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Title: A history of evolution
Author: Carroll Lane Fenton
Editor: E. Haldeman-Julius
Release date: June 12, 2025 [eBook #76278]
Language: English
Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Company, 1922
Credits: Carol Brown, Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF EVOLUTION ***
Transcriber’s Note:
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Those in bold are surrounded by tildes, ~like this~. Footnotes
were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of the
book. Obsolete and alternative spellings were not unchanged. Seven
misspelled words were corrected.
TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 321
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
A History of
Evolution
Carroll Lane Fenton
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1922
Haldeman-Julius Company
_There is but thing greater than to search after the natural laws
which govern our universe--that is to discover them._
FOREWORD
Nothing can be more nearly a truism than the statement that
everything in the known universe is the product of some sort of
evolution. At the same time, there is hardly a doctrine in the
civilized world that has aroused more enthusiasm, interest, and
enmity, than the doctrine of organic evolution. And yet I have found,
to my great surprise, that few of us are accustomed to thinking of
that doctrine itself as a product of a long process of evolution,
covering more than twenty-six centuries. We are all too apt to think
of the doctrine of organic evolution as beginning with Darwin and
ending with Huxley and Haeckel; as a matter of fact, it began (so
far as we can tell) with Thales, and shall not end so long as human
beings inhabit this planet.
It is with the idea of presenting, in a condensed form, the
essentials of this “evolution of evolution” that I have prepared
this book. It is neither detailed nor technical; it does not assume
to be a complete history of the subject under consideration. But
it does give a convenient, readable account of the most important
stages in that history, and at the same time a slight glimpse of the
major characters who made it possible. This latter, unfortunately, is
difficult for two reasons. The space of this booklet is limited, and
only brief sketches can be given, where they can be given at all.
But more important than that is the lack of material. No scientist
has been a Shakespeare, to be written about by Goethe and Frank
Harris, nor yet a Cromwell, to receive the attention of Carlyle.
And yet the personality and fortunes of a scientist are just as
important in judging his place in the world as are those of a poet
or statesman. Without knowing that Lamarck was poor and blind we
cannot properly view his efforts; without realizing that Cuvier was
spoiled, wealthy, and of a “ruling class,” we cannot understand his
bitter contempt for an honest, capable worker who was founding one
of the greatest conceptions of all human thought. And so, while we
are considering the ideas that go to make up this evolution, let us
remember that those ideas were worked out by _men_, not by erratic,
thinking machines which popular magazines proclaim to the world as
representations of its scientists.
C. L. F.
CHAPTER I.
EVOLUTION AMONG THE GREEKS.
The earliest known books on natural history, and particularly on
zoology, the science of animals, were those written by the ancient
Greeks. We are certain that still more ancient volumes once existed,
for the Greek writers commonly referred to “the ancients,” very much
as authors of today refer to the Greeks. But who these ancients were,
where they lived, and what they wrote, we have no means of knowing;
for all practical purposes the study of animal life may be considered
to have originated in Greece during the seventh century before the
Christian era.
Never, perhaps, has a talented people been so advantageously situated
with relation to a stimulating environment as were the Greeks.
All about them was a sea teeming with low and primitive forms of
life, stimulating them to the observation of nature. Their earliest
philosophies were philosophies of nature, of the beginnings and
causes of the universe and its inhabitants. Of course, as has been
pointed out by various students of philosophy, the Greeks did not
follow truly scientific methods of thought; they aimed directly at
a theory without stopping to search for a mass of facts to suggest
and support it. Neither, for that matter, can they justly be called
scientists or naturalists; rather, they were poets and philosophers,
and their evident failures to understand the problems which they
attacked are quite to be expected. As has been said, they sought the
theory before they searched for the fact, and having attained it they
interpreted all facts in the light of the theory. And if that was
wrong--as it very often was--the whole thing was wrong, because only
the theory was studied and no one knew anything about the mistake.
But with all their superstitions and erroneous ideas, the Greeks
possessed an overpowering curiosity regarding the multitudinous
natural objects which they saw about them. Thales, an Ionian
astronomer who lived from 624-548 B. C. was the first, so far as
we know, to substitute a natural explanation of “creation” for
the prehistoric myths. He believed that water was the fundamental
substance from which all things come, and because of which they
exist. Thus the idea of the marine origin of life, held today by many
prominent biologists, is found to be extremely ancient. Of course,
had Thales lived in a land-locked country instead of one surrounded
by a warm, highly populated sea, his ideas might well have been
different. Thus we must, at the very outset, attribute to environment
as well as to intellect the reliability of an important Greek idea.
Anaximander (611-547), another astronomer, was the first important
Greek evolutionist. He believed that the earth first existed in
a fluid state. From its slow drying up were produced all living
creatures, the first being man. These water-dwelling humans appeared
as fishes in the sea, and came out upon the land only when they
had so far developed that they were able to live in the air. The
capsule-like case which enclosed their bodies then burst, freeing
them and allowing them to reproduce their kind upon the continents.
In his ideas of the origin of life Anaximander was the pioneer of
“Abiogenesis,” teaching that eels, frogs, and other aquatic creatures
were directly produced from lifeless matter.
Anaximander’s pupil, Anaximenes, departed radically from the
teachings of Thales. He thought that air, not water, was the cause
of all things, yet he held that in the beginning all creatures were
formed from a primordial slime of earth and water. Another pupil of
Anaximander, Xenophanes (576-480), made himself famous by discovering
the true nature of fossils. Before his time, and indeed, for
thousands of years afterward, fossils were held to be accidents, or
natural growths, or creations of a devil, or of a god who delighted
in puzzling his earthly children. Xenophanes rightly interpreted
them to be the remains of animals, and from this concluded that seas
formerly covered what is now dry land.
Empedocles, (495-435) taught what is probably the first clearly
formulated theory of evolution. He supposed that many parts of
animals, such as heads, legs, necks, eyes, ears, and so on, were
formed separately, and were kept apart by the mysterious forces
of hate. But love of part for part finally overcame the baser
passion, and the various sections came together to form bodies. The
combinations, unfortunately, were entirely accidental, and did not
always result in satisfactory creatures. One body, for example, might
possess several heads and no legs; another might have an abundance
of arms and legs, but be without a head. These monstrosities were
unable to keep themselves alive, and so perished, leaving the world
to the bodies that had come together in proper combinations. Thus
Empedocles, more than two thousand years before the first zoologist
framed and taught a theory of organic evolution that seemed to
offer anything worth while, conceived one of the most important of
evolutionary principles--that of natural selection.
But by far the most striking figure among the early Greek
philosophers who gave their attention to natural history was
Aristotle, (384-322). He lived more than three hundred years
before the Christian era, and was a pupil of Plato and a
teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote upon a wide variety of
subjects--politics, rhetoric, metaphysics, psychology, philosophy,
and natural history--and published several hundred works, most of
which have been lost. It is true that Aristotle’s books are full of
errors, and if the philosopher were to be judged by the standards of
twentieth century science he would not appear very important. But it
must be remembered that he was a pioneer who, by the force of his own
ability created the serious study of natural history. The workers who
had preceded him had discovered relatively little; their works were
mostly speculations and vague hypotheses. As Aristotle himself says,
“I found no basis prepared; no models to copy.... Mine is the first
step, and therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought
and hard labor. It must be looked at as a first step and judged with
indulgence. You, my readers, or hearers of my lectures, if you think
I have done as much as can be fairly required for an initiatory
start, as compared with more advanced departments of theory, will
acknowledge what I have achieved and pardon what I have left for
others to accomplish.”
In his two books, “Physics” and “Natural History of Animals” are
set forth Aristotle’s views on nature, and his remarkably accurate
observations of both plants and animals. He distinguished about five
hundred species of mammals, birds, and fishes, besides showing an
extensive knowledge of corals and their allies, sponges, squids, and
other marine animals. He understood the adaptation of animals and
their parts to the needs placed upon them, and was familiar with the
commoner principles of heredity. He considered life to be a function
of the animal or plant exhibiting it, and not a separate entity,
given out by some divine power, or mysterious force. Aristotle
devised a hereditary chain, extending from the simplest animals of
which he had knowledge to the highest, man. This chain was a very
direct affair, not at all resembling the modern “evolutionary tree”
in its various ramifications and irregularities. And yet, despite
its deficiencies, this chain was the best conception of animal
development and descent to be produced in more than twenty centuries.
Unfortunately, Aristotle saw nothing of value in the crude survival
suggestion of Empedocles. He believed that there was a purpose, a
continued striving after beauty, in all the variations of plants
and animals, and allowed nothing whatever to what we, for lack of
better knowledge, call “chance variation.” He did, however, restate
Empedocles’ position in modern, scientific language in order that he
might refute it the more ably. He argues strongly for his conception
of purpose in evolution, saying, “It is argued that where all things
happened as if they were made for some purpose, being aptly united
by chance, these were preserved, but such as were not aptly made,
these were lost and still perish.” He then makes reference to the way
which Empedocles used this conception to explain the non-existence
of the mythical monsters of olden time, states again that nothing
is produced by chance, and closes with the statement, “There is,
therefore, a purpose in things which are produced by, and exist from,
Nature.”
Aristotle was far and away ahead of any other evolutionist of ancient
times; indeed, had he turned his genius to the clarification and
support of the survival hypothesis, instead of combating it, he might
have been properly considered as the “Greek prophet of Darwinism.”
His teachings were opposed by the philosopher Epicurus, who lived
from 341 to 270 and was one of the most prominent figures of ancient
rationalism. Epicurus did not believe in anything supernatural; he
maintained that everything could be explained on a purely natural
and mechanical basis. He excluded teleology, the doctrine of a
conscious plan or purpose in evolution and nature from any place in
true philosophy, thus taking an important stand in a struggle not yet
settled. Unfortunately, Epicurus did not take the trouble to explain
what his postulated natural causes were, or how they behaved. The
agnostic may well say, with Elliot, that the organic world _seems_
to be teleologically organized merely because it cannot be organized
otherwise, but he must stand ready to show grounds for his statement.
After Epicurus we must pass from Greece to Rome. T. Lucretius Carus
(99-55), more commonly known as Lucretius, revived the teachings of
ancient Greek philosophers and united them with those of Epicurus,
whose doctrines he made famous in the long poem, “De Rerum Natura.”
Lucretius maintained a purely mechanical, rationalistic view of
nature, but ignored the valuable work of Aristotle. He revived
Empedocles’ hypothesis of survival, but confined its application
to the mythical monsters of past ages--centaurs, chimeras, and so
on. He believed in the spontaneous generation of life, speaking of
mounds arising, “from which people sprang forth, for they had been
nourished within.” “In an analogous manner,” says he, “these young
earth-children were nourished by springs of milk.”
Thus we see that Lucretius, although an excellent poet, was neither a
good evolutionist nor a first-rate philosopher. In his abandonment of
Aristotle he discarded the only phase of Greek thought which had come
near to true conceptions of evolution, and in expounding the doctrine
of spontaneous generation, he fostered an idea that was to prove of
almost infinite harm to the evolution idea.
There was no one to carry on the work. Greece was no longer a great
nation; her “philosophers” were mostly second-rate tutors. Rome
produced no naturalists of note, Pliny, the greatest, being of
small capacity for reliable observation. The Greeks had done much;
they had asked questions and insofar as they were able, had given
answers. They left the world face to face with the problem of natural
causation, and their ideas endured as a basis for the work of future
scientists and philosophers.
THE GREEK PERIODS[1]
GENERAL CONCEPTION DIVISIONS OF THE SCHOOLS
OF NATURE:
~Mythological~ The prehistoric traditions.
I. ~The Three Earliest Schools.~
The Ionians: Thales (624-548),
FIRST PERIOD: Anaximander (611-547), Anaximenes
(588-524), Diogenes (440- ).
~Naturalistic~ The Pythagoreans (580-430).
The Eleatics. Xenophanes (576-480),
Parmenides (544- ).
II. ~The Physicists.~
~Materialistic~ Heraclitus (535-475), Empedocles
(Early) (495-435), Democritus (450- ),
Anaxagoras (500-428).
SECOND PERIOD: Socrates (470-399), Plato (427-347).
~Teleological~ Aristotle (384-322).
The Post-Aristotelians, (so-called
Peripatetics), including Theophrastus,
Preaxagoras, Herophilus, and others.
THIRD PERIOD: A. I. ~The Stoics.~
II. ~The Epicureans.~
Epicurus (341-270).
~Materialistic~ III. ~The Sceptics.~
(Late) B. I. ~Eclecticism.~
Galen (131-201 A. D.).
CHAPTER II.
FROM THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS TO KANT.
Inasmuch as almost the entire learning of Europe for several
centuries was under the protection and rule of the church, it is
important that we examine in some detail the fate of evolution at the
hands of that organization.
The early church drew its teachings on the origin and development
of life from two sources--the Book of Genesis, and the philosophies
of Plato and Aristotle. The early Christian Fathers, or at least
the more prominent of them, were very broad-minded in their
interpretations of the “revelations” of the Bible. In the fourth
century, Gregory of Nyassa began a natural interpretation of Genesis
that was completed in that century, and the one following, by
Augustine. Despite the plain statements of the direct, or “special”
creation of all living things, to be found in Genesis, Augustine
promulgated a very different doctrine. He believed that all
development took place according to powers incorporated in matter
by the Creator. Even the body of man himself fitted into this plan,
and was therefore a product of divinely originated, but naturally
accomplished development. Thus Augustine, as Moore says, “distinctly
rejected Special Creation in favor of a doctrine which, without any
violence to language, we may call a theory of Evolution.”
It is particularly interesting to note, in these days when prominent
men go about denouncing the doctrine of organic evolution as
foul, repulsive, and contrary to the will of God, that the early
churchmen were not troubled by such narrowness. Augustine not only
gave up the orthodox statement of special creation; he modified the
conception of time. To him the “days” of Genesis did not mean days
of astronomy; they meant long and indeterminable periods of time.
And it is particularly interesting to find him rebuking those who,
ignorant of the principles underlying nature, seek to explain things
according to the letter of the scriptures. “It is very disgraceful
and mischievous,” says he, “that a Christian speaking of such matters
as being according to the Christian Scriptures should be heard by an
unbeliever talking such nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him
to be as wide from the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain
himself from laughing.”
Augustine was followed by some of the later church authorities,
most notably Thomas Aquinas, who lived in the latter part of the
thirteenth century. He did not add to the evolution idea, but rather
expounded the ideas of Augustine. His importance was due to his high
rank as a church authority, not to any ideas which he produced.
During the period between Augustine and Aquinas, however, science
almost died out in Europe, and leadership in philosophy went into
the hands of the Arabs. Between 813 and 833 the works of Aristotle
were translated into Arabic, and they form the basis of the natural
philosophies of the Arabians. Avicenna (980-1037) probably held
a naturalistic theory of evolution, and is known to have been
fundamentally modern in his conceptions of geology. During the tenth
century scientific books were imported into Spain in considerable
numbers, and the Spanish scientific movement culminated in the works
of Avempace and Abubacer (Abn-Badja and Ibn-Tophail). The former held
that there were strong relationships between men, animals, plants,
and minerals, which made them into a closely united whole. Abubacer,
a poet, believed in the spontaneous generation of life, and sketched
in a highly imaginative fashion the development of human thought and
civilization.
But the reactionary trend of church thought during the dark ages
finally attacked and conquered Arabic progress. In 1209 the Church
Provincial Council of Paris forbade the study of Arabic writers,
and even declared against the reading of Aristotle’s “Natural
Philosophy.” During the middle ages the progress backward was carried
to an even greater degree. Men no longer cared to think, or to
discover things; they preferred to be told what they should believe.
This attitude was encouraged by the authorities of the church,
who represented power, and who depended for their easy existence
upon the servility of the people at large. Obedience to authority
in intellectual as well as in political affairs was demanded of
everyone, and by almost everyone was rendered as a matter of course.
Those who by chance made real discoveries, and found that they
contradicted the established authorities, either refused to believe
their own senses, or else feared to publish their information because
of the almost certain prosecution that would follow. To believe
blindly, without analysis or question, was considered right and
proper; to seek knowledge for oneself was a crime that the medieval
church, and her governmental allies, stood ever ready to punish.
But the autocratic enforcement of antiquated dogma, and the serf-like
submission to authority, could not go on forever. A revolution came,
even within the ranks of the theologians themselves. Giordano Bruno
(1548-1600) revived the teachings of Aristotle, and combined them
with theories, and combined them with ideas secured by omnivorous
reading of Greek, Arabic, and Oriental writings. He undoubtedly had
some conception of evolution, compares the intelligence of man and
various of the lower animals, and recognizes a physical relationship
between them. In geology he was essentially modern, arguing against
the six thousand years of Bible chronology, and maintaining that
conditions of his day were the same, fundamentally, as those during
ancient periods of the earth’s history--a doctrine which he probably
borrowed from the Arabian, Avicenna.
Before considering others of the philosophers who became, during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the sponsors of the evolution
idea, we may well pause to glance at the general state of learning
throughout Europe at the beginning of that period. Just as any idea
is a product of the men who advocate it, so is its development
dependant upon the state of culture in the regions where it is being
fostered. We must, therefore, consider the outstanding features of
that environment in order to understand the true significance of the
progress made along the line in which we are principally interested.
Universities in Europe were founded at the beginning of the twelfth
century, following those established by the Arabs[2]. Oxford, the
most noted university of England, was founded about a century later.
For a long time after this, authority still held almost unchallenged
sway. Naturalists were mainly compilers, repeating what had been
said and done before them, and carefully avoiding anything new. But
in the first half of the sixteenth century there sprang up, in the
Italian university town of Padua, an important school of anatomy. In
1619 Harvey, an English physiologist, discovered[3] the circulation
of blood, and applied the method of experimental study in zoology.
This one piece of work was of far more importance than all of his
contributions to physiology--of which he is usually considered the
real founder--for it gave to scientists the one almost infallible
method of securing information. In the latter half of the seventeenth
century the study of microscopic organisms was begun, and the
foundations of a logical classification of animals was laid by Ray.
It was during these two centuries of progress that the basis of our
modern methods of evolutionary investigation was laid. Oddly enough,
this was done, not by the naturalists of the time, but by the natural
philosophers, such as Bacon and Leibnitz. They found their source
of inspiration in the Greek literature, especially the writings of
Aristotle, incorporating material offered by the leading naturalists
of their times. Probably their biggest contribution was in giving
a proper direction to evolutionary research; they saw clearly that
the important thing was not what had taken place among animals, but
what changes and variations were going on under the very eyes of the
investigators. By establishing the fact that evolution was nothing
more than individual variations on a stupendously large scale,
they brought variation into prominence and laid the foundation for
Darwin’s final triumph.
The second great achievement of the philosophers was their proof
of the principle of natural causation. From Bacon, the earliest,
to Kant, one of the last of these workers, this principle was the
object of continued study and enthusiasm. Each of them believed that
the world, and in fact, the universe was governed by natural causes
instead of by the constant interference of a man-like Creator. Of
course, this attitude was hailed as the rankest heterodoxy, and was
under the ban of the church. Nevertheless, it prevailed, and has
stood as a pillar of all natural philosophy of the present day.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was the first of the natural philosophers
of later-day Europe. He was familiar with the Greek science, but
revolted strongly against the authority given it. So radical was his
attitude that he went to wholly unjustifiable lengths in attacking
the Greeks, calling them “children ... prone to talking and incapable
of generation.” This enmity may partly explain Bacon’s failure to put
into practice the excellent ideas which he voiced in his epigrams,
maxims, and aphorisms. He did, it is true, suggest the means whereby
the natural causes of which he wrote might be discovered, but he did
little investigation himself. Bacon was too near the reactionarism
of the middle ages to consistently practice the inductive method of
study, and as a result his work was not of lasting value.
The rebellion of Bacon in England was followed by that of Descartes
in France, and Leibnitz in Germany. The latter philosopher did
much to revive the teachings of Aristotle, likening the series of
animals to a chain, each form representing a link. This conception,
while good enough in Aristotle’s time, was out of date when revived
by Leibnitz, and did much to hamper a true interpretation of the
evolutionary sequence. As we shall see more than once in this study,
scientific ideas are not like statues or paintings, things of
permanent and immutable value. An idea that was good, and valuable,
a hundred years ago may be neither today, and its revival would work
distinct harm to knowledge. The “faddism” against which enemies of
science complain is neither harmful nor iniquitous. An idea should
be used to its utmost as long as it represents the height of our
knowledge; then, when it has been replaced by new information which
is an outgrowth of itself, should be relegated to the museum of
scientific antiquities. An ancient, worn-out idea is just as harmful
in science as it is in politics; the sooner it is done away with, the
better for all concerned.
One of the most important, and at the same time, most puzzling, of
the German natural philosophers was Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804). When
thirty-one years of age Kant published a book entitled, “The General
History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens,” in which he attempted
to harmonize the mechanical and teleological views of nature. He
considered nature as being under the guidance of exclusively natural
causes, a very advanced position when compared with the teological
conceptions of other Germans. But in his critical work, “The
Teological Faculty of Judgment,” published in 1790, he abandoned his
progressive views on causation, dividing nature into the ‘inorganic,’
in which natural causes hold good, and the ‘organic,’ in which the
teleological principle prevails. He called to the support of this
conception the discoveries of the then new science of paleontology,
saying that the student of fossils must of necessity admit the
existence of a careful, purposive organization throughout both the
plant and animal kingdoms. That this assertion was unfounded is
shown by the fact that not a few modern paleontologists are strong
defenders of rationalism and the mechanistic conception of all life
activities.
But in spite of the fact that Kant was so awed by the immensity of
the problem of organic evolution that he declared it impossible of
solution, he nevertheless declared himself in favor of the careful
study of all evidence bearing upon it. In a most striking passage,
quoted by Schultze and Osborn[4], he says:
“It is desirable to examine the great domain of organized beings
by means of a methodical comparative anatomy, or order to discover
whether we may not find in them something resembling a system, and
that too in connection with their mode of generation, so that we may
not be compelled to stope short with a mere consideration of forms as
they are ... and need not despair of gaining a full insight into this
department of nature. The agreement of so many kinds of animals in a
certain common plan of structure, which seems to be visible not only
in their skeletons, but also in the arrangement of the other parts
... gives us a ray of hope, though feeble, that here perhaps some
results may be obtained by the application of the principle of the
mechanism of Nature, without which, in fact, no science can exist.
This analogy of forms strengthens the supposition that they have an
actual blood relationship, due to derivation from a common parent;
a supposition which is arrived at by observation of the graduated
approximation of one class of animals to another.” He goes on to
say that there is an unbroken chain extending from man to the lowest
animals, from animals to plants, and from plants to the inorganic
matter of which the earth is composed. And yet the man who, in 1790,
could give so clear an outline of the basic facts of evolution, was
unable to believe that the sequence which he perceived would ever be
understood! For in another passage he says:
“It is quite certain that we cannot become sufficiently acquainted
with organized creatures and their hidden potentialities by aid of
purely mechanical natural principles, much less can we explain them;
and this is so certain, that we may boldly assert that it is absurd
for man even to conceive such an idea, or to hope that a Newton
may one day arise to make even the production of a blade of grass
comprehensible, according to natural laws ordained by no intention;
such an insight we must absolutely deny to man[5].”
Perhaps the production of a blade of grass is not yet thoroughly
comprehensible to us, but certainly the essential steps leading to
that production are now well known. Even at the time Kant wrote there
lived a man who did much to render the explanation possible, and
another who, though disbelieving in evolution of any sort, perfected
the means by which evolutionists were to arrange and label the
members of the animal and plant kingdoms in order to make the study
of them orderly and comprehensible. The great philosopher’s passion
for accuracy, although an unusual and most creditable character in an
age noted for its loose thought and wild speculation, prevented him
from seeing the great significance of his own work. When man is able
to comprehend a problem, and to state it in clear, accurate language,
the solution of that problem is almost assured. The final triumph may
be years, or even centuries away, but its eventual coming need hardly
be questioned.
CHAPTER III.
EVOLUTION AND THE SPECULATORS.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, noted evolutionist and paleontologist,
divides the evolutionists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
into three groups--the natural philosophers, the speculative writers,
and the great naturalists.
The speculative writers were a heterogenous group of men, partly
philosophers, partly naturalists, and partly of various other
professions. They were, in the main, untrained in accurate,
inductive, scientific investigation, and depended upon the Greeks
for most of their theory. They differed from the philosophers, some
of whom we have already studied, in that their ideas were boldly
advanced without any support of observation, or the slightest regard
for scientific methods. Some of them were, for their day, immensely
popular writers, and their trashy books, filled with myriads of
impossible “facts,” undoubtedly did a great deal to block the
progress of true evolutionary studies. Just as the public today does
not distinguish between the would-be orator who talks of the “facts”
of natural selection, and the true evolutionist, and ridicules both,
so the public the eighteenth century linked the speculators with the
sincere, hard-working naturalists, and declared the ideas of both to
be foolish and blasphemous.
One of the most amusing of the speculators was Claude Duret, mayor
of a small French town. In his “Histoire Admirable des Plantes,”
published in 1609, he described and illustrated a tree which he said
was rare in France, but “frequently observed in Scotland[6].” From
this tree, as pictured by the mayor, leaves are falling; on one side
they reach water, and are slowly transformed into fishes; upon the
other they strike dry land and change themselves into birds. Fathers
Bonnami and Kircher were lovers of the same kind of natural history;
the latter describes orchids which give birth to birds and tiny men.
Other writers of the time described and figured such creatures as
centaurs, sea-serpents, ship-swallowing devil-fish, unicorns, and so
on, solemnly assuring the readers that they had seen, and sometimes
even killed these creatures[7]. And all of this nonsense was greedily
read and believed by people who refused to admit that one species
might, in the course of thousands of years, change into something
distinguishably different from the original form! One wonders if
there has been a greater paradox in the world than a public which
denied the existence of links between one species and another, yet
believed in centaurs which were half man and half horse. Is it any
wonder that, amid such an environment, science was almost stifled,
and philosophy was largely a matter of deduction and imagination?
CHAPTER IV.
EVOLUTION AND THE GREAT NATURALISTS.
One of the outstanding figures of zoology, and for that matter, of
all natural science is Carl von Linne, more commonly known as Carolus
Linnaeus[8]. For many years naturalists had been struggling to
establish a satisfactory system of naming and arranging the various
forms of animals, plants and fossils, but without very definite
or satisfactory results. Linnaeus devised a very simple method of
naming organisms--one that is followed almost without modification
even today. He chose Latin and ancient Greek as the languages in
which the names should be cast, primarily because both of them were
more or less familiar to all students of his day, and neither was an
important language of modern times. The name itself was in two parts,
one denoting the particular species, the other the group to which
that species belonged. Thus the common chipping sparrow is _Spizella
socialis_, just as a man is William Jones, or James Thompson. The
only difference is that in Linnaeus’ system of naming, the family
name comes first; if the same plan were used in human names William
Jones would become Jones William. This may sound awkward, but as a
matter of fact it is extremely convenient, just as in a directory or
telephone book it is convenient to have the family name given first.
In the early editions of Linnaeus’ great work, the “Systema Naturae”
(System of Nature), published from 1735 to 1751, the great naturalist
stated specifically that he believed in the absolute fixity of
species from the time of their creation, according to the literal
interpretation of Genesis. But Linnaeus was too close a student
to hold this idea for long, and in his edition of 1762 we find
him expressing the opinion that many new species arose from the
interbreeding of those originally created. However, he maintained
that only species originated in this manner, and attributed the more
general resemblances of animals and plants to similarities of form
implanted by the Creator. Plainly, therefore, Linnaeus was at heart
a believer in special creation in a very slightly restricted sense,
and was by no means as progressive in this respect as the old Greek
philosopher Aristotle.
Foremost among the contemporaries of Linnaeus was George Buffon,
(1707-1788), the Frenchman whom Osborn has called the “naturalist
founder of the modern applied form of the evolutionary theory.”
During his early work Buffon held essentially the same views as his
contemporary, Linnaeus, stating that the species of animals were
separated by a gap which could not be bridged, and that everywhere
were evidences of “the Creator, dictating his simple but beautiful
laws and impressing upon each species its immutable characters.”
As early as 1755, however, Buffon found that his studies in
comparative anatomy placed many difficulties in the way of these
“simple but beautiful laws” and “immutable characters.” He calls
attention to the fact that the pig is plainly the “compound of
other animals,” possessing many parts for which it has no use, and
concludes that “Nature is far from subjecting herself to final causes
in the formation of her creatures,” and that by continually searching
for such causes men “deprive philosophy of its true character, and
misrepresent its object, which consists in the knowledge of the
‘how’ of things.” In 1761 he acknowledged a belief in the frequent
modification of species, but believed that some animals were much
more subject to variation than others. He understood the struggle
for existence, with its consequent elimination of the species least
capable of living under unfavorable circumstances, and stated it very
clearly.
One of the most interesting portions of Buffon’s evolutionary
philosophy was his belief that external conditions could directly
modify the structure of animals and plants, and that these
modifications were hereditary. This was, in essence, the theory of
transmission of acquired characters--a theory which was to be greatly
elaborated by one of Buffon’s successors, and which was to cause
trouble among evolutionists for many decades. Buffon applied it
particularly to the animals of the western hemisphere, showing how
they were changed by climate, food, etc., so that eventually animals
coming from the eastern hemisphere to the western[9] would become
new species. In this connection he emphasizes the fact, also pointed
out by Kant, that man must study the changes taking place in his own
period in order to understand those which have been accomplished in
the past, and might be accomplished in the future.
Even at the time when he believed most thoroughly in evolution and
variation, Buffon was troubled by the Bible account of creation,
and wavered between the two. Some time after 1766 he abandoned his
advanced stand on evolution, and concluded that species were neither
static nor changeable, but instead that “specific types could assume
a great variety of forms[10],” and that no definite assertions might
be made regarding the origin of any particular animal or plant.
One cannot but wonder what was the cause for Buffon’s confusion
and changes of attitude. From special creationist to radical
evolutionist, and then to conservative occupying a position halfway
between was a remarkable mental evolution to be covered in the space
of less than sixty years. What was the cause of it?
The answer to this question is not a difficult one. Buffon was a
pioneer, and not an overly courageous one. He was staggered by the
immensity of the problem which he was trying to solve, and at the
same time, fettered by the orthodox ideas of his day. And back of
those ideas, as Buffon well knew, there was power--power of the
church, of society, and of the scientific world. And neither the
church, society, nor science was ready to accept the doctrine of
descent, of organic evolution. Linnaeus, as we have seen, was easily
the greatest and most influential zoologist of his day, and was at
the same time a strong anti-evolutionist. His influence was so great
that Buffon could hardly have escaped it, and this probably added to
the difficulties of the vacillating evolutionist.
And so, when we considered the difficulties under which Buffon
worked, we are not surprised that he found it hard to discover what
his ideas on evolution should finally be. He was evidently no hero,
willing to become a martyr for science, nor yet a dogmatist, willing
to lay his own ideas down as law. Instead of ridiculing him for
his indecision, therefore, we should sympathize with him because
of his difficulties. Probably few of us would say or write very
revolutionary things if we were loaded down with half-shed orthodoxy,
and threatened by social and scientific ostracism in case we made a
departure from the well beaten path.
The next important figure in evolution is Erasmus Darwin, grandfather
of the great Charles Darwin. He was a country physician, a poet, and
a very accurate naturalist, but unfortunately buried his ideas in
volumes of verse and of combined medicine and philosophy. He believed
in the spontaneous origin of the lower animals, but maintained that
all of the higher forms were products of natural reproduction. The
transition from water-to-land-dwelling animals he illustrated, not by
fanciful creations, but by the classic example of the development of
the frog, which begins life as a legless tadpole, and ends it as an
animal incapable of breathing under water.
To man Dr. Darwin gave much attention, devoting a whole canto to
the human hand--“The hand, first gift of Heaven!”--and outlining
the development of man’s various faculties. Farther on he describes
the struggle for existence in lines which remind one of Tennyson’s
description of nature, except that they lack Tennyson’s inevitable
syrupiness. Evidently, however, Darwin fails to connect this struggle
with its obvious result, the survival of the fittest.
Dr. Darwin’s theory of evolution differed from that of Buffon
in at least one important respect. Nowhere does he stress the
direct influence of environment in the production of variations;
on the contrary, he maintained that modifications spring from the
reactions of the organism. In this he clearly stated the theory
which is generally known as Lamarck’s version of the theory of the
transmission of acquired characters. In fact, he carried his ideas
much farther than did Lamarck, attributing to plants the attribute
of sendibility, and supposed their evolution to be due to their own
efforts toward the development of certain characters. Adaptations,
which Aristotle had believed to be caused by a definite plan, Dr.
Darwin interpreted in a purely naturalistic manner. The Creator
had, at the beginning, endowed organisms with the power to change
and develop, and that power was handed down from one generation
to another until it was possessed by every animal and plant. This
power was the cause of all variation, adaptation, and evolution, and
there was no further divine interference. Dr. Darwin did not see any
great, all-encompassing plan of improvement, such as is postulated
by the teleologists of today; to him everything was the logical and
necessary outcome of the original powers of living things. In this,
as we shall see, he believed essentially as do modern evolutionists
who do not see in the laws of the universe any necessity for
abandoning religion, but who at the same time do not believe in a
highly personal god who, as one theologian expressed it recently,
“works out His divine will through the processes of evolution.”
Dr. Darwin was author of two other distinctly modern ideas, among the
most important of his entire work. The first of these is that all
living things are descended from a single original living mass, or
“filament”--that every living thing on the earth is related to every
other living thing. The second is that the process of evolution is
almost inconceivably slow, and that millions upon millions of years
have been necessary for it. The first idea, while quite conceivably
true, can never be proved definitely, but the second has been
demonstrated over and over again. Just how many millions we shall
allow is, of course, undetermined; some authorities demand sixty;
others say that eight hundred is a figure none too large. In this
series of books the larger figure is adopted, not because we are
certain that it is right, but because it seems to fit more closely
with the facts of evolution than do the smaller ones. How fully Dr.
Darwin was a prophet of modern scientific chronology we are just
beginning to recognize.
The leadership in evolution, which for a time had gone to England,
was soon given back to France. The new champion of the theory
was Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), one of the most pathetic
figures in the entire history of zoology. He was a brilliant man,
and a skilled zoologist, but because he was courageous, blind,
and desperately poor, he suffered little less than martyrdom
throughout much of his life, and was given but scant attention by his
contemporaries. Baron Cuvier, rich, talented, and a member of the
elite of the nation, dominated French zoology. He was a desperate
reactionary, holding out for a literal acceptance of the Bible
account of special creation, and ridiculed not only the theories of
Lamarck, but the whole conception of evolution. For years he blocked
the progress along all lines but his own restricted field of anatomy,
and waged bitter warfare on anyone who dared to oppose him. And so
the blind Lamarck lived in poverty and obscurity, neglected by both
scientists and those who knew nothing of zoology. And through this he
stood faithfully by the ideas which he believed but was too poor and
unknown to defend.
Lamarck first held to the old teaching that species were fixed, and
could neither change nor be changed. But as he learned more his views
changed, and in 1809 he published a book stating his interpretation
of evolution. One of his principal ideas was that the effects of the
use or disuse of any part of the body may be passed on from parent
to children until they finally become parts of the animal’s make-up.
It is well known that an arm that is never used becomes weak; that a
muscle which is constantly at work becomes strong and large. Lamarck
supposed that this increase or decrease in size could be inherited,
and thus races with short, thin arms, or heavy powerful muscles
could be developed. This is the “theory of inheritance of acquired
characteristics” again, first formulated by Erasmus Darwin. Just
how much there is to this theory no one has been able to say; some
believe it to be worthless while others, particularly those who study
fossil animals, think that it possesses a certain amount of truth.
Lamarck was, as we have said, a conscientious scientist, and made use
of his own accurate observations insofar as this was possible. But
when he became blind, dictating his books to his daughter in order
to get them written, observation was clearly out of the question. In
its stead the great naturalist was forced to rely upon the reports
of other observers, and those reports were none too reliable. The
obvious weakness of some of his second-hand facts reacted very
unfavorably upon the whole work of Lamarck, and gave his opponents
abundant weapons for their attacks upon his opinions.
But in spite of these handicaps, Lamarck did a very important work.
He not only stated his own position very clearly, marshalling such
facts as were at his disposal to its support; he devised a branching
system of animal descent which approximated the modern “evolutionary
tree” and represented far more truly than did the Aristotelian chain
the true state of things. He argued strongly and clearly against
the fallacious doctrine of special creations and numerous geologic
catastrophes which, supposedly, annihilated all of the life on earth
at the particular times of their occurrence and made a long series of
new creations necessary.
Perhaps the greatest of all Lamarck’s achievements was his clear
statements of the problems of evolution. As one writer has said,
he asked every one of the big, important questions which later
evolutionists have had to answer, and by the clear phrasing of his
questions, made the answers thereto the more easy.
* * * * *
In all France there was only one man who was willing to champion
this blind naturalist in his stand for evolution. Geoffrey
St.-Hilaire was at first a follower of Buffon, but he later became
convinced of the value of Lamarck’s work, and even went so far in
his belief as to champion Lamarck in a public debate with the great
Cuvier. Despite the fact that the debate brought a certain fame to
St.-Hilaire, he was judged the loser, and the affair was hailed as
a great and conclusive victory for those who upheld the theory of
special creation.
Although St.-Hilaire believed in the truth of organic evolution, he
did not wholly agree with Lamarck. He supposed that environment--that
is, surrounding conditions--determined the changes that took place
in animals, and preceded some of the most modern of evolutionists by
teaching that one species might arise suddenly from an earlier one,
without any intermediate forms. As a result of these sudden changes,
it was, said St.-Hilaire, often unnecessary to produce the “missing
links” over which adverse critics made such a to-do. It was also
unnecessary to show why variations would not be wiped out before they
were firmly established. According to his hypothesis, each new form
was complete, and no amount of normal interbreeding with other forms
would produce fertile hybrids between the two.
We now come to one of the most interesting, and most remarkable of
evolutionists. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) was an anatomist,
a philosopher, and a great poet, and thus brought to the problem of
organic evolution a breadth of vision equalled by but few of the
workers who preceded him. As Osborn states:
“The brilliant early achievements of Goethe in science afford another
illustration of the union of imagination and powers of observation
as the essential characteristics of the naturalist. When he took his
journey into Italy, and the poetic instinct began to predominate over
the scientific, science lost a disciple who would have ranked among
the very highest, if not the highest. Of this time Goethe says: ‘I
have abandoned my master Loder for my friend Schiller, and Linnaeus
for Shakespeare.’ Yet Goethe, in the midst of poetry, never lost his
passion for scientific studies. He seems to have felt instinctively
that what contemporary science needed was not only observation, but
generalization.”[11]
Goethe derived much of his inspiration from Buffon and the German
natural philosophers. Unfortunately he never discovered the works of
Lamarck, although he anticipated that scientist in some of his work
with plants. There can be little doubt that, had Goethe discovered
the “Philosophie Zoologique,” he would have accepted its principal
doctrine, and would have proclaimed them with a vigor that would
have overcome even the antagonism of Cuvier. As it was, he confined
his theory to the idea of the “unity of type,” making it the chief
basis for his conception of evolution. In his own words, this theory
enabled him to “assert, without hesitation, that all the more perfect
organic natures, such as fishes, amphibious animals, birds, mammals,
and man at the head of the list, were all formed upon one original
type, which varies only more or less in parts which are none the less
permanent, and which still daily changes and modifies its form by
propagation.”
Akin to Goethe, in some respects, was Gottfried Treviranus
(1776-1837), a German naturalist who was a contemporary of
St.-Hilaire, Goethe, and Lamarck. Like the German natural
philosophers, he considered life as the result of chemical and
mechanical processes, and protested whole-heartedly against purely
speculative work, calling it “dreams and visions.” At the same time,
he complained that most of botany and zoology was made up of dry
registers of names and that the work of many naturalists consisted
of the “spirit killing ... reading and writing of compilations.”
Treviranus believed that it was quite within the abilities of man
to discover the basic philosophy of nature, largely by the use of
working hypotheses as a means of aiding the investigator in attaining
the actual facts.
In view of Treviranus’ modern stand on the study of animal life,
and the interpretation of ascertained facts, we might well expect
him to show an equal modernity in his conception of evolution. But
in this we are to be disappointed. As soon as he departed from his
principles of biology, and attempted to apply those principles to
the development of animal life, Treviranus became victim to those
same “dreams and visions” against which he protested so strongly.
He depended very largely upon the work of Buffon, and believed that
modification of form was due entirely to environment. He revived
the ancient doctrine of spontaneous generation of living things, or
abiogenesis, stating his belief very clearly.
All of this shows that Treviranus, although an ardent believer
in evolution, added very little to the idea. In his ideas of the
factors of evolution he did not advance beyond Buffon; in his ideas
of descent he was less clear and accurate than his contemporary,
Lamarck. But in his more general work, particularly in defining
and organizing the science of biology, he rendered great service
to future zoologists and evolutionists. And such service, slight
though it was, was of value. During the early part of the nineteenth
century the doctrine of evolution needed all the support that could
be given it, and even a mistaken scientist was a valuable defender of
a struggling cause.
Thus for more than two thousand years the theory of organic evolution
had been growing. Philosophers, country doctors, poets, and
naturalists had contributed their share to its volume, its character,
and its support. But as yet it was little more than an idea in the
rough, waiting for some one to refine it, to put it into clear and
unmistakable language, and to back it up by evidence secured directly
from studies made on living animals and plants. It might have been
compared to a piece of ---- waiting for someone to forge it into a
key--a key that would open the doors of conventional thought and
old-fashioned restriction, and thereby give an insight into life and
life’s history that would revolutionize human thought, and help in a
better understanding between man and man, and man and beast.
CHAPTER V.
DARWIN AND THE TRIUMPH OF EVOLUTION
The outstanding figure of the entire history of evolution is Charles
Darwin. Whether or not he deserves all of the prominence that has
been given him is a question--a question that probably must be
answered in the negative. We are very apt to lionize the victor while
we ignore those who made the victory possible, whether it be won in
science, politics, or warfare. Among certain circles today there is
an undeniable tendency to over-praise Darwin; to talk and think as
though he were the first and the last truly great evolutionist. It is
becoming with Darwin as Harris found it with Shakespeare: “He is like
the Old-Man-of-the-Sea on the shoulders of our youth; he has become
an obsession to the critic, a weapon to the pedant, a nuisance to the
man of genius.” If we substitute ‘popularizer’ for ‘critic,’ Harris’
sentence will apply to Darwin without further modification. There is
a popular misconception that a great and successful scientist must of
necessity be a man of great genius; nothing of the sort is true. Take
the average “authority” away from his specialty, and he is a very
commonplace individual; take him with it, and he is often little more
than a remarkably durable and precise human machine.
Neither biographers nor critics have shown us any good reasons
for considering Charles Darwin an exceptionally great man. He was
a highly successful scientist, but at the same time he was aided
to success by the condition of science during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, and his personal fortