Skeleton of the scarlet rock-fish (Sebastodes miniatus). From 
nature, hy W. S. Atkinson. A species of temperate waters ; the 
vertebree in moderate number. 


“Y 


=— 


with a better fish equipment, and in all ways better fitted 
for the business of a fish, especially for that of a fish that 
stays at home. 


LATITUDE AND VERTEBR&. 225 


In my view the reduction in number and increase of 
importance of the individual vertebre are simply part 
of a process we may call ichthyization, the work of 
making a better fish, Nota better fish for man’s pur- 
poses—for Nature does not care for man’s purposes— 
but a better fish for the purposes of a fish. The com- 
petition in the struggle for existence is the essential 
cause of the change. In the centre of competition no 
species can afford to be handicapped by a weak back- 


Fic. 18.—Skeleton of angel fish (Angelichthys ciliaris). From nature, 
by W. S. Atkinson. A tropical species; the vertebrae few and 
large. 


bone and redundant vertebre. Those who are thus 
weighted can not hold their own. They must change or 
perish, 

The influence of cold, darkness, monotony, and iso- 
lation is to limit the struggle for existence, and there- 
fore to prevent its changes, preserving 
through the conservation of heredity the 
more remote ancestral conditions, even 
though they carry with them disadvan- 
tages and deficiencies. The conditions most favourable 
to fish life are among the rocks and reefs of the tropical 
seas. About the coral reefs is the centre of fish compe- 
tition, A coral archipelago is the Pars of fishes. In 
such regions is the greatest variety of surroundings, and 


Coral reefs the 
centre of fish 
competition. 


226 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


therefore the greatest number of possible adjustments. 
The struggle is between fish and fish, not between fishes 
and hard conditions of life. No form is excluded from 
the competition. Cold, darkness, and foul water do not 
shut out competitors, nor does any evil influence sap the 
strength. The heat of the tropics does not make the 
water hot. It is never sultry nor laden with malaria, 
The influence of tropical heat on land animals is often 
to destroy vitality and check activity. It is not so in 
the sea, 

From conditions otherwise favourable in arctic re- 
gions the majority of competitors are excluded by their 
inability to bear the cold. River life is life in isolation. 
To aquatic animals river life has the same limitations 
that island life has to the animals of the land. The 
oceanic islands are far behind the continents in the pro- 
_cess of evolution, In like manner the rivers are ages 
behind the seas. 

Therefore the influences which serve as a whole to 
intensify fish life, and tend to rid the fish of every char- 
acter or structure it can not “use in its business,” are 
most effective along the shores of the tropics. One 
phase of this is the reduction in numbers of vertebre, or, 
more accurately, the increase of stress on each individual 
bone. 

Conversely, as the causes of these changes are still 
in operation, we should find that in cold waters, deep 
waters, dark waters, fresh waters, inclosed waters, and 
in the waters of past geological epochs, the process 
would be less complete, the numbers of vertebrze would 
be larger, while the individual vertebrze remain smaller, 
less complete, and less perfectly ossified. 

This, in a general way, is precisely what we do 
find in examining the skeletons of a large variety of 
fishes. 


LATITUDE AND VERTEBR&. 227 


Another phase is the process of cephalization, the pro- 
cess by which the head becomes emphasized and the 
shoulder bones and other structures be- 


Cephalization = come connected with it or subordinated 
euenen to it. Still her is the reducti d 
compe Hea o it. Still another is the reduction an 


change of the swim bladder and its utter 
loss of the function of lung or breathing organ which it 
occupied in the ganoid ancestors of modern fishes. 

The life of the tropics, so far as fishes are concerned, 
offers many analogies to the life of cities, viewed from 
the standpoint of human development. 
In the cities in general, the conditions 
of individual existence for the man are 
most easy, but there also competition of 
life is most severe. The struggle for existence is not a 
struggle with the forces and conditions of Nature. It is 
not a struggle with wild beasts, unbroken forests, or 
stubborn soil, but a competition between man and man 
for the opportunity of living. 

It is in the city where the influences which tend to 
modernization and concentration of the characters of 
the species go on most rapidly. It is adaptation or 
death to each individual in the city: every quality not 
directly useful tends to become lost or atrophied. 

Conversely, it is in the ‘ backwoods,” the region 
farthest from human conflicts, where primitive customs, 
antiquated peculiarities, and useless traits are longest 
and most persistently retained. The life of the “back- 
woods” may be not less active or vigorous, but it will 
lack specialization. It is from the unused possibilities 
of the “backwoods” that the progress of the future 
comes. The high specialization of favoured regions 
unfits its subjects for life under changed conditions, 
The loss of muscular power is often one of the results 
of skeletal specialization. 


Analogy of the 
tropical waters 
to cities of men. 


228 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


The coral reef is the metropolis of the fish. The 
deep sea, the arctic sea, and the isolated rivers—these 
are the ichthyological backwoods. 

An exception to the general rule in regard to the 
numbers of vertebre is found in the case of the eel. 
Eels inhabit nearly all seas, and every- 
where they have many vertebre. The 
eels of the tropics are at once more specialized and more 
degraded. They are better eels than those of northern 
regions, but, as the eel is a degraded type, they have 
gone further in the loss of structures in which this de- 
generation consists. 

It is not well to push this analogy too far, but per- 
haps we can find in the comparison of the tropics and 
the cities some suggestion as to the development of 
the eel. 

In the city there is always a class which follows in 
no degree the general line of development. Its mem- 
bers are specialized in a wholly different way. By this 
means they take to themselves a field which others have 
neglected, making up in low cunning what they lack in 
humanity or intelligence. 

Thus, among the fishes, we have in the regions of 
closest competition this degenerate and non-fishlike 
type, lurking in holes among the rocks, or creeping in 
the sand; thieves and scavengers among fishes. The 
eels thus fill a place otherwise left unfilled. In their 
way they are perfectly adapted to the lives they lead. 
A multiplicity of vertebral joints is useless to the typical 
fish, but to the eel, strength and suppleness are every- 
thing. No armature of fin or scale or bone is so de- 
sirable as its power of escaping through the smallest 
opening. 


Origin of eels. 


IX, 
EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 


By JAMES PERRIN SMITH. 


Most of the paleontologic contributions to the evi- 
dence of evolution were gathered before the time of 
Darwin, and are therefore all the more 
trustworthy because the naturalists that 
gathered them were not evolutionists. 
It is indeed remarkable that their classifications have 
been so little changed by the introduction of the theory 
of evolution into the study of biology. Since this is the 
case the paleontologic record ought to show the order 
of appearance of genera in time, and their genetic rela- 
tionship. It does do this in a general way. Thus in 
the echinoderms we have the cystoids, apparently the 
primitive stock, beginning in the Cambrian and disap- 
pearing in the Carboniferous; the blastoids, somewhat 
higher, began in the Upper Silurian and disappeared in 
the Carboniferous; the true crinoids, or sea lilies, began 
in the Lower Silurian and survived until the present day. 
Asteroids we know from the Cambrian on, and echinoids, 
or sea urchins, from the Lower Silurian until now. 

Although their succession in time suggests genetic 
relationships, the crinoids, and especially the cystoids, 
being the most primitive type, the first known of the 
three great groups are apparently as widely separated 
from each other as they now are. Either they are par- 

229 


General evidence 
of paleontology. 


230 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


allel developments from a common stock, or else the 
separation from the oldest stock of crinoids took place 
in the misty pre-Cambrian time. 

The vertebrates, too, show evolution in a general 
way in the appearance of types, for we find fishes from 
the Lower Silurian on; at first only placoderms, bony- 
plated fishes, then upward by degrees to the teleosts 
(scale fish with bony skeleton), which began in the Up- 
per Jura. Amphibians had branched off from the fish 
stock by the end of the Devonian, genuine reptiles from 
the amphibians by the end of Carboniferous time. Mam- 
mals appeared first in the Trias, probably as descendants 
from the amphibian stock. The first birds we find in 
the Upper Jura as transitions from reptiles. 

The method used by most naturalists in the study of 
phylogeny has been a comparison of a series of adults 
from successive geologic horizons, together with a study 
of present and past distribution and migration of ani- 
mals. The results of this are seen in all our classifica- 
tion and in all family trees. Such work as Marsh’s 
origin of the horse, Cope’s phylogeny of the reptiles, 
Baur’s contributions to the origin of the mammals, and 
many others, abundantly justify this method of research. 

But interesting and valuable as are the investigations 
in phylogeny made in this way, such genealogies can 
not, as a matter of course, be more than approximate, 
for we have nowhere a uniform succession of rocks, and 
nowhere an unbroken genetic series. Each region has 
often changed, belonging now to one faunal province, 
now to another, each great change in faunal geography 
showing some physiographic revolution here or else- 
where. Thus the local series is broken and filled out 
from other regions, species usually being classed to- 
gether because of mere resemblance, while their real re- 
lationship is unknown. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 231 


If the geologic record is incomplete, the biologic 
record is still more so; the beginnings of things are 
lacking just where we should most like 
tosee them. Either most of the branch- 
ing stocks were incapable of being pre- 
served as fossils, or we have yet to find the strata in 
which they may be preserved. In the Cambrian the 
divergence was already complete, all the subkingdoms 
were present except the vertebrates, and they, too, 
probably existed at that time, for highly specialized 
placoderm fishes have been found in the Lower Silurian. 
The brachiopods had already branched out into articu- 
lates and inarticulates, the molluscs into pelecypods, 
gastropods, and cephalopods. The crustaceans were 
already represented by phyllocarids, trilobites, and 
ostracods, widely divergent types. Even at the base of 
the Cambrian beds all these animals, especially the 
trilobites, went through many larval changes before they 
reached maturity, thus indicating a long family history 
of numerous pre-existing unknown ancestral genera. 


Incompleteness 
of the record. 


LAW OF ACCELERATION OF DEVELOPMENT. 


Since the geologic record is so badly broken, and 
since modern faunas and floras are but the topmost 
branches of a tree whose stock is only partly known, the 
early naturalists were merely groping in the dark in 
their efforts to get a natural classification. There was, 
however, a glimmer of light, although scarcely heeded. 
No one man seems to have been the discoverer of the 
law of acceleration of development, but, like the idea of 
evolution, it was in the air, and disclosed itself in 
various ways to the prophetic vision of seekers after 
truth. J. F. Meckel,* a German naturalist, seems to 
have been the first to give scientific expression to the 


* Syst. Vergl. Anat., i, Theil, Halle, 1821. 


232 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


biogenetic law, in his formula, “ Gleichung zwischen der 
Entwicklung des Embryo und der Thierreihe,” com- 
parison of development of the embryo with the race of ant-. 
mais, But Louis Agassiz, although not the discoverer, 
was undoubtedly the first to use the law as an aid in 
the systematic study of biology. While he regarded the 
various genera, not as ancestors and descendants, but 
as progressive steps in creation, still he saw the analogy 
between the stages of growth of the individual and 
these progressive steps. It was reserved for Alpheus 
Hyatt to formulate the law and to strengthen theory 
with practical examples based on the study of cephalo- 
pods.* In his later papers Professor Hyatt has given a 
more exact and comprehensive definition of the law 
of acceleration or ¢achygenests: “ All modifications and 
variations in progressive series tend to appear first in 
the adolescent or adult stages of growth, and then to be 
inherited in successive descendants at earlier and earlier 
stages, according to the law of acceleration, until they 
either become embryonic or are crowded out of the 
organization and replaced in the development by charac- 
teristics of later origin.” | A still more definite state- 
ment by the same author is the following: “ The sub- 
stages of development in ontogeny are the bearers of 
distal ancestral characters in inverse proportion and of 
proximal ancestral characters in direct proportion to their 
removal in time and position from the protoconch or 
last embryonic stage.” { Since Hyatt’s first paper the 


* A. Hyatt. Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. i, 186667; 
and Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. i, 1866, Parallelisms of In- 
dividual and Order among the Tetrabranchiate Mollusks. 

+ A. Hyatt. Smithsonian Contribution to Knowledge, No. 
673, Genesis of the Arietide, Preface, p. ix. : 

$ Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., vol. xxxii, No. 143, A. Hyatt, Phy- 
logeny of an Acquired Characteristic, p. 405. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 233 


law has been rediscovered and renamed by Haeckel,* 
“das biogenetische Grundgesetz” and by Wiirtenber- 
ger.+ But these naturalists, instead of adding anything 
to Hyatt’s definition, have failed to reach its clearness 
and simplicity. The only real addition that has been 
made is Cope’s idea of retardation,{ by which is ex- 
plained the separation in the ontogeny of the descend- 
ant of characters that occurred simultaneously in the 
ancestor. Cope says: ‘The acceleration in the assump- 
tion of a character, progressing more rapidly than the 
same in another character, must soon produce, in a type 
whose stages were once the exact parallel of a perma- 
nent lower form, the condition of znexact parallelism. 
As all the more comprehensive groups present this re- 
lation to each other, we are compelled to believe that 
acceleration has been the principle of their successive 
evolution during the long ages of geologic time. Each 
type has, however, its day of supremacy and perfection 
of organism, and a retrogression in these respects has 
succeeded. This has no doubt followed a law the re- 
verse of acceleration, which has been called retardation. 
By the increasing slowness of the growth of the indi- 
viduals of a genus, and later and later assumption of the 
characters of the latter, they would be successively 
lost.” * 

By a proper application of the law of acceleration as 
defined by Hyatt and modified by Cope, all the facts of 
biology may be explained; there is no such thing as 
“falsification of the record.” But as yet the law has 
had no great effect in classification, for most paleon- 


* Morphologie der Organismen, vol. ii; and Anthropogenie, 
1874. 
{ Ausland, 1873, and Studien tiber die Stammesgeschichte der 


Ammoniten, 1880. 
t Origin of the Fittest. * Origin of the Fittest, p. 142. 


234 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


tologists have not approached their work from the 
biologic side, and biologists have been equally neglect- 
ful of the results attained by paleontology. A distin- 
guished zoologist once said to the writer, on being shown 
an ontogenetic series of ammonites, and the conclusions 
reached, “It is all beautiful, but almost too good to be 
true.” In paleontology it is especially true that a natu- 
ralist may be-a specialist in the fauna of one age, and 
know little of that of another. Hence the animals of 
various periods have been classified according to vary- 
ing standards, all artificial. The only cure for these 
discrepancies is study of ontogeny, and comparison 
of stages of growth of the individual with ancestral 
genera. This will also prevent the description of sup- 
posedly new genera and species based on immature 
specimens, as has so often been done. The writer re- 
members once collecting numerous Ceratites in the Kar- 
nic limestone of the California Trias, much to his aston- 
ishment, for they ought not to occur so high up. He 
afterward found, however, that they were not adults, 
but adolescent ceratitic stages of Arpadites ; a similar 
case was the finding in the same horizon a TZ%rolites 
above its proper range, but it turned out to be the 
young of a Zrachyceras that persisted unusually long in 
the Zvrolites stage. At that time there was nothing in 
the description of these genera or any of their species 
to guide one, and so their ontogeny had to be worked 
out independently. But there is nothing in the descrip- 
tion of almost any fossil genera and species to prevent 
just such mistakes, and they are constantly being made. 

By careful study of ontogeny in comparison with 
phylogeny the paleontologist can correlate correctly 
fossil beds where even all the genera and species are 
new; he can even prophesy concerning the occurrence 
of unknown genera in certain horizons when he finds 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 235 


their minute counterparts in youthful stages of later 
forms; in fact, he could often furnish just as exact a 
description of the form as if he had the adult genus 
before him. 


NOMENCLATURE OF STAGES OF GROWTH. 


In order to correlate ontogenetic stages with the 
generic changes seen in the development of the race it 
is necessary to have an exact scientific nomenclature. 
The most satisfactory is that given by Professor Hyatt 
in Phylogeny of an Acquired Characteristic.* 


TABLE OF ONTOGENETIC STAGES. 
Stages. Stages. Substages. Comparison with phylogeny. 


Embryonic (1) Embryonic { Protembryo ) Phylembryonic 
Mesembryo 
Metembryo 
Neoembryo 
Typembryo 
Phylembryo 


Larval (2) Nepionic { Ananepionic 
Metanepionic >} Phylonepionic 
Paranepionic 
Adolescent (3) Neanic Ananeanic 
Metaneanic 
Paraneanic 


Adult (4) Ephebic { estas 


Phyloneanic 


etephebic Phylephebic 
Parephebic 


Senile (5) Gerontic Anagerontic 
Metagerontic } Phylogerontic 
Paragerontic 


o 
& 


Parac- Acme 


With the embryonic stage the paleontologist can do 
nothing, except the very last substage or phylembryo, 
when the Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and other groups be- 
gin to secrete their shells; but all the later stages are 
easily accessible in well-preserved material. 

The best example of correlation of ontogenetic 


* Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., vol. xxxii, No. 143, pp. 391 and 397. 


236 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


stages with phylogeny is the genealogy of Medlicottia, 
worked out by Karpinsky,* who has shown that the Car- 
boniferous genus Pronorites goes through the following 
stages: latisellate protoconch, phylembryonic; with 
the second suture it reaches the Axarcestes stage, nepi- 
onic; about the end of the first revolution the Jbergice- 
ras stage begins, paranepionic; second revolution shows 
the Paraprolecanttes stage, neanic; on the third whorl 
begins the Pronorites stage, adult.| Thus with regard 
to Pronorites the genus Azarcestes is phylonepionic, 
Lbergiceras is phyloparanepionic, Paraprolecanites is phy- 
loneanic. In the same work Karpinsky has shown that 
Medlicottia is a direct descendant of Pronorites, and in 
its development goes through all the stages of the ances- 
tral genus and adds several more. The first revolution 
of Medlicottia could not be studied, but on the second 
revolution was seen the /bergiceras stage, metanepionic; 
on the third whorl the Paraprolecanites stage, paranepi- 
onic; at the end of the third whorl the Pronorites stage, 
beginning of the neanic; on the fourth whorl the 
Sicanites stage, end of the neanic; on the fifth whorl the 
Promedlicottia stage, anephebic; ‘and lastly, at end of the 
fifth whorl, Med/icottia, adult in characteristics, though 
not yet in size. 


PALEONTOGENY. 


Just as biologists are turning more and more to the 
study of morphology and ontogeny, so the paleontolo- 
gist is striving to find out the life-his- 
tory of fossil species—paleontogeny. It 
will surprise many to.learn that this can 
be done, but in reality the development of many fossil 


General 
statement. 


* Mem. Acad. Imper. Sci. St. Petersburg, vii ser., tome xxxvii, 
No. 2, Ammoneen der Artinsk-Stufe. 
t See Plate IV, Fig. 9. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 237 


species is known more accurately than that of most liv- 
ing forms. 

Vertebrates are out of the question for this sort of 
work, being too highly accelerated in their development ; 
the stages that might be useful in phylogenetic study 
are gone through before the animal is capable of being 
preserved as a fossil. In the ccelenterates the relations 
between Cenozoic and Paleozoic forms are not under- 
stood, and the ontogeny of the group does not show 
changes that are striking enough to throw much light on 
their history. In the #chinodermata poor preservation 
of fossil forms, especially of the young, makes ontogen- 
etic study very difficult, but Dr. R. T. Jackson * has 
been able, by a study of development of plates of the 
sea urchins, to throw some light on the phylogeny of 
the group. The only crinoid of which the development 
is known is Antedon, which, unlike all the others, is free- 
swimming when adult, although attached by a jointed 
stem asa larva. The investigations of Wyville Thom- 
son, Bury, and others, show that the embryo is like the 
larva of certain annelid worms; after a short free stage 
this embryo settles down, attaches itself to some object, 
begins to secrete a stem and jointed calyx, or body cup. 
In this stage it is like the /chthyocrinoidea of the Paleo- 
zoic. Thencertain of the plates are resorbed, the char- 
acter of the jointed stem changed, and the animal is like 
Pentacrinus of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. At the end 
of its larval period Antedon frees itself from its fixed 
position, loses all resemblance to Pentacrinus, and for 
the rest of its life is a free-swimming pelagic form. 

The most satisfactory groups for this work are the 
Brachiopoda, the Mollusca, and the Crustacea, 


* Studies of Paleechinoidea. Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vol. vii, 
pp. 71-254. 


238 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Brachiopoda.—The brachiopods have this decided 
advantage, that they can be hatched in marine labora- 
tories, and the various stages studied from the egg up, 
as has been done by Brooks, Kovalevski, Lacaze-Du- 
thiers, Morse, and Shipley, with the genera Ciste//a, Glot- 
tudia, Lacazella, Liothyrina, and Terebratulina, But it 
was reserved for the paleontologists Beecher, J. M. 
Clarke, and Schuchert to correlate the ontogeny of liv- 
ing forms with ancestral genera, and give a biogenetic 
classification of the Brachiopoda* based on ontogenetic 
study. 

In living specimens the subdivisions of the embryonic 
stage, protembryo, mesembryo, neoembryo, and typem- 
bryo may easily be made out, but since these are shell- 
less the work of the paleontologist begins with the phyl- 
embryonic substage, when the shell gland secretes the 
protegulum. From this upward the paleontologist 
works on equal terms with the zodlogist, for the suc- 
ceeding stages are capable of preservation, and may be 
compared with ancestral genera. Beecher and Schu- 
chert + have demonstrated that the Ancylobranchia (Tere- 
bratuloids) all go through a primitive Centronelliform 
stage, and that the Melicopegmata (spire-bearers) do the 
same, and are for a while genuine Amcylobranchia. Schu- 
chert’s classification of the Brachiopoda, published in 
Eastman’s translation of Zittel’s Text-Book of Paleontol- 


* For correlation of stages of growth with generic changes, 
and for the literature on ontogeny and phylogeny of Brachiopoda, 
see papers by Dr. C. E. Beecher, Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. xliv, Au- 
gust, 1892, Development of Brachiopoda, Part II; and Trans. 
Connecticut Acad. Sci., vol. ix, March, 1893, Revision of the 
Families of Loop-bearing Brachiopoda; and The Development 
of Terebratalia Obsoleta Dall. 

t Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. viii, July 13, 1893. Devel- 
opment of the Brachial Supports in Dielasma and Zygospira. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 239 


ogy, 1896, may be taken as strictly biogenetic so far as 
the data now at hand make such a thing possible. 

Crustacea.—The only Crustacea that are useful for the 
study of paleontogeny are the trilobites, and since they 
are all extinct without leaving any descendants, mod- 
ern biology can give us little help. We are thus to 
a greater extent than with the Brachiopoda thrown en- 
tirely on the ontogeny of fossils, and in this case, too, 
the various stages must be worked out from separate in- 
dividuals. Many naturalists, beginning with Barrande, 
have worked on the ontogeny of trilobites, have de- 
scribed various stages, sometimes as larve, sometimes 
as adult genera or species, but they met with seemingly 
insuperable difficulties in correlating these stages with 
the genealogy. Dr. C. E. Beecher, however, has over- 
come these difficulties, presenting his results in a recent 
paper on The Larval Stages of Trilobites,* in which 
he shows that all trilobites go through a phylembryonic 
stage, protaspis, homologous to the protonauplius of the 
higher Crustacea. While no known genera are exactly 
like the protaspis, still there are several that retain 
many of its features, After the protaspis stage the vari- 
ous groups of genera develop in different directions, 
but all go through larval stages analogous to generic 
changes in their group. The protaspis itself of the 
later groups becomes more complicated by acceleration 
of development, but always retains its essential features. 
By means of this study Dr. Beecher has been able to 
give the beginning of a one genetic classification of 
trilobites.+ 

Mollusca.—Of the aribhesca only the Pelecypoda and 
the Cephalopoda are of use to the student of paleontog- 


* Amer. Geol., vol. xvi, September, 1895. 
+ Amer. Jour. Sci., February and March, 1897. Outline of a 
Natural Classification of Trilobites.” 
17 


240 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


eny, for of the Gastropoda we have not as yet a bioge- 
netic classification, and the larval stages even of living 
forms have not been well studied. 

Pelecypoda.— Almost all that has been done in com- 
paring genera of Pelecypoda with stages of growth is the 
work of Dr. R. T. Jackson,* who has shown that they 
all go through a phylembryonic stage, prodissoconch, 
analogous to the protegulum of Brachiopoda, the proto- 
conch of Cephalopoda and Gastropoda, and the protaspis 
of trilobites. The prodissoconch ‘is a straight-hinged, 
two-muscled, smooth-shelled, bivalve stage, correspond- 
ing to the nuculoids, the primitive radicle stock of pele- 
cypods. Even the monomyarian oyster goes through 
this dimyarian stage. 

Cephalopoda.—The living dibranchiate cephalopods, 
Octopus, Loligo, Spirula, Argonauta, and other naked 
forms, are scarcely capable of preserving their larval 
stages as fossils; but what is known of their develop- 
ment points to a tetrabranch ancestry, as, for example, 
the rudimentary second pair of gills in some forms. 

The tetrabranchiate cephalopods, of which the Vau#- 
Zus is the only living representative, are entitled to 
speak with especial authority on evolution, for near the 
end of a long and varied family history they have gone 
through all the changes of progression and retrogression 
of which the group is capable. Also a much more per- 
fect record has been kept of them in the rocks than of 
any other class of animals, so that practically all the 
sorts of tetrabranchs that existed are known. 

Their remote ancestry.is unknown, but indications 
seem to point to Zentaculites as the radicle of the stock 
of cephalopods, although this is no great help, for the 
systematic position of Zentaculites, a supposed pteropod, 


* Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. History, vol. iv, No. 8, 1890. Phy- 
logeny of the Pelecypoda. 


EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES.* 
PuiaTE I, 
All figures on this plate are thirty times enlarged. 
- Glyphioceras incisum AYAtTT. 


Figs. 1 and 2.—Protoconch. 1, from above; 2, from front. 
Diameter, .46 mm. 

Figs. 3, 4, and 5.—Protoconch of same or a nearly related spe- 
cies from Scott County, Arkansas. 3, from above; 4, from front; 
5, from side. 

Figs. 6, 7, and 8.—Protoconch with first two sutures. 6, from 
above; 7, from front; 8, from side. 

Figs. 9 and 10.—Larval stage, diameter of .74 mm., protoconch 
and one half of first whorl, showing the first four sutures, from 
phylembryonic to the paranepionic substage. 9, from side, Io, 
from front. 

Figs. 11 and 12.—Larval stage, diameter of .92 mm., first 
whorl, showing first eight sutures, and transitions from the me- 
tanepionic (Avnarcestes stage), through paranepionic (7ornoceras 
stage) to ananeanic (Prionoceras stage). 11, from front; 12, from 
side. 


* From The Development of Glyphioceras and the Phylogeny of the 
Glyphioceratide, by J. P. Smith. Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., third series, vol. 
i, Geology, No. 3, Plate XIII. 


PLATE I. 


ER$ 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 241 


isin doubt. The first nautiloid known occurs in Cam- 
brian strata, and belongs to the straight-shelled Ortho- 
ceras type, which is the radicle of the group. Zxdoceras, 
the most primitive of orthoceran forms, prevails in the 
Lower Silurian, but here come in also curved forms, at 
first sparingly, then later abundantly. The simple un- 
specialized orthoceran type (of which a member is fig- 
ured on Plate V, Fig. 1), survived throughout the entire 
Paleozoic, and finally disappeared near the end of the 
Trias. The first of the curved forms departed but little 
from their ancestral habit, as shown on Plate V, Fig. 2; 
but this is enough to give it a new generic title, Cyrto- 
ceras. As time went on the curving became more pro- 
nounced,.as in the species shown on Plate V, Fig. 3, 
still of the cyrtoceran type. Finally the coil became 
complete, although the successive whorls did not touch 
the preceding ones; this stage of evolution (although 
in this case it is really zzvolution) is called Gyroceras, a 
species of which is figured on Plate V, Fig. 4. Later 
still the successive coils began to touch and finally to 
embrace the preceding, and the culmination of the nau- 
tiloids is reached in Mautilus, as shown in Plate V, Fig. 
5. These were formerly looked upon as generic stages, 
but Professor Hyatt* has shown that there were many 
straight forms that were not Orthoceras, many bent forms 
besides Cyrtoceras, many loosely-coiled forms that were 
not Gyroceras, and many close-coiled forms in addi- 
tion to Mautilus. In other words, these correspond- 
ing stages of development were merely morphological 
equivalents of each other in different parallel lines of 
descent from the remote straight-shelled parent stock. 
Each nautilian form in its own development went 
through first an orthoceran stage, then a cyrtoceran, 


* Genesis of the Arietide, and Phylogeny of an Acquired Char- 
acteristic. 


242 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


then a gyroceran, before taking on its own characters; 
each gyroceran form went through these in the same 
order up to its adult characters, but never reached the 
close-coiled nautilian stage; while the orthoceran forms 
remained in that stage of development all their lives. 
These genera were all progressive, and are numerous 
branches radiating from a common stock or radicle, the 
primitive straight nautiloid. Thus different nautilian 
forms may resemble each other closely, and yet be 
actually more closely related to the radicle form than 
they are to each other. Formerly such species were 
grouped together in one genus, and called “representa- 
tive” species; now we know them to be merely morpho- 
logical equivalents in different lines of descent. 

When the close coiled stage was reached the nautilian 
shell had reached its limit, and could progress no fur- 
ther, and at once some of the stock began to retrograde. 
This is beautifully shown in the development of Lituztes 
(Plate V, Fig. 6), which goes through the orthoceran, 
cyrtoceran, gyroceran, and nautilian stages, and as it 
becomes adolescent leaves the close coil and reverts to 
the orthocerantype. A number of other nautilian genera 
acted in this way, giving rise to a number of aberrant 
types. These reversionary nautiloids are confined to 
the Paleozoic, and did not in any case become radicles of 
later groups; they had run their course, exhausted the 
possibilities of development, and died out without 
descendants. But the old simple orthoceran type held 
out until the Trias, and the unspecialized nautilian shell 
endured until the present time, although now rapidly 
nearing extinction. 

The animals that are capable of giving the best proof 
of evolution are the ammonoids. Somewhere back in 
the Silurian an Orthoceras by acceleration of develop- 
ment finally acquired a calcareous protoconch, or em- 


EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES.* 
PLATE II. 


All figures on this plate are fifteen times enlarged, except Fig. 9, 
which is once and a half its natural size. 


Glyphioceras incisum Hyatv. 


Figs. 1 and 2.—Adolescent stage, one and three fourths whorls, 
diameter of 1.29 mm., last whorl is ananeanic (Prionoceras stage) 
and shows transition from paranepionic. 1, front; 2, side. 

Figs. 3 and 4.—Adolescent stage, diameter of 1.37 mm., one 
and seven eighths whorls, Przonoceras stage. 3, from front; 4, 
from side. 

Figs. 5 and 6.—Adolescent stage, diameter of 1.64 mm., two 
and one eighth whorls, Prionoceras stage. 5, from front; 6, from 
side. 

Figs. 7and 8.—End of adolescent stage, diameter of 2.25 mm., 
two and three fourths whorls; transition from /Prionoceras to 
Glyphioceras in the division of the ventral lobe, and beginning 
rounding of the whorl. 7, side view; 8, front view. 

Fig. 9.—Early adult stage, diameter of 15 mm., once and a 
half enlarged. 


* From The Development of Glyphioceras and the Phylogeny of the 
Glyphioceratidez, by J. P. Smith. Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., third series, vol. 
i, Geology, No. 3, Plate XIV. 


PLATE II. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 243 


bryo shell, a marginal siphuncle, and a small siphonal 
lobe. This form, Bactrites, is transitional to the am- 
monoids, and may be considered as the radicle of that 
order; Plate V, Fig. 7, shows a magnified protoconch 
and early larval chambers of Bactrites. The true am- 
monoids developed out of Bactrites near the beginning 
of Devonian time; the first of these, the Mautilinide, 
differed from Bactrites in no respect except their coil, 
and Mimoceras (Plate V, Fig. 8) began its larval history 
as a straight actrites-like shell, then became curved 
like a Cyrtoceras, then loosely coiled like Gyroceras, and 
finally reached the primitive nautilian stage of involu- 
tion. Axarcestes, another of the earliest Mautlinide, 
was successively cyrtoceran, gyroceran, and finally 
close-coiled nautilian. Thus in the ammonoids we have 
a single development series, corresponding to the many 
parallel series of the nautiloids; reversionary series did 
not come in until much later in the family history. 

From the Vautilinide of the early Devonian the am- 
monoids branched out rapidly, continued increasing, di- 
verging, became highly specialized and accelerated until 
their final extinction at the end of Cretaceous time. 
Each ammonite goes through a larval history that is 
long and varied in direct proportion to the length of 
time from its period back to the Lower Devonian, 
Thus in the Vaut/inide we find very simple ontogeny, 
with no great changes from the larval up to the adult 
stages, except in the increasing involution of the later 
whorls. The higher Devonian and Carboniferous spe- 
cies go through several generic changes before they 
become adults, and Mesozoic forms have still longer 
larval and adolescent periods—that is, longer in the 
sense of having more stages. 

From the work of L. von Buch, Quenstedt, and others 
of the older paleontologists, the increasing variety of 


244 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


forms from the goniatites of the Paleozoic, to the ammon- 
ites of the Mesozoic, was known long ago; these natu- 
ralists knew, too, that ammonites went through a gonia- 
tite stage in youth, without connecting this with evolu- 
tion. By using their work we can get a comprehensive 
view of the development of ammonoids from the most 
primitive goniatites to the most highly developed am- 
monites, and thus construct a tentative family tree. 

The simple primitive forms of the Lower Devonian 
branch out by the end of that age into two distinct 
stocks, the Prolecanitide and the Gontatitide, mostly low 
whorled, involute, with simple sutures and little orna- 
mentation. Before the end of the Carboniferous some 
genera have already become ammonitic in the digitation 
of their sutures, as Popanoceras, Thalassoceras, Pronorites 
(Plate IV, Figs. 9 and 10), and some have taken on am- 
monitic ornamentation of the shell, while the sutures 
remain simple and entire, as Gastrioceras (Plate IV, Fig.. 
11) and Paralegoceras (Plate IV, Figs. 12 and 13). None 
of these forms, however, are very evolute, and the 
whorls are mostly rather low. These are all progressive 
in development, and probably nearly all became radi- 
cles of more highly specialized groups. No retrogres- 
sive, or reversionary, goniatites are known. In the 
Permian Pronorites and its descendants Sicanites and 
Medlicottia play an important part, the Arcestide are 
already become important members of the fauna, the 
Tropitide are just beginning, while the Glyphioceratide 
are dying out. Some few genera still persist in the 
goniatitic stage, but most of them became ammonitic 
before the Trias was well on. 

In the Trias the important groups are Arcestide, Pina- 
coceratide, Tropitide, Ceratitide, with numerous others 
less important as members of the Triassic fauna, but of 
great interest as ancestors of many of the chief families 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 245 


of the Jura and Cretaceous. In the Jura these ammon- 
ites reached their acme, branching out into very many 
families and subfamilies, increasing usually in complex- 
ity of sutures and variety of ornamentation. In the 
Cretaceous they gradually declined, dropping off one at 
a time until all were gone. The total number of Am- 
monoidea now described reaches about five thousand, of 
which only a few hundred belong to the Paleozoic gonia- 
tites, the others belonging to the ammonites of the Car- 
boniferous, Permian, and Mesozoic. Later than this no 
ammonoids are known. 

Only simple radicles or stocks persist, but from time 
to time certain genera branch off from the main stock, 
become highly specialized, and often give rise to so- 
called abnormal* forms, phylogerontic or degenerate 
genera (retrogressive), which do not perpetuate their 
race. These leave their close coil, becoming straight, 
as Baculites (Plate V, Fig. 13); ascending spiral, as Tur- 
rilites (Plate V, Fig. 12) ; hook-shaped, as Macroscaphites 
(Plate V, Fig. 14); or open-coiled, gyroceran, as Crio- 
ceras (Plate V, Fig. 11). These do not form a natural 
group, but are themselves even in some cases polyphy- 
letic, as shown by their ontogeny; their larval stages, 
however, as shown even by the straight Baculites (Plate 
V, Fig. 13), all correspond to various normal close- 
coiled progressive genera, such as Lytoceras (Plate V, 
Fig. 10). 

Of course there were phylogerontic genera that were 
not abnormal in shape; thus Clymenia branched off in 
the Upper Devonian into a variety of species, and dis- 
appeared as suddenly ; Afed/icottia reached its culmina- 
tion in the Permian, barely managed to live on until the 
Trias, and disappeared without posterity, while the main 


* J. F. Pompeckj. ' Ueber Ammonoideen mit Anormaler Wohn- 
kammer. Stuttgart, 1894. 


246 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


stock of unspecialized Prolecanitide endured as long as 
the race. The number of phylogerontic forms increases 
in the Mesozoic, showing a constantly increasing tend- 
ency to become abnormal, until before the end of the 
Cretaceous the entire race of ammonoids becomes phy- 
logerontic, and dies out from sheer lack of plasticity to 
modify itself further with changing conditions. 

Such a general view or family tree of the ammonoids 
may be seen in any of the text-books of paleontology, 
especially those of Steinmann,* and of K. von Zittel,t 
where we get the best attempts to represent our present 
knowledge and ideas of the genetic relationships of am- 
monites. These genealogies are, however, purely ten- 
tative, based not on ontogeny but on comparison of 
series of adults. This would undoubtedly be the safest 
way if we had a perfect series of genera and species, but 
such a thing is unknown, and can never be obtained, on 
account of the incompleteness of the geologic record, 
and the mixing of faunas by migration in the past. 

The researches of Hyatt, Branco, and Karpinsky 
have given us a surer way; from their work we have 
learned that the Ammonoidea preserve in each individual 
a complete record of their larval and early adolescent 
history, the embryonic protoconch and the young cham- 
bers being enveloped and protected by later stages of 
the shell. Also the record is a perfect one, for no 
resorption of stages of the shell has ever been observed 
in the chambered cephalopods. And so by breaking off 
the outer chambers the naturalist can in effect cause the 
shell to repeat its life history in inverse order, for each 
stage of growth represents some extinct ancestral genus. 
These genera appeared in the exact order of their 
minute imitations in the larval history of their descend- 


* Elemente der Palzontologie, ‘1890. 
t Grundziige der Palzontologie, 1895. 


EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES.* 
Prate III. 
Schloenbachia nov. sp. aff. S. chicoensis TRASK. 


Fig. 1.—Cross-section, diameter 6.25 mm., four whorls, seven 
and a half times enlarged, showing the embryonic protoconch in 
the centre, P. 

Fig. 2.—Cross-section, adult, diameter 22.25 mm., six whorls, 
one and three quarter times enlarged. 

Fig. 3.—Protoconch and the‘first six septa of the attached coil, 
drawn as if unrolled, fifteen times enlarged. 

Fig. 4.—Larval stage, diameter .68 mm., fifteen times enlarged, 
corresponds to the Carboniferous genus Glyphioceras. 

Fig. 5.—Larval stage, diameter .64 mm., showing septa from 
the third to the tenth, fifteen times enlarged. 

Fig. 6.—Septa in Glyphioceras stage, diameter .75 mm., seven 
eighths whorls. 

Fig. 7.—Larval stage, transitional from Glyphioceras to Gastrio- 
ceras, diameter I.20 mm., one and a half whorls, seven and a half 
times enlarged. 

Fig. 8.—Septa in Gastrioceras stage, diameter 1.70 mm., two 
coils. 

Fig. 9.—End of larval stage, corresponds to the Carboniferous 
genus Paralegoceras, diameter 2.25 mm., two and a quarter whorls, 
seven and a half times enlarged. 

Fig. 10.—Septa in Paralegoceras stage, diameter 2.50 mm., two 
and a half coils, end of larval stage. 

Fig. 11.—Septa in Para-Styrites stage, fifteen times enlarged, 
diameter 3.80 mm. (early adolescent). 

Fig. 12.—Adolescent stage (Para-Styrites), four coils, diameter 
5.60 mm., seven and a half times enlarged. 

Fig. 13.—Septa at diameter 6.40 mm., fifteen times enlarged, 
three and three fourths whorls (middle adolescent). 


* Figs. 1-4 from J. P. Smith, Journal Geol., vol. v, No. 5, Comp. Study 
of Paleontogeny and Phylogeny; all the other figures on this plate are 
original. Drawings by Frances R. Smith. 


PLATE III. 


18 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 247 


ants, and by a comparative study of larval stages with 
adult forms the naturalist finds the key to relationships, 
and is enabled to arrange genera in genetic series. They 
were all marine, never parasitic, always free, and so with 
them there is no obscuring of the record; also in the 
Mollusca generic and specific characters show in the 
shell better than in the soft parts; so the classification 
of fossil ammonites is just as good as that of living 
shellfish. 

The importance of this will be appreciated if we con- 
sider other groups. The crustacean goes through suc- 
cessive stages and moults its shell after each change, 
thus making it difficult, especially in fossils, to find and 
study these various stages. The ammonite, after it has 
grown out of each stage of its shell, carries it around 
enveloped in the later chambers. So in a single speci- 
men the record is complete, and may be read by skilful 
handling. 

Although genera appeared in the order of corre- 
sponding larval stages, they did not disappear in the 
same order; and so their survival under favourable con- 
ditions is liable to make confusion in the record, if one 
depends wholly on the study of series of adults. Such 
forms, for instance, as Styrites, Tropiceltites, Miltites, and 
others, that are now known only in the Karnic zone of 
the Upper Trias, are undoubtedly such survivals, for 
they still have simple goniatitic sutures, very little orna- 
mentation, and in general are more like Lower Triassic 
ammonites than members of the TZvofites subbullatus 
fauna. The stray Ztrolites foliaceus, which appears in 
the Alps and in California in this same fauna, is another 
survival of a Lower Triassic type, but fortunately we 
do know TZ?rol/ites in the horizon where it belongs. If 
this were not the case the naturalist would be very much 
puzzled at finding Zvrachyceras of the Karnic horizon 


248 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


going through a TZirolites stage in its early youth. 
Neither does the first discovery of a genus always cor- 
respond with its first appearance. For example, tere- 
bratuloid brachiopods are not known below the Devo- 
nian, but their existence in the Silurian is necessitated by 
the occurrence of a terebratuloid stage in the ontogeny 
of spire-bearing brachiopods (Azcylobranchia) of that age. 

One great drawback to this work is that the am- 
monite faunas of the various ages have been classified 
by different specialists and on different principles, but 
all artificial. Thus the Triassic ammonites are divided 
into Leiostraca (smooth-shelled) and Trachyostraca 
(rough-shelled), a classification that can not be extended 
even to Jurassic groups. The Trachyostraca are further 
divided into 7ropitide, with long body chamber, and Cera#i- 
tide, with short chamber. But neither of these groups is 
monophyletic, for it is quite probable, judging from their 
ontogeny, that members of both groups are derived 
from the Goniatitide, and others from the Prolecanitida. 
Further, the authorities agree in deriving the Zropitide 
from the Glyphioceratide, but the larval stages of some 
of the Zropitide show the undivided ventral lobe and 
an unmistakable resemblance to certain Prolecanitide ; 
other so-called Zvopitide show the divided ventral lobe 
at an early age, and a decided resemblance to the stock 
of Glyphioceratide. 

In the same way most authorities agree that the Tra- 
chyostraca were all extinguished at the end of the 
Trias, and that all the Jurassic and Cretaceous ammon- 
ites, with the exception of Lytoceratide and Phyllocera- 
tide, were derived from the radicle Psi/oceras, and this, 
too, in spite of the fact that many of the genera are 
rough shelled, and in their larval stages show marked 
likeness to trachyostracan genera. Any naturalist can 
convince himself of this by looking at the young stages 


tr 
iu 


EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES.* 
PiaTE IV. 


Fig. 1.—Development of septa of Glyphioceras incisum Hyatt, 
from the protoconch to the eighth septum, 22. 

Fig. 2.—Adolescent septum of G. izcisum, one and three fourth 
coils, diameter 1.29 mm., twenty times enlarged (Prionoceras 
stage). 

Fig. 3.—Septum of G. incisum, diameter 1.37 mm. (Prionoceras). 

Fig. 4.—Septum of G. imcisum, diameter 1.64 mm. (Prionoceras). 

Fig. 5.—Septum of G. incisum, diameter 2.25 mm., two and 
three quarter whorls, transition from Prionoceras to Glyphioceras. 

Fig. 6.—Early adult septum of G. imcisum, diameter 15 mm. 

Fig. 7.—Septa of Anarcestes subnautilinus Sandberger (after 
L. von Buch). 

Fig. 8.—Development of the septa of Zornoceras retrorsum 
Buch (after Branco). 

Fig. 9.—Development of the septa of Pronorites cyclolobus Phil- 
lips (after Karpinsky). 

Fig. 10.—Adult septum of Pronorites cyclolobus, variety arkan- 
stensis, J. P. Smith (after J. P. Smith, Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., vol. 
xxv, No. 152, Plate XXIV, Fig. 4). 

Fig. 11.—Septum of Gastrioceras branneri J. P. Smith (loc. cit., 
Plate XXIII, Fig. 6). 

Fig. 12.—Paralegoceras towense Meek and Worthen (after J. P. 
Smith, Zc. cit., Plate XIX, Fig. 1). 

Fig. 13.—Septa of P. zowense (after J. P. Smith, Joc. cit., Plate 
XIX, Fig. 34). 


* The figures of G. zmctsum are from The Development of Glyphioceras 
and the Phylogeny of the Glyphioceratide, by J. P. Smith. Proc. Calif. 
Acad. Sci., third series, vol. i, Geology, No. 3, Plate XV. The figures of 
Tornoceras are from Branco, Palzontographica, vol. xxvii, Plate V, Fig. 7. 
The septa of Pronorites cyclolobus are from Karpinsky, Ammoneen d. 
Artinsk-Stufe, Plate I, Fig. 4 g-/. Drawings by Frances R. Smith. 


PLATE IV. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 249 


of Jurassic ammonites figured by Quenstedt.* Quite 
recently Prof. W. Waagen + has called attention to the 
likeness of certain Trachyostraca to Jurassic genera, 
and indicated the probability of genetic relationships. 
But Mojsisovics { says that these similarities have noth- 
ing to do with relationship, but are purely “converg- 
ence phenomena,” whatever that may mean. Resem- 
blance of adults of Triassic and Jurassic forms might 
with some reason be ascribed to this mysterious agency, 
but surely no biologist would thus explain away the re- 
semblance of larval and adolescent stages of Jurassic 
ammonites to adult Trachyostraca of the Trias. There 
was some excuse for such opinions as long as the fauna 
of the upper Trias was not well known, and there was 
apparently a great break in tne series of ammonites. But 
after the appearance of the monographs of G. von Art- 
haber, Diener, Mojsisovics, and Waagen,* on the Triassic 
faunas of the Alps, Himalayas, the Salt Range of India, 
and Siberia, there is no longer any such excuse. Ancestral 
types, long predicted by larval stages of Jurassic ammo- 
nites, may be seen in these works, as, for instance, Zvopi- 
celtites, which is exactly like the neanic stage of Ama/- 
theus ; but the great variety is confusing, and correla- 
tion difficult, on account of unsatisfactory classification. 

The only solution of the problem is to classify ge- 
netically the Paleozoic goniatites, and from them work 
upward into the Permian and Lower Triassic ammonites. 
These older groups have simpler larval stages, are not 
very greatly accelerated, and repeat clearly their an- 
cestral history. When this is done the radicles will all 


* Ammoniten des Schwabischen Jura. 

+ Pal. Indica, Salt Range Fossils, vol. ii, p. 122. 

t Das Gebirge um Hallstadt, Bd. ii, p. 265. 

* For literature on Triassic faunas, see Jour. Geol., vol. iv, No. 
4, J. P. Smith, Classification of Marine Trias. 


250. FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


be known, and when we know the stock of the tree, the 
branches that came off in the higher Trias, Jura, and 
Cretaceous will offer no difficulties. The most syste- 
matic attempt to do this is Haug’s paper, Les Ammo- 
nites du Permien et du Trias;* but his classification is 
based wholly on the character of the sutures, and 
neglects other characters, such as sculpture and shape 
of the whorls. Thus Haug places Eutomoceras with 
the prionidian family Zrachyceratide, disregarding its 
ontogeny, which places it undoubtedly with the Zropitide. 
But no classification based entirely on one character 
can be truly genetic. 

Study of the development of many species has shown 
that similar characteristics do not always mean close 
relationship ; they may often be developed in different 
series coming from a common remote ancestor, and liv- 
ing under similar conditions. They are in no sense 
hereditary characters, but morphological equivalents 
acquired from the action of the same stimulus. The 
occurrence of orthoceran, cyrtoceran, gyroceran, nautil- 
ian, and reversionary stages in both nautiloids and 
ammonoids is a case in point. Compare the develop- 
ment and reversion of Lztudtes (Plate V, Fig. 6), of the 
nautiloid stock with that of Baculites (Plate V, Fig. 13) 
of the ammonoids, and the analogy becomes evident; 
compare also the reversionary Crzoceras (Plate V, Fig. 
11) with the progressive Gyroceras (Plate V, Fig. 4). 
Hyatt,{ in his monographs on the ontogeny of ammonites, 


* Bull. Soc. Géol. France, ii ser., vol. xxii, 1894, No. 6. 

+ Since the above was written, Haug’s Etudes sur les Gonia- 
tites, Mém. Soc. Géol. France, 1898, has appeared, but could not 
be used in this paper. 

¢ Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. iii, No. 5, 1872; and Smith- 
sonian Contrib. to Knowledge, Genesis of the Arietidae, and 
other papers. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 251 


has shown us the way; Branco, by his studies of the 
larval stages of ammonoids, has accumulated a great 
mass of accurate data that can be used with confidence, 
even by the student that rejects his theories as to classi- 
fication, And Karpinsky, by using the methods and 
principles discovered by these naturalists, has worked 
out the genealogy of one of the chief stocks of the 
earlier ammonites. This way lies the truth, and not in 
groundless speculations such as many students of cepha- 
lopods are prone to indulge in. 

In order to succeed, one must select material with 
great care, preferably limestone that is soft but not so 
weathered as to crumble, nor so brittle 
as to shatter. One’s finger nail and 
some steel dental chisels are all the 
tools needed for breaking off the outer whorls of young 
ammonites, A microscope with thirty diameters magni- 
fying power is the most satisfactory, although higher 
powers are occasionally needed. For studying surface 
markings a strong pocket lens is usually sufficient; the 
specimen should then be placed dry on white cardboard. 
For observing the sutures, or shape of the whorls, the 
specimen should be placed on cardboard in a drop of 
water, spread out so as not to distort the object. The 
water, being slightly viscous, will also hold the small 
object in any position. For taking measurements a 
micrometer eyepiece is needed, especially in drawing, 
for the camera lucida is not very satisfactory for draw- 
ing opaque objects. Sections can easily be cut by 
grinding with emery powder on a glass plate. 

The accompanying illustrations will give an idea of 
how the facts are ascertained. A number of well-pre- 
served adults of a species are selected, and the outer 
coils are pulled off piece at a time under water, until a 
complete series is obtained, representing every change 


Method of 
working. 


252 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


in growth. All the pieces of whorls are preserved, but 
often it is possible to have a complete series in one 
specimen. The individuals representing stages of 
growth are kept separate, in small glass tubes attached 
to cards for labels, on which are noted the measure- 
ments of the specimen, stage of growth, and such other 
facts as are wanted for ready reference. ' 

The points to be noted in studying the development 
of chambered cephalopods are: character of the proto- 
conch or embryo shell; position of the siphuncle, 
whether internal, median, or external; character and 
direction of the siphonal collars, as on Plate V, Fig. 9, 
where Zropites phebus has the young siphonal collars 
pointing backward, and the old ones pointing forward, 
also change of the siphuncle from the internal to the 
external margin of the whorl; increasing lobation of 
the septa with advancing growth; changes in the spiral 
of the coil; increasing involution, height of whorls, and 
ornamentation of the outside shell. By observing care- 
fully these changes in character, the successive stages 
may be sharply distinguished from each other from the 
beginning of the larval period to the old age of the 
shell. 

No one species in its life history gives the entire 
history of the race; the earlier forms do not get far 
along in development, while the later ones hasten 
through the earlier generic stages so rapidly that a 
Jurassic or Cretaceous species often begins life where a 
Paleozoic form in the same line of descent left off. We 
are thus often forced to piece out the development his- 
tory with successive species, using both the develop- 
ment of the individual and the successive development 
seen in the rocks. The writer has recently worked out 
the development of Giyphioceras of the Carboniferous, 
and Schloenbachia of the Cretaceous, in the same line of 


EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES. 
PLATE V.* 


Fig. 1.—Orthoceras timidum Barrande (after Zittel, Pal., ii, 
Fig. 518). 

Fig. 2.—Cyrtoceras corbulatum Barrande (after Zittel, Pal., ii, 
Fig. 531). 

Fig. 3.—Cyrtoceras murchisoni Barrande (after Zittel, Fig. 529). 

Fig. 4.—Gyroceras alatum Barrande (after Zittel, Fig. 535). 

Fig. 5.—Nawtilus planotergatus McCoy (after Zittel, Fig. 539). 

Fig. 6.—Lituites ituus Montf. (after Zittel, Fig. 536). 

Fig. 7.—Bactrites protoconch (after Branco, Palzontographica, 
vol. xxvii, 1880). 

Fig. 8.—Mimoceras compressum Sandberger (after Branco, Pal., 
vol. xxvii, Plate VIII). 

Fig. 9.—Tropites phebus Dittmar (after Branco). 

Fig. 10.—Lytoceras liebigi Oppel (after Zittel, Pal., ii, Fig. 632). 

Fig. 11.—Crioceras emerici Léveillé (after T. Wright, Pal. Soc., 
vol. xxxiv, 1880, Lias Ammonites, Fig. 86). 

Fig. 12.—Turrilites catenatus d’Orb. (after Zittel, Pal., ii, Fig. 
640). 

Fig. 13.—Baculites compressus Say (after A. P. Brown, Proc. 
Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, 1892, Plate IX, Fig. 1). 

Fig. 14.—.Wacroscaphites ivanii d’Orb. (after Zittel, Pal., ii, 
Fig. 635). 


* Drawings by Frances R. Smith. 


PLATE V. 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 253 


descent; Glyphioceras goes through distinctly the stages 
from Anarcestes of the Devonian, through Zornoceras 
and Prionoceras, finally stopping in the Glyphioceras stage. 
Schloenbachia hastens through'the Anarcestes, Tornoceras, 
and Prionoceras so that they are hardly recognisable, 
and gets to be a Giyphioceras even in its middle larval 
stage, goes through two more goniatite stages, and 
several ammonite stages before it becomes a Schiloen- 
bachia. 
DEVELOPMENT OF GLYPHIOCERAS. 

Glyphioceras in its development does not show the 
Bactrites (Plate V, Fig. 7) and Mimoceras (Plate V, Fig. 
8) stages, so these must be studied in lower forms; but 
from the Axarcestes stage up they are sharply defined. 
It begins life as a protoconch or embryonic shell while 
undoubtedly still in the egg; this (shown on Plate I, 
Figs. 1-5) corresponds to the primitive cephalopod. At 
the beginning of its larval stage the animal left the 
protoconch, built up the first body chamber, and cut off 
the embryonic part of the shell by the first septum 
(Plate I, Figs. 6 and ro, Plate IV, Fig. 1,1); at this stage 
the shell is analogous to the primitive nautiloid, and it 
is called in Hyatt’s nomenclature ananepionic. With 
the second chamber the young shell becomes an ammo- 
noid, and corresponds to the genus Axarcestes of the 
Lower Devonian; this is shown on Plate I, Fig. 6, and 
on the second and third septum of Fig. 9, also Plate IV, 
Fig. 1, second and third sutures. On Plate IV, Fig. 7 
shows for comparison the septa of Azarcestes subnautilinus 
Sandberger. At the fourth suture the shell is transi- 
tional to Zornoceras of the Middle Devonian, Pilate I, 
Fig. 9, shows the beginning of the Zorzoceras stage, 
which lasts through the sixth chamber, as shown on 
Fig. 12, and on Plate IV, Fig. 1, at the fourth and fifth 
septa. For comparison the development of the septa of 


254 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Tornoceras retrorsum Buch is figured on Plate IV, Fig. 8. 
At the seventh chamber, three fourths of a whorl, and 
diameter of about 0.85 millimetre, the shell changes its 
form rather suddenly, the umbilicus widens, the body 
chamber narrows, and the number of lobes and saddles 
increases; this stage corresponds to the Upper Devonian 
genus Prionoceras, as shown on Plate I, Figs. 11 and 12; 
and more advanced on Plate II, Figs. 2-6, the resem- 
blance to that genus being perfect in everything except 
size, and any naturalist would have described these 
stages as Prionoceras if they had not been taken out of 
the inner coils of Giyphioceras. The septa of this stage 
are shown on Plate IV, Fig. 1, eighth septum, and Figs. 2, 
3, and 4; Fig. 5 shows the transition to Glyphioceras, 
and the corresponding shell is shown on Plate II, Figs. 
7 and 8. The adult is shown on Plate II, Fig. 9, and 
Plate IV, Fig. 6. 


DEVELOPMENT OF SCHLOENBACHIA. 


Schloenbachia begins its development almost where 
Glyphioceras leaves off, or rather it hastens through the 
stages before the Glyphioceras stage so rapidly that they 
are almost unrecognisable. On Plate III, Fig. 3 shows 
the embryonic protoconch, and the first six septa drawn 
as if unrolled, in which short space it hastens through 
the stages corresponding to Axarcestes, Tornoceras, 
Prionoceras, and becomes a Glyphioceras. Fig. 4 shows 
the shell in that stage, and Fig. 6 shows the correspond- 
ing septa. Fig. 7 shows the transition to the Gastrioceras 
stage, the septa of which are seen in Fig. 8. The next 
stage corresponds to the Carboniferous genus Paralego- 
ceras, Figs. 9 and ro, and with this the goniatitic larval 
period ends. The first adolescent (ammonitic) character 
that appears is a keel, at the diameter of 2.7 millimetres, 
and shortly after this the first lateral saddle becomes 


EVOLUTION OF FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA. 255 


divided by a secondary lobe (Plate III, Fig. 11), and the 
whorl becomes higher and the spiral wider (Fig. 12). 
Shortly after this the lobes and saddles all become 
slightly digitate (Fig. 13), and the family relationship 
of the young shell are unmistakable. 

Fig. 1 shows a cross-section of an adolescent sheil, 
four whorls, in which the broad, low helmet-shaped in- 
ner whorls, the widening of the umbilicus, increase in 
height of the later whorls, development of the keel, and 
flattening of the sides are shown, seven and a half times 
enlarged. : 

Fig. 2 shows an adult cross-section, six whorls, one 
and three quarter times enlarged, showing the angular 
shoulders and considerable involution of the adult 
shell. 

Since Schloenbachia appears near the time of final ex- 
tinction of the ammonites, and is still normal in develop- 
ment, it gives in its own development an admirable 
epitome of the history of the race. And by combining 
this with the ontogeny of its ancestor, Glyphioceras, we 
are able to trace the genealogy with certainty back to 
the first ammonoids that appeared in geologic history. 

By following this method the complete ontogeny of 
any species of ammonite may be worked out, and in 
order to learn the phylogeny of any form it is only 
necessary to combine this with comparative study of 
antecedent genera and species. When this is done for 
all the Ammonoidea, their genealogy will be more per- 
fectly known than any other family tree possibly can 
be. If evolution needs any demonstration to raise it 
from a working hypothesis to a fixed principle of biology 
we have it in the history of the fossil cephalopods. 


18 


Xx. 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 


‘Three roots bear up dominion, Knowledge, Will, 
: The third, Obedience, the great tap-root of all.” 
LowELL. 


THE mind, in the sense in which I shall use the word 
here, is the collective function of the sensorium or brain 
of man and animals. It is the sum total 
of all psychic changes, actions, and re- 
actions. Under the head of psychic 
functions are included all operations of 
the nervous system, as well as operations of like nature 
which take place in creatures without specialized nerve 
fibres or nerve cells, 

As thus defined, mental operations are not neces- 
sarily or exclusively conscious. With the lower animals 
nearly all of them are automatic and un- 
conscious. Even with man, most of them 
must be so. But between the automatic 
and the conscious actions no sharp line of division ex- 
ists. Consciousness is not an entity but a condition. 
It stands related to mind much as flame is related to 
fire. All functions of the nervous system are alike in 
essential nature, and from the present point of view may 
be considered together. 

It is a recognised law in biology that “function pre- 
cedes structure.” To define this law more exactly we 

256 


Mind the sum 
total of psychic 
changes. 


Mind not 
consciousness. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 257 


should say that function precedes the differentiation of 
the organ on which it depends. There is a certain work 
to be done and a certain body of cells are set apart 

sooner or later to do it. Just as plough- 


Function ing was done in some fashion before the 
precedes A . fitheai h i 
Sanur invention of the plough, so in some man- 


ner respiration was accomplished before 
the development of gills and lungs. Something of men- 
tal action came before there was an organized brain. 
This law involves nothing mysterious or incomprehen- 
sible. It does not, so far as we know, imply the pre- 
existence of mind or the carrying out of any predeter- 
mined purpose in development. All this may be or may 
not be, but the phenomena in question throw no light 
on it. The fact seems to be that when the bodily pro- 
cesses make certain demands on an organism, these de- 
mands will be met in some fashion. Through natural 
selection some better structure will come into competi- 
tion. The cells and tissues on which the function de- 
pends will be specialized as an organ. In creatures of 
different ancestry the same function may be discharged 
by widely different organs. Conversely, what is ances- 
trally the same organ may in different groups of ani- 
mals serve functions widely different. 

In the animals of one cell, or protozoa, breathing 
and digestion are each performed by the whole body. 
In the division of labour or specialization which arises 
in the higher or many-celled animals certain alliances of 
cells or tissues are set apart for respiration alone, and 
certain others for digestion, while other functions of 
animal life are relegated to still other cell alliances. 
Each organ in turn is released from all functions except 
its own. 

Irritability, or the response to external stimulus, is 
an attribute of all living organisms. In the method 


258 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


and degree of response variations occur. Those varia- 
tions favourable to the division of labour and the adap- 
tation of the animal to its surroundings 
are seized and fixed by natural selection. 
In this way, on the basis of a diffused 
function, an organ is built up and the organ itself is 

specialized and perfected. 
The mind and consciousness of man is an outgrowth 
from the irritability of the lower animals, developed 
through series of “successive differen- 


Irritability the 
basis of mind. 


The hvala tiations and integrations.” All the 
adequate for the hie er ee f 
ratte igher animals are colonies of co-oper- 


ating and co-ordinated cells. In such 
colonies of units the functions of sensation, thought, 
and motion are relegated to series of the most sensitive 
and most highly organized cells. This alliance of cells 
is adequate for the work it has to perform. The brain 
is always adequate for the mind, for the one is the 
organ, the other the function, and the development of 
the two must go on together. 

The intellect of man can not be regarded as the 
crowning marvel of the “great riddles of life.” A mar- 
vel is no greater for its bigness. Life is 
one continuous marvel, without break or 
end. The human mind is one of life’s 
manifestations. ‘The marvel appears in great or small 
psychic powers alike, for the great powers of the many- 
celled brain are produced by the co-operation and spe- 
cialization of the small powers of the single cell. Na- 
ture knows neither great nor small. “God works finer 
with his hands than man can see with his eyes.” The 
single cell is far from simple. The egg or germ cell 
carries within itself the whole machinery, as well as the 
whole mystery, of heredity. The simplest organism we 
know is far more complex than the constitution of the 


The marvel 
of life. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 259 


United States. Its adjustments, checks, and balances 
are more perfect. It should in its changing relations be 
compared rather with the great unwritten constitution 
of civilized society. The laws of society spring from 
the laws governing the development of the single cell. 
If we knew the latter “all in all,” as Tennyson says — 
of the flower, “we should know what God is and 
man is.” 

If we could follow any life problem to its uttermost 
detail, we should have the clew to all life. 

Among the protozoa, as already stated, all activities 
are centred in the single cell which forms the animal 
unit. Each cell is sufficient unto itself. 
It is independent and free, but it is at 
the same time unspecialized and in- 
effective. Its career offers no wide play for volition, 
for a single life unit can not control the elements which 
surround it. It is the sport of the wind and the wave. 
But the recognition of self and non-self, which in one 
form or another is the attribute of all life, is not want- 
ing among the protozoa. Some of them develop this 
sense to a large degree. It is said that among the 
rhizopods are those whose appendages or pseudopodia 
are at once cast off if they come in contact with the ap- 
pendages of another of the same species. This recog- 
nition of self and non-self is not intellect, but it is 
homologous with the impulses on which in the higher 
types personality depends. 

All sensation has reference to action. If a creature 
is not to act it can not feel. Wherever motion exists 
there is some sensitiveness to external 
conditions, and this is of the nature of 
mind. In a compound organism the na- 
ture and position of the sensorium or mind centre de- 
pends on what it has to do, or rather on what were the 


Activities of 
protozoa. 


Sensation re- 
lated to action. 


260 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


duties the same structure had to perform in the life of 
the creature’s ancestors. 

A plant may be defined as a sessile animal. It is an 
organic colony of cells, with the power of motion in 
parts but not that of locomotion. The 
plant draws its nourishment from inor- 
ganic nature—from air and water. Its 
life is not conditioned on a search for food, nor on the 
movement of the body as a whole. 

The plant searches for food by a movement of the 
feeding parts alone. In the process of growth, as Dar- 
win has shown, the tips of the branches and roots are in 
constant motion. This movement is in a spiral squirm. 
The movement of the tendrils of the growing vine is 
only an exaggeration of the same action. The course 
of the squirming rootlet may be deflected from a regu- 
lar spiral by the presence of water. The moving branch- 
lets will turn toward the sun. The region of sensation 
in the plant and the point of growth are identical be- 
cause this is the only part that needs to move. The 
tender tip is the plant’s brain. If locomotion were in 
question the plant would need to be differently con- 
structed. It would demand the mechanism of the ani- 
mal. The nerve, brain, and muscle of the plant are all 
represented by the tender growing cells of the moving 
tips. The plant is touched by moisture or sunlight. It 
“thinks” of them, and in so doing the cells'that are 
touched and “think” are turned toward the source of 
the stimulus. The function of the brain, therefore, in 
some sense exists in the tree, but there is no need in 
the tree for a specialized sensorium. 

The many-celled animals from the lowest to the 
highest bear in their organization some relation to loco- 
motion. The animal feeds on living creatures, and these 
it must pursue if it is to thrive. It is not the sensitive 


Mind of 
the plant. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 261 


nerve tips which are to move; it is the whole creature, 
By the division of labour the whole body of the com- 
pound organism can not be given over 


Logmeton to sensation. Hence the development 
demands ; a 

: of sense organs different in character: 
sensation. 


one stimulated by waves of light, another 
by waves of sound; one sensitive to odour, another 
to taste; still others to contact, temperature, muscular 
strain, and pain. These sense organs must through their 
nerve fibres report to a sensorium which is distinct from 
each of them. And in the process of specialization the 
sensorium itself is subdivided into higher and lower 
nerve centres; centres of conscious thought and auto- 
matic transfer of impulse into motion. This transfer in- 
dicates the real nature of all forms of nerve action. All 
are processes of transfer of sensation into movement. 
The sensorium or brain has no knowledge except such as 
comes to it from the sense organs through the ingoing 
or sensory nerves. It has no power to act save by its 
control of the muscles through the outgoing or motor 
nerves. The mind has no teacher save the senses; no 
servants save the muscles. 

The reflex action then is the type of all mental opera- 
tions. The brain is hidden in darkness, protected from 
sensation as also from injury by a bony 
box or a padding of flesh. It has no 
ideas of its own. It can receive no information direct- 
ly. But the sense organs flood it with impressions of 
the external world, and to these impressions the brain 
chooses corresponding. acts. From the body itself, by 
similar means, are transmitted impressions which be- 
come impulses to action. Such tendencies in all ani- 
mals and men are transmitted from generation to gen- 
eration as a part of the legacy of heredity. They are in 
their nature rather methods of movement than impulses 


Reflex action. 


262 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


to act. Motion goes along lines of least resistance, and 
such lines are part of the stock of heredity. 

Many of the impressions from environment are re- 
ceived by the lower nerve centres alone, the sympathetic 
system or the spinal cord. Here they are converted at 
once into motion without rising into the region of con- 
sciousness. Other sensations rise to the brain itself and 
are made the basis of voluntary and conscious action. 
And between the purely automatic actions and those 
distinctly conscious and voluntary there may be found 
every possible intermediate grade. 

Moreover, a conscious action often repeated becomes 
in some degree reflex and automatic. By repeated 
action nerve connections are formed, 
which have been compared to the auto- 
matic switches of the electric-light plant. 
By these connections an action once become familiar 
requires no further conscious attention. This fact is 
known to us as the formation of habit. That which 
we do to-day voluntarily and even laboriously, the force 
of habit will cause us to repeat to-morrow easily, invol- 
untarily, and whether we will or not. By the repetition 
of conscious actions the character is formed. This for- 
mation of personal character by action I have elsewhere 
called “the higher heredity,” as distinguished from the 
true heredity which finds its bounds in the content of the 
germinal cell. By means of habits each creature builds 
up in some fashion its own life. In such way and to 
some degree each is “the architect of his own fortunes.” 
In such manner “the vanished yesterdays” are the 
tyrants of to-morrow. 

Besides the actual sensations, the so-called realities, 
the brain retains also the sensations which have been re- 
ceived, and which are not wholly lost. Memory-pictures 
crowd the mind, mingling with pictures brought in afresh 


The higher 
heredity. 


TIIE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 263 


by the senses. The force of suggestion causes the men- 
tal states or conditions of one person to repeat them- 
selves in others. Abnormal conditions 
of the brain itself furnish another series 
of feelings with which the brain must 
deal. Moreover, the brain is charged with impulses to 
action passed on from generation to generation, surviv- 
ing because they are useful. With all these arises the 
necessity for choice as a function of the mind. The 
mind must neglect or suppress all sensations which it 
can not weave into action. The dog sees nothing that 
does not belong to its little world. The man in search 
of mushrooms “tramples down oak trees in his walks.” 
To select the sensations that concern us 
is the basis of the power of attention. 
The suppression of undesired action isa 
function of the will. To find data for choice among the 
possible motor responses is a function of the intellect, 
Intellectual persistency is the essence of individual char- 
acter. 

As the conditions of life become more complex, it 
becomes necessary for action to become more carefully 
selected. Wisdom is the parent of virtue. Knowing 
what should be done logically precedes doing it. Good 
impulses and good intentions do not make actions safe. 
In the long run, action is tested not by its motives, but 
by its results. 

The child when he comes into the world has every- 
thing to learn. His nervous system is charged with ten- 
dencies to reaction and impulses to motion, which have 
their survivals from ancestral experience. Exact knowl- 
edge, by which his own actions can be made exact, must 
come through his own experience. The experience of 
others must be expressed in terms of his own before it 
becomes wisdom. Wisdom, as I have elsewhere said, 


Realities and 
illusions. 


Selection of 
sensations. 


264 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


is knowing what one ought todo next. Virtue is do- 
ing it. Doing right becomes habit if it is pursued long 
enough. It becomes a “second nature,” or a higher 
heredity. The formation of a higher heredity of wis- 
dom and virtue, of knowing right and doing right, is 
the basis of character-building. 

The moral character is based on knowing the best, 
choosing the best, and doing the best. It can not be 
built up on imitation. By imitation, sug- 
gestion, and conventionality the masses 
are formed and controlled. To build 
up a man is a nobler process, demanding materials and 
methods of a higher order. The growth of man is 
the assertion of individuality. History is the record of 
the acts of robust men. 

The first relation of the child to external things is 
expressed in this: What can I do with it? What is its 
relationto me? The sensation goes over 
into thought, the thought into action. 
Thus the impression of the object is built 
into the little universe of hismind. The 
object and the action it implies are closely associated. 
As more objects are apprehended, more complex rela- 
tions arise, but the primal condition remains, What can 
I do with it? Sensation, thought, action, this is the 
natural sequence of each completed mental process. As 
volition passes over into action, so does science into art, 
knowledge into power, wisdom into virtue. 

It is thus evident that, with an animal as with an 
army, /ocomotion demands direction. The sensorium is 
built up as a director of motion. Natu- 
ral selection causes the survival of those 
whose sensorium is adequate for the safe control of 
movement. The animal which conducts its life pro- 
cesses in insecurity perishes. The existence of an or- 


Robust men 
make history. 


The relation of 
the child to the 
environment. 


The sensorium. 


THE EVOLUTION OF. THE MIND. 26% 


ganism is the test of its adequacy. The continued ex- 
istence of a series of organisms is the ultimate proof of 
the truth of the senses. 

With the lower animals we have automatic obedience 
to the demand of external conditions. The greater the 
stress of the environment the more per- 
fect the automatism, for impulses to safe 
action must always be adequate for the 
duty which in the ancestral past they have had to per- 
form. To automatic mind processes inherited from 
generation to generation the name instinct has been 
given. Whether instinct is in any degree inherited 
habit or whether it is the product simply of natural 
selection acting upon the varying methods of automatic 
response, destroying those whose responses are inade- 
quate, need not concern us now. 

The homing instinct of the fur seal, concluding its 
long swim of three thousand miles by a return on a little 
island hidden in the arctic fogs, to the 
very spot from which it was driven by 
the ice six months before, excites our as- 
tonishment. But this power is not an illustration of 
animal intelligence. The homing instinct with the fur 
seal is a simple necessity of life. Without it the indi- 
vidual would be lost to its species. Only those which 
have the instinct in perfection can return. Only those 
who return can leave descendants. As to the others the 
rough sea tells no tales. We know that not all of the 
fur seals who set forth come back. To those who do 
return the homing instinct has proved adequate. And 
this it must always be so long as the race exists, 
for general inadequacy would mean extinction of the 
species. 

The intellect, as distinguished from lower mental 
operations, is the choice among responses to external 


Nature of 
instinct, 


Instinct of the 
fur seal. 


266 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


conditions. Complex conditions permit a variety of re- 
sponses. Varying conditions demand a change of re- 
sponse. This demand is met by the intel- 
lect. The intellect rises with a complex 
or changing environment. The greater 
the stress on a race of thinking creatures, the more ac- 
tive and effective their thoughts. The growth of man 
has been a succession of triumphs over hard conditions, 
The races which have been successful 
have arisen from adversity. Prosperity 
has been the conquest of hard times. 
Human progress in general has come 
through the falling away of the ineffective. The fool- 
killer has been its most active agent. ‘ The goodness 
and the severity of God” are in science one and the 
same thing, as they were in the thought of the prophet. 
Its essence is the survival of those who can live and act 
effectively and happily in the conditions which surround 
human and animal life. The power of safe and accurate 
response to external conditions is the essential feature 
of sanity. The inability to adapt action to need is a 
character of insanity. Insanity, except as protected by 
human altruism, means death. 

The difference between intellect and instinct in 
lower animals may be illustrated by the conduct of 
certain monkeys brought into relation 
with new experiences. At one time I 
had two adult monkeys, “Bob” and 
“Jocko,” belonging to the genus Macacus. Neither of 
these possessed the egg-eating instinct. At the same 
time I had a baby monkey, “ Mono,” of the genus Cer- 
copithecus, Mono had never seen an egg, but his in- 
herited impulses bore a direct relation to feeding on 
eggs, just as the heredity of AZacacus taught the others 
how to crack nuts or to peel fruit. 


Nature of the 
intellect. 


Effect of 
adversity on 
the intellect. 


Intellect of the 
monkey people. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 267 


To each of these monkeys I gave an egg, the first 
that any of them had ever seen. 

The baby monkey, Mono, being of an. egg-eating 
race, devoured his egg by the operation of instinct or 
inherited habit. On being given the egg for the first 
time, he cracked it against his upper teeth, making a 
hole in it, and sucked out all the substance. Then hold- 
ing the egg-shell up to the light and seeing that there 
was no longer anything in it, he threw it away. All this 
he did mechanically, automatically, and it was just as 
well done with the first egg he ever saw as with any 
other he ate. All eggs since offered him he has treated 
in the same way. 

The monkey Bob took the egg for some kind of 
nut. He broke it against his upper teeth and tried to 
pull off.the shell, when the inside ran out and fell on 
the ground. He looked at it for a moment in bewilder- 
ment, took both hands and scooped up the yolk and the 
sand with which it was mixed and swallowed the whole. 
Then he stuffed the shell itself into his mouth. This act 
was not instinctive. It was the work of pure reason. 
Evidently his race was not familiar with the use of eggs 
and had acquired no instincts regarding them. He 
would do it better next time. Reason is an inefficient 
agent at first, a weak tool; but when it is trained it be- 
comes an agent more valuable and more powerful than 
any instinct. 

The monkey Jocko tried to eat the egg offered him 
in much the same way that Bob did, but, not liking the 
taste, he threw it away. 

The low intelligence of the lower animals—as the 
fishes—may be at times worse than noneat all. If mental 
development were a real advantage to fishes it would 
arise through natural selection. The fishes taken in 
a large pound net, as I have observed them in Lake 


268 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Michigan, can not escape from it because they have not 
intelligence enough to find the opening through which 
they have entered. If, however, a loon enters the net 
the fishes become frightened and “lose their heads.” 
In this case they will sooner or later all escape, for they 
cease to hunt about ineffectively for an opening, and 
flee automatically in straight lines, and these straight 
lines will in time bring them to the open door of the net. 

Wild animals learn to avoid poisonous plants by in- 
stinct. Those who have not an inherited dislike for 
these plants perish. When the animals are brought into 
contact with vegetation unknown to their ancestors this 
instinct fails them. Hence arises in California the dan- 
ger from “loco weeds,” as certain species of wild vetches 
are called. These plants produce temporary or per- 
manent insanity or paralysis of nerve centres. The 
native ponies avoid them, but imported animals do not, 
and often fall victims to their nerve-poisoning influ- 
ence. In the long run, only those survive who dislike 
the “loco-weed ” and avoid it instinctively. 

The confusion of highly perfected instinct with in- 
tellect is very common in popular discussions. Instinct 
grows weak and less accurate in its 
automatic obedience as the intellect be- 
comes available in its place. Both in- 
tellect and instinct are outgrowths from 
the simple reflex response to external conditions. But 
instinct insures a single definite response to the cor- 
responding stimulus. The intellect has a choice of re- 
sponses. In its lower stages it is vacillating and inef- 
fective; but as its development goes on it becomes 
alert and adequate to the varied conditions of life. It 
grows with the need for improvement. It will therefore 
become impossible for the complexity of life to outgrow 
the adequacy of man to adapt himself to its conditions. 


Intellect the 
choice of 
responses. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 269 


Many animals currently believed to be of high in- 
telligence are not so. The fur seal just mentioned, for 
example, finds its way back from the 
long swim of two or three thousand 
miles through a foggy and stormy sea, 
and is never too late or too early in arrival. The 
female fur seal goes two hundred miles to her feeding 
grounds in summer, leaving the pup on the shore. 
After a week or two she returns to find him within a 
few rods of the rocks where she had left him. Both 
mother and young know each other by call and by 
odour, and neither are ever mistaken, though ten thou- 
sand other pups and other mothers occupy the same 
rookery. But this is not intelligence. It is simply in- 
stinct, because it has no element of choice in it. What- 
ever its ancestors were forced to do the fur seal does to 
perfection. Its instincts are perfect as clockwork, and 
the necessities of migration must keep them so. But if 
brought into new conditions it is dazed and stupid. It 
can not choose when different lines of action are pre- 
sented. 

The Bering Sea Commission once made an experi- 
ment on the possibility of separating the young male 
fur seals, or “killables,” from the old ones in the same 
band. The method was to drive them through a wooden 
chute or runway with two valve-like doors at the end. 
These animals can be driven like sheep, but to sort them 
in the way proposed proved impossible. The most ex- 
perienced males would beat their noses against a closed 
door, if they had seen a seal before them pass through 
it. That this door had been shut and another opened 
beside it passed their comprehension. They could not 
choose the new direction. In like manner a male fur 
seal will watch the killing and skinning of his mates 
with perfect composure. He will sniff at their blood 


Intellect of the 
fur seal. 


270 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


with languid curiosity. So long as it is not his own it 
does not matter. That it may be his own in a minute 
or two he can not foresee. 

The study of the development of mind in animals 
and men gives no support to the medieval idea that 
the mind exists as an entity apart from the organ 
through which it operates. This “cla- 
vier theory” of the mind, that the ego 
resides in the brain, playing upon the 
cells as a musician upon the chords of a piano, finds no 
warrant in fact. So far as the evidence goes, we know 
of no ego* except that which arises from the co-ordina- 


The clavier 
theory of mind, 


* That what we really know of human personality tells the 
whole story of it, no one should maintain. It is well, how- 
ever, not to ascribe to it entities and qualities of which we know 
nothing. Huxley well says: ‘‘ There can be little doubt that the 
further science advances, the more extensively and consistently 
will all the phenomena be represented by materialistic formule 
and symbols. But the man of science who, forgetting the limits 
of philosophical inquiry, slides from these formule and symbols 
into what is commonly understood by materialism, seems to me 
to place himself on a level with the mathematician who should 
mistake the x’s and y’s with which he works his problems for real 
entities; and with this further disadvantage as compared with 
the mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of no prac- 
tical consequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may 
paralyze the energies and destroy the beauty of life. 

‘*We live,” continues Huxley, ‘tin a world which is full of 
misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is 
to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less 
miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he 
entered it. To do this effectually it is necessary to be fully pos- 
sessed of two beliefs—the first, that the order of nature is ascer- 
tainable by our faculties to an extent which is practically unlim- 
ited; the second, that our volition counts for something as a 
condition of the course of events. 

‘Each of these beliefs can be verified experimentally as often 
‘as we like to try. Each, therefore, stands upon the strongest 


’ 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 271 


tion of the nerve cells. All consciousness is “ colonial 
consciousness,” the product of co-operation. It stands 
related to the action of individual cells 
much as the content of a poem with the 
words or letters composing it. Its ex- 
istence is a phenomenon of co-operation. The Zin man 
is the expression of the co-working of the processes and 
impulses of the brain. The brain is made of individual 
_ cells, just as England is made of individual men. To 
say that England wills a certain deed, or owns a certain 
territory, or thinks a certain thought, is no morea figure 
of speech than to say that “I will,” “I own,” or “I 
think.” The “England” is the expression of union of 
the individual wills and thoughts and ownerships of 
Englishmen. Similarly, my “Ego” is the expression of 
the aggregate force resulting from co-ordination of the 
elements that make up my body. 

The old dictum of the philosopher, “I think, there- 
fore I am,” is not literally and wholly true. ‘ We think, 
therefore we are,” we the aggregation of 
brain cells, would be quite as truthful. 
But we brain cells do not think indi- 
vidually ; only collectively or colonially. So no single 
sentence can express the whole truth, nor Can a trust- 
worthy philosophy grow out of any single psychological 
axiom. 

The development of the character is the formation 
of the ego. It is in itself the co-ordination of the ele- 
ments of heredity, the bringing into union of warring 


Colonial 
consciousness. 


‘*Cogito, 
ergo sum.” 


foundation upon which any belief can rest, and forms one of our 
highest truths. If we find that the ascertainment of the order of 
nature is facilitated by using one terminology or one set of sym- 
bols rather than another, it is our clear duty to use the former; 
and no harm can accrue so long as we bear in mind that we are 
dealing merely with terms and symbols.” 

19 


272 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


tendencies and irrelevant impulses left us by our ances- 
tors. The child is a mixture of imperfectly related 
impulses and powers. It is a mosaic of 
ancestral heredity. Its growth into per- 
sonality is the process of bringing these 
elements into relation to each other. 

In his study of the phenomena of “conversion,” 
Edwin Diller Starbuck gives this view of the physio- 
logical phenomena associated with the 
development of personality, the build- 
ing up of a se/f by a process which 
“is primarily unselfing.” “It is pretty well known,” 
Dr. Starbuck says, “that the quality of mind is much 
dependent upon the fineness of nervous structure. The 
child has about as many nerve cells as the adult. They 
differ from those of the adult in form. Those of the 
child are mostly round, whereas those of the adult have 
often very many branches with which they connect with 
the other cells. Nervous growth seems to consist large- 
ly in the formation of new nervous connections. The 
rapid growth at puberty probably means that at that 
time there is a great increase in nervous branching. 
The increased ramification of nervous tissue probably 
determines the ability for seeing in general terms, for 
intellectual grasp, and for spiritual insight. The rapid 
formation of new nerve connections in early adolescence 
may be the cause of the physiological unrest and men- 
tal distress that intensifies into what we have called the 
sense of incompleteness which precedes conversion. 
The mind becomes a ferment of half-formed ideas, as 
the brain is a mesh of poorly organized parts. This 
creates uncertainty, unhappiness, dejection, and the like, 
because there is not the power of free mental activity. 
The person is restless to be born into a larger world 
that is dimly felt. Finally, through wholesome sugges- 


Development 
of the ego, 


The building 
of the self. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 273 


tions or normal development, order comes and then ew 
world dawns. Often some emotional stress or shock 
strikes harmony into the struggling imperfection and 
truth comes like a flash.” 

The evil effect of the excess of sense impressions and 
of thought dissociated from will and action has been 
noted many times and in many ways. 
When men have made themselves wise 
with the lore of Others, the learning 
which ends in self and does not spend itself on action, 
they have been neither virtuous nor happy. “ Much 
learning is a weariness of the flesh.” Thought without 
action ends in intense fatigue of the soul, the disgust 
with all “the sorry scheme of things entire,” which is 
the mark of the unwholesome and insane philosophy of 
pessimism. This philosophy finds its condemnation in 
the-fact that it has never yet been translated into pure 
and helpful life. 

In like manner sentiment not woven into action 
fails to be a source of effectiveness or of happiness. 
“Tf thou lovest me,” said Christ to 
Simon Peter, “feed my lambs.” Genu- 
ine love works itself out in self-spend- 
ing, in doing something for the help or pleasure of 
those beloved. Religious sentimentalism, whatever the 
form it may take, if dissociated from action, has only 
evil effects. Appeal to the emotions for emotion’s sake 
has been a great factor in human deterioration. Much 
that has been called “degeneration” in 
modern social life is due to the pre- 
dominance of sensory impressions over motor move-. 
ment. The mind passes through a round of sensations, 
emotions called up by literature, music, art, religion, 
which may not have any direct bearing on human con- 
duct. Their aggregate influence on the idle brain is 


Sensation with- 
out action. 


Impulse and 
action. 


Degeneration. 


274 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


® 
always evil. And the misery of motor paralysis, of in- 
tellectual pauperism, is felt as the disease of ennut. 
The remedy for evils of revery, ennui, narcotism, and the 
like, is to be found in action. The knowledge of this 
fact constitutes the strength of the Salvation Army 
movement. The victim of mental deterioration, the 
“ opium fiend,” or the inebriate is given something to do. 
He is not to wear out the little force he has left in 
ineffective remorse. Better let him beat a big drum and 
make night hideous with unmusical song than to settle 
down to the dry rot of revery or the wet rot of emotional 
regret. Something to do and the will to act furnishes 
the remedy for all forms of social or personal discontent, 

Not every sense impression can demand distinct re- 
sponse. It is the function of the intellect to sift these 
impressions, turning over into action 
only those in which action is desirable 
or wise. The power of attention is one 
of the most valuable attributes of the trained mind. 
And the essential of this power is in the suppression by 
the will of all impulses which do not concern the pres- 
ent need of action. 

As the normal workings of the mind are reducible to 
sensation, thought, will, and action, so the abnormal 
workings may be due to defects of any 
one of these elements. We may have 
defects of sensation, defects of thought, 
vacillation of will, and inaccuracy of action. Hyperes- 
thesia, anzesthesia, sensory weakness, appear in the un- 
certain action of the muscles guided by the ill-informed 
or over-informed brain. The defects and diseases of the 
brain itself appear in many ways, ranging from oddity or 
folly to the extreme of idiocy or mania. Most of the 
“psychic phenomena” along “the borderland of spirit,” 
which occupy a large part in current litérature, are char- 


The power 
of attention. 


Defects in men- 
tal operation. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 275 


acters of insanity. The phenomena of hysteria, faith 
cure, openness to suggestion, subjective imagery, mys- 
ticism, are not indications of spiritual 
strength, but of decay and disintegration 
of the nerves. The ecstasy of unbal- 
anced religious excitement and the stupor of a drunken 
debauch may belong to the same category of mental phe- 
nomena. Both point toward moral and spiritual decay. 
There are no occult or “latent powers” of the mind ex- 
cept those which have become useless in changed con- 
ditions, or which belong to the process of disintegration. 
If a man crosses his eyes and is thus enabled to see ob- 
jects double, we do not regard him as having developed 
a “latent power” of vision. He has simply destroyed 
the normal co-ordination of such power. One does 
not increase the strength of a rope by untwisting its 
strands. The effectiveness of life depends upon the co- 
ordination and co-operation of the parts of the nervous 
system. Its strands must be kept together. To move 
in a state of revery, “to live in two worlds at once,” to 
be unable to separate memory pictures from realities, 
all these are forms of nervous disintegration. Every 
phase of them can be found in the madhouse. The end 
of such conditions is death. The healthy mind should 
combat all tendencies toward disintegration. It can be 
clean and strong only by being true. 

In like manner the influence of all drugs which affect 
the nervous system must be in the direction of disinte- 
gration. The healthy mind stands in 
clear and normal relations with Nature. 
It feels pain as pain. It feels action as pleasure. The 
drug which conceals pain or gives a false pleasure when 
pleasure does not exist forces a lie upon the nervous 
system. The drug which disposes to revery rather than 
to work, which makes us feel well when we are not well, 


Phenomena 
of hysteria. 


Effect of drugs. 


276 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


destroys the sanity of life. All stimulants, narcotics, 
and tonics which affect the nervous system in whatever 
way reduce the truthfulness of sensation, thought, and 
action. Toward insanity all such influences lead; and 
their effect, slight though it be, is of the same nature as 
mania. The man who would see clearly, think truth- 
fully, and act effectively must avoid them all. Emer- 
gency aside, he can not safely force upon his- nervous 
‘system even the smallest falsehood. And here lies the 
one great unanswerable argument for total abstinence; 
‘not abstinence from alcohol alone, but from all nerve 
poisons and emotional excesses. The man who would 
be sane must avoid, emergencies excepted, all nerve 
excitants, nerve soothers, and “nerve foods,” as well as 
trances, ecstasies, and similar abnormal relations to the 
external world. If he would keep his mind he must 
never “lose his head” save in the rest of normal sleep. 

In general, great work is not accomplished under the 
influence of drugs or stimulants. The great thoughts 
and great deeds which move the world are those of men 
who live soberly and whose nervous systems record 
truthfully the facts of nature and of life. 

What is true of man is true of animals, and true of 
nations as well. For a nation is an aggregation of 
many men as a man is a coalition of 
many cells. In the life of a nation, 
Lowell tells us, “three roots bear up 
Dominion—Knowledge, Will, the third Obedience, the 
great tap-root of all.” This relation corresponds to the 
nervous sequence in the individual. And as in general 
the ills of humanity are due to untruthfulness in thought 
and action, so are the collective ills of nations due to 
national folly, vacillation, and disobedience. The laws 
of national greatness expand themselves from the laws 
which govern the growth of the single cell. 


The mind 
of nations. 


XI. 
DEGENERATION. 


By degeneration is meant the process by which a 
living being changes for the worse. This implies a nar- 
rowing range of powers and capabilities. The word is 
opposed in meaning to change for the better, which we 
call progress or development. 

Throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms may 
be found instances of degenerate types. There are spe- 
cies or groups of species which have de- 
clined in complexity of structure and 
range of activities as compared with 
their ancestors. Degeneration of type appears when- 
ever the range of competition is narrowed or incentive 
to activity lessened. It takes place whenever a relaxa- 
tion of the struggle for existence permits life on a lower 
plane of activity or with less perfect adaptation to con- 
ditions. Thus a land animal transferred to the sea has 
its range of activity narrowed. There is competition 
from fewer quarters, and a corresponding decline of 
competitive structures takes place, 

The most striking cases of degeneration are those of 
quiescent animals, and parasitic animals and plants, as 
compared with their free-swimming self- 
dependent ancestors. Examples of de- 
generate quiescent animals are the Tuni- 
cates. These creatures, descended from fishlike ances- 

277 


Decline in range 
of activities. 


Quiescent 
animals. 


278 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


tors, are reduced to motionless sacs, buried in the sand 
or anchored to rocks or wharves. The evidence of their 
origin is found in the fact that the young Tunicate is 
tadpole-shaped, with a rudimentary back- 
bone, and has the motions and in large 
degree the structure of the fish. With the loss of power 
of locomotion the structures on which locomotion de- 
pends also disappear. 

Still more marked is the degeneration of parasites. 
It is a universal rule that all creatures dependent on 
others for support lose their power of 
self-help. Parasitic insects lose their 
wings and are confined to the bodies of 
those unwillingly made their hosts. Parasitic worms 
are the simplest of their kind. Insects feeding on the 
juices of plants which they suck without moving be- 
come reduced to mere living scales. 

Perhaps the most remarkable example of the degen- 
eration of parasitism is that seen in the crustacean 
called Sacculina, This creature appears 
as a simple sac attached to the body of 
the crab, into which its root processes or blood vessels 
extend. When it is hatched from the egg it is similar 
in form to a young crab, independent and free-swim- 
ming. It soon attaches itself to some adult crab, into 
the body of which it extends its processes. It loses its 
power of locomotion, and the limbs all disappear. Liv- 
ing at the expense of others, self-activity is not de- 
manded, and its position protects it from competition to 
which free-swimming crabs are subject. It becomes 
degraded into a parasitic sac, with no organs except 
a nervous ganglion, its ovaries, and root processes. 
This is the female Sacculina, and parasitic upon this is 
the smaller and still more degraded male of the same 
species. 


Tunicates. 


Parasitical 
animals. 


Sacculina. 


DEGENERATION, 279 


The Sacculina is the type of race degeneration among 

animals and plants, When the stimulus to individual 

activity is lowered and the conditions of 

Animal pauper- environment are such that destruction 

ism homologous does not follow reduced activity, we 
with human ‘ cs 

pauperism. have continuous degeneration. This is 

the condition of animal pauperism. The 

same general laws hold good among men. Inactivity and 


\ 


Fic. 19.—Sacculina after leaving the egg. (After Lang.) 


dependence, protection in idleness, bring about deterio- 
ration and end in weakness, incapacity, and extinction. 


280 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


It is true that all advance in one structure implies 
degradation of some other. This is the so-called “law 
of compensation.” The specialization 
of the human hand, for example, has been 
at the cost of the human foot. The 
power to. live by his wits has taken from man something 
of the strength and spryness of his.apelike ancestors, 


Law of 
compensation. 


Fic. 20.—Sacculina attach- Fic. 21.—Sacculina; Fic. 22.—Saccu- 


ing itself to the crab. an early stage. lina after absorp- 
(After Lang.) (After Lang.) tion of the limbs. 
(After Lang.) ' 


Any organ tends to degenerate when its highest func- 
tion loses importance or is replaced by some other. To 
have one’s food cooked means the reduction of the 
lower jaw and its muscles. For a bird to trust to its 
wings means the decline of the strength of its feet. 
Reduction of unused parts is a universal rule in organic 
development. Decline in all parts is the essential mean- 
ing of degeneration. 

In the current discussions of the day the word de: 


DEGENERATION, 281 


generation is taking an important part. Degeneration . 
is known among men as well as among the lower animals 


Fic. 23.—Adult Sacculina attached by root Fic. 24.—Section of 
processes to the crab. (After Lang.) mature Sacculina. 
(After Lang.) 


or plants. It is governed by similar laws. The condi- 
tions of human degeneration are essentially those of 
degeneration on lower forms. The causes which will in 
the long run transform a crab to a Sacculina will make 
paupers of the descendants of parasitic men. As it is 
the mind that makes the man, the essence of human 
degeneration is failure of the nervous structures and 
functions. It means decline in the accuracy of thought 
and the veracity of action. The soundness of the ma- 
-chinery of response to external conditions determines, 
‘in general, the life and character of man. Degeneration 
in man is therefore “a morbid deviation from the moral 
.type,” so far as nerve functions are concerned. 
Personal degeneration comes naturally with the pe- 
-tiod of. old age. The compound animal or “colonial 


282 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


organism” must break down sooner or later, man not 
less than others. Senility brings even to the best some 
form of nerve decay. The wisest man 
must come to second childhood. Senil- 
ity may come prematurely as a result of 
influences adverse to mental and 
physical activity. These influences 
are manifold and the enumeration 


Degeneration of 
senility. 


4 
| 


Fic. 25.—Sacculina attached" Fic. 5 — Gace with 
to the crab. limbs absorbed. 


of causes and results of the weakness of old age need 
not be attempted here. 

Race degeneration, or continuous decline from gen- 
eration to generation, may be distinguished from the 
wearing out of the individual. , The for- 
mer results from the continuous preser- 
vation of the unfit. As the destruction 
of the unadapted is the chief element of race progress, 
so is their survival the chief element in race decay. De- 
generation occurs when weakness mates with weakness; 


Race 
degeneration. 


DEGENERATION, 283 


when incentives to individual action are taken away, 
without reduction in security of life, and when the unfit 
are sheltered from the consequences of their folly, 
weakness, or perversity. The increased effectiveness of 
altruism which goes with race progress furnishes a shel- 
ter under which race decay goes on. The growth of 
wisdom makes folly safe. At the same time the growth 
of wisdom works the death of fools when they are 
brought into life-and-death competition with those 
stronger and wiser. 

In the open competition of life the lineage of degen- 
eracy is a short one. Each individual man is a link 
in the chain of life. His intellect is its 
guardian. If the safeguard is weak, the 
link will be broken. Under ordinary 
conditions of freedom, there is no such thing as bad 
heredity. Our ancestors are sound and sane each ina 
fair degree, else we should not have seen the light. 

But with all this the withered branch may occur 
on the.most vigorous trees. Some descendant will show 
defects in nervous system or in balance 
of qualities. He will develop weakness 
or excess in sensitiveness or in motor 
response, or his mental operations will show a lack of 
that accuracy we call common sense. Such conditions, 
if inborn through germ variation, may become heredi- 
tary. A degenerate person may under certain condi- 
tions be parent of a race of degenerates or “ mattoids.” 

The conditions of preservation of a decaying race 
may be considered under seven heads. 

The unfit may be preserved as objects of charity. 
“ Charity,” says a French writer, “causes half the suffer- 
ing she relieves; but she can not relieve half the suffer- 
ing she has caused.” Unwise charity is responsible for 
half the pauperism of the world. That pauperism has 


Lineage of de- 
generacy short. 


Withered 
branches, 


284. FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


become perpetual is due in part to the charity that, in- 
aiding the poor, helps pauperism to mate with pauper- 
ism. It is the duty of true charity to 
: remove the causes of weakness and suf- 
through charity. 3 ‘i 

fering. It is equally her duty to see that 
weakness and suffering are not needlessly perpetuated. 

Startling results may follow from the selective breed- 
ing and preservation of paupers. In the valley of Aosta 
in northern Italy, and in other Alpine 
regions, is found the form of idiocy 
known as cretinism, What is the primi- 
tive cause of the cre/iz, and what is the causal connec- 
tion of cretinism with goitre, a disease of the thyroid 
glands which always accompanies it, I do not know. 

It suffices for our purpose ‘to notice that the severe 
military selection which ruled in Switzerland, Savoy, 
and Lombardy for many generations took the strongest 
and healthiest peasants to the wars, and left the idiot 
and goitrous to carry on the affairs of life at home. To 
bear a goitre was to, exempt from military services.. 
Thus in some regions the disease has been a local badge 
of honour. It is said that when iodine lozenges were 
given to the children of Savoy in the hope of prevent- 
ing the enlargement and degeneration of the thyroid 
gland, mothers would take this remedy away from the 
boys, preferring the goitre to military service. 

In the city.of Aosta the goitrous cretin has been for 
centuries an object of charity. The idiot has received 
generous support, while the poor farmer or labourer with 
brains and no goitre has had the severest of struggles. 
In the competition of life a premium has thus been 
placed on imbecility and disease. The cretéz has mated 
with the crediz, the goitre with the goitre, and charity 
and religion have presided over the union. The result 
is that idiocy is multiplied and intensified. The cretin 


Degeneration 


The cretins of 
Aosta. 


DEGENERATION. 285. 


of Aosta has been developed as a new species of man. 
In fair weather the roads about the city are lined with 
these awful paupers—human beings with less intelli- 
gence than the goose, with less decency than the pig. 


‘ 


Fic. 27.—A eretin of Aosta. (From a photograph by Dr. J. W. Jenks.) 


The asylum for cretims in Aosta is a veritable chamber 
of horrors. The sharp words of Whymper are fully jus- 
tified : 

“A large proportion of the creéins who will be born 
in the next generation will undoubtedly be offsprings of 


286 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


cretin parents. It is strange that self-interest does not 
lead the natives of Aosta to place their cretins under 
such restrictions as would prevent their illicit inter- 
course; and it is still more surprising to find the Catho- 
hie Church actually legalizing their marriage. There is 


Fic. 28.—A cretin of Aosta. (After Whymper.) 


something horribly grotesque in the idea of solemnizing 
the union of a brace of idiots, and, since it is well known 
that the disease is hereditary and develops in successive 
generations, the fact that such marriages are sanctioned 


DEGENERATION. 287 


is scandalous and infamous.” (Whymper; Scrambles 
among the Alps.) 

True charity would give these creatures not less 
helpful care, but a care which would guarantee that each 
individual cretiz should be the last of his generation. 

In isolation as under charity, weakness may mate 
with weakness and perpetuate degeneration. The clas- 
sical studies of Dr. Dugdale into the 
natural history of the group of degen- 
erates called “the Jukes” shows that 
the conditions of the slums may be transferred to the 
forests. Outside of the swift current of life in a shel- 
tered nook of the mountains this family 
of cutthroats and prostitutes found a 
place for development. The crush of a great city is 
in some degree an instrument of purification. It brings 
evil and weakness into close competition with wisdom 
and strength, and the former come to speedy destruc- 
tion. The evils of the city rise from corrosion rather 
than from competition. There is nothing in the pure 
air of the mountains that will purify the lineage of 
thieves and paupers. Doubtless the fact of isolation 
and freedom from stress of competition has been a fac- 
tor in the preservation of the decaying Jukes, and the 
same conditions bring about the results in the declining 
classes driven from the plains to the mountains in other 
parts of the world. The Great Smoky Mountains are 
not responsible for the poor whites of 
the highlands of North Carolina. These 
people belong to the lineage of England’s pauperism 
transported first to her colonies, afterward driven from 
the plains to the mountains because of their inability to 
keep slaves, and since preserved there by their isola- 
tion from new currents of life. In like manner, the 
lowest type of negroes is preserved in the isolation of 

20 


Degeneration in 
isolation. 


The Jukes. 


The poor whites. 


288 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


the black belt of the South, the swampy regions near 
the sea, in which white people can not live, and where 
the negroes are not subjected to the stress of industrial 
competition. 

The condition of slavery is one favourable for human 
degeneration. The survival of the docile is its essential 
feature in slavery. There isno premium 
placed on individuality, no advantage in 
intelligence, and a positive disadvantage 
in the impulses of self-direction, A slave can not bea 
man, and the qualities of manhood are checked and de- 
stroyed in slavery. 

In the slums of the cities similar conditions obtain. 
In the life of hopelessness there can be no premium on 
hope. The “artful dodger ” is a typical 
product of the natural selection of the 
slums. To be well born but brought up 
in the slums means to be born to premature death. The 
child of the slums, fitted to his environment, must come 
of the lineage of moral decay. 

In the tropics, conditions favouring human degen- 
eration are constantly present. The intense heat dis- 
courages physical or mental activity, 
while the slight stress of physical sur- 
roundings favours the weak, the vacil- 
lating, the inert. No premium is placed on effort, and 
there is developed a type of man to whom effort is im- 
possible. The conditions of degeneration under the 
tropics closely resemble those seen under ill-advised 
charity. Nature is too kind and too indiscriminating. 
As a result, we have as pauper races the descendants of 
the once civilized and once active Arabs, Egyptians, 
and Saracens. With the decline of effort goes the fail- 
ure of personal will, and the growth of the philosophy 
of fatalism, in which the human will is held to be of no 


Degeneration in 
slavery. 


Degeneration in 
the slums. 


Degeneration in 
the tropics. 


DEGENERATION. 289. 


worth. It is the will of Allah that the Arab should sleep 
in filth, and die the death of rottenness. It is related 
by Edwin H. Woodruff, that not long ago a cesspool in 
a palace at Cairo was to be cleansed. The vault was 
opened, and two or three of the workmen were suffocated 
by the foul gases. “(It is Allah’s will,” said the person 
in authority, “it is Allah’s will that the vault shall not 
be disturbed.” So it was closed again, that its foulness 
might increase for another century. In the tropics man 
knows little of competition. He cares not for time. 
The best man is the laziest, and no civilized race of men 
has yet held its own under these conditions. The strong 
races were born of hard times, they have fought for all 
they have had, and the strength of those they have con- 
quered has entered into their wills. They have been 
selected by competition and sifted by the elements, 
They have risen through struggle and they have gained 
through mutual help, and by the power of the human 
will they have made the earth their own. 

In luxury, again, are found conditions of degener- 
ation. When one has all that he wants, there is little 
incentive to strive for anything more. 
When a race is raised above competition, 
there is no- premium on the qualities 
that make for life. The sheltered life does not favour 
progress. Where the possibility of the misery of want 
is excluded there is still room for the misery of ennui, 
the pressure of existence unresisted by effort. Much of 
that degeneration of the higher classes of Europe, which 
Nordau has attributed to the “inheritance of fatigue 
and nerve-strain of civilization,” is simply personal and 
not inherited. It is the natural result of the loss of per- 
sonal incentive to action. It is the laziness and weak- 
ness engendered in the paupered and sheltered life. In 
the society in which this form of degeneracy appears, 


Degeneration in 
luxury. 


290 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


we find a maximum of sense impressions and a minimum 
of action. Where thought does not go over into action 
a sort of mental dyspepsia is produced. 
To this abnormal condition the term 
“degeneration ”’ has been applied, but 
this name is misleading, because it implies more than 
the actual truth. ce 

To a phase of degeneration Mr. Israel Zangwill has 
lately applied the clever designation of “the higher 
foolishness.” By this is meant unbal- 
anced action and expression on the part 
of people of culture or education. It 
is act or speech “which makes the judicious grieve,” 
on the part of those supposed to know better. Such 
people lacking the saving grace of common sense are 
most of those called by Nordau “ degenerates.” With 
these belong the “monkey geniuses” of Dr. Hirsch, 
the “borderland dwellers” of Dr. Maudsley, the “ bor- 
derlanders” of Mr. Stead, the “dégénerés supérieurs”’ 
of Magnan, the “mattoids” of Lombroso, and, in gen- 
eral, the inspired idiots and educated fools of all ages 
and climes. 

These people have in common the quality of abnor- 
mal mental action, verging into insanity on the one 
hand, to crime on another, and to stupidity on the third. 
They are, however, distinguished from ordinary idiots, 
or lunatics, or criminals by some notable quality, by some 
power of action or expression or attribute of genius, 
which causes them to attract public notice. 

The qualities of these people in relation to art, 
literature, and religion have been the 
subject of the remarkable work by Max 
Nordau entitled Degeneration. 

Nordau’s work has the merit of a picturesque style. 
It has a basis of truth, and contains a veritable mine of 


Mental 
dyspepsia. 


The higher 
foolishness. 


Nordau on 
degeneration. 


DEGENERATION. 291 


telling quotations, while nowhere in literature can we 
finda more merciless arraignment of folly, laxity, and 
“rot” as expressed in literary or artistic form. 

On the other hand, Nordau himself exhibits some of 
the defects which he criticises. His work shows a de- 
cided lack of the sense of perspective. He takes him- 
self, and especially his subjects, too seriously.* He 
gives no scientific analysis of the symptoms they show, 
while causes, effects, symptoms, and imitations alike 
pass with him as evidences of degeneration, His as- 
sumption that degeneration among the higher classes is 
a phenomenon of our times alone, and his supposition 
that it is the inheritance of fatigue, nervous exhaus- 
tion, and the diseases and degeneration conditioned by 
them, has but slight foundation. The proposed remedy 
of Societies for Ethical Culture to act as public judges 
of literature and art seems puerile, and it is not clear 
that his proposed Index Expurgatorius of fool-litera- 
ture would “banish the writings of lunatics from the 
shelves of all respectable booksellers.” It would adver- 
tise rather than suppress. 

‘A remedy for degeneration can not be applied in 
any easy fashion. Sanity is the antidote for insanity, 
cleanliness of thought and action in life for folly and 
crime. It is true, as has been said, that “vice, crime, 
and madness are called by different names only through 
social prejudice.” In like manner virtue, purity, and 
wisdom are largely convertible terms, The sane man 
is like a well-made watch—trained to 
keep correct time under all conditions 
of temptation, pressure, or environment. The “ mat- 
toid” is full of “vibrancy”; he is affected by all sorts 


The mattoid. 


* “There is such a thing as nonsense, and when a man has 
once attained to that deep conception you may be sure of him 
ever after.”—BAGEHOT. 


292 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


of conditions, external and internal. He is like the 
watch which changes its rate of movement at all sorts 
of intervals, that will run off the whole twenty-four 
hours in a minute, and then will not move at all fora 
day to come. He must have a hard head who would 
butt against the stone wall of society and make an im- 
pression upon it. The sound nervous system is one 
well buried in skull and flesh. It knows not the “pride 
of vibrancy,” the “ bliss of the beautiful,” nor the mys- 
tic ‘sensations of the elect mind.” It has no love for 
the “flowers of evil,” the “litany of Satan,” nor any 
aspect of what Starr King called the “rotten side of 
things.” It is satisfied with the life and duties of to- 
day, and can find pleasure in these rather than in frantic 
attempts to seize the unknown day after to-morrow.* 
The sober man will not believe that “that which is pro- 
found loves the mask,” nor that what actually “occurs 
is spoiled for art.” To him, as to Marcus Aurelius, 
“the gods are still at the head of the administration, 
and they will have nothing but the best.” So in that 
part of the universe where he finds himself he finds also 
his duty. 

“The normal man,” Nordau wisely says, ‘with his 
clear mind, logical thought, sound judgment, and strong 
will, sees where the degenerate only 
gropes. He plans and acts where the 
latter dozes and dreams. He drives him without effort 
from all the places where the life-springs of Nature 
bubble up; and, in possession of all the good things 
of the earth, he leaves to the impotent degenerate the 
shelter of the hospital, lunatic asylum, and prison in 
contemptuous pity. Let us imagine the drivelling Zoro- 
aster of Nietsche with his cardboard lions, eagles, and 


The normal man. 


* ‘*Erst das Uebermorgen gehort mir.”—NIETSCHE. 


DEGENERATION. 293 


serpents, or the noctambulist Des Esseintes of the De- 
cadents, sniffing and licking his lips, or Ibsen’s ‘solitary 
powerful’ Stockmann and his Rosmer lusting for suicide 
——in competition with men who rise early, are not weary 
before sunset, who have clear heads, solid stomachs, and 
hard muscles.” 

But in this connection we may remember that com- 
petition is not destruction. The degenerates have been 
helped on by their rivals more than they have been 
harmed. They have been borne on the shoulders of 
civilization, and it is the altruism of science which has 
made their non-science comparatively safe. It is the 
toleration of the sane that gives the insane the right to 
live. It is the power of the strong that maintains the 
weak. Inthe long run the struggle for existence will 
destroy the lineage of the decadents of to-day. No 
shelter can long avail against the “ goodness and sever- 
ity of God.” But the folly which now exists is in- 
trenched behind wisdom. The kindness of man post- 
pones the judgments of Nature. 

It is not true that “genius is a disease of the 
nerves,” as certain writers have insisted, if by genius 
is meant forcefulness of any sort. Real effectiveness 
arises from continuous effort in high directions. We 
are sometimes astounded by a single product of a man 
incapable of continuous thought, but the world is not 
moved by such men, nor has the literature of the ages 
been produced by them. Great men live great lives, 
The great work is the great life’s impression. There is 

“nothing occult, nothing mystic, nothing hysterical in 
greatness of mind or heart. Disease of the nerves is 
not genius; still less is it an attribute of greatness. 

Most of the phenomena of decay described by Nor- 
dau stand related to mental disease at once as cause, 
effect, and symptom. Drunkenness, for example, is the 


294 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


cause of more drunkenness, of further decay of will. It 
is the symptom of the decay of will. It is the effect of 
it. In like manner the love of mysticism grows with 
its license; the love of filth with what it feeds upon. 
Egomania increases with self-admiration, sexual mad- 
ness with its own indulgences. The fantasies of those 
who “have only to hear of Buddhism to become converts 
to it” furnish their own arguments and their own justifi- 
cation, Hysteria, catalepsy, and echolalia have many 
times taken unto themselves the name of religion, and 
proved the truth of this religion by their own excesses. 
Much of the “ decadent literature ” of the day is not 
the product of the decadence of man. It is not the ef- 
fect of the “‘nerve strain of overwrought 
Decadence for —_ senerations born too late in the dusk of 
mercantile ee ee 
purntiaes. the ages. It is simply an unwholesome 
: fashion. Most of it is the work of sane 
men of mediocre abilities, who throw themselves into 
grotesque postures in the hope that they may thereby 
arrest the fickle attention of the public. It is the effort 
of mountebanks to catch the people’s eye. When the 
public becomes accustomed to froth and symbolism, it is 
equally surprised and delighted with sweetness and 
sanity. Neurotic freaks and egomaniacs have been 
found in all ages. The memory of those of earlier ages 
has passed away, as those of to-day will be soon forgot- 
ten. The end of the nineteenth century has no new 
form of “the higher foolishness ” which the preceding 
centuries did not know. It can only offer better facili- 
ties for publicity than could be had in earlier times. 
There is money now in the production of literature of 
decay. In so far as folly and nervous disorder are in- 
nate and hereditary, not individual, we have no reason 
to suppose that they are in any sense a product of the 
rush of modern civilization. 


‘ DEGENERATION. 295 


Most of the degeneration so cleverly treated by Nor- 
dau is purely the result of defects in the life of the indi- 
vidual, in his relation to his environment, and the course 
of action by which his character is formed. Without 
going into a detail for which I have neither space nor 
ability, I may say that the development of mysticism, 
symbolism, “ hearts insurgent,” and general mental and 
moral vagabondage is caused by the lack of sober liv- 
ing and of wholesome work, the lack of motor ideals 
and of outlet for effort. 

In the cities of Europe the common man has risen 
to a life of larger possibilities and greater opportunities 
for success and failure without adequate 
training for such activity. Society is 
like a band of schoolboys in charge of a 
railway train. They know not what to do nor how to 
do it, and are more interested in present enjoyment than 
in the success of any enterprise intrusted to them. 
Small-minded men lost in a multiplicity of impressions 
are likely to do things which suggest degeneration. If 
to this we add the wide diffusion of corrosive elements, 
narcotics, stimulants, impure suggestion, unwholesome 
living, we have elements which tend toward personal 
degeneration. As their influences affect many persons 
alike, they appear as a form of social decadence. 

We find, moreover, in Europe, the prevalence of “a 
strange drooping of spirit.” This feeling that civiliza- 
tion is confined in a blind channel, a 
cul-de-sac, is a natural result of the great 
increase of the results of sense-percep- 
tion without corresponding outlet in action. “ Prog- 
ress,” says Edward Alsworth Ross, referring to this con- 
dition, “ seems to have ended in aimless discontent. The 
schools have produced, according to Bismarck, ten times 
as many overeducated young men as there are places to 


Causes of 
decadence. 


The despondency 
of Europe. 


296 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


fill. The thirst for culture has produced a great hungry 
intellectual proletariat. The forces of darkness are still 
strong, and it seems sometimes as if the middle ages 
would swallow up everything won by modern struggles. 
It is true that many alarms have proved false, but it 
is the steady strain that tells on the mood. It is pa- 
thetic to see on the Continent how men fear to face the 
future. No one has the heart to probe the next decade. 
The outlook is bounded by the next Sunday in the park 
or the theatre. The people throw themselves into the 
pleasures of the moment with desperation of doomed 
men who hear the ring of the hammer on the scaffold. 
Ibsen, applying an old sailor’s superstition to the Euro- 
pean ship of state, tells how one night he stood on the 
deck and looked down on the throng of passengers, each 
the victim of some form of brooding melancholy or 
dark presentiment. As he looked he seemed to hear 
a voice crying, ‘ There’s a corpse on board!’” 

The record of degeneration in music, in art, in litera- 
ture, in religion as traced by Nordau, is the record of 
loss of hope and loss of illusion. In so far as it is 
honest, not a mere affectation, it is the cry called out by 
the misery of personal or social decay. It is the ex- 
pression of mental dyspepsia and physical impotence. 
It finds a large part of its explanation in the fact that, 
with the class affected by it, sense-impressions, feelings, 
and impulses have far outrun the opportunities for ac- 
tion. The cure for this condition is found in ambition, 
effort, individual development. It is not the swift rush 
and whirl of modern civilization which has brought all 
this to pass. It has come rather from attaining the 
results of this rush* without taking part in its effort. 


* A similar thought is expressed by Kant, as quoted by Mark 
Pattison. Of ‘‘Schwarmerei,” or philosophical revery, he says: 
“This mental disease arises from the growth of a class which has 


DEGENERATION. 207 


The genuine man, the man who is doing something, who 
faces “ the world as it is,” in absolute veracity of thought 
and action, is never decadent. Society 
lives through the effort of those who 
have power to act beyond what is needed 
in the common struggle for life. Strength begets 
strength and wisdom leads to wisdom. “There is al- 
ways room for the man of force, and he makes room 
for many.” It is the strong, wise, and good of the past 
who have made civilization possible. It 
is the great human men, the “men in 
the natural order,” that now and for 
all time determine the current of life. ‘“ The earth,” 
Emerson tells us, “is upheld by the veracity of good 

men. They keep the world wholesome.” 
From all institutions a certain form of degeneration 
must arise, because all institutions tend in some degree 
to do away with individual effort. A 


The man of 
force. 


The wholesome 
world. 


ie alae common creed for men weakens the 
under a ate x % 

‘gamer force of individual belief. Common 
institutions. 


ceremonies destroy the spontaneity and 
‘personality of the feelings they represent. Right action 
by statute and convention is in some degree opposed 
to virtue by personal initiative. Between unregulated 
individualism or anarchy and all-controlling institutions 


not yet thorough science, yet is not wholly ignorant. It has 
caught up notions e# current literature which makes it think it- 
self on the same level ef those who have laboriously studied the 
sciences. I see no other means of checking the mischief, except 
that the schools should reform their method and restore thorough 
teaching instead of that teaching of many things which has 
usurped its place.” Thoreau speaks of the derivation of ‘‘ vile” 
and ‘‘ villain” from via, way, and vil/a, village. ‘‘ This suggests,” 
he says, ‘‘that kind of degeneracy villagers are liable to. They 
are wayworn by the travel that goes by and over them without travel- 
ling themselves.” 


298 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


or slavery there must always be a just mean. To find 
and maintain this just mean from generation to genera- 
tion is the function of social reform. The reform of the 
day has been always in the direction of greater personal 
freedom. “Asa snow bank grows where there is a lull 
in the wind,” says Thoreau, “so where there is a lull 
in the truth, institutions spring up; by and by the truth 
blows over them and takes them away.” All forms of 
tyranny have their beginning in kindness. Paternalism 
in time hardens into oppression and checks the growth 
of the individual man, who should become responsible 
to himself and for himself. The intelligence and free- 
dom of one’s neighbours, not the force of statute nor the 
power of arms, are the guarantee of social security. 

Causes of pauperism may be found in other forms of 
giving as well as in those recognised as charity. Men- 
tal pauperism is produced when men are given truth 
instead of being trained to search for it. There are 
schools which tend to make intellectual paupers instead 
of training ‘men to think for themselves. There is a 
moral pauperism induced by the giving of precepts. 
Right conduct must be individual if it is to have stabil- 
ity. The doing of an honest piece of work honestly 
may have more force in moral training than a hundred 
sermons. In like manner spiritual pauperism may be 
produced by religious instruction. Each man must make 
his own religion. He must form his own ideals. In the 
degree that he is religious he must in time become his 
own high priest, as in the degree that he is effective he 
must be his own king. 


XII. 
HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 


Tus world is not, on the whole, a hard world to live 
in if one have the knack of making the proper conces- 
sions. Hosts of animals, plants, and 
men have acquired this knack, and they 
and their descendants are able to hold their own in the 
pressure of the struggle for existence. This pressure 
brings about the persistence of the obedient, those whose 
activities accord with the demands of their environment. 
This persistence of the adaptive is known as the survival 
of the fittest, which has through the ages been the chief 
element of organic progress. Among men there have 
always been those to whom the art of living was im- 
possible. This has been the case under ordinary con- 
ditions as well as under extraordinary ones. It must be 
the case with some under any conceivable environment 
or any circumstances of life. Some variations must 
tend in the direction of incapacity. This incapacity of 
one generation, if inborn and not induced by disease or 
malnutrition, may be handed down by the law of heredity 
to the next. 

In one way or another, in time, most of the incapa- 
bles are eliminated by the process of natural selection. 
But not all of them. Our social system is bound too 
closely. Hereditary incapacity of the few has been in 
all ages a burden on the many who could take care of 

299 


The art of living. 


300 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


themselves. With higher civilization and an increasing 
recognition of the value of mutual help it is becoming 
more and more possible for those to live 
who do not help. The descendants of 
these increase in number with the others. 
They are protected by the others. Thus 
the future of hereditary weakness is a growing problem 
in our social organization. 

Of course the conditions of life have never yet made 
the “survival of the fittest” the real survival of the 
best. Fhe growth of civilization ap- 
proaches this end, but has never reached 
it. If this were reached, adaptation to the conditions 
of life would be a nobler process than it now is. It is 
not that the conditions of life-are too hard. We would 
not make them easier if we could. But the welfare of 
humanity demands that they be made more just. An 
easier world would be one in which idleness, vice, and 
inefficiency fare better than now, and energy, virtue, 
and efficiency correspondingly worse. The premium 
natural selection places on self-activity and mutual help 
is none too great at the best and should not be lessened. 
Nature is over-indulgent toward idleness rather than too 
cruel. The degradation of life in the tropics comes be- 
cause in those regions the stress of the human struggles 
is distinctly lowered. The real “City of the Dreadful 
Night” is not noisy, eager, struggling, unjust London. 
It is some city of the tropics where action and virtue 
count for nothing because there is no incentive to live a 
life worth living, and no adequate penalty for stagnation 
and inefficiency. 

It is easy to frame indictments against modern so- 
ciety and its organization. We may see it as weak, 
tyrannical, depressing, artificial, cruel, or unjust, as we 
may give attention to its least favourable manifestations. 


Mutual help 
preserves the 
incapable. 


The easy world. 


HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 301 


Nevertheless, the social organism of Europe and America 
is as good as man has been able to make it. In the 
evolution of man it has been a long struggle to attain 
even what we have. Better conditions will be possible 
through better material in humanity. Better relations 
demand better men. The more perfect the organism, 
the more evident are its deviations from perfect adap- 
tation. 

It may be that in the conditions of life failure is not 
due to any defect of the individual, Its cause has often 
arisen in injustice and oppression which sometimes 
makes the just, the brave, the wise man an outcast from 
society. Such conditions and such failures occur in the 
life of to-day. But under ordinary conditions those 
who fail in life do so because of the lack of ability to 
make themselves useful to others, or for lack of ability 
to place themselves in harmony with the forces of Na- 
ture with which they are surrounded. In other words, 
most of those who fail are doomed to perish wherever 
there exists any form of competition, and no life is 
without it. The inert, untrained, ignorant, or vicious 
are Constitutionally unsuccessful, and from conditions 
which these names themselves imply. Those who thus 
fail to do their part in the struggle of life must become 
a burden to be carried by others or else they perish, the 
victims of misery they can make no efforts to avoid. 
Those who are carried by society as burdens may be 
roughly classified as paupers and criminals—those whom 
society voluntarily supports and those supported through 
society’s lack of means of self-protection. Pauperism 
and habitual criminality are respectively passive and ac- 
tive states of the same disease. 

In this sense pauperism is not by any, means the 
same as poverty. Poverty is the absence of stored-up 
economic force. It may arise from sickness, accident, 


302 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


or from various temporary conditions. The person now 
-subject to poverty may have within him- 
self the cure for it. The pauper can not 
cure himself, and all help given him but 
intensifies his pauperism. 

There are various conditions—sickness, dissipation, 
the weakness of age, evil associations—that may plunge 
the average man from poverty into pauperism. We are 
none too well equipped for the struggle for life at the 
best, and the loss of weapons or armour may make any 
man helpless for the time being. But some are help- 
less from birth. There is in every nation a multitude 
of men and women to whom fitness is impossible. In 
the submerged tenth of every land may be found the 
broken and stricken, the ruined in body and spirit. But 
the majority of these have never been, could never be, 
anything else than what they are. ‘They are simply in- 
capable, and they are the descendants of others who in 
similar conditions have been likewise incapable. In a 
world of work where clear vision and a clear conscience 
are necessary to life they find themselves without sense 
of justice, without capacity of mind, without desire for 
action, They are born to misery, and the aggregate 
of misery would be sensibly lessened had they never 
been born. 

It is a fact of biology that whenever any series of 
organisms are withdrawn from active life and the pro- 
cess of natural selection no longer offers 
a premium for self-activity, degrada- 
tion sets in. Organs are lost as their 
functions are abandoned. In this way the descent of 
the inert barnacle from the active crablike forms is ac- 
counted for. In similar manner the degraded parasitic 
Sacculina is shown to be of crustacean or crablike or- 
igin. The young Sacculina and the young crab are 


Poverty not 
pauperism. 


Degeneration 
of the inactive. 


HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 303 


essentially alike for a period after their birth. The crab 
continues and develops an active life. The Sacculina 
thrusts its feelers into the body of the crab on which it 
is to feed. Its organs of eating and swimming disap- 
pear, All structures connected with independent life 
become atrophied, and finally nothing is left of the Sac- 
culina except its saclike body, its feelers or roots rami- 
fying through the blood vessels of the crab, and its 
reproductive organs by which the brood of parasites is 
kept alive. When the habit of parasitism is once estab- 
lished, the struggle for existence simply intensifies it 
from generation to generation. 

The fittest Sacculina is the most degenerate one. In 
like manner whenever a race or family of men has fallen 
away from self-helpfulness the forcés of evolution inten- 
sify its parasitism. The successful pauper is the one 
who retains no capacity for anything else. The loss of 
all other possibilities is the best preparation for the life 
of the sneak thief. 

Recent studies, as those of Dugdale, McCulloch, and 
others, have shown that parasitism is hereditary in the 
human species as in the Sacculina. McCulloch has 
selected the Sacculina for special illustration of the 
results of like processes in the human family. Like 
produces like in the world of life. Those qualities in 
the grandparent which made him an outcast from so- 
ciety or a burden upon it reappear in the father and 
again in the son. As in one case, so in the others, they 
determine his relation to society. The pauper is the 
victim of heredity, but neither Nature nor society recog- 
nises that as an excuse for his existence. The forces of 
Nature take no account of motive and are no respecters 
of persons. Dugdale has shown that parasitism, pauper- 
ism, prostitution, and crime reappear generation after 


generation in the descendants of “ Margaret, the mother 
21 


304 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


of criminals.” Oscar C. McCulloch, speaking of the de- 
scendants of a pauper family named “Ishmael,” in the 
city of Indianapolis, uses the following language: 

“We start at some unknown date with thirty fami- 
lies. These came mostly from Kentucky, Tennessee, 
and North Carolina. Of the first gen- 
eration—of sixty-two individuals—we 
know certainly of only three. In the 
second generation we have the history of eighty-four. 
In the third generation we have the history of two hun- 
dred and eighty-three. In the fourth generation—1840- 
1860—we have the history of six hundred and forty- 
four. In the fifth generation—1860—1880—we have the 
history of six hundred and seventy-nine. In the sixth 
generation—1880-1890—we have the history of fifty- 
seven. Here is a total of seventeen hundred and fifty 
individuals. Before the fourth generation—from 1840 
to 1860—we have but scant records. Our most com- 
plete data begin with the fourth generation, and the 
following are valuable. We know of one hundred and 
twenty-one prostitutes. The criminal record is very 
large—petty thieving, larcenies chiefly. There have 
been anumber of murders. The first murder committed 
in the city was in this family. A long and celebrated 
murder case, known as the ‘Clem’ murder, costing the 
State immense amounts of money, is located here. 
Nearly every crime of any note belongs here. Between 
1868 and 1888 not less than five thousand dollars has 
been paid for ‘ passing’ these people from place to place, 
each township officer trying to throw off the responsi- 
bility. The records of the city hospital show that— 
taking out surgical cases, acute general cases, and cases 
outside the city—seventy-five per cent of the cases 
treated are from this class. The number of illegitima- 
cies is very great. The Board of Health reports that the 


The tribe of 
Ishmael. 


HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 305 


number of stillborn children found in sinks, etc., would 
not be less than six per week. Deaths are frequent, and 
chiefly among children. The suffering of the children 
must be great. The people have no occupation. They 
gather swill or ashes; the women beg, and send the 
children around to beg; they make their eyes sore with 
vitriol. In my own experience I have seen three gen- 
erations of beggars among them.. I have not time here 
to go into details, some loathsome, all pitiable. One 
evening I was called to marry a couple. I found them 
in one small room with two beds. In all eleven people 
lived init. The bride was dressing, the groom washing. 
Another member of the family filled a coal-oil lamp 
while burning. The groom offered to haul ashes for the 
fee. I made a present to the bride. Soon after I asked 
one of the family how they were getting on. ‘Oh, 
Elisha don’t live with her any more.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Her 
husband came back, and she went to him. That made 
Elisha mad, and he left her.’ 

“All these are grim facts, but they are facts and can 
be verified. More, they are but thirty families out of a 
possible two hundred and fifty. The individuals already 
traced are over five thousand, interwoven by descent 
and marriage. They underrun society like devil grass. 
Pick up one, and the whole five thousand will be drawn 
up. Over seven thousand pages of history are now on 
file in the Charity Organization Society. 

“A few deductions from these data are offered for 
your consideration. First, this is a study into social 
degeneration, or degradation, which is similar to that 
sketched by Mr. Lankester. Asin the lower orders so 
in society, we have parasitism, or social degradation. 
There is reason to believe that some of this comes from 
old convict stock which England threw into this coun- 
try in the seventeenth century. We find the wandering 


306 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


tendency so marked in the case of ‘Cracker’ and the 
‘Pike’ here. ‘Movin’ on.’ There is scarcely a day that 
the wagons are not to be seen in our streets; cur dogs; 
tow-headed children. They camp outside the city, and 
then beg. Two families as I write have come by, mov- 
ing from north to south, and from east to west, ‘hunt- 
ing work,’ and yet we can give work to a thousand men 
on our gas trenches. 

“Next, note the general inehaseity that character- 
izes this class. The prostitution and illegitimacy are 
large; the tendency shows itself in incests and relations 
lower than the animals go. This is due to the depra- 
vation of Nature, to crowded conditions, to absence of 
decencies and cleanliness. It is an animal reversion 
which can be paralleled in lower animals. The physical 
depravity is followed by physical weakness. Out of this 
come the frequent deaths, the stillborn children, and 
the general incapacity to endure hard work or bad cli- 
mate. They can not work hard, and break down early. 
They then appear in the county asylum, the city hospi- 
tal, and the township trustee’s office. 

“ Third, note the force of heredity. Each child tends 
to the same life, reverts when taken out. 

“ And, lastly, note the influence of the great factor, 
public relief. Since 1840 relief has been given to them, 
At that time we find that ‘old E. Huggins’ applied to 
have his wife Barthemia sent to the poorhouse. A pre- 
mium was then paid for idleness and wandering. The 
amount paid by the township for public relief varies, 
tising as high as $90,000 in 1876, sinking in 1878 to 
$7,000, and ranging with the different trustees from 
$7,000 to $22,000 per year. Of this amount, fully three 
fourths has gone to this class. Public relief, then, is 
chargeable in a large degree with the perpetuation of 
this stock. The township trustee is practically unlim- 


HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 307 


ited in his powers. He can give as much as he sees fit. 
As the office is a political one, about the time of nomi- 
nation and election the amounts increase largely. The 
political bosses favour this and use it—now in the inter- 
ests of the Republican now of the Democratic party. It 
thus becomes a corruption fund of the worst kind. 
What the township trustee fails to do, private benevo- 
lence supplements. The so-called charitable people who 
give to begging children and women with baskets have 
a vast sin to answer for. It is from them that this pau- 
per element gets its consent to exist.” , 

In every American city, as in Indianapolis, there 
exist a large number of people who, in the ordinary 
course of life, can never be made good 
citizens. Our free institutions do not 
make them free; our free schools do not 
train them; our churches do not contain the means of 
their salvation. It is well to face the fact that the ex- 
istence of the great body of paupers and criminals is 
possible only by feeding them in one way or another 
on the life-blood of the community. It is the presence 
of this class which adds terror to poverty. It is they 
which make intolerable the lot of the worthy poor. The 
problem of poverty and misfortune is a difficult one at 
best. It is rendered many times more difficult by the 
presence among the poor of those whom no condition 
could bring to the level of self-helpful and self-respect- 
ing humanity. The difficult problem of the unemployed 
becomes far more difficult when associated with the 
hopeless problem of the unemployable. 

It is not important to our present discussion to con- 
sider how these conditions arose. It may be a defect 
of human society that the law of natural selection has 
not had its perfect work. The destruction of the unfit 
has not kept pace with their power of reproduction. 


Paupers as 
parasites. 


308 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


We may blame the kind influence of charity for lack 
of discrimination in its efforts for the help of our neigh- 
bours. The indiscriminate charity of the middle ages 
is responsible for much of the misery of ours. It is 
only in very modern times that charity has had any 
relation with justice. It is only lately that science has 
shown that charity is to be judged not by its motives 
but by its results. “Charity, falsely so called,” says 
McCulloch, “covers a multitude of sins, and sends the 
pauper out with the benediction, ‘ Be fruitful and multi- 
ply.’ Such charity has made this element, has brought 
children to birth, and insured them a life of misery, cold, 
hunger, sickness. So-called charity joins public relief 
in producing stillborn children, raising prostitutes, and 
educating criminals.” 

Whatever the causes of hereditary inefficiency, it exists 
in our Civilization. It is part of our social fabric. It is 
an element not less difficult than the race problem itself. 
The race problem is indeed a phase of it, for when a 
race can take care of itself it ceases to have a problem. 

Hereditary inefficiency is therefore a factor in so- 
ciety. It must be considered as a factor in civil affairs. 
In what way does it affect the problem 
of government? In municipal govern- 
ment its evil effects are at once appar- 
ent. A single group of related families, 
all helpless and hopeless by heredity, forms in the clean 
and wealthy city of Indianapolis some four per cent of 
the population—5,ooo in perhaps 125,000. In other 
American cities, notably in San Francisco, with its mild 
climate and proverbial hospitality, the percentage is 
greater, for more of these families are represented. In 
no city are they absent. Self-government by such peo- 
ple is a farce. No community was ever built up of 
thieves and imbeciles. The vote of the dependent classes 


Pauperism a 
factor in 
government. 


HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 309 


is always purchasable. The co-ordination and sale of 
this vote and of the allied criminal vote are the work of 
the most dangerous of the dirty brood of political bosses. 
It is the stock in trade of every king of the slums. This 
vote can be bought with the money of candidates. It 
can be bought with the spoils of office. It can be bought 

with public funds set aside for purposes called charity. 
The various forms of outdoor relief constitute, as 
McCulloch has shown, “a corruption fund of the worst 
kind.” The United States has virtually 


ees failed in the management of her cities. 
1 . . . 
aay pues’ This failure is most complete where the 


manipulators of paupers and criminals 
are boldest and most effective; moreover, the effluvium 
of municipal corruption flows out and poisons the poli- 
tics of the state and the nation. 

Every venal, cowardly, or ignorant voter is a menace 
to the safety of republican institutions. The essential 
purpose of popular suffrage is not to secure good gov- 
ernment, but to produce an interest in civil affairs that 
will sooner or later bring about good government. This 
growth in civic knowledge is impossible without a foun- 
dation of intelligence. The choice of negro suffrage 
was the wisest choice among the many evils having 
their rise in negro slavery. It was the least of the 
evils, no doubt, but an evil nevertheless. Every evil 
is likely sooner or later to become a festering sore in 
the body politic. 

The dangers of foreign immigration lie in the over- 
flow to our shores of hereditary unfitness. The causes 
that lead to degeneration have long 
been at work among the poor of Europe. 
The slums of every city in the Old 
World are full of the results. Apparently few cases of 
hereditary inefficiency exist in America that could not 


Foreign 
immigration. 


310 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


be traced back through pauper lineage to dependent 
classes in the Old World. It takes many generations to 
found a pauper stock. Misfortune, sickness, intemper- 
ance, the weakness of old age, often lead to poverty 
and personal misery. Personal causes do not lead to 
hereditary pauperism. The essential danger of unre- 
stricted immigration is not in bringing in an alien popu- 
lation strange to our language and customs. Language 
and customs count for little if the blood is good. The 
children learn our language, even to the forgetting of 
their own. Love of our country is just as genuine in 
Norwegian or German dialects as it is in English or 
Irish. There is little danger either in violent opinions 
or iconoclastic theories. The red flag of anarchy will 
not long wave where real oppression does not exist. 
But the immigration of poverty, degradation, and 
disease make government by the people more and more 
difficult. Every family of “Jukes” and “Ishmaels” 
which enter at Castle Garden carries with it the germs 
of pauperism and crime. They bear the leprosy and 
crime of the Old World to taint the fields of the New. 
The “assisted immigration” at Jamestown years ago 
has left its trail of pauperism and crime from Virginia 
across Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, even to 
California, Oregon, and Hawaii. Wherever its blight has 
gone there are the same inefficient men, sickly women, 
frowsy children, starved horses, barking cur dogs, care- 
lessness, vindictiveness, and neglect of decency. 
Withdrawal from the competition of life, withdrawal 
from self-helpful activity, aided by the voluntary or in- 
voluntary assistance from others—these factors have 
made that which McCulloch calls “the tribe of Ish- 
mael.”” These conditions bring about the same results 
in all ages and among all races, among the lower ani- 
mals as well as among men. The same effects of simi- 


HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 311 


lar causes are seen in the decline of royalty and nobility 
of Europe as well as the degradation of European 
cretins and thieves. There is no development without 
activity, and no race is so perfect that judicious weed- 
ing out could not improve it. 

What can be done to remedy this source of evil? 
To know the evil is to go half way toward its cure. 
Penal reform, charities reform, civil-service reform, the 
prohibition of pauper immigration, education in social 
science—all these look in the direction of cure. In 
knowledge lies the surest remedy for most social and 

political evils. Let us see our enemy 
Taking away face to face and we can strike him. 
acts aa What more can be done is the work of 
thraldom to sin.” Students of social science to determine. 

Dr. Amos G. Warner has well said that 
the “true function of charity is to restore to usefulness 
those who are temporarily unfit, and to allow those un- 
fit from heredity to become extinct with as little pain 
as possible.’’ Sooner or later the last duty will not be 
less important and pressing than the first. Good blood 
as well as free schools and free environment is essential 
to the making of a nation. 


XIII. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND THE WOMAN 
OF PESSIMISM. 


THE primary function of sex is the production of 
variation. Unlikeness among organisms makes possible 
an increased number. With variety of 
qualities there is room for variety in 
adaptation to the possible conditions of 
life. With single parentage or parthenogenesis the 
young will resemble the parent so exactly that the com- 
petition one with another must be of the closest possible 
kind. In the degree that competition is close it must be 
destructive. With double parentage no organism can 
be a slavish copy of any other. Each creation must in 
the nature of things have twice as many ancestors as 
either parent had, and from these ancestors the mosaic 
of its hereditary character must be made up. 

In the beginning of life, so far as we know, the two 
sexes must have been identical. From the point of view 
of evolution neither can be superior nor prior to the 
other. Each is complementary to the other; the dif- 
ferences which have arisen in the progress of develop- 

: ment being responses to the needs of 
Primal equality qivision of labour. 
of sexes. 

The cells of Protozoa which unite in 
the function of conjugation are apparently alike as to 
sex. Their union serves to modify the hereditary char- 

312 


Primary 
meaning of sex. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 313 


acters of their descendants. To have two parents in- 
stead of one is to widen the range of possible variation. 

With time this identity of the two elements in pa- 
rentage disappears, It gives way to specialization, re- 
sulting in a division of function between 
the two sexes and the distinction of 
germ cells from other cells. The germ 
cell in the higher creatures gains characters and quali- 
ties of its own not possessed by the other cells of the 
body. As the character of double parentage is retained 
in the development of the higher animals and plants, it 
too is specialized and perfected. “Nature,” says Weis- 
mann, “has no better way of encouraging variation than 
by preventing individual units from developing alone.” 

In the germ cell of the female, known as the egg or 
ovum, food yolk is deposited for the use of the young 
organism. This burden reduces the activity of the fe- 
male cell. It becomes sessile and motionless. Its cog- 
nate, the male germ, on the other hand, is specialized 
to seek the egg cell. It is made up of an almost bare 
nucleus to which is attached a vibratile structure which 
gives it the power to move. 

This differentiation of sex in the germ cell produces 
changes and reactions in the organism from which it 
proceeds.. The egg-bearing sex becomes in comparison 
with the other sessile, expectant, conservative. The 
feeding of the young and its protection from external 
enemies falls to the lot of the female. The male be- 
comes in varying degree the food winner, the fighter, 
the one which struggles against outside foes. Greater 
physical strength is co-ordinated with the need for 
greater activity. Increased force demands increase of 
size of body. Increased muscular development necessi- 
tates increase in size of the sensorium or brain which 
controls it. 


Specialization 
of germ cells. 


314 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


The process of evolution makes the embryo more and 
more important; specialization checks waste. Among the 
higher forms the loss of ova and of embryos becomes less 
and less; correspondingly fewer in number are needed. 

To bring forth the young alive and to nourish it with 
milk is greatly to reduce the waste of life. It renders a 
birth important. The fox, in the fable, 
once reproached the lioness that she 
brought forth but one young one at a 
time. “Yes,” she said, “ but that one isa lion.” To bear 
the young and to nourish it separates the lioness further 
and further in function from the lion. This handicap of 
her general activities in the interest of the coming gen- 
eration throws greater stress on his. Should she neg- 
lect her duty, her line of descent would be cut off. 
Hence the coming generations are derived from those 
who do not shrink from the self-sacrifice which parent- 
hood demands. What is true of the lower animals is 
true of man in still higher degree. It is the basis of the 
recognised distinctions in the activities of men and 
women. That every child born should make the most 
of itself is the ideal of social development. As society 
advances, father and mother must furnish more and 
more of the environment of the child. The merely 
physical part of parenthood assumes an importance pro- 
gressively less and less. The higher heredity which 
each individual builds up for himself should be well un- 
der way when parental influences cease. The aggregate 
of these influences constitutes the home. 

The duty of home-making must fall on the mother. 
This is demanded of civilized women, that they shall 
be fit for mothers, not merely for nurses 
and cooks and chambermaids. They 
must be fit for the lifelong environment 
of the strongest and wisest men. 


Specialization of 
the embryo. 


Maternity and 
companionship. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 315 


It is not just to regard the male as the normal type 
of humanity, and woman as a modification or degrada- 
tion of it. 

“Woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse.” 
Each sex is differentiated, in its degree, 
from the intermediate unsexed type, 
which of itself never existed, save in 
the one-celled protozoan. 

Because of the needs of life, man has been differ- 
entiated in motor directions, woman in directions of 
feeling and response. Man has been compelled to face 
external Nature. Woman must face humanity, Thus 
the initiative in action is thrown more and more on the 
male; the response of feeling on the female. 

In this division of labour mental and physical char- 
acters are correlated. Women excel in delicacy, in de- 
votion, in sympathy. They are not noted as explorers 
of new fields. As investigators, inventors, judges, or 
warriors their efforts are on the whole ineffective. Such 
activities are not in the line of duty assigned them 
in the division of labour. As defender of the young, 
the female puts the male to shame. No creature is so 
dangerous as the female beast at bay. The defender of 
the young or the weak must be a partisan, not a judge. 

If we can use such terms in relation to a process of 
Nature, we may say that the noblest results of evolu- 
tion are to be found in the altruism of parenthood. 
The development of the “eternal womanly,” the dif- 
ferentiation of the mother and wife, 
carries within itself the full compensa- 
tion for all that it has cost. 

As against this view which I have briefly presented 
it may be interesting to contrast the view of woman 
presented by the philosophy of pessimism, through its 
ablest exponent, Arthur Schopenhauer. 


Woman not un- 
developed man. 


The altruism of 
parenthood. 


316 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


The point of view of the intellectual movement 
known as Pessimism may be here briefly discussed. 

“To see all things as they really are,” to do away 
with all delusions, is the avowed purpose of pessimism. 
To the extent that it would bring men 
from dreams to realities, from supersti- 
tion to science, it has served a high pur- 
pose. It doubtless represents a great intellectual ad- 
vance over the crude optimistic theories which it was 
intended to supersede. In the light of pessimism the 
present moment is but a shadow passing across the face 
of eternity. Human power and glory and happiness 
are but transitory illusions. Pain and sorrow, which lie 
behind these at all times, are the only realities in life, for 
whenever the mind comes in contact with reality, pain 
is the inevitable product. Under the search light of 
pessimism, taints and defects are visible everywhere in 
the human body and soul, and in the equally human 
state. As everything we know is petty and ineffective 
and bad, it is as bad as it can be, and this world is the 
worst world possible. To us, impotent to know, impo- 
tent to do, and impotent to enjoy, the present moment 
has nothing to offer, and there is no other. If the 
Creator be all-wise, he can not be all-good, else some 
kinder fate would be reserved for man. 

From the standpoint of evolution, on the other hand, 
“every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities.” 
Every object in Nature, every event 
in human life, represents the meeting 
points of world forces, that have welled 
upward since the beginning of time. We are to know 
things as they really are, for the sake of knowing what 
they may become, and the forces of which they are the 
product. While pessimism concerns itself with things, 
evolution deals with forces, the unchanging realities by 


The philosophy 
of pessimism. 


The philosophy 


of evolution. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 317 


which the changing facts of life are endlessly produced. 
A child is only a child to pessimism, a mere human larva, 
heir to all the defects of human nature, and bound to 
run the course over which its ancestors have been un- 
willingly and ineffectively driven. In the light of evolu- 
tion the child has all the grand possibilities of thought 
and action and love that go to the making of a man. 
It sees it not as what it is but as what it may become. 
And in the light of evolution, human life may be judged 
not by its failures, but by the strongest and most har- 
monious representatives of humanity. In the defects 
of church and state may be read the higher ideals for 
which men are striving. In the broken ideals of the 
ethical life may be read the forces inside ourselves 
“which make for righteousness,” and which are the reali- 
ties in life, rather than the acts of greed and failures of 
will which make up the sad facts of human existence. 

In his remarkable essay on woman, Arthur Schopen- 
hauer takes her character and relations as the basis of 
a most caustic analysis. Discarding all 
illusion and romance, the “ present, 
poor and bare,” is allowed to “make 
its sneering comment” on “the eternal womanly,” and 
it is found to be poor stuff. Schopenhauer finds woman 
to be merely a form of man, modified 
by Nature, to make real men possible 
and comfortable. ‘Without woman,” 
he quotes from Jouy, “the beginning of life would be 
helpless, the middle without pleasure, the end without 
consolation.” 

According to Schopenhauer,* “ woman is capable of 
no great labour of mind or of body.” Her “debt of 


Schopenhauer’s 
essay on woman. 


Woman a 
modified man. 


*In the paragraphs which follow, the language of Schopen- 
hauer is much condensed, only enough being quoted to give the 
substance of the original statements. 


318 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


life is paid not by what she does, but by what she 
suffers.” ‘Sorrow and joy and action are not for her 
gentle, peaceful, and trivial life.” As 
nurse or teacher woman often excels, be- 
cause by nature she is childish, frivolous, 
and short-sighted. For these reasons she comes near to 
the hearts of children and invalids. 

When women are young, according to Schopenhauer, 
they attract men strongly but without reason. “ With 
young girls Nature seems to have had 
in view what in the language of the 
drama is called a striking effect, as for 
a few years she dowers them with a wealth of beauty 
and is lavish in her gifts of charm at the expense of all 
the rest of their life, so that during those years they 
may capture the fancy of some man to such a degree 
that he is hurried away into undertaking the honour- 
able care of them in some form or other as long as they 
live—a step for which there would not appear to be any 
sufficient warrant if reason only directed his thoughts. 

“Accordingly, Nature has equipped woman, as she 
does all her creatures, with the weapons and implements 
requisite for the safeguarding of her 
existence, and for just as long as it is 
necessary for her to have them. Here, 
as elsewhere, Nature proceeds with her usual economy, 
for just as the female ant after fecundation loses her 
wings, which are then superfluous, nay, actually a dan- 
ger to the business of breeding, so, after giving birth to 
one or two children, a woman generally loses her beauty, 
probably, indeed, for similar reasons. 

“And so we find that young girls in 
their hearts look upon domestic affairs 
or work of any kind as of secondary 
importance, if not actually as a mere jest. The only 


Inefficiency of 
woman. 


Beauty of 
young girls. 


Beauty asa 
weapon. 


Triviality of 
women, 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 319 


business that really claims their earnest attention is 
love, making conquests, and everything connected with 
this—dress, dancing, etc. 

“The more noble and perfect an animal,” he con- 
tinues, “the later is its maturity. The development of 
woman’s reason ceases at eighteen, while 
that of man is imperfect before the age 
of twenty-eight. Woman’s reason is ac- 
curate only as to objects which are quite near. In other 
regards she mistakes appearance for reality and trifles 
for truth.” Man looks “before and after” and con- 
siders the ultimate result of lines of conduct. From 
this forethought he acquires prudence, and this makes 
care and anxiety possible. Woman is short-sighted and 
extravagant; her vision is clear a short way only. 
Hence women are more cheerful than men, because 
they live in the present, not in the past; nor are they 
distressed by the future. But with all this it is well for 
aman to heed a woman’s advice, for she will show him 
the shortest road to the goal. Men see far in front of 
their noses and miss that which is close and obvious. 
Hence women are more sober in judgment, having no 
imagination. 

Women are kind to the unfortunate because they 
have no sense of justice. Most misfortune is criminal 
negligence, Schopenhauer argues, and 
excludes pity, which would be treachery 
to justice. Fixed rules of conduct are 
unknown to women. Being weaker in body and mind, 
they are stronger in craft. The art of dissimulation is 
possessed by all women, stupid as well as 
clever. “Small secrecy verging on de- 
ceit,” says Charles Reade, “thou art bred in woman’s 
bones.” 


“For,” says Schopenhauer, “as lions are provided 
22 


Early maturity 
of women. 


Kindness of 
women, 


Deceit of women. 


320 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


with claws and teeth, and elephants and boars with 
tusks, bulls with horns, and the cuttle-fish with its cloud 
of inky fluid, so Nature has equipped woman for her 
defence and protection with the arts of dissimulation. 
Hence dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as 
much a quality of the stupid as of the clever. It is 
natural for them to make use of it on every occasion, as 
it is for those animals to employ their means of defence 
they are when attacked ; they have a feeling that in doing 
so they are only within their rights. Therefore a woman 
who is perfectly truthful and not given to dissimulation 
is perhaps an impossibility, and for this very reason they 
are so quick at seeing through dissimulation in others 
that it is not a wise thing to attempt it with them.” 

Women, moreover, live for the species, not for the 
individual. If a woman be faithless to an old or unro- 
mantic or inattentive man she will feel 
no remorse. It is her instinct to con- 
sider the interest of the species, not of 
the person who may represent the species for the time 
being. 

“And since women exist in the main solely for the 
propagation of the species and are not destined for any- 
thing else, they live, as a rule, more for the species than 
for the individual, and in their hearts take the af- 
fairs of the species more seriously than those of the 
individual. This gives their whole life and being a 
certain levity; the general bent of their character is in 
a direction fundamentally different from that of the 
man; and it is this which produces that discord in mar- 
ried life which is so frequent and almost the normal 
state. 

“The natural feeling between men is mere indiffer- 
ence, but between women it is actual enmity. The 
reason of this is trade jealousy, which, in the case of 


Woman lives for 
the species. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 321 


men, does not go beyond the confines of their own 
particular pursuits, but with women embraces the whole 
sex, since they have only one kind of business, Even 
when they meet in the streets women 
look at one another like Guelphs and 
Ghibellines; and it is a patent fact that 
when two of them make first acquaintance with each 
other, they behave with more constraint and dissimu- 
lation than two men would show in a like case; and. 
hence it is that an exchange of compliments between 
two women is a much more ridiculous proceeding than 
between two men. Further, while a man will, as a gen- 
eral rule, always preserve a certain amount of considera- 
tion and humanity in speaking to others, even to those 
who are in a very inferior position, it is intolerable to 
see how proudly and disdainfully a fine lady will gen- 
erally behave toward one who is in a lower social rank 
(1 do not mean a woman who is in her service) when- 
ever she speaks to her. The reason of this may be 
that with women differences of rank are much more pre- 
carious than with us, because, while a hundred consid- 
erations carry weight in our case, in theirs there is only 
one—namely, with which man they have found favour, 
as also that they stand in much nearer relations with 
one another than men do, in consequence of the one- 
sided nature of their calling. This makes them endeav- 
our to lay stress upon differences of rank. 

“Tt is only the man whose intellect is clouded by 
his impulses that could give the name of ¢he fair sex 
to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, 
broad-hipped, and short-legged race, for 
the whole beauty of the sex is bound up 
with the sex-impulse. Instead of calling them beautiful, 
there would be more warrant for describing women as 
the unzsthetic sex. Neither for music, nor for poetry, 


Trade jealousy 
among women. 


The unesthetic 
sex. 


322 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


nor for fine art, have they really and truly any sense or 
perceptibility ; it is mere mockery if they make a pre- 
tence of it in order to assist their endeavour to please. 
Hence as a result of this they are incapable of taking a 
purely objective interest in anything, and the reason of it 
seems to me to be as follows: A man tries to acquire 
direct mastery over things, either by understanding them 
or by forcing them to do his will. But a woman is al- 
ways and everywhere reduced to obtaining this mastery 
indirectly—namely, through a man—and whatever direct 
mastery she may have is entirely confined to him, And 
so it lies in a woman’s nature to look upon everything 
only as a means for conquering man; and if she takes an 
interest in anything else it is simulated—a mere round- 
about way of gaining her ends by coquetry and feigning 
what she does not feel. Hence even Rousseau declared: 
‘Women have in general no love for any art; they have 
no proper knowledge of any, and they have no genius.’ 
“No one,” Schopenhauer continues, “who sees at all 
below the surface can have failed to remark the same 
thing. You need only observe the kind of attention 
women bestow upon a concert, an opera, or a play—the 
childish simplicity, for example, with which they keep 
on chattering during the finest passages in the greatest 
masterpieces. If it is true that the Greeks excluded 
women from their theatres, they were quite right in what 
they did; at any rate, you would have been able to hear 
what they said upon the stage. In our day, besides, or 
in lieu of saying, ‘Let a woman keep silence in the 
church,’ it would be much to the point to say, ‘Let a 
woman keep silence in a theatre.” This might, perhaps, 
be put up in big letters on the curtain.” 
In art or letters women have not pro- 
duced a single great work. Many women 
show a mastery of technique in art, but never of art. 


No mastery 
of art. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 323 


“The case,” says Schopenhauer, “is not altered by 
particular and partial exceptions; taken as a whole, 
women are, and remain, thoroughgoing 
Philistines, and quite incurable. Hence, 
with that absurd arrangement which al- 
lows them to share the rank and title of their husbands, 
they are a constant stimulus to his ignoble ambitions. 
And, further, it is just because they are Philistines that 
modern society, where they take the lead and set the 
tone, is in such a bad way. Napoleon’s saying, that 
women have no rank, should be adopted as the right 
standpoint in determining their position in society ; and 
as regards their other qualities, Chamfort makes the 
very true remark, ‘ They are made to trade with our own 
weaknesses and our follies, but not with our reason.’ 
The sympathies that exist between them and men are 
skin-deep only, and do not touch the mind, or the feel- 
ings, or the character. They form the sexus seqguior—the 
second sex, inferior in every respect to the first; their 
infirmities should be treated with consideration; but to 
show them great reverence is extremely ridiculous and 
lowers us in their eyes. When Na- 
ture made two divisions of the human 
race, she did not draw the line exactly 
through the middle. These divisions are polar and op- 
posed to each other, it is true, but the difference be- 
tween them is not qualitative merely, it is also quanti- 
tative. 

“This is just the view which the ancients took of 
woman, and the view which the people in the East take 
now; and their judgment as to her proper position is 
much more correct than ours, with our old French no- 
tions of gallantry and our preposterous system of rev- 
erence—that highest product of Teutonico-Christian 
stupidity. These notions have served only to make 


Philistinism of 
women. 


The sexes 
unequal. 


324 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


women more arrogant and overbearing; so that one is 
occasionally reminded of the holy apes in Benares, 
who, in the consciousness of their sanctity and inviol- 
able position, think that they can do exactly as they 
please. 

“But in the West the woman, and especially the 
lady, finds herself in a false position; for woman is by 
no means fit to be the object of our 
honour and veneration, or to hold her 
head higher than man and be on equal 
terms with him. It would be a very desirable thing if 
this ‘number two’ of the human race were in Europe 
also relegated to her natural place, and an end put to 
that lady-nuisance, which not only moves all Asia to 
laughter, but would have been ridiculed by Greece and 
Rome as well. It is impossible to calculate the good 
effect which such a change would bring about in our 
social, civil, and political arrangements. There will be 
no necessity for the Salic law; it would be a superfluous 
truism. In Europe, the lady, strictly so called, is a 
being who should not exist at all; she 
should be either a housewife or a girl 
who hoped to become one; and she should be brought 
up not to be arrogant, but to be thrifty and submissive. 
It is just because there are such people as ladies in 
Europe that the women of the lower classes—that is to 
say, the great majority of the sex—are much more un- 
happy than they are in the East. And even Lord Byron 
says: ‘Thought of the state of women under the an- 
cient Greeks—convenient enough. Present state a rem- 
nant of the barbarism of the chivalric and the feudal 
ages—artificial and unnatural. They ought to mind 
home, and be well fed and clothed, but not mixed in 
society. Well educated, too, in religion, but to read 
neither poetry nor politics, nothing but books of piety 


Woman in Eu- 
ropean society. 


The lady. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 325 


and cookery. Music, drawing, dancing, also a little 
gardening and ploughing now and then. I have seen 
them mending the roads in Epirus with great success. 
Why not, as well as haymaking and milking?’” 

The Western laws of marriage which make the 
woman equivalent to man are all wrong, according to 
Schopenhauer. There is no such equality. If such 
must be, shrewd men will often scruple 
to make the sacrifice. These marriage 
laws drive men from marriage. This 
causes the increase of the unhappy class of old maids, 
and that of the joyless “ daughters of joy.” For these 
reasons, Schopenhauer finds a logical religion in Mor- 
monism, by which, in theory at least, both these classes. 
are obliterated. The unnatural rights of women bring 
unnatural duties. They are forced to do things which 
they can not do well, a prolific source of evil. 

The problem of society is, then, the recognition and 

regulation of polygamy. By this means woman will be 
‘ reduced to “her true and natural position as a subordi- 
nate being, and the lady—that monster of European 
civilization and Teutonico-Christian stupidity—will dis- 
appear from the world, leaving only women, but no more 
unhappy women of whom Europe is now full.” 

The love women have for children is instinctive, not 
rational. It is therefore no evidence of strength of 
mind or morals. 

“Women should not inherit or control anything. 
Their vanity shows itself only in love of show and 
finery. With man the natural source of pride is intel- 
lect, learning, courage. 

“If the prominence of woman is due to the down- 
fall of Sparta and France, to the baneful institution 
of the lady the downfall of modern Europe may be 
ascribed. 


The laws of 
marriage. 


326 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


“However that may be, the false position which 
women occupy, demonstrated as it is in the most glaring 
way by the institution of the lady, isa 
fundamental defect in our social scheme, 
and this defect, proceeding from the 
very heart of it, must spread its baneful influence in all 
directions. 

“That woman is by nature meant to obey may be 
seen by the fact that every woman who is placed in the 
unnatural position of complete independence, imme- 
diately attaches herself to some man, by whom she al- 
lows herself to be guided and ruled. It is because she 
needs a lord and master. If she is young, it will bea 
lover; if she is old, a priest.” * 

Such, in brief, is the indictment Pessimism brings 
against woman. We may eliminate from it the weak 
discussion of marriage, and the childish impotence of 


Dependence of 
woman. 


* In a similar vein are the following words, which Mr. Harold 
Frederic puts into the mouth of his cynical Dr. Ledsmar: 

“Our boys, for instance, traverse in their younger years all 
the stages of the childhood of the race. They have terrifying 
dreams of awful monsters and giant animals of which they have 
never so much as heard in their waking hours; they pass through 
the lust for digging caves, building fires, sleeping out in the 
woods, hunting with bows and arrows—all remote and ancestral 
impulses; they play games with stones, marbles, and so on, at 
regular stated periods of the year which they instinctively know, 
just as they were played in the bronze age, and Heaven only 
knows how much earlier. But the boy goes through all this, and 
leaves it behind him—so completely that the grown man feels 
himself more a stranger among boys of his own place who are 
thinking and doing precisely the things he thought and did a 
few years before, than he would among the Kurds or Eskimos. 
But the woman is totally different. She is infinitely more pre- 
cocious as a girl. At an age when her slow brother is still stub- 
bing along somewhere in the Neolithic period, she has flown away 
ahead to a kind of medieval stage, or dawn of medizvalism, 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 327 


the lines of action which Schopenhauer suggests. The 
social problem of any society worthy to be called civil- 
ized will not be solved by the regulation of polygamy 
nor by the perpetuation of masculine selfishness. 

We may note, too, that the “lady-nuisance” which 
distresses the philosopher is only a phase of the “ lord- 
nuisance ” which has temporarily stood 
in the way of the progress of European 
democracy. If the “lady-nuisance” is 
ridiculous to-day, the “lord-nuisance” will be equally 
absurd to-morrow. Pomp and fatuity know no sex. 
The dry rot of life without effort affects men and wo- 
men alike. Schopenhauer’s attitude throughout the dis- 
cussion of woman is that of a d/asé collector discussing 
his neighbour’s bric-a-brac. He finds it out of taste 
and out of harmony—not worth half it cost. But it is 
none of his business, and he has no responsibility for it. 

But, waiving all minor criticisms, we find in this 
harsh review many elements of truth. 

It is an expression of the results of an attempt to 
“see things as they really are.” But to see things in 
such fashion is not to see the whole 
truth. The greatest truth lies in what 
shall be, in the flow of the underlying 
stream of tendencies. Why are things as they are? 
From what condition have they come, and what is the 
movement of the forces which govern future conditions? 

If the work and the life of woman seem less impor- 
tant than those of man, it is because we measure them 


‘«The lord- 
nuisance.” 


Blindness of 
pessimism. 


which is peculiarly her own. Having got there, she stays there ; 
she dies there. The boy passes her as the tortoise did the hare. 
He goes on, if he is a philosopher, and lets her remain in the dark 
ages, where she belongs. If he happens to bea fool, which is 
customary, he stops and hangs around in her vicinity.” (Dam- 
nation of Theron Ware, p. 324.) 


328 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


from a man’s standpoint, not from that of humanity. 
From the standpoint of the race, the sexes can not be 
unequal. The one sex balances the other. 
The line in the long run must be drawn 
evenly and equally. If in any race of 
people the woman does not do her share 
of the life work, the process of natural selection sets this 
race aside in favour of some one more normally con- 
stituted. 

As road menders, soldiers, workmen, we may admit» 
the inferiority of woman. I have seen women har- 
nessed with dogs in Holland, drawing 
through the canals a vessel on which 
a man sits to steer. It is said in Italy 
that “women are better than dogs for carrying bur- 
dens, but not so good as mules.’”’ This may be, but it 
is not well for Italy that its women are brought into ° 
competition with its mules. 

“You can get more in your market for a quart of 
milk than a quart of blood,” says Thoreau, “ but yours 
is not the market heroes carry their blood to.” Nor 
should womanhood be forced to compete in a market 
which values only physical strength. But this labour 
market of Italy or Holland does not represent the per- 
manent relations of life. The work of the woman lies 
primarily with the young. In the nursery and the 
schools of to-day the history of to-morrow is written. 
Doubtless the investigations of man, his ingenuity, and 
his force have been tremendous factors in the history 
of civilization. It is not necessary to belittle them to 
recognise the helpfulness of woman. The making of 
men is the woman’s part. The home and the schools 
are as large a factor in human progress as the railway 
and the telegraph. The work of woman looks forward 
to the future. As her work is important so is her edu- 


Woman from 
man’s stand- 
point. 


Unnatural 
competition. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 329 


cation vital. Folly and weakness are as harmful in the 
home as in the state. That which is to-day in the home 
to-morrow will be in the state. The wise woman, mother 
of wise men, may not be seen of the world, but her in- 
fluence for good is none the less potent. 

Where the home is not sound the state is insecure. 
The coming man must spring from the home. The 
child of a homeless race can not com- 
pete with him. There is no factor in 
evolution more sure to survive in life 
struggles than the instinct to care for the young. Al- 
truism prevails because it is useful, and this form of 
altruism is potent above all else. Care for the young 
makes the home. It binds the parents together. It 
ennobles the sex relation and makes its impulses worthy 
the name of love. John Fiske has maintained that the 
prolonged infancy of man was the primary factor in his 
separation as a higher type from the brute creation. 
This prolonged infancy demanded a mother’s care and 
a father’s support. In these arose the home. Even in 
nomadic life the family kept together, and the relations 
of the food-winning father and the protecting mother 
were equal in value from the standpoint of race evolu- 
tion. From the home the school is a natural extension. 
It is a further prolongation of infancy with a view to 
a higher ultimate development. 

But all this food-winning and child-helping is a bur- 
den to the individual. The wise man, Schopenhauer 
tells us, hesitates to sacrifice his free- 
dom in equal union with woman. His 
freedom for what? Who is he that he 
should be so occupied with his own affairs? Is it pleas- 
ure that he seeks—pleasure for pleasure’s sake? art for 
art’s sake? rest for rest’s sake? In the process of evo- 
lution there will be no place for him. Nature asks her 


Evolution of 
the home. 


Freedom of 
man. 


330 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


creatures to busy themselves along lines that are help- 
ful toothers. The child of altruism survives. When the 
drone bee—the male—has accomplished his purpose, he 
is ruthlessly stung to death by the workers. He is no 
longer needed in the community. That he would live 
for life’s sake, that he would buzz for buzz’s sake, does 
not concern the workers. He is of no use to the future 
—therefore away with him! 

Let us for present purposes accept Schopenhauer’s 
analysis of the defects of woman’s character. May we 
not say that for each real defect there 
is a historic cause? To remove the wrong 
is to destroy its reaction. If women are 
given to small deceit, it is because men have been ad- 
dicted to small tyranny. If women are short-sighted, it 
is because in the nature of things the near things have 
been woman’s province. If a woman has not a judicial 
mind, it is because the protection of the child makes her 
necessarily a partisan. If woman in her care of the 
species neglects the individual, it is because in the past 
she has been driven or sold into the custody of indi- 
viduals not lovable for themselves. If she shows in one 
form or another the same weaknesses as man, it is be- 
cause she is, in fact, very man, bone of his bone and 
flesh of his flesh. We are all poor creatures, and to 
quarrel with the defects of human nature is as futile 
as to hold “a feud with the equator.’’ The desire of 
woman to seek mastery through the conquest of man is 
in part an outgrowth of the militarism of past genera- 
tions, when security was possible only through such 
means. It is a trait of the lower races of men, as of 
the monkey families, that the male should be a tyrant. 
Whenever tyranny exists it is met by deceit. In the 
reign of physical force, those who are weak must win 
strength by the force of love or intrigue. This condi- 


Each defect 
a historic cause. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 331 


tion is not confined to woman. Those men who were 
favourites of princes used the same methods of con- 
quest. Moreover, the power of a strong 
will over a weak one has always been a 
factor in history, even though the strong 
will be in a weak body. The freedom of man has 
brought with it the freedom of woman. With woman as 
with man not all are ready to be free. The fool when 
free shows his folly. It is safer for him to follow his 
class, to govern his life by tried conventionality, rather 
than by imperfect reason. The emancipation of woman 
permits the growth of senseless fads and meaningless 
superstitions, distorted desires and hysterical impulses. 
But the emancipation of man has had just the same effect. 
In the long run all these things are outworn; the sur- 
vival of the fittest is the survival of the wise. 

The offensive phases of “new womanhood” are tem- 
porary and self-curative. They are of the nature of 
fads which encumber and disguise real progress. The 
woman of the future will be the fit and equal partner of 
the future man. As the wise and the strong will prize 
the womanly virtues, so will she be modest, sympathetic, 
and beautiful. Nevertheless she need not lack a de- 
gree of sturdy strength, without which motherhood fails 
of its best fulfilment. Yet in so far as the highest 
physical activity and its coordinate reasoning power 
are not to be demanded of women in general, so in the 
nature of things must the brain and muscle of woman 
retain qualities of immaturity. The accelerated devel- 
opment of these qualities in the male of a race “sore 
bestead by the environment,” must leave the female 
relatively undeveloped if judged by the standard of 
the man. 

But, judged by the standard of womanhood, man 
shows an equal number of crude instincts and embry- 


Force breeds 
deceit. 


332 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


onic traits. In the division of labour this is necessarily 
the case. If it were not, there would need be no divi- 
sion of sex, and womanhood and manhood would be 
identical. 
‘© |. Could we make her as the man, 
Sweet love were slain. His dearest bond is this, 
Not like to like, but like to difference.” 

When woman has perfect freedom of choice in mar- 
riage, there will be more love in the world than now. 
Too many women now marry under du- 
ress. Money or title, or place or secu- 
tity, are not valid reasons for marriage. 
The chances are that a union on such a basis will never 
prove a marriage at all. Nor is it right that marriage 
should rest on mere propinquity. The choice of the 
nearest scarcely rises above the automatic loves of the 
lower animals. 

In the conditions arising from an expanding civiliza- 
tion, the art of being a woman becomes a difficult one. 
It is unsafe on the one hand not to take 
part in industrial or intellectual activi- 
ties. On the other hand, to be absorbed in these mat- 
ters may be to lose sight of the more important func- 
tions which must belong to woman in any condition of 
social development. ‘Woe to the land that works its 
women!” says Laurence Grénland. But there is equal 
woe to the land in which women find nothing to do. On 
the human side idleness and inertia are just as destruc- 
tive to women as to men. Brain and muscles must be 
used each in its way, and the penalties for disuse are 
stagnation, ezzuz,and misery. It is not every woman, 
as matters are, who can find occupation in household 
cares and in the training of children. To the extent 
that women are not so occupied their need of thought 
and action is not essentially different from that of men. 


The equal 
marriage. 


Being a woman. 


THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 333 


A woman, like a man, must find something to do if 
she is to avoid misery and decay. Her release from 
the industrial world is conditional on the 
fact that she has something better to 
do than to win food; something more 
vital to social development than to add 
to the physical resources of life. So long as society ex- 
ists, the “ eternal womanly ” will find its own sphere of 
full activity. In the long run that division of labour 
will prove best which justifies itself by enduring. 


Release from 
labour, not 
idleness, 


XIV. 
THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 


‘*Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, 
Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum.”—GoETHE. 


WITHIN the last few years three notable assaults 
have been made on the integrity of science. Two of 
these have come from the hostile camp 
of medieval metaphysics, the other from 
the very front of the army of science 
itself. Salisbury, Balfour, and Haeckel 
agree in this, that “ belief’ may rest on foundations un- 
known to “knowledge,” and that the conclusions of sci- 
ence may be subject to additions and revisions in accord- 
ance with the demands of “ belief.” To some considera- 
tions suggested in part by Balfour’s Foundations of 
Belief and Haeckel’s Confession of Faith of a Man of 
Science, I invite attention in the present paper. 

The growing complexity of civilized life demands 
constantly more knowledge as to our material surround- 
ings and greater precision in our recog- 
nition of the invisible forces or tendencies 
about us. We are in the hands of the 
Fates, and the greater our activities the more evident 
become these limiting conditions. The secret of man's 
power is to know his limitations. To this end we 
need constantly new accessions of truth as to the uni- 
verse and better definition of the truths which are old. 

334 


Assaults on the 
integrity of 
science. 


The secret of 
power. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 335 


Such knowledge, tested and placed in order, we Call 
science. Science is no longer individual. It is the 
gathered wisdom of the race. Only a part of it can be 
grasped by any one man. Each must enter into the 
work of others. Science is the flower of the altruism of 
the ages, by which nothing that lives “ liveth for itself 
alone.” The recognition of facts and laws is the 
province of science. We only know what lies about us 
from our own experience and that of others, this experi- 
ence of others being translated into terms of our own 
experience and more or less perfectly blended with it. 
Wecan find the meaning of phenomena only from our 
reasoning based on these experiences. All knowledge 
we can attain or hope to attain, in so far as it is knowl- 
edge at all, must be stated in terms of human experi- 
ence. The laws of Nature are not the products of sci- 
ence. They are the human glimpses of that which is 
the “law before all time.” 

Thus human experience is the foundation of all 

knowledge. Even innate ideas, if such 
Human experi- ideas exist, are derived in some way 
ence the basis of ¢4m knowledge possessed by our an- 
human knowl- ‘ z . 
edge. cestors, as innate impulses to action are 
related to ancestral needs for action. 

But is human experience the basis also of belief as 
it is of knowledge? 

This raises the further question, Is “to believe” 
more than “to know”? Shall a sane man extend belief 
in directions where he has no knowledge 
and in lines outside the bounds of his 
power to act? Can Belief soar in space 
not traversable by “organized common sense”? If 
such distinction is made between “ knowing ” and “be- 
lieving,” which of the two has precedence as a guide 
for action? Is belief to be tested by science? Or is 

23 


Knowledge and 
belief. 


336 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


science useful only where belief is indifferent to the 
subject-matter? If belief is subordinate to the tests of 
science, to be accepted or rejected in the degree of its 
accord with human experience, then it is simply an 
annex to science, a footnote to human experience, and 
the authority of the latter is supreme. If, however, 
truth comes to us from sources outside of human ex- 
perience it must come in some pure form, free from 
human errors. As such it must claim the first place. 
In this event the progress of science will be always on 
a lower plane than the progress of belief. 
In a recent address before the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science, the Marquis of Salisbury 
made in brief this contention: The cen- 
Views! Gt tie tral thought of modern science is evolu- 
sree tion, the change from the simple to the 
complex. This implies, in his judg- 
ment, not only the fundamental unity of all life, but the 
fundamental unity of all matter, and perhaps of all 
force as well. In spite of the claims of scientific men 
even the fact of organic evolution is far from demon- 
strated; while of inorganic evolution, the development 
of the chemical elements, science can tell us nothing. 
Wherefore the marquis, in view of the failure of science 
to keep up with the progress of belief, grows jocose 
and patronizing. His advice to his scientific associates 
might be stated in the words of Thackeray, that “we 
should think small beer of ourselves and pass around 
the bottle.” 
More recently another British statesman, Mr. Arthur 
J. Balfour, has discussed the Foundations of Belief. He 
contends that the methods of science can 
not give us absolute truth. Its methods 
are “of the earth, earthy.” Its claim 
of trust in the infallibility of its own processes has no 


Views of Arthur 
J. Balfour, 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 337 


higher authority than the claim of infallibility made at 
times by certain religious organizations; for, as only 
the senses and the reason can be appealed to in support 
of the claims of the senses and the reason, the argument 
of science is of necessity reasoning in a circle. Science 
can give us no ground solid enough to bear the weight 
of belief. Belief must exist, and it may therefore rest 
on the innate needs of man and the philosophy which is 
built on these needs in accordance with the authority 
which the human soul finds sufficient. 

Balfour calls attention to the fact that human ex- 
perience is not in its essence objective. It consists only 
of varying phases of consciousness. 
These phases of consciousness at best 
only point toward truth. They are not 
truth itself. They vary with the vary- 
ing nerve cells of each individual creature on whom 
phases of consciousness are impressed, and again with 
the changes in the cells themselves. The tricks of the 
senses are well known in psychology, as is also the fail- 
ure of the senses as to material outside their usual range. 
Life is at best “in a dimly lighted room,” and all the 
objects about us are in their essence quite different from 
what they seem. This essence is unknown and unknow- 
able. We are well aware that we have no power to 
recognise all phases of reality. The electric condition 
of an object may be as real as its colour or its tempera- 
ture, and yet none of our senses respond to it. Our 
eyes give but an octave of the vibrations we call light, 
and our ears are dull to all but a narrow range in pitch 
of sound. P 

Likewise is reason to be discredited. The common- 
est things become unknown or impossible when viewed 
“in the critical light of philosophy.” Balfour shows 
that the simple affirmation “the sun gives light,” loses 


Human experi- 
ence not objec- 
tive. 


338 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


all its meaning and possibility when taken out of the 
category of human experience and discussed in terms of 
philosophy. In like manner can any 
simple fact be made to appear as myth 
or dream. A man can be brought to 
doubt the existence of himself or of any object about 
him. For instance, take the discussion of “ John’s John” 
and of ‘‘Thomas’s John,” as given by Dr. Holmes. Is 
the real John the John he appears to John himself? Or 
is he real only in the form in which Thomas regards 
him, or as he looks to Richard and Henry, whose inter- 
est in him is progressively less? All that we know of 
the external universe is derived from impressions made 
directly or indirectly on our nervous systems and from 
recorded impressions made on the systems of others: 
and a part of this external universe we ourselves are. 
All that we know even of ourselves is that which is 
external to ourselves. Thus, with all this, each man 
forms in his mind a universe of his own. “My mind 
to me a kingdom is,” and this kingdom in all its parts 
is somewhat different from any other mental kingdom. 
It is continually changing. It was made but once and 
will never be duplicated. When my vital processes 
cease, this kingdom will vanish “ like the baseless fabric 
of a vision, leaving not a wreck behind.” Our mind 
is of the “stuff that dreams are made of”; and our 
bodies—what are they? Physically each man is an 
alliance of animals, each one of a single cell, each cell 
with its processes of life, growth, death, and reproduc- 
tion, each one with its own “cell-soul” which presides 
over these processes. In the alliance of these cells, 
forming tissues and organs, we have the phenomena of 
mutual help and mutual dependence. In man we find 
the phenomena of animal life on a larger and more 
differentiated scale than in the lower forms, but to em- 


Ineffectiveness 
of reason. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 339 


phasize this in its details obscures the fact of self. 
What is the vital force which holds these alliances to- 
gether, and is it after all more than another name for 
the movement of molecules? And of what are our cells 
composed? Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, we 
know, by name; but what are these in essence, and 
how are they different one from another? Does matter 
really exist? Mathematicians have claimed that all re- 
lations of ponderable matter and force 
might hold if the atoms of matter were 
not realities, but simply relations, Each 
of these atoms possessed of attraction or weight may 
be a vortex ring or eddy in the ether, of which the ulti- 
mate units have vibration but not attraction. If, there- 
fore, the body of man be an alliance of millions of ani- 
mal cells, each cell formed of millions of eddies in an 
inconceivable and impossible ether; if all things around 
us are recognised only by their effect on the most un- 
stable part of this unstable structure, then again “let 
us think small beer of ourselves and pass around the 
bottle.” 

But, again, we must remember that the conclusions 
of science represent human experience. Each fact or 
law must be expressed in terms of gen- 
eralized human experience, if it is ex- 
pressed or made intelligible at all. To 
such terms the word reality applies, and beyond such 
reality we have never gone. Apparently beyond it we 
can not go, at least in the only life we have ever known. 
Balfour’s plea for “ philosophic doubt” of the reality of 
the subject-matter of science is simply.a rhetorical trick 
of describing the known in terms of the unknown. By 
the same process we may call a fishwife an “abracada- 
bra” or an “icosahedron,” and by the same process we 
can build out of the commonest materials “an occult 


The nature of 
self. 


In terms of hu- 
man experience. 


340 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


science” or a new “theosophy.” ‘The “measure of a 
man” is the basis of human knowledge, and whatever 
can not be brought to this measure is 
no part of knowledge. In converse 
fashion Balfour speaks of the unknown 
in terms of the known, of the infinite in terms of hu- 
man experience. This gives to his positive “founda- 
tions of belief” an appearance of reality as fallacious as 
the unreality he assigns to the foundations of science. 
This appearance of reality is the base of Haeckel’s 
sneer at the current conception of the Divine Being as a 
“gaseous vertebrate.” 

It is perfectly easy for science to distinguish be- 
tween subjective and objective nerve conditions. It 
can separate those produced by subjec- 
tive nervous derangements, or by con- 
ditions already passed, from those which are contempo- 
raneous impressions of external things. It is perfectly 
easy for common sense to do the same. To be able to 
do so is the essence of sanity. The test of sanity is its 
liveableness, for insanity is death. The “ borderland of 
spirit,” of which we hear so much of late—the land 
where subjective and objective creations jostle each 
other at will—is the borderland of death. The con- 
tinued existence of animals and men is based on the 
adequacy of their sensations and the veracity of their 
actions. The existence of any creature is in general 
proof of the sanity of its ancestry, or at least of the 
sanity of those who controlled the actions of its an- 
cestors. 

This veracity is gauged by the degree of coincidence 
of subjective impressions and objective truth. He who 
makes a fool’s paradise or a fool’s hell of the world 
about him is not allowed to live in it. This fact in all 
its bearings must stand as a proof that the universe is 


The measure of 
aman. 


Nature of sanity. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 341 


outside of man and not within him. In this objective 
universe which lies outside ourselves we find “the cease- 
less flow of force and the rational intelligence that per- 
vades it.” No part of it can be fully 
understood by us, but in it we find no 
chance movement, “no variableness nor 
shadow of turning.” That such a universe exists seems 
to demand some intelligence capable of understanding 
it, of stating its properties in terms of absolute truth, 
as distinguished from those of human experience. Only 
an Infinite Being can be conceived as doing this, hence 
such knowledge must enter into our conception of the 
Infinite Being, whatever may be our theology in other 
respects; for, to know any object or phenomenon in 
its fulness, “all in all,’“we should know what God 
is and man is.” 

It is therefore no reproach to human science that it 
deals with human relations, not with absolute truths. 
“The ultimate truths of science,” Dr. Schurman has 
said, “rest on the same basis as the ultimate truths 
of philosophy ”’—that is, on a basis that transcends 
human experience. This is true, for science has no 
“ultimate truths.” There are none known to man. 
“The perfect truth,” says Lessing, “is but for Thee 
alone.” With ultimate truths human philosophy tries 
in some fashion to deal. To look at the universe in 
some degree through the eyes of God is the aim of 
philosophy. In its aim it is most noble. Its efforts are 
a source of strength in the conduct of human life. But 
its conclusions are not truth. They range from the 
puerile to the incomprehensible, and only science, that 
is, “common sense,” can distinguish the two. For this 
reason, just in proportion as philosophy is successful, 
it is unfit to serve as a basis of human action. Human 
knowledge and action have human limitations. The 


The infinite 
understanding. . 


342 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


chief of these is that whatever can not be stated in 
terms of human experience is unintelligible to man. 
Whatever can not be thought can not be lived. 
Philosophy has its recognised methods of procedure. 
These are laid down in the mechanism of the human 
brain itself. Science has found these 
methods untrustworthy as a means of 
reaching objective truth. The final test of truth is this: 
“Can we make it work? Can we trust our lives to 
it?’”’ This test the conclusions of philosophy can not 
meet. In so far as they do so they are conclusions of 
science. As science advances in any field, philosophy is 
driven out of it. The fact has been often noted, that 
every great conclusion of science has been anticipated 
by philosophy, most of them by the philosophy of the 
Greeks, But every theory science has shown to be 
false has been likewise anticipated. The Greeks taught 
the theory of development centuries before Darwin. 
But if Darwin’s studies in life variation had led to any 
other result whatsoever, he would have been equally 
anticipated by the Greeks. In other words, every con- 
ceivable guess as to the origin and meaning of familiar 
phenomena has been exhausted by philosophy. Some 
of these guesses contain elements of truth. Which of 
these has such elements it is the business of science to 
find out. Philosophy has no means of doing so. A 
truth not yet shown to be true is in science not’ a 
truth. It has no more validity than any other general- 
ization not shown to be false. Helm- 
holtz tells us that philosophy deals with 
such “ schlechtes Stoff,” such bad subject- 
matter, that it can give no trustworthy 
conclusions. Science alone can give the test of human 
life. The essence of this test is experiment. The tests 
of philosophy are mainly these: “Is the conception 


The test of truth. 


The matter phi- 
losophy deals 
with, 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 343 


plausible? Has it logical continuity? Is it satisfying 
to the human heart?” And in this connection the fig- 
urative word “heart” is best left undefined. In other 
words, the sources and tests of philosophy are alike 
subjective, intellectual or emotional. If we take from 
philosophy the “heart ” element, the personal equation, 
it becomes logic or mathematics. Mathematics is meta- 
physics working through methods of precision. It is 
a most valuable instrument for the study of the rela- 
tions and ramifications of knowledge, but it can give no 
addition to knowledge itself. Dr. William James defines 
metaphysics as “ the persistent attempt to think clearly.” 
This definition is good so far as it goes, but to think 
clearly is a function of science also. Metaphysics is 
rather the “attempt to think clearly” in fields where 
exact data are unattained or unattainable. 

For example, the claim is made in the name of evo- 
lutionary philosophy that all matter is one in essence, 
therefore all the chemical elements, 
some seventy in number, must be the 
same in substance. In this case all must be derived 
from the same primitive stuff, and the hypothetical basis 
of all ponderable matter has been called protyl. Asa 
working theory this is most ingenious. But is it science? 
Is it worthy of belief ? Certainly science knows nothing 
as yet of the identity of these elements. Ina general 
way science is finding out that the processes of Nature 
are more complex than man had supposed, while the 
elements on which these processes rest, matter and 
force, are more simple. How far can this generaliza- 
tion go? To every test human experience has devised 
each chemical element remains the same, its atoms un- 
changeable as well as indestructible. Therefore to 
speak of them as forms of one substance is to go beyond 
knowledge. Science does not teach this, But to phi- 


Protyl. 


344 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


losophy this offers no difficulty. It is still plausible to 
suppose that by some combinations of primitive units 
these variant atoms are formed. Such an idea would 
have logical continuity, and as we are becoming used to 
notions of primal unity, we find such an idea satisfying 
to our consciousness. If this be true, somewhere, some- 
how, lead will be resolved into its primal elements, and 
these elements may be reunited in the form of gold. 
Then will the dream of the alchemist become fact; 
but not until then—which is a matter of the greatest 
importance. Such transmutation is as yet no part of 
knowledge. We certainly do not know that lead can be 
changed into that which is transmutable into gold. We 
do not know it, I say; but may we believe it? Is the 
foundation of belief less secure than that of knowledge? 
Can we trust philosophy to tell us what to believe, 
while we must look to science to tell us what we know? 

This brings us to the question of definitions. If 
knowledge and belief are of like rank, both must rest on 
science, and the results of philosophy must come to sci- 
ence only as hints or suggestions as to future lines of 
research. 4 

If knowledge implies stability, and belief does not, 
the relation of the two is also clear. In that case belief 
would be a word of light meaning, expressive of whim 
or of the balance of probabilities in association with 
prejudice. Belief would then be the pretense of knowl- 
edge, as compared with knowledge itself. Along its 
paths life can not march with courage and effectiveness. 
It is not for such beliefs as this that the martyrs lived or 
died. Their inspiration was the positive belief of science, , 
or the negative belief of the falsity of the ideas tyranny 
or superstition had forced upon them. 

To avoid a discussion foreign to my purpose, I wish, 
if possible, to separate the word “ belief,” as used in this 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 345 


paper, from the word “religion.” The essence of “be- 
lief” is the categorical statement of propositions. These 
may be built into a creed, which word is the Latin syno- 
nym of “belief.” 

“Religion” implies rather a condition of the mind 
and heart, an attitude, not a formula. Faith, hope, 
charity do not rest on logic or obser- 
vation. Religion implies a reverent at- 
titude toward the universe and _ its 
forces—a tender feeling toward one’s fellow-mortals. 
“Pure religion and undefiled” has never formulated a 
“creed,” has never claimed for itself orthodoxy. It has 
no stated ritual and no recognised cult of priests. Much 
that passes conventionally as religious belief among 
men has no such quality or value. It is simply the 
débris of our grandfathers’ science. While religion and 
belief become entangled in the human mind, so as not to 
be easily separable, the one is not necessarily a product 
of the other. 

Most that is considered vital in religious belief does 
not involve objective propositions. It is rather associ- 
ated with personal character or temperament, and its 
generalizations must be expressed in terms more or less 
metaphorical or poetical, for their origin is largely sub- 
jective, and no terms of purely human experience are 
adequate for their definition. Such, for example, is the 
statement of belief that “the heart of the universe is 
sound,” that “ God is Love,” that ‘‘ Love is the greatest 
thing in the world,” or that “there is a force outside 
ourselves that makes for righteousness.” Such expres- 
sions imply the perfect harmony of natural laws. Such 
laws—as Agassiz has expressed it—are “the thoughts 
or operations of the highest powers in the universe— 
the highest Something, however we may choose to re- 
gard it.” With belief of this sort science has no quarrel, 


Religion and 
belief. 


346 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


for these broad statements of personal faith yield no 
deductions which conflict with objective facts of expe- 
rience. ; 
As the third of these efforts to discredit science and 
its methods I have placed Professor Haeckel’s recent 
address, The Confession of Faith of a 
Man of Science. This remarkable work 
is an eloquent plea for the acceptance 
of the philosophic doctrine of monism as the fundamental 
basis of science. This doctrine once adopted, we have 
the groundwork for large deductions which forestall the 
slow conclusions of science; for monism necessitates 
belief in certain scientific hypotheses resting as yet on 
no foundation in human experience, incapable as yet of 
scientific verification, but which are a 
necessary part of the monistic creed. 
The primal conception of monism is that there lives one 
spirit in all things, and that the whole cognizable world 
is constituted and has been developed in accordance 
with one common, fundamental law. This involves the 
essential oneness of all things, matter and force, object 
and spirit, Nature and God. This philosophical concep- 
tion of monism and pantheism can not be made intelli- 
gible to us, because it can be stated in no terms of hu- 
man experience. But it has certain necessary derivatives, 
according to Haeckel, and these are intelligible because 
their subject-matter is available for scientific experiment. 
First among these postulates, called by Haeckel “ ar- 
ticles of faith,” comes “the essential unity of organic 
_ and inorganic Nature, the former having 
Unity of organic been evolved from the latter only at a 
and inorganic 3 ‘ ¥ os 
Warace. relatively recent period.” This involves 
the “spontaneous generation” of life 
from inorganic matter. It also resolves “ the vital force,” 
or the force which appears in connection with protoplas- 


Haeckel’s Con- 
fession of Faith. 


Monism. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 347 


mic structures, into properties shown by certain carbon 
compounds under certain conditions. Life is thus ina 
sense an emanation of carbon, “the true maker of life,” 
according to Haeckel, “being the tetraédral carbon 
molecule.” 

This “article of faith” implies also the unity of the 
chemical elements, each of which is a product of the 
evolution of the primal unit of matter 
and force. Force and matter are like- 
wise one, because neither appears except 
in the presence of the other. The inheritance of acquired 
characters is also made a corollary of monistic belief. 

Now all these hypotheses are possibly true, but none 
of them are as yet conclusions of science. They meet 
the conditions required by philosophy. 
They are plausible. They have the 
merit of logical continuity, and, except- 
ing to those-persons biased by early subjection to con- 
trary notions, they “satisfy the human heart.” There 
should be no natural repugnance to monism or to pan- 
theism, difficult as it is to associate the idea of truth 
and reality with either, or with the opposite of either. 
Speaking for myself, I feel no prejudice against them. 
They lend themselves to poetry; they appeal to the 
human heart. In Haeckel’s own words, referring to 
something else: “ Such hereditary articles of faith take 
root all the more firmly the further they are removed 
from a rational knowledge of Nature, and enveloped in 
the mysterious mantle of mythological poesy.” The 
present resistance to them may in time be turned into 
superstitious reverence for them; for, of all the philo- 
sophic doctrines brought down as lightning from heaven 
for the guidance of plodding man, these seem most at- 
tractive, and least likely to conflict with the conclu- 
sions of science. 


Unity of chem- 
ical elements. 


Monism not 
science, 


348 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


But can we give them belief? Let us pass by the 
doctrine of monism, with which science can not concern 
itself. What of the corollaries? Spon- 
taneous generation, for example, has 
been the basis of many experiments. 
Like the transmutation of metals, it 
seems reasonable to philosophy. The one idea has 
been the will-o’-the-wisp of biology as the other has 
of chemistry. We know absolutely nothing of how, if 
ever, non-life becomes life. So far as we know, genera- 
tion from first to last has been one unbroken series—all 
life from life. We have no reason to believe that spon- 
taneous generation exists under any conditions we have 
ever known. We have likewise reason to believe that if 
it exists at all we have no way of recognising it. The 
organisms we know have all had a long history. Even 
the simplest ever examined shows traces of a long an- 
cestry, a long process of natural selection, and of many 
concessions to environment. We know of no life that 
does not show such concessions. We know no creature 
that does not show homologies with all other living be- 
ings whatsoever. So far as this fact goes, it tends to 
show that all life comes from one common stock, a single 
generation or creation. If this be true, spontaneous 
generation, whatever it may be, is not a phenomenon of 
frequent occurrence. 

If life does now appear without living parentage, if 
organisms fresh from the mint of creation are now devel- 
oped from inorganic matter, they are so simple that we 
can not know them. They are so small that we can not 
find them. They would be made, we may suppose, each 
of a small number of molecules. If there is truth in the 
calculations of Lord Kelvin and others, that a molecule 
in a drop of water is as small as a marble in comparison 
with the earth, then we may not look for these creatures, 


Spontaneous 
generation not 
science. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 349 


If we can not find them, we do not know that they exist. 
If we do not mow that they exist, shall we delieve that 
they do? Is it not better, as Emerson suggests, that 
men should not “ pretend to know and believe what they 
do not really know and believe”? 

It may be that the present existence of life in a 
world once lifeless renders spontaneous generation a 
“logical necessity.” But the “logical necessity” ex- 
ists in our minds, not in Nature. Science knows no 
“logical necessity,” for the simple reason that we are 
never able to compass all the possibilities in any given 
case. 

If we are to apply philosophic tests to the theories 
of reincarnation, we may find them equally eligible as 
articles of belief. They are plausible, to 
some minds at least; they have logical 
continuity. They are satisfying to the human heart; 
at least this is claimed by their advocates. Their chief 
fault is that science knows nothing of them, and her 
inductions yield them no support. In other words, 
their only reality is that of the visions of dreamland. 
From the objective side their postulates and arguments 
have no existence. The whole thing is meaningless. If 
plausibility and acceptability serve as sufficient founda- 
tions for belief, then belief itself is a frail and transient 
thing, no more worthy of respect than prejudice, from 
which, indeed, it can not be distinguished. 

Haeckel recognises this difference clearly enough by 
using the term belief for “hypotheses or conjectures of 
more or less probability ” by which “the 
gaps empirical investigation must leave 
in science are filled up.” “These,” he 
says, “ we can not indeed for a time establish on a secure 
basis, and yet we may make use of them in the way of 
explaining phenomena, in so far as they are not incon- 


Reincarnation. 


Haeckel’s defini- 
tion of belief. 


350 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


sistent with a rational knowledge of Nature.” ‘Such 
rational hypotheses,” he says, “are scientific articles of 
faith.” It is not clear, however, that so large a name as 
faith need be taken for working hypotheses confessed- 
ly uncertain or transient, The words “make-believe,” 
used by Huxley in some such connection, might well be 
applied to hypothetical “ articles of faith’ which have no 
basis in scientific induction. But it seems to me that 
it is not necessary for the man of science to say “I be- 
lieve” in addition to “I know.’’ He should not “be- 
lieve” where he can not trust. He should put off the 
livery of science when he enters the service of the Del- 
phian oracles. 

That all the doctrines above mentioned are neces- 
sarily included in monism, may perhaps be doubted. 
Monism would probably still flourish were all these 
theories disproved; for human philosophies have won- 
derful recuperative power. Their basis is in the struc- 
ture of the brain itself, and external phenomena are 
only accessory to them. 

If monism is a purely philosophic conception, it can 
have no necessary axioms or corollaries, except such as 
are involved in its definition. These could not be scien- 
tific in their character, because they could in no way 
come into relation with the realities of human life. If, 
however, monism be a generalization, resting in part on 
human experience, then it must be tested by the meth- 
ods of science. Until it is so tested, however plausible 
it may seem, it has no working value. There is no gain 
in giving it belief or in calling it truth. 
Still less should we stultify ourselves by 
pinning our faith to its postulates as to 
matters yet to be decided by experiment 
and to be settled by human experiment only. Haeckel 
says, for example: “The inheritance of characters ac- 


The inheritance 
of acquired 
characters. 


1 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 351 


quired during the life of the individual is an indispens- 
able axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution. Those 
who with Weismann and Galton deny this, entirely ex- 
clude thereby the possibility of any formative influence 
of the outer world upon organic form.” Here we may 
ask: Who knows that there is any such formative influ- 
ence? What do we know of this or any other subject 
beyond what in our investigations we find to be true? 
When was monism a subject of special revelation, and 
with what credentials does it come, that one of the 
greatest controversies in modern science should be set- 
tled by its simple word? 

The great bulk of the arguments in favour of the 
heredity of acquired characters, as well as most of those 
in favour of the opposed dogma of the unchanged conti- 
nuity of the germ plasm, are based on some supposed 
logical necessity of philosophy. All such arguments are 
valueless in the light of fact. Desmarest’s suggestion to 
the contending advocates of Neptunism and Plutonism 
was “Go and see.’’ When they had seen the action of 
water and the action of heat, the contest was over, for 
argument and contention had vanished in the face of 
fact. To believe without foundation is to discredit 
knowledge. Such “confessions of faith” on Haeckel’s 
part lead one to doubt whether in his 
zeal to delieve he had ever known what it 
is to know. Greater than the courage of 
one’s convictions may be the courage of patience where 
convictions are not yet attainable. 

“ Science,” says Richard T. Colburn, “does not con- 
cern itself with teleological suppositions ; that is to say, 
it is reluctant to resort to any of them to explain the 
observed cosmos, and prefers to listen in neutral atti- 
tude to the rival philosophies—theism, manicheism, 
atheism, monism, spiritism, or materialism—but it is at 
; 23 : 


The courage of 
patience. 


352 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


least equally well equipped to pass judgment on such 
speculations as their advocates.” 

In other words, if any of these systems of philosophy 
are to descend from cloudland to be wrought into hu- 
man action, they must enter the domain of science and 
submit themselves to scientific tests. 

Again, if we are to allow the revision of the generali- 
zations of science by the addition of acceptable but un- 
verified doctrines, we must allow the 
right of similar revision by rejection. 
Mr. Wallace, for example, would be 
justified in adding to the certainties of 
organic evolution his idea of the special creation of the 
mind of man while the body was separately developed 
under natural law. The old notion of the separate ex- 
istence of the ego, which plays on the nerve cells of the 
brain as a musician on the keys of a piano, would still 
linger in psychology. The astral body would hover on 
the verge of physiology, and a strong plea would go up 
for the reality of Santa Claus. 

I have a scientific friend who finds it necessary to 
exclude by force from his biological beliefs all that is 
unpleasant in the theories of evolution. And he has the 
same right to do this that Professor Haeckel has to insist 
that any scientific beliefs, for which science has yet no 
warrant, are a necessary part of the orthodoxy of science. 

For Haeckel is not content to speak for himself, 
asking tolerance by tolerance toward others. His be- 
lief is no idiosyncrasy of his own. He speaks for all. 
Every honest, intelligent, courageous scientific man, he 
tells us, so far as he is truthful, competent, and brave, 
shares the same belief. His confession of faith is 
nothing if not orthodox. He says: 

“This monistic confession has the greater claim to 
an unprejudiced consideration in that it is shared, I am 


Revision of 
science by 
philosophy. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 353 


firmly convinced, by at least nine tenths of the men of 
science now living; indeed, I believe, by all men of sci- 
ence in whom the following four conditions are realized: 
(1) Sufficient acquaintance with the various departments 
of natural science, and in particular with the modern 
doctrine of evolution; (2) sufficient acuteness and 
clearness of judgment to draw, by induction and deduc- 
tion, the necessary logical consequences that flow from 
such empirical knowledge; (3) sufficient moral courage 
to maintain the monistic knowledge so gained against 
the attacks of hostile dualistic and pluralistic systems; 
and (4) sufficient strength of mind to free himself, by 
sound, independent reasoning, from dominant religious 
prejudices, and especially from those irrational dogmas 
which have been firmly lodged in our minds from earli- 
est youth as indisputable revelations.” 

Against such assumption I must protest. I have 
nothing against the doctrines save that they are not yet 
proved true. In themselves, as I have said, they are 
attractive. One may naturally feel a hopeful interest 
in wide-reaching theories which seem plausible, but are 
still unproved or unworkable. This is, however, not 
“belief.” It is rather open-mindedness, open to nega- 
tive evidence as well as to positive. 

As science goes wherever the facts lead, so “ science 
must stop where the facts stop.” It can not add to its 
methods the running high jump, nor 
place the divining rod with the micro- 
scope, crucible, and calculus among its 
instruments of precision. Beyond the range of scientific 
knowledge extend the working and the unworkable 
hypotheses. Beyond the confines of all these extend 
the universe of the mind, the boundless realm which is 
the abode of philosophy, None should better realize 
these distinctions than men of science. 


Science stops 
where facts stop. 


354 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


The primal motive of science is to regulate the con- 

duct of life. This is in a sense its ultimate end, for it 

is the first and the last function of the 

Primal motive — senses and the intellect. If science has 
of science. a é 
any message to man, It 1s expressed in 

these words of Huxley: “There can be no allevia- 

tion of the sufferings of mankind except in absolute 

veracity of thought and action and a 

Message of resolute facing of the world as it is.” 
eats “Still men and nations reap as the 

Pp y 

have strewn.” The history of human thought is filled 

with the rise of philosophic doctrines, laws, and gen- 

eralizations not drawn from human experience and not 

sanctioned by science. The attempt to use these ideas 

as a basis of human action has been one of the most 

fruitful sources of human misery. 

And now we may turn for a moment to the positive 
side of scientific belief. ; 

I was walking in the garden, not long ago, with a 
little girl, to whom I told James Whitcomb Riley’s story 
of the “gobelins that get you if you 
don’t watch out ”"—a story supposed to 
be peculiarly attractive to children. 
“But there isn’t any such thing as a 
goblin,” said the practical little girl, “and there isn’t 
ever going to be any such thing.” Mindful of the ar- 
guments of Berkeley and Balfour, I said to her in the 
spirit of philosophic doubt, “ Maybe there isn’t any such 
thing as anything, Barbara?”’ “ Yes, there is,” she said, 
and she looked about her for unquestioned reality; 
“there is such a thing as anything; there is such a thing 
as a squash!” 

And in this conclusion of the little girl the reality 
of the objective world, the integrity of science, and the 
sanity of man are alike bound up. And for its evidence, 


Philosophic 
doubt and 
common sense, 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 355 


if we are not confined to Balfour’s argument in a circle, 
we must look to the facts of organic evolution, of 
which the existence of man is a part. 
Each living being is a link in a continuous chain of 
life, going back in the past to the unknown beginnings 
; of life. Into this chain of life, so far as 
Each organism @ We know, death has never entered, be- 
link in the chain ‘ 2 
af lite, cause only in life has the ancestor the 
power of casting off the germ cells by 
which life is continued. Each individual is in a sense 
the guardian of the life chain in which it forms a link. 
Each link is tested as to its fitness to the conditions 
external to itself in which it carries on its functions. 
Those creatures unadapted to the environment, what- 
ever it may be, are destroyed, as well as those not 
adaptable. And this environment by which each is 
tested is the objective universe. It is not the world as 
man knows it. It is not the world as the creature may 
imagine it. It is the world as itis. Nature has no par- 
don for ignorance or illusions. She is no respecter of 
persons. Her laws and her penalties consider only what 
is, and have no dealings with semblances. By this ex- 
perience we come to know that reality exists, that there 
is an external world to the demands of 
which our senses, our reason, our powers 
of action are all concessions. The safety 
of each chain of life is proportioned to the adaptation 
of its links to these conditions. This adaptation is in 
its essence obedience. The obedience of any creature 
is conditioned on its response in action to sensation or ° 
knowledge. Sense-perception and intellect alike stand 
as advisers to its power of choice. The power of choice 
involves the need to choose right; for wrong choice 
leads to death. Death ends the chain of which the 
creature is a link, and the life of the world is continued 


Life deals with 
realities. 


356 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


by those whose line of choice has been safe. Death is 
not the punishment of folly, but its inevitable result. 
Severity of condition and stress of competition are met 
in life by the survival of those adequate to meet these 
conditions. Thus “in creatures sore bestead by the 
environment,” when instinct and impulse fail, reason 
rises to insure safety. At last with civilized man rea- 
son comes to be a chief element in the guidance of 
life. With greater power to know and hence to choose 
safely, greater complexity of conditions becomes pos- 
sible, and the multifarious demands of modern civiliza- 
tion find some at least who can meet them fairly well. 
To such the stores of human wisdom must be open. 
To others, safety in new conditions lies only in imi- 
tation. The multitudes of civilized men, like the mul- 
titudes of animals, are kept alive by the instinct of 
conventionality. The instinct to follow 
those who have passed over safely is 
one of the most useful of all impulses to action. In 
the same connection we must recognise authority as a 
Most important source of knowledge to 
the individual; but its value is propor- 
tioned to the ability of the individual to use the tests 
wisdom must apply to the credentials of authority. 
But instinct, appetite, impulse, conventionality, and 
respect for authority all point backward. They are 
: : the outcome of past conditions. “New 
Instinct springs occasions bring new duties,” and new 
from past ‘ 
conditions: facts and laws must be learned if men 
prove adequate to the life their own in- 
stitutions and their own development have brought 
upon them. To the wise and obedient the most complex 
life brings no special strain or discomfort. It is as easy 
to do great things as small, if one only knows how. But 
to the ignorant, weak, and perverse the growth of civili- 


Conventionality. 


Authority. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 357 


zation becomes an engine of destruction. The freedom 
of self-realization involves the freedom of self-perdition. 
Hence appears the often-discussed rela- 
tion of “ progress and poverty ” in social 
development. Hence it comes that civ- 
ilization, of which the essence is mutual help or altru- 
ism, seems to become one vast instrument for the kill- 
ing of fools. In the specialization of life conditions are 
constantly changing. Every age is an age of transi- 
tion, and transition brings unrest because it impairs the 
value of conventionality. With the lowest forms of life 
there is no safety save in absolute obedience to the laws 
of the world around them. This obedience becomes 
automatic and hereditary, because the disobedient leave 
no chain of descent. All instincts, appetites, impulses 
to action, even certain forms of illusions, point toward 
such obedience. Whether we regard these phenomena 
as variations selected because useful, or as inherited 
habits, their relation is the same. They survive as 
guarantees of future obedience because they have en- 
forced obedience in the past. With the most enlightened 
man, the same necessity for obedience exists, and the 
instincts, appetites, and impulses of the lower animals 
remain in him, or disappear only as reason is adequate 
to take their place. And, in any case, there is no alle- 
viation for the woes of life “save the absolute veracity 
of action, the resolute facing of the world as it is.” 

The intense practicality of all this must be recog- 
nised, The truths of science are approximate, not ab- 
solute. They must be stated in terms 
of human consciousness, and they can 
never be dissociated from possible human 
action. Knowledge which can only accumulate, without 
being woven into conduct, has never been a boon to its 
possessor. As food must be formed into tissues, so must 


Intellect points 
forward. 


Practicality of 
sensations. 


358 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


perception pass over into action. In the lower forms we 
have the devices, chiefly automatic, by which sensation 
transmitted to the sensorium reappears as motion. In 
like manner we find in man, besides these reflex trans- 
fers and the reflex connections formed by habit, that 
science becomes changed to art and knowledge to 
power. Power and effectiveness are conditioned on ac- 
curacy. Every failure in the sense organs, every form 
of deterioration of the nerves, shows itself in reduction 
of power. Reduced effectiveness manifests itself through 
the processes of natural selection as lessened safety of 
life. Thus the degeneration of the nervous system 
through excesses, through precocious activity, or through 
the effect of stimulants, shows itself in untrustworthy 
perceptions, in uncontrolled muscles, and in general in- 
security. Incidentally all these are recorded by fall in 
social standing. Similar failure follows from any cause 
impairing the recognition of the reality of external 
things. The sober mind is necessary to secure life. In 
general all civilized men are well born. 
They come of good stock. For the 
lineage of perversity, insanity, and even 
stupidity, is never a long one. The perverse, insane, 
and the stupid live through the tolerance of others. 
They can not maintain themselves, and in spite of char- 
ity and the sense of conventionality, the mortality caused 
by the fool-killer is something enormous. It is an essen- 
tial element in race progress. It grows with increased 
civilization, because of increasing complexity of condi- 
tion. It is the chief offset for the systematic life-saving 
which science makes possible. 

The recent “recrudescence of superstition,” a strik- 
ing accompaniment of an age of science, is in a sense de- 
pendent on science. Science has made it possible. The 
traditions of science are so diffused in the community 


The sober 
mind. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 359 


at large that fools find it safe to defy them. Those who 
take dreams for realities; those whose memory impres- 
sions and motor dreams are uncontrolled through de- 
fective will; those who mistake subjective sensations 
produced by disease or disorder for ob- 
jective conditions—all these sooner or 
later drop out of existence, taking with 
them the whole line of their possible suc- 
cessors. The condition of mind which is favourable to 
mysticism, superstition, and reverie, is unfavorable to 
life, and the. continuance of such condition leads to 
death. On the billboard across the street (in Oakland, 
California) I see the advertisement of a lecture on 
“ The Ethical Value of Living in Two Worlds at Once.” 
Whoever thus lives in two worlds is certain soon to 
prove inadequate for either. 

‘If all men sought healing from the blessed handker- 
chief of the lunatic, or from contact with old bones or 
old clothes; if all physicians used “ re- 
vealed remedies,” or the remedies “ Na- 
ture finds” for each disease; if all busi- 
ness were conducted by faith; if all 
supposed “natural rights” of man were recognised in 
legislation, the insecurity of these beliefs would speedily 
appear. Not only civilization but civilized man himself 
would vanish from the earth. The safe shelter of the 
cave and hollow tree would be the cradle of the “new 
man’ and the “new woman.” The long and bloody 
road of progress through fool-killing would for centu- 
ries be traversed again. That is strong which endures. 
Might does not make right, but that which is right will 
justify itself by becoming might. What we call social 
virtues are the elements of race stability. 

So closely is knowledge linked to action, that in gen- 
eral among animals and men sensation is absent or not 


The recrudes- 
cence of 
superstition. 


Life based on 
dreams and 
illusions. 


360 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


trustworthy when it can not result in action. Objects 
too small to be touched are invisible to the eye. Objects 
beyond our reach, as the stars or the clouds, are not 

truthfully pictured. Accuracy of percep- 
Sensation truth- tion grows less as the square of the dis- 
ful in the degree tance increases. It is a recognised law 
that action is j : 
possible, of psychology that only medium varia- 

tions and differences are correctly esti- 
mated. The senses deal correctly only with the near, 
the mind only with the common. The unfamiliar lends 
itself readily to illusions. The familiar is recognised 
chiefly by breaks in continuity. The real forces of 
Nature are hidden by their grandeur, by their duration. 
Men see the waves on the surface of the sea, but not the 
mighty tides that move beneath it. Again, the senses 
are less acute than the mechanism of sense organs would 
make possible. This is shown through occasional cases 
of hyperesthesia or ultra-sensitiveness. This occurs in 
abnormal individuals or in diseased conditions. It oc- 
curs normally in creatures whose lives in some sense 
depend on it. Thus some of the most remarkable exhibi- 
tions of “mind reading” may be paralleled by retriever 
dogs, whose reason for existence is found in the hyper- 
zsthesia of the sense of smell. Hyperesthesia of more 
than one of the senses would be to most animals a 
source of confusion and danger rather than of safety. 
The high development of the brain in man in large de- 
gree takes the place of acuteness of special senses. It 
is part of the function of the will to regulate the senses 
and to suppress those impressions which should not lead 
to action. 

In his perception of external relations man is aided 
by the devices of science, which may be taken up or laid 
down at will. By means of instruments of precision any 
of the senses may be extended to an enormous degree, 


‘THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 361 


and at the same time the personal equation or individual 
source of error is largely eliminated. The use of instru- 
ments of precision is the special charac- 
teristic of the advance of science. No 
instrument of precision can give us the 
ultimate essence of any part of the universe. No scien- 
tific experiment can do away with the measure of human 
experience as the basis of intelligibility. At the same 
time we can throw large illuminations into “the dimly 
lighted room” in which, according to Balfour, the phe- 
nomena of consciousness takes place. By the simple 
process of photography, for example, we may reproduce 
the objects of our environment. That such pictures do 
express phases of reality admits of no doubt; for in the 
photographic camera, all personal equation is eliminated. 
As to form of outline and reflection of light, “the sun 
paints true,” and the paintings thus made by means of 
the action of non-living matter produce on our senses 
impressions coinciding with those of the outside world 
itself. 

How do we know that this is truth? Because belief 
in it adds to the safety of life; we can trust our lives to 

it. If it were an illusion it would kill, 
Trust in reality because action based on illusion leads to 
makes life safe. 

death. 

One can trust his life, for example, to the message 
sent on a telegraph wire. All who travel by rail do this 
daily. One can trust his life to the reading of a ther- 
mometer. The chemist’s tests will select for us foods 
among poisons. We may trust these tests absolutely. 
We may safely and sometimes wisely take poisons into 
our bodies if we know what we are doing. By the ad- 
vice of a physician, trusting in the weigher’s instrument 
of precision, poisons may do no harm. One grain of 
strychnine may be an aid to vital processes; a dozen 


Hyperesthesia 
of science. 


362 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


may mean instant cessation of these processes. The 
balance advises us as to all this. All these instruments 
of precision belong to science. They are examples 
taken from thousands of the methods of “ organized 
common sense.” By means of common sense, organized 
and unorganized, all creatures that can move are en- 
abled to move safely. The security of human life in its 
relations to environment is a sufficient answer to the 
“ philosophic doubt ” of Berkeley and Balfour as to the 
existence of external Nature; for if all phenomena were 
within the mind, no one of them could be more dangerous 
than another. A dream of murder is no more danger- 
ous than a dream of a “ pink tea,” so long as its action 
is confined to the limits of the dream. But the relation 
of life to environment is inseparable and inexorable. 
Cause and effect are perfectly linked. This is a world 
of absolute verity, and its demand is absolute obedi- 
ence. Life without concessions or conditions is the 
philosopher’s dream. 

What we know as pain is the necessary danger sig- 
nal. Without pain, life conditioned by environment 
would be impossible. Organic beings 
need such stimulus to veracity. Those 
dangers which are painless are the hard- 
est to avoid; the diseases which are painless are the 
most difficult to cure. 

In this relation must science recognise the value of 
ideals? The ideal in the mind tends always to go over 

into action. The noble ideal discloses 

itself in a noble life. It is part of the 
wisdom of each generation, its science as well as its reli- 
gion, to form the ideals of the next. History is fore- 
shadowed in these ideals before it is enacted on the 
stage of life. An ideal is not a dream. A dream is 
fleeting. An ideal has the w// behind it. Its essential 


Meaning of 
pain. 


Value of ideals. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 363 


is its persistence. The persistence of a lofty ideal is the 
central axis of the life worth living. 

But if the strong man is to cast off conventionality 
and suggestion and authority as guides to conduct, so 
must he guard himself against hereditary impulses. 
Conventionality and authority hold in check the bodily 
impulses which had their origin in wild and rude condi- 
tions. To escape from human control only to be ruled 
by the animal passions is not liberty. That “ freedom 
which is thraldom to sin” brings destruction, for the 
unchecked gratification of bodily impulses carries with 
it in civilization perils unknown to primitive man. To 
be free from the control of others one should be wise 
enough to control himself, and wisdom is but another 
name for science. 

An old parable of the conduct of life shows man in 
a light skiff in a tortuous channel beset with rocks, 
borne by a falling current to an un- 
known sea. He is kept alert by the 
dangers of his situation. As his boat 
bumps against the rocks he must bestir himself. If 
this contact were not painful he would not heed it. 
If it were not destructive he would not need to heed it. 
Had he no power to act, he could not heed it if he 
would. But with sensation, will, freedom to act, nar- 
row though the limits of freedom be, his safety rests in 
some degree in his own hands. That he has thus far 
steered his course fairly well is shown by the fact that 
he is still above board. He may choose his course for 
himself—not an easy thing to do, unless he scan most 
carefully the nature of rocks and waves, and weighs 
carefully his control of the boat itself. He may fol- 
low the course of others with some degree of the safety 
they have attained. He may follow his own impulses, 
in man’s case inherited from those who found them safe 


The course 
of life. 


364 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


guides to action. But in new conditions neither con- 
ventionality nor impulse nor desire will suffice. He 
must know what is about him in order that he may know 
what he is doing. He must know what he is doing in 
order to do anything effectively. Ignorant action is 
more dangerous than no action at all. The “sealed 
orders” under which live the lower animals and our 
“ brother organisms the plants” are in a measure inade- 
quate for man. With the power of movement and the 
“knowledge of good and evil,” he has no choice but to 
accept the conditions. He must shape 
his own life. He must mould his ideals 
into actuality. And thus it comes that 
there is “no alleviation for the sufferings of man ex- 
cept through absolute veracity of thought and action, 
and the resolute facing of the world as it is,” 

And thus it comes also that it is well for man not 
“to pretend to know or to believe what he really does 
not know or believe.’”” We may play at 
philosophy, if we have pleasure in doing 
so. We may find intellectual strength 
through exercise of the mind, even on its own products. 
But we must guide our lives by science. The appetites, 
impulses, passions, illusions, if you choose, which have 
proved safe in the past development of life, science 
would not destroy. But they must be subordinate to 
the will and the intellect. And this subordination of 
the lower to the higher motives in life is the vital fact 
of human evolution, as it has been the ideal of those 
who in the name of religion have striven worthily for 
man’s spiritual advancement. 

As knowledge is in its essence only a guide to ac- 
tion, and as knowledge, being human, can be approxi- 
mate only, not reality, but a movement toward reality, 
we are brought to the famous words of Lessing: 


The world 
as it is. 


Subordination 
of impulses. 


THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 365 


“Tt is not the truth in man’s possession that makes 
the worth of man. Possession makes him selfish, lazy, 
proud. Not through possession, but through long striv- 

ing, comes the ever-growing strength. 

rea If God should hold in his right hand all 

. truth, and in his left hand only the cease- 

less struggle to reach after truth, and he should say to 

me, Choose, I would fall in humbleness before his left 
hand, and say: 


‘“* Father, give ; the perfect truth is but for thee alone.’” 


XV. 
THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 


Ir is said that every tie in the Panama Railway cost 

a man his life. Whether this be true or not, it may 

serve as an illustration of the progress 
DHE PERE ae of human knowledge. Every step in the 
truth. ‘ z 

advance of science has cost the life of a 
man. And this price of truth has been paid in two dif- 
ferent ways. It may take a lifetime of the severest 
labour to find out a new fact. No truth comes to man 
unless he asks for it; and it takes years of patience and 
devotion to ask of Nature even one new question. He 
is already a master in science who can suggest a new 
experiment. 

In the second place, the truth-seeker has had to 
struggle for his physical life. Each acquisition of 
truth has been resisted by the full force of the inertia 
of satisfaction with preconceived ideas. Just as a new 
thought comes to us with a shock which rouses the re- 
sistance of our personal conservatism, so a new idea is 
met and repelled by the conservatism of society. 

And as each individual in his own secret heart be- 
lieves himself in some degree the subject of the favour 
of the mysterious unseen powers, so 
does society in all the ages find a mys- 
tic or divine warrant for its own attitude 
toward life or action, whatever that may be. 

366 


The mystic 
sanction. 


THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 367 


The institutions that survive spring out of man's 
need for them, The existence of the Church has divine 
warrant in this. Should every fragment of the historic 
churches disappear, every memory, every ‘ceremony, 
every trace of creed or form, the Church would rise 
again, renewed as to all its essentials; and with each 
variant, race of man there would be a corresponding 
variation in the form of the Church. You could not 
make Buddhists out of the Puritans, nor transplant the 
New England Sabbath to the sunny isles of Greece. 
Monarchy, in turn, exists by the same divine right; and 
when it fails, the same divinity that hedged the king is 
invoked to sustain the rights of the people. Once the 
king was God’s anointed, as he still is in many lands. 
But when “ God said, ‘I am tired of kings; I suffer them 
no more,’” the self-rule of the people acquired the same 
divine right—no less, no more, for the warrant rests in 
the heart of man. We know God’s purposes only by 
what he lets man do. We know what he wills only by 
what he permits. That which exists in the nature of 
things men have worshipped as divine, especially if its 
relations have been dimly understood. Thus the strug- 
gle of science with prejudice and tradition has become a 
warfare with religion; for men have always sought to 
strengthen their traditional opinions by giving them a 
religious sanction. 

The history of the progress of science has been the 
record of the physical resistance of organized society. 
“By the light of burning heretics Christ’s 
bleeding feet I track.’”’ He who sees that 
the world does move is burned at the 
stake, that other men may be convinced that it does not. 
He who is sure that the rocks were once molten, finds 
the force of social pressure between him and his studies. 


He who would give the sacred books of our civilization 
25 


The struggle 
against tradition. 


368 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


the faithful scrutiny their vast importance deserves, 
finds the doors of libraries and universities closed to his 
research. He who has seen the relation of man to his 
brother animals, finds the air filled with the vain chatter 
of those to whom whatever is natural seems only pro- 
fane. ‘Extinguished theologians,” Huxley tells us, 
“lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled 
snakes beside that of the infant Hercules.” 

But this, again, is not the whole story. This fact is 
only an incident in human development. Not only theo- 
logians lie strangled about the giant’s 
cradle, but learned men of all ciasses and 
conditions. Learning and wisdom are 
not identical; they are not always on speaking terms. 
Learning looks backward to the past. The word “learn” 
involves the existence of some man as teacher. Wis- 
dom looks forward to the future. In so far as science is 
genuine, it is of the nature of wisdom. “To come in 
when it rains ” is the beginning of the science of mete- 
orology. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” is the 
practical basis of personal ethics. To be wise is to be 
ready to act; but learning in all the ages has con- 
demned wisdom and despised action. 

It seems to me that the warfare of science is not 
primarily, as Draper has called it, a conflict with re- 
ligion, nor even, as President White 
would have it, a struggle with “dog- 
matic theology.” It is all of these, but 
it is more than these—a conflict of tendencies in the 
human mind which has worked itself out into history. 
The great movements of history in general are written 
in the human mind before they are worked out on the 
great stage of the world. When history is enacted, we 
perform deeds and recite sentences “ written for us gen- 
erations before we were born.” “He hath his exits and 


The struggle 
against learning. 


The struggle in 
the human mind, 


THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 369 


his entrances.” He is a rare man who can add a new 
meaning to his lines or give a better cue to him that 
follows. 
The nervous system of man and animals is primarily 
a device for making locomotion safe. The mind—using 
the word in the broadest sense—is a col- 
lective term for the operations of the 
nervous system. It is not an entity ex- 
isting apart from organization. To it consciousness is 
related much as the flame is to fire. The mind is in 
operation whether we realize it or not. The reflex ac- 
tion of the nerve centre is the type of all mind pro- 
cesses. Through the sensory nerves, impressions of the 
external world are received by the brain or central gan- 
glion. The brain has no source of knowledge other 
than through sensation. All human knowledge comes 
through human experience. The primal function of the 
brain, sitting in darkness, is to convert sensory impres- 
sions into impulses of action. To this end are devel- 
oped the motor nerves which pass from the nerve cen- 
tre outward to the muscles. The sensory organs are 
the brain’s sole teacher; the muscles are its only serv- 
ants. The essence of the intellect, as distinguished 
from reflex. or instinctive action, is the choice among 
different motor responses to the stimulus of external 
conditions. As the conditions of life grow more com- 
plicated, the possible ways in which sensation may pass 
over into action grow more numerous. It is the func- 
tion of the intellect to consider these, and of the will to 
choose. The growth of the intellect causes and permits 
complexity of life. Safety in life depends upon choos- 
ing the right response. Wrong choice leads to failure 
and death. The power of choice implies the necessity 
of choosing right. 
"From this, by the process of natural selection, arises 


Nature of the 
mind, 


x. 


370 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION, 


the intense practicality of the senses and the intellect. 
They tell us the truth as to external things, in so far as 
this truth has been essential to our ancestors. Those of 
our predecessors who did not “ see things 
as they really are,” to the degree that 
their life processes demanded, have died, 
leaving no descendants. Our own ancestors, through 
all the generations, have been creatures of adequate sen- 
sations and of adequate power of thought. Were it not 
so, they would have been unable to cope with their en- 
vironment. In other words, the sensations their brains 
translated into action were truthful enough to make ac- 
tion safe. That our ordinary sensations and our induc- 
tions from them are truthful so far as they go, is proved 
by the fact that we have safely trusted them. This is 
shown also by the instruments of precision which are 
the tools of science. That instruments of precision like- 
wise tell the truth, is shown by the fact that we can 
trust our lives to them. That they are more trust- 
worthy than the unaided senses, is shown by their greater 
safety. 

But while our senses tell the truth as to familiar 
things, as rocks and trees, foods and shelter, friends and 
enemies, they do not tell the whole truth. They go 
only as far as the demands of the environment have 
compelled them to go. Chemical composition they do 
not show. Objects too small to be handled are too 
small to be seen. Bodies too distant to be reached are 
never correctly apprehended. Accuracy of sense grows 
less as the square of the distance increases; and sun 
and stars, clouds and sky, are in fact very different from 
what they seem. 

In matters not vital to action exact knowledge loses 
its importance. It is perfectly safe, in the ordinary 
affairs of life, to believe in witches and incantations, 


Practicality of 
the senses. 


THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 371 


imps and elves, astral bodies and odic forces. It is 
quite as consistent with ordinary virtue and effective- 
ness to accept these as objective realities, as it is to 
have the vague faith in microbes and molecules, mahat- 
mas and protoplasm, in protective tariffs and mani- 
fest destiny, which form part of the mental outfit of 
the man of our day. Unless these ideas are brought 
into terms of personal experience, they can not be 
wrought into action. If they are so brought, truth is 
separated from falsehood, and the vague conceptions 
most men possess are found to diverge very widely from 
the actual facts in Nature. Thus, when one comes to 
handle microbes, they become as real as nutmegs or 
oranges, and as capable of being manipulated. But the 
astral body exists only to those who use it as a cover 
for real ignorance, and the ghosts vanish when we turn 
on the electric light. 

Other mental processes arise to produce confusion. 
Memory pictures readily blend themselves with realities. 
The nervous system of the one individu- 
al is easily affected by the conditions ex- 
isting in another. Men are gregarious 
creatures, and their speech gives them the power to add 
to their own ideas and experiences the ideas and experi- 
ences of others. Thus, many actions are based not on 
our own sensations, but on the suggestions of others. 
Openness to suggestion and the instinct of convention- 
ality are elements of great importance in insuring the 
safety of gregarious creatures. 

With all this, the growth of each individual must be 
determined by his own experience. About the sense- 
impressions formed in my own brain I must build up my 
own universe. Thus it comes that each accretion of 
human knowledge must be thrown into terms of our pre- 
vious experience. Stated in these terms, it is always 


Suggestion and 
conventionality. 


372 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


imperfectly stated. By processes of suggestion and 
conventionality the ideas of the individual become as- 
similated to those of the multitude. Thus tradition and 
myths arise to account for phenomena not clearly re- 
lated to the ordinary experiences of life. And the un- 
known in all mythology is ascribed not to natural forces, 
but to the action of the power that transcends Nature. 
It has been evident to man in all ages that there lie 
about him forces stronger than he, invisible and intan- 
gible, inscrutable as to their real nature, 
but none the less potent. He can not 
easily trace cause and effect in dealing 
with these forces, and it is natural that he should doubt 
the existence of causation in the phenomena they pro- 
duce. As the human will seems capricious because the 
springs of volition are hidden from our observation, 
so to the unknown will that limits our own has been 
ascribed an infinite caprice. All races of men capable 
of continued thought have come to believe in the exist- 
ence of something outside themselves, whose power is 
without human limitations. Through the imagination 
of great poets these forces become personified. The ex- 
istence of power seems to demand a will. The power 
is infinitely greater than ours, the sources of action in- 
scrutable; hence man has conceived the unknown First 
Cause as an infinite and unconditioned man. Anthropo- 
morphism in some degree is inevitable, because each 
man must think in terms of his own experience. Into 
his own universe all that he knows must come. 
Recognition of the hidden but gigantic forces in Na- 
ture leads men to fear them and to worship them. To 
think of them, either in fear or worship, is to give them 
human forms. To grant them the form of man is to 
give them “a local habitation and a name.” As man is 
a social animal, even in his hopes and fears, these feel- 


The forces out- 
side ourselves. 


THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 373 


ings have given rise to institutions. An institution im- 
plies a division of labour; so in every age and in every 
race men have been chosen and set apart 
Fearand worship a5 representatives of these hidden forces 
of the unseen : eager 
poinie: and devoted to their propitiation. In 
every nation there are men who are com- 
missioned to speak in the name of each god that is wor- 
shipped or each demon that the people dread. 

The existence of each cult of priests is bound up in 
the perpetuation of the mysteries and traditions they 
visibly represent. It is the nature of men to magnify 
their own calling. These traditions are associated with 
other traditions of other powers, with other conventional 
explanations of uncomprehended phenomena. While 
human theories of the earth, the stars, and the clouds, 
of earthquakes, storms, comets, and disease, have no 
direct relation to the feeling of worship, yet of necessity 
they become entangled with it. The uncomprehended, 
the unfamiliar, and the supernatural are one and the 
same thing in the mindof man. History shows that the 
human mind can not separate one set of traditional 
prejudices from another. 

We come to attach sacredness to the ideas acquired 
in our youth, whether derived from our own experience 
or from the teachings of our fathers. 
To those courses of action approved by 
us as right we attach a mystic sanction 
as our best reason for following them. And not only to 
the acts of virtue approved by the ethical wisdom of all 
ages, but to the most unimportant rites and ceremonies 
we attribute the same divine sanction. New ideas, with- 
out the sanction of tradition, whatever the nature of 
their source, must struggle for acceptance. To the sci- 
entific notions of our childhood we cling with special 
persistence, because they are associated with our con- 


The science of 
our childhood. 


374 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


ceptions of right-doing and of the motives which con- 
trol it. Both are part of the mental universe we built 
around us in our youth, and one in which we would 
not willingly make changes or extensions. 

It is the work of science to find in some degree the 
real nature of the universe. Its function is to eliminate, 
as far as may be, the human equation in every state- 
ment. By methods of precision of thought and instru- 
ments of precision of observation science seeks to 
make our knowledge of the small, the distant, the invisi- 
ble, the mysterious, as accurate as our knowledge of 
the common things with which man has dealt for ages. 
It seeks to make our knowledge of common things ac- 
curate and precise, that this accuracy and precision may 
be translated into action. For the ultimate end of sci- 
ence, as well as its initial impulse, is the regulation of 
human conduct. Seeing true means thinking right. 
Right thinking means right action. To bring about 
right action is the end of science. Greater precision of 
thought and action makes higher civilization possible. 
Lack of precision in action is the great cause of human 
misery, for misery is Nature’s protest against the results 
of wrong conduct. “The world as it is ” is the province 
of science. “The God of the things as 
they are” is the God of the highest 
heaven. As “the world as it is” to the 
sane man is glorious, beautiful, noble, and divine, so will 
science be the inspiration of art, poetry, and religion. 

The intellectual growth of man has 
been one long struggle between the ideas 
of the universe derived directly from re- 
alities and the ideas derived from tradi- 
tion and suggestion. The record of this struggle is the 
most valuable part of history. In his notable record of. 
this struggle Dr. John W. Draper has called it “The 


‘The world 
as it is.” 


The conflict 
between science 
and religion. 


é THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 375 


Conflict between Religion and Science.” But the inade- 
quacy of this definition has been generally recognised, 
for the conflict has chiefly lain between religious institu- 
tions and the progress of knowledge. 
Andrew Dickson White calls this “the struggle be- 
tween science and dogmatic theology, 
Ceaaclaet ae . . . the conflict between two epochs in 
aie ee the evolution of human thought—the 
theology. theological and the scientific.” This 
idea was years ago crystallized by him 
in these memorable words: 


“In all modern history, interference with science in the sup- 
posed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such in- 
terference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to 
religion and to science, and invariably ; and on the other hand, all 
untrammelled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to 
religion some of its stages may have seemed for the time to be, 
has invariably resulted in the highest good, both of religion and 
of science.” 


From the standpoint of history, this struggle has 
actually been one between organized theology and un- 
organized science. Preconceived notions of theological 
science became entangled with crude notions of all 
other sciences. In the experience of a single human 
life there is little to correct even the crudest theology. 
From the supposed greater importance of theology in 
determining the fate of the individual man, theological 
conceptions have dominated all others. Throughout 
the ages the great churches have been the stronghold of 
conservatism. Religious bodies have formed the great 
organized army against which the separated bands of 
science hurled themselves apparently in vain. 

But as. I have said before, the real essence of con- 
servatism lies not in theology. The whole conflict is a 
struggle inthe mind of man. It exists in human psy- 


376 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


chology before it is wrought out in human history. It 
is the struggle of realities against tradition and sugges- 
tion. The progress of civilization would 
still have been just such a struggle had 
religion or theology or churches or wor- 
ship never existed. But such a conception is impossi- 
ble, because the need for all these is part of the actual 
development of man. 

Intolerance and prejudice are, moreover, not con- 
fined to religious organizations. The same spirit that 
burned Michael Servetus and Giordano 
Bruno for the heresies of science, led 
the atheist “liberal”’ mob of Paris to 
send to the scaffold the great chemist Lavoisier, “ with 
the sneer that the republic has no need of savanis.” 
The same spirit that leads the orthodox Gladstone to 
reject natural selection because it “relieves God of the 
labour of creation,’’ causes the heterodox Haeckel to 
condemn Weismann’s theories of heredity, not because 
they are at variance with facts, but because such ques- 
tions are settled once for all by the great philosophic 
dictum of monism. 

There is no better antidote to bigotry than the study 
of the growth of knowledge. There is no chapter in 
man’s history more encouraging than that which treats 
of the gradual growth of open-mindedness. The study 
of this history will bring religious men to avoid the mis- 
takes of intolerance through a knowledge of the evils 
to which intolerance has led in the past. Scientific men 
will be spurred to better Work by the record that through 
the ages objective truth has been the final test of all 
ideas. All men will be more sane and more effective in 
proportion as they realize that no good can come from 
“wishing to please God with a lie.” 

The conflict of science is usually considered as the 


The essence of 
conservatism. 


The effort to 
limit thought. 


THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES, 377 


struggle of dogmatism to limit knowledge. But another 
phase of the same warfare is the desire of organized 
conservatism to limit action. Just as science goes over 
into action, so does dogmatism pass over into suppres- 
sion, The struggle for democracy, the rise of the com- 
mon man, is therefore part of the same great conflict 
for human freedom. 

The desire of dogmatism to control action is in its 
essence the desire to save men from their own folly. 
The great historic churches have ex- 
isted “for the benefit of the weak and 
the poor.” By their observances they 
have stimulated the spirit of devotion. By their com- 
mands they have protected men from unwise action. 
By their condemnations they have saved men from the 
grasp of vice and crime. 

But the control of action by an institution is irksome 
to the man who thinks for himself. Whoever thinks for 
himself must act for himself. He is no longer subject 
to “sealed orders,” even though their origin be divine. 
And the command “to work out his own salvation,” in 
such way as he may, is fatal to his salvation through the 
means provided by the Church. 

As it is natural that man should create the Church 
out of his own need for it, so is it natural that he should 
rebel against its control when he shall 
need it no longer. Individual freedom 
is the goal of intellectual progress. It 
is “that far-off divine event toward which the whole 
creation moves.” It is, therefore, in the highest degree 
natural, and to call it supernatural is to say the same 
thing, that man should cast off the fetters of traditional 
sanction as the sanction of higher wisdom arises to take 
its place. 


The effort to 
control action. 


The passing of 
institutions. 


INDEX. 


Absolute truth, 336. 
Abstinence, good reason for, 276. 
Acceleration, 81, 
law of, 230, 231. 
of development, 26. 
Acquired characters, 131. 
inheritance of, 42, 97. 
transmission of, 82, 83. 
Adaptation, 26, 87, 200. 
by divergence, 69. 
not progress, 68, 
Adolescence, 272. 
Adolescent stage, 235. 
Adult stage, 235. 
Agassiz, latest and greatest opponent 
of theory of derivation, 43. 
Agassiz, on embryonic development, 
231. 
on facts, 29, 
on thoughts of God, 345. 
on unity of type, 8, 9. 
Aggregation of cells, 93. 
Alfred the Great, 141, 142. 
Algz, reproduction of, 164. 
Algebraic expression of heredity, 124. 
Allah’s will, 289. 
Allen, on definition of species, 216. 
on variation in Florida birds, 215. 
All life from life, ro. 
Altruism, go. 
in lower animals, 92. 
of parenthood, 315. 
value of, 28. 


Amaltheus, 249. 
Ammonidea, numbers of, 245. 
Ammonites, 234. 
Amphiaster, 154. 
Anaphases, 156, 157. 
Anarcestes, 236, 243, 253. 
Ancestors, 141, 142. 
Ancon sheep, 115. 
Ancylobranchia, 238. 
Angel fish, 225. 
Angelichthys ciliaris, 225. 
Anguilla, 43. 
Animal pauperism, 279. 
Anomalies in distribution, 200, 
Ant-eater of Australia, 4o. 
Antedon, 237. 
Anthropoid apes, 67. 
Aosta, cretins of, 284-286. 
Arcestide, 244. 
Archoplasm, 151. 
Arctic birch, 208. 
Arpadetes, 234. 
Artemia, 112. 
Arthaber on ammonites, 249. 
Articles of scientific faith, 346. 
Artificial selection, 19. 
Ascaris, 153. 

development of eggs of, 155, 159, 

160. 

Assimilation, 103, 104, 
Assisted immigration, 308. 
Aster, 154. 
Astral body, 352. 


379 


380 


Astrosphere, 154. 

Attention, 274. 

Attraction sphere, 151. 

Australia, animal plagues of, 202. 
Australian realm, 199. 

Authority, 356. 


Bacteria, reproduction of, 163. 
Bactrites, 243. 
Baculites, 245, 250. 
Bagehot on nonsense, 291. 
Baird on variations of birds, 214. 
Balanoglossus, 107. 
Balfour on belief, 334, 336. 
on doubt of realities, 354. 
Barbara on goblins, 354. 
Barrande on trilobites, 239. 
Barriers to diffusion, 196. 
to distribution, 206. 
Barry on larva of sea urchins, 237. 
Battle of the parts, 27. 
Baur, origin of mammals. 230. 
Beagle, voyage of the, 16. 
Beauty as a weapon of defence, 318. 
of young girls, 318. 
Beecher on evolution of brachiopods, 
238. 
Beecher on larval stages of trilobites, 
239. 
Bees in New Zealand, 202. 
Berkeley on doubt of realities, 354. 
Belief and knowledge, 335. 
Belief, foundation of, 336, 340. 
Benevolence, sins of, 307. 
Bergen on adaptation, 26, 
on cumulative evidence, 191. 
on geological evolution, 32. 
on natural selection, 26. 
Bering Sea Commission, 269. 
Birch, 208. 
Birds of the Galapagos, 13, 193. 
Bionomics, 58. 
Biophores, 104, 177, 178. 
Bismarck, on the educated proletariat, 
295: 
Bob, a monkey, 266. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Bohun, lineage of, 142. 
Borderland dwellers, 299. 
Borderlanders, 290. 
Borderland of spirit, 274, 340. 
Boveri, on centrosome, 151. 

on cleavage of chromatin, 185-187, 

189. 

on development of egg cells, 184. 

on fertilization of egg, 173. 

on generation of egg cells, 159. 
Blood relationship, 48. 
Blue blood, 128, 144. 
Bosanquet, on essence of prayer, 61. 
Boyesen, on evolution, 53. 
Branchiata, 112. 
Branco, on ammonites, 246. 

on larval ammonites, 251. 
Brauer, on development of sperm 

cells, 184. 

Brewer, on continued starvation, 112. 
Brooks, on brachiopods, 238. 

on heredity, 125, 126. , 
Brother Jonathan, lineage of, 145. 
Brown-Séquard, on mutilations, 115. 
Bricke, on structure and life, 104. 
Bruno, burning of, 376. 
Byron, on woman’s education, 324. 


Caldwell, on monotremes, 40. 
Cape Verde Islands, 13, 193. 
Carbon molecule, 347. 
Cells, 148, 149. 
Cell theory, 147. 
Cell, unit of life forces, 103. 
Centrosome, 151, 154. 
Cephalization, 227. 
Cephalopoda, evolution of, 229, 240. 
Ceratites, 234. 
Ceratitide, 244. 
Cercopithecus, 266. 
Chain of life, 355. 
Chamfort, on woman’s position, 323. 
Change not progress, 32. 
Characters innate or acquired, 131. 
latent and potent, 104. 
not necessarily useful, 218. 


INDEX. 


Charity creates misery, 283. 
true function of, 311. 
Cherry, origin of the name, 217. 
Chilodon, 162. 
Chromatin, 3, 121, 151. 
bearer of hereditary influences, 185. 
Chromosomes, 153. 
reduction of, 176, 178. 
splitting of, 155. 
City life, 227. 
Cirripedia, species of, 213. 
City of the dreadful night, zor. 
Clam, long siphon of, 114. 
Clarke on evolution of brachiopods, 
238. 
Clavier theory, 270. 
Clem murder, 304. 
Climate a barrier to distribution, 
206, 
Clover and bees, 21. 
Clymenia, 245. 
Colburn on philosophic belief, 351. 
Colonial consciousness, 271. 
Compensation, law of, 94. 
Complex components in develop- 
ment, 103. 
Complex structures, origin of, 34. 
Conception, political, 307, 309. 
Concessions of life, 77. 
Cogito ergo sum, 271. 
Conjugation, 166, 167. 
of infusoria, 92, 163. 
of protozoa, 162. 
Conklin on factors of evolution, 100. 
Consciousness, 256, 271. 
Conservatism, 376. 
Conventionality, 356, 371. 
Co-operation of cells, 93. 
Cope, factors of organic evolution, 
III. 
on acceleration, 26. 
on doubtful species, 212. 
on factors in development, 102, 
on fossil reptiles, 40. 
on Lamarckian factors, 116. 
on retardation, 233. 


381 


Cope on stretch and impact of bones, 
115. 
on variation in shells, 11, 
origin of reptiles, 230. 
Copepods, 181. 
Coral reefs, centre of life, 225. 
Corpuscular theory a necessary make- 
shift, 104. 
Cosmic order, function of law, 63. 
Cottontail, 24. 
Coues on definition of species, 216, 
on meaning of species, 44. 
on migration, 195. 
Course of life, 363. 
Courteney, lineage of, 142. 
Crackers, 306. 
Cramer on lessons of Darwin’s work, 
64. 
Creation, method of, 10, 
Cress in New Zealand, 204. 
Cretins, 284. 
marriage of, 286, 
Crinoids, 229. 
Crioceras, 250. 
Crustacea, evolution of, 239. 
Cumulative evidence, 192. 
Cuvier on special creation, 7. 
Cycloids, 229. 
Cyclops, 181. 
Cyrtoceras, 241. 
Cytoblastema, 152. 
Cytolymph, 150. 
Cytoplasm, 103, 150, 154, 167. 


Dareste on origin of eels, 43. 
Darters, 46. 
Darwin in Westminster, 52. 
on cirripedia, 213. 
on evidence of embryology, 37. 
on isolation, 192. 
on law, 58. 
on meaning of facts, 64. 
on gemmules, 104. 
on secondary causes, 51. 
on struggle for existence, 85, 86. 
on dependence of species, 208, 


382 


Darwin on theology and science, 50. 

spirit of, 53. 

studies of the Galapagos, 12. 
Darwin's confidence in future, 42. 

home, 52. 

origin of species, 17 

plan of work, 16. 
Darwinian hypothesis, 69. 

theory, 17. 
Darwinism, 30, 64, 117. 

a working: hypothesis, 65. 

objections to, 42. 

not compelled by authority, 45. 
Daughter cells, 156. 
Dead hands in heredity, 124. 
Death, value of, 28. 
Decadence, causes of, 295. 
Decadent literature, 294. 
De Candolle on definition of species, 

212, 

Degenerates, 290. 
Degeneration, 273, 277, 280, 281. 

in inactivity, 302. 

in isolation, 287. 

in luxury, 289. 

in slavery, 288. 

in the slums, 288, 

in the tropics, 288. 

of eels, 228, 

of marine animals, 277. 

of mental dyspepsia, 290. 

of parasites, 278. 

of races, 282. 

of senility, 282. 

through charity, 283. 

under institutions, 297. 
Dégénerés supérieurs, 290. 
Descent, theory of, 47. 
Despondency in Europe, 295. 
Determinants, 177, 
De Vries on pangenes, 104, 178. 
Dickinson on plagues of Australia, 

202. 

Diener on ammonites, 249. 
Direct division in cells, 158. 
Disuse a factor in development, 113. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Diversity in life, 3. 
Distribution of fishes, 86. 
_ of species, 191. 
Dogmatism in control of action, 377. 
Doubtful species, 212. 
Down, the home of Darwin, 52. 
Drake, the lineage of, 142, 

of Windsor, 143. 
Draper on conflict with religion, 368. 
Driesch on unknowable factors, 98. 
Drugs, effect of, 275. 
Duck bill, 4o. 
Dugdale, 303. 

on the Jukes, 287. 
Dwight on variations in shore larks, 

214. 


Echinoderms, development of, 237. 
eggs of, 107. 

Echinus, 175. 
microtuberculatus, 186. 

Edentates of South America, 14. 

Edwards on lineage of a little girl, 

142. 

Edwards, Mary Stockton, 142. 

Eels, origin of, 43, 228. 

Effort, 89. 
of animals, 26. 

Egg-bearing, reflex effect of, 313. 
cell, development of, 170, 172. 
maturing of, 170. 
of mammals, 39. 
of metazoa, 168. 

Ego, 138, 140, 270. 

a co-operation, 140. 
development of, 272. 

Egomania, 294. 

Elderkin, lineage of, 142. 

Embryo in egg at all stages, 108. 

Embryology, 35-37. 
testimony of, 100. 

Embryonic development, 231. 
formula, 139. 
stage, 235. 
structures in man, 40. 

Embryo primarily sexless, 136. 


INDEX. 


. Embryo, reduction in numbers of, 
314. 
Emerson on pretending to know, 
349. 
on soundness of life, 61. 
on the wholesome world, 297. 
Endoceras, 241. 
Energide, 148. 
Englishman, origin of, 145. 
Ennui, 274. 
Entomoceras, 250. 
Environment, influence of, 77. 
Ephebic stage, 235. 
Epoch-making events, 32. 
Equilibrium of Nature, 23, 208. 
Essential parts of cell, 149. 
Eternal womanly, the, 315. 
Ethiopian realm, 198. 
Eudorina, 166, 
Evermann on Two-Ocean Pass, 206. 
Evolution, 54. 
a method of study, 65, 
and pessimism, 316. 
as a theory, 63. 
a system of cosmic philosophy, 
65. 
by leaps, 69. 
inorganic, 57. 
method of, 100, 
not a creed, 73. 
not a religion, 73. 
not dynamic, 88. 
not occult, 73. 
of home, 329. 
of mind, 256. 
orderly change, 70. 
organic, 57. 
philosophy of, 46, 316. 
Spencer’s formula of, 47. 
of woman, 312. 
Exact and inexact sciences, 58. 
Experience and knowledge, 337. 
inadequate, 337. 
External stimulus, 257. 
Extinction of animals, 206. 
Extrinsic causes of change, ror. 
26 


383 


Factors of organic evolution, 1co, 
unknown, 98. 
Failing beliefs claim orthodoxy, 50. 
Fame and greatness, 140, 
Fauna, analogy to language, 217. 
Feat, 3734: 
Fearn on prenatal influences, 135. 
Fertilization of egg, 173, 174. 
Fichte on the ego, 140. 
Firehole River, 205. 
Fishes, evolution of, 221, 
Fiske on method of evolution, 65. 
on prolonged infancy, 329. 
Fitness, 18. 
Flounders, vertebrz of, 221. 
Flying-fish, 211. 
Food yolk in egg, 39. 
Fool-killing, 359. 
killer, 358. 
Foreign immigration, 308. 
Forces as thoughts of God, 9. 
Formula of the embryo, 137. 
Formule, decay of, 66, 
Foundations of belief, 336, 340. 
Foxes in Australia, 304. 
Frederic on development of boys, 
326, 
Function before structure, 256. 
Fundulus, eggs of, 106. 
Fur seal, homing of the, 265. 
intellect of, 269. 


Galapagos Islands, 12, 192. 

Galton on acquired characters, 351. 
on degeneration of blue blood, 144. 
on quantitative estimate of heredi- 

ty, 127. 
on mid-parent, 125. 

Gasteropods, 111. 

Gastrioceras, 244. 

Gate of Gifts, 133. 

Geddes on bionomics, 58, 

Gemmules, 104. 

Genius not a disease of the nerves, 

293. 
Geographical variations, 211, 214. 


384 


Geographical distribution, 31. 
Geological record, 230. 
Germ cell, 121. 
cells fundamentally alike, 169. 
cells, specialization of, 313. 
Germinal protoplasm, ror. 
variation, 8x. 
Germ-plasm, stability of, 109. 
Geometric increase, 20. 
Gerontic stage, 235. 
Gill slits in man, 41. 
Girls, beauty of, 318. 
Gladstone on natural selection, 376. 
Glyphioceras, 253, 254. 
Goblins, reality of, 354. 
God, growing conception of, 51. 
Goethe on heredity, 27, 118. 
the ‘‘ sanest of men,” 8. 
Goodale on artificial selection, 19. 
Goniatites, 244. 
Graf, on colours of leeches, 106. 
Gray, evidence for derivation, 220. 
on plants as thermometers, 206. 
Great Smoky Mountains, 287. 
Green on increase of sparrows, 22, 
Greenling, 224. 
Grenville, lineage of, 142. 
Grénlund on woman's work, 332. 
Guelph, house of, 142. 
Ginther on British salmon, 46. 
Gyroceras, 241. 


Haacke on monotremes, 40. 
Haeckel, confession of faith, 346. 
on acquired characters, 350. 

on belief, 349. 

on law of development, 233. 

on monism, 346. 

on the gaseous vertebrate, 340. 

on the maker of life, 347. 

on Weismannism, 376. 
Haeckel’s orthodoxy, 352. 
Hares, species of, 24. 


Hatschek, phylogenetic changes, 108. 


Hatteria, 34. 
Haug on ammonites, 350. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Hawley, lineage of, 142. 

Hearts insurgent, 295. 

Hegel, orgy of ego of, 140. 

Helmholtz on philosophy, 342. 

Henneguy on reproduction of infuso. 

ria, 163. 
Henshaw on variation in shore larks, 
214. 

Herbst on eggs of echinoderms, 107. 

Herbst’s experiments on larvz, 113. 

Hercules, strangling snakes, 268. 

Heredity, 75. 
algebraic expression of, 124. 
of inefficiency, 299. 
of Richard Roe, 118. 
physical basis of, 76, 147. 

Hertwig, idioblasts, 104, 178. 
on size of sperm cell, 173. 

Hexagrammos decagrammus, 224. 

Higher foolishness, 290. 
heredity, 262. 

Hirsch on degeneration, 290. 

His on intrinsic causes, 102. 

Holarctic realm, 196. 

Holmes on John’s John, 338. 

Home, evolution of, 329. 

Homing instinct, 265. 

Homogeneity to heterogeneity, 47. 

Homology, 3. 
meaning of, 4, 18, 48, 64. 
origin of, 5. 

Homo sapiens, 211. 

Hooker, letter from Darwin, 15. 
on life in New Zealand, 202. 

Horned larks, 214. 

Huggins, pauper record of, 306. 

HundsGire, 2c9. 

Huxley on England’s greatness, 22. 
on extinguished theologians, 50, 
on human suffering, 354. 
on make-believe, 350. 
on materialistic symbols, 270. 
on Nature’s obduracy, 16. 
on persistence of energy, 55. 
on theologians, 368. 

Hyatt on acceleration, 233. 


INDEX. 


Hyatt on ontogeny of ammonites, 
250. 
on orthoceras, 241. 
Hyperzsthesia, 274. 
Hysteria, 275, 294. 


Ibergiceras, 236. 
Ibsen’s characters, 293. 
ghosts, 136. 
Ichthyocrinoidea, 237. 
Ichthyization, 225. 
Idants, 177. 
Ideals, 362. 
Idioblasts, 104, 178. 
Ids, 177. 
Illusions, 263. 
Impact of bones, 115. 
Impulse and action, 273. 
In-and-in breeding, 128. 
Indianapolis, pauper record of, 304. 
Indian realm, 198. 
Individual an epitome of race, 36. 
Individualism in character, 298. 
Individuality, 80. 
Inefficiency, 299. 
Infinite Being, 341. 
- Inherited characters predetermined, 
ror. 
Inheritance of humanity, 120. 
of individuality, 120. 
of race, 120, 
Innate characters, 131. 
Inspired idiots, 290. 
Instability, 257. 
Instinct, 265, 356. 
and intellect, 369. 
Institutions, degeneration under, 297. 
passing of, 377. 
Intellect, 265, 357. 
choice of responses, 268. 
nature of, 369. 
Intrinsic causes, ror. 
forces and protoplasmic structure, 
101. 
Invasion of weeds, 2or. 
Isolation, 96, 195. 


385 


Isolation, degeneration in, 287. 
Ishmael, tribe of, 304. # 


Jackson on evolution of echino- 
derms, 237. 

on pelecypoda, 240. 

on siphons of clams, 114. 
Jacob and Laban, 134. 
James on philosophy, 343. 
Jenkins on Two-Ocean Pass, 206. 
John Bull, lineage of, 145. 
John’s John, 338. 
Jordan, lineage of, 142. 
Jocko, 266. 
Jukes, degeneracy of, 287. 


Kant on philosophic revery, 296. 
Karpinsky on development of am- 
monites, 236. 
on larval ammonites, 251. 


‘| Karyokinesis, 152, 157, 158, 177. 


Katagenesis, 102. 
Kelvin on size of molecule, 348. 
Kindness of woman, 319. 
King on ‘‘the rotten side of things,” 
292. 
Kingsley on embryological evidence, 
37: 
Kinship and homology, 49. 
of life, 1 
the sacred, 53. 
Knowing and believing, 351. 
Knowledge and belief, 344. 
will, and obedience, 276. 
Kovalevski on brachiopods, 238. 


Lacaze-Duthiers on brachiopods, 238. 
Lady-nuisance, 324. 
Lamarck, laws of heredity, 82. 

on transmutation of species, 8. 
Lamarckian factors, 116, 

principle, the, 110. 

theory, 15. 
Language, analogy to a fauna, 

217. 


386 


Lankester on degeneration, 305. 
Larval stage, 235. 
Latent characters, 104. 
Latitude and vertebra, 221. 
Lavoisier, murder of, 376. 
Law as sequence of events, 58. 
meaning of, 59. 
Laws, not broken nor repealed, 61. 
of distribution, 96. 
of distribution of animals, 206. 
Learning and wisdom, 368. 
Ledsmar, Dr., 326. 
Leeches, colours of, 107. 
Lepus americanus, 24. 
sylvaticus, 24. 
Lessing on perfect truth, 341, 364. 
Life a function of organization, 106. 
Linnzus, view of species, 2, 6. 
Lituites, 242. 
Locomotion and sensation, 261. 
Loco-weeds, 268. 
Locust in Australia, 204. 
Loeb on inheritance of heat, 107. 
on striping of fish eggs, 105, 
Logical necessity, 349. 
Lombroso on mattoids, 290. 
Lord-nuisance, 327. 
Love, value of, 28. 
Lowell on dominion, 256, 276. 
Luxury, degeneration in, 289. 
Lytoceras, 245. 


Mattoids, 283, 2¢0, 291. 

Maturity of woman, 319. 

Maudsley, 290. 

McCulloch on combination, 91. 

on indiscriminate charity, 307. 

McFarland on physical basis of he- 
redity, 147. 

Meckel on embryonic development, 
231. 

Medlicottia, 236, 244. 

Mental pauperism, 298. 

Metabolism, 103. 

Metaphases, 157. 

Metazoa, reproduction in, 162, 168. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Micellz, 104, 178. 
Mid-parent, the, 125. 
Migration changes species, 195. 
Militarism, effect on woman, 330. 
Military selection, 284. 
Miller on tropical forests, 198. 
Miltites, 247. 
Macacus, 266. 
Mackerel, 223. 
Macroscaphites, 245. 
Magnan, 290. 
Maker of life the carbon molecule, 
347- 
Malthus, doctrine of, 21. 
law of population, 86. 
Man a developed monkey, 67. 
origin of, 47. 
Maoris in New Zealand, 202. 
Marcus Aurelius, 292. 
Marriage, equal, 332. 
_ laws, 325. 
Marsh, origin of the horse, 230. 
Marvels of life, 258. 
Maternity, 314. 
Material basis of heredity, 190. 
Materialistic symbols, 270. 
Matter relations not realities, 339. 
Milton’s view of creation, 10. 
Mimoceras, 243. 
Mind, evolution of, 256. 
in plants, 260. 
nature of, 369. 
Minnows, 46. 
Misery from charity, 283. 
Missing links, 48, 215. 
Mistletoe, 20. 
Mojsisovic, on ammonites, 249. 
Mollusca, evolution of, 239. 
Monism, 71, 346. 
not science, 347. 
Monistic confession, 353. 
Monkey geniuses, 290. 
Monkeys, homologies with men, 50. 
intellect and instinct in, 266, 
Mono, 266. 
Monotremes, 4o. 


INDEX. 


Morse on brachiopods, 238. 
Multicellular organisms, 149. 
Mutilations, 115. 
Mutual help, 95. 

preserves incapables, 300. 
Mya, 114. 
Mysticism, 294. 


Nageli, 152. 
on micella groups, 104, 178. 
on preformation in embryo, 103, 
Nations, sanity of, 276. 
Natural and supernatural, 58. 
Natural selection, 18, 19, 83. 
in race development, 145. 
Nature as figure of speech, 62. 
insensibility of, 61. 
Nautilus, 240. 
Neamic stage, 235. 
Negro suffrage a choice of evils, 
308. 
Neo-Lamarckism, 131. 
Neo-Lamarckian school, 82. 
Neotropical realm, 198. 
Nepeonic stage, 235. 
Neptunism, 351. 
Newman on dependence of clover on 
bees, 22. 
Newton, 52. 
in Westminster Abbey, 74. 
New Zealand, changes in life, 2o1. 
Nietsche, ownership of day after to- 
morrow, 292. 
Nordau on degenerates, 290. 
on degeneration, 289. 
on the normal man, 292. 
Norman blood, 142. 
Normal man, 292. 
Nucleoli, 151. 
Nucleus, 150, 153. 
Nutrition, 97. 
diminution of, 111. 


Objections to Darwinism, 41. 
Omne vivum ex vivo, 71. 
Omnis cellula e cellula, 152. 


387 


Ontogeny, 100. 

Ontogenetic stages, 235. 

Organic evolution, elements of, 75, 
factors of, 100, 
science of, 55. 

Organism, 103. 

Origin of the fittest, 83. 

Origin of man, 47. 

Orthoceras, 241, 242. 

Osborn on Lamarckism, 115. 
on prenatal influences, 134. 
on variation, 81. 
on supposititious factors, 98. 
on unknown factors, 98. 

Otocoris alpestris, 214. 

Ovogonia, 170. 

Owls, white in winter, 25. 


Pacific Railway survey, 213. 
Pain, 362. 
Paleontogeny, 236. 
Pandorina, 164, 165. 
Pangenes, 104, 178. 
Pantheism, 346. 
Paralegoceras, 244, 254. 
Parasites, 278. 
Parasitism, source of corruption, 
307. 
Passenger pigeons, 207. 
Pattison, quotation from Kant, 296. 
Pauperism, 279. 
and poverty, 3or. 
Paupers as parasites, 307. 
Pelecypoda, 240. 
Pentacrinus, 237. 
Pessimism, 316. 
condemnation of, 273. _ 
view of woman, 326, 
woman of, 312. 
Philosophy and truth, 342. 
Philosophy as schlechtes Stoff, 342. 
Phrynosoma blainvillei, 35. 
Phylogeny, 100, 230, 
Physical basis of heredity, 147. 
Physiological isolation, 219, 
units, 104, 177, 178. 


388 


Pigeons, extermination of, 207. 
Pikes, 306. 
Pinacoceratide, 244. 
Pineal eye, 34. 
Plantagenet, lineage of, 142. 
Plasomes, 104, 178. 
Pluteus, 107. 
Plutonism, 351. 
Polar bodies, 171. 
Pompeckj on abnormal ammonites, 
245. 
Poor whites, 287. 
Popanoceras, 244. 
Poronorites, 244. 
Porto Santo rabbit, 96. 
Potentialities only inherited, 131. 
Poulton’s experiments on colours of 
larve, 114. 
Poverty, 301. 
Practicality of senses, 357. 
Prayer, essence of, 61. 
Predetermination in the egg, 105. 
Prenatal influences, 133-135. 
Primogeniture, 142-144. 
Prionoceras, 254. 
Progress and poverty, 357. 
Progression, supposed innate tend- 
ency of, 70. 
Prolecanitidez, 244. 
Promedlicottia, 236. 
Pronontes, 236, 244. 
Propelacauites, 236. 
Prophases, 157. 
Protoplasm, z, IOI, 103, 121, 150, 
346. 
Protozoa, equality of sex in, 312. 
“functions of, 257. 
reproduction of, 162. 
Protyl, 343. 
Psiloceras, 247. 
Psychic changes, 256. 
phenomena, 274. 
Ptarmigans, white in winter, 25. 


Quantitative estimate of heredity, 
127. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Quenstedt on Jurassic ammonites, 


243, 249. 
Quiescent animals, 277. 


Rabbit, species of, 24. 
Rabbits in Australia, 202, 203. 
white in winter, 24. 
Race degeneration, 282. 
types, 146. 
Rain, law of, 60. 
Rauber on frogs’ eggs, 185. 
Reade on woman's secrecy, 319. 
Realms of life, 166. 
Realities, 262. 
struggle for, 366. 
trust in, 360. 
Reason inadequate, 337. 
Recrudescence of superstition, 358. 
Reduction of chromosomes, 178. 
Reflex action, 261. 
Reid on acquired characters, 131. 
Reincarnation, 349. 
Religion, 345. 
Remak, 152. 
Reproduction, 162. 
Reproductive tissues, 158. 
Retardation, 82, 233. 
Revery, 254. 
Richard Roe, heredity of, 118. 
Rickert on reproduction of Cyclops, 
181, 182. 
Riley on ‘goblins that get you,” 
354. 
Rock-fish, 224. 
Romanes on Lamarckian factors, 
116. 
on mutilations, 115. 
on unknown factors, 98. 
on Weismann’s theories, 110. 
Ross on despair, 295. 
on the ego, 139. 
Rousseau on woman’s genius, 322. 
Roux on components of develop- 
ment, 102, 
on the final word, 117. 


on nuclear division, 176. 


INDEX. 


Sacculina, 278-280, 303. 
Sachs on energides, 148, 
Saint-Hilaire on derivation of spe- 
cies, 8. 
Salic law, 324. 
Salisbury on belief, 334. 
on knowledge, 336. 
Saltatory evolution, 69, 
Salvation Army, 274. 
Sanction, mystic, 366, 
Sanity, 340. 
of life, 276. 
Science as altruism, 335. 
devices of, 360. 
its limits, 553. 
its own witness, 74. 
Schenck on sex control, 137. 
Schizomycetes, 163. 
Schleiden on ceils of plants, 147, 
152. 
Schloenbachia, 254. 
Schmankewitsch on development of 
shrimps, 112. 
Schopenhauer on freedom from mar- 
riage, 329. 
on marriage, 325. 
on pessimism, 315. 
on woman, 317. 
Schuchert on evolution of brachio- 
pods, 238. 
Schultze on cell structure, 147. 
€churman on ultimate truth, 341. 
Schwann on cells of animals, 147, 
152. 
Scott on unknown factors, 98. 
Sealed orders, 377. 
Sea urchins, development of, 237. 
urchin, egg of, 175. 
Sebastodes miniatus, 224. 
Secondary causes, 50, 51. 
Second nature, 264. 
Seelye on zodphytes, 69. 
Selection, 18. 
becomes adaptation, 26. 
of sensation, 261. 
Self-activity, 89. 


389 


Self and non-self, 259. 
Senescence of protozoa, 162, 
Senility, 282. 
Sensation and action, 259, 360. 
without action, 273. 
Sensations, practicality of, 370. 
Sensorium, 264. 
Servetus, burning of, 376. 
Sex control, 137. 
determination of, 136, 
Sexless embryo, 136. 
Sex, meaning of, 312. 
Sexus sequior, 323. 
Shipley on brachiopods, 238. 
Shore larks, 214. 
Sicanites, 236. 
Silva (Carmen) on prenatal influ- 
ences, 134. 
Simple components in development, 
103. 
Slavery, 288. 
Slums, degeneration in, 288. 
Smith, on fossil cephalopoda, 229, 
Sober mind, 358. 
Somatic protoplasm, ror. 
tissues, 158. 
Somerville, selective breeding, 19. 
Sparrow, increase of, 22. 
Special creation, 10. 
Species, analogy with words, 216, 
and varieties, 211. 
as divine ideas, 9. 
change with space, 14. 
change with time, 14, 219. 
definition of, 212. 
development of, 45. 
distribution of, r91. 
good and bad, 11. 
how defined, 215. 
meaning of, 1. 
number of, 2. 
of North American fishes, 12. 
origin of, 5. 
old idea of, 44. 
reality of, 44. 
uncertainty of definition of, 11. 


390 


Species, varieties of a larger growth, 
Ii. 
Spencer on acquired characters, 98, 
130, 131. 
on philosophy of evolution, 46, 
66. 
on physiological units, 104, 178. 
on survival of the fittest, 18, 84. 
Spent passions transmitted, 136. 
Spermatocyte, 171. 
Spermatozoids, 168. 
Sperm cell, 171. 
Sphezrechinus granularis, 186, 
Spindle, 151. 
of cell nucleus, 154. 
Spiritual pauperism, 298. 
Spontaneous generation, 5, 71, 346, 


348. 
Stability of truth, 334. 
Stages in development, 235. 
Starbuck on adolescence, 272. 
Star, origin of the word, 217. 
Starvation, effect on development, 
112. 
Station life in Australia, 205. 
“Stature from father,” 27, 118. 
Stead, 290. 
Steinmann on ammonites, 246. 
Struggle for existence, 19, 85, 86. 
for existence threefold, 29, 85. 
for realities, 366. 
Styrites, 247. 
Subspecies, 211. 
Suggestion, 371. . 
Superstition, growth of, 358. 
Survival of the existing, 31, 97, 146, 
218, 
Survival of the fittest, 18, 83, 84, 146, 
301. 
Systema nature, 1. 


Tachygenesis, 232. 

Tapir in North America, 209. 
Taylor, translation from Goethe, 118. 
Telophases, 156, 157. 

Tentaculites, 240. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Ternoceras, 253. 
Test of truth, 342. 
Tetrads, 180, 181. 
Thalassoceras, 244. 
Theologians, 50. 
Theology and science, meeting point, 
50. 
Thistles in Australia, 204. 
Thomson on larva of echinoderms, 
aay. 
Thoreau on degeneration of villagers, 
297. 
on insensibility of Nature, 61. 
on market for blood, 328. 
on passing of institutions, 298. 
Thoroughbreds, 126-128, 
Three-eyed vertebrates, 34. 
Thyroid gland, disease of the, 284. 
Tirolites, 234. 
Trachyceras, 234, 247. 
Tradition, 367. Rs 
Transmission of vitality, 135. 
Tribe of Ishmael, 304. 
Trifolium pratense, 21. 
repens, 21. 
Trilobites, evolution of, 239. 
Triviality of woman, 319. 
Tropiceltites, 247. 
Tropics, degeneration in the, 288. 
Tropical life, 198, 227. 
Tropitidz, 244. 
Trout in Yellowstone Park, 205. 
Trust in realities, 360. 
Truth not absolute, 336, 
stability of, 334. 
test of, 342. 
the perfect, 365. 
Tunicates, 278. 
Turnspit dogs, 115. 
Turrilites, 245. 
Two worlds at once, 359. 
Tyndall, experiments of, 71. 
Tyranny, evolution of, 331. 


Ultimate truth unknown, 341. 
Unger on cells, 152. 


INDEX. 


Unicellular organisms, 149. 
Units of life, 177. 
Unity in Nature, 346. 
of type, 2. 
Use and disuse, 113. 


Van Beneden on centrosome, 151. 
Variability, 104. 
Varieties, 211. 
Variety in life, 1. 
produced by bisexual parentage, 
27. 
Vertebrze of deep-sea fishes, 222. 
of extinct fishes, 223. 
of fresh-water fishes, 222, 
of northern fishes, 221. 
of pelagic fishes, 222. 
of tropical fishes, 222. 
Vestigial organs, 33. 
Virchow on derivation of cells, 
152. 
Virtue, 264. 
Vital force, 346. 
Vital units, 104, 177. 
Volvox, 167. 
‘**Vom Vater hab’ ich die Statur,” 
27. 
Non Buch on ammonites, 243. 
Von Mohl on cells, 152. 


‘Waagen on ammonites, 249. 
Wakefield on animal life in New 
Zealand, 201. 
Waldo, lineage of, 162. 
Wallace on acquired 
129. 
on evolution of mind, 352. 
on isolation, 192. 
on the holarctic realm, 197. 
Ward on acquired characters, 130. 
Warfare of science, 368, 375. 
Warner on true function of charity, 
gil. 
on brotherly love, 96. 
Weasels, white in winter, 25. 
Weeds, 201. 


characters, 


391 


Weismann on adaptation, 87. 
Weismann on acquired characters, 
129, 351. 
on biophores, 104, 178. 
on bisexual parentage, 313. 
on cell division, 94. 
on Lamarckian factors, 116, 
on prenatal influences, 134. 
on stable germ plasm, 109. 
theory of heredity, 177, 178, 376. 
Weissmann’s theories, 110. 
White on the struggle with dogmatic 
theology, 369, 375. 
Whitman (Walt) on parental envi- 
ronment, 133. 
on structure, the basis of life, 104, 
106. 
Whymper on cretins, 285, 286. 
Wiesner on plasomes, 104, 178. 
Wilberforce on developed turnips, 68, 
Will, 263. 
William the Conqueror, 141, 142. 
Wilson on size of sperm cell, 173. 
Winter pelage white, 25. 
Wisdom, 263. 
sanction of, 377. 
Withered branches, 283. 
Woman, dependence of, 326. 
deceit of, 319. 
difficulties in being one, 332. 
in division of labour, 315. 
emancipation of, 331. 
enmity of, 320. 
kindness of, 319. 
obedience of, 326. 
on manual labour, 328. 
normal work of, 328. 
philistinism of, 323. 
secrecy of, 319. 
the sexus Sequior, 323. 
the unzsthetic sex, 321. 
triviality of, 318. 
not undeveloped man, 315. 
Women as road-menders, 324. 
Woodruff on Egyptian fatalism, 289. 
Words, origin of, 216, 


392 


Working hypothesis, 255. 
World as it is, 264. 
that is, 274. 
Worship, 373. 
‘Wirtemberger on the law of develop- 
ment, 233. 


Yolk of egg, 39. 
Youatt on selective breeding, 19. 


FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 


Youmans on life in New Zealand, 
202, ° 


Zahme Xenien, 118. 

Zangwill on the ‘higher foolish- 
ness,” 290. 

Zittel on ammonites, 246. 

ZoGlogical Record, 2. 

Zy gotes, 165, 


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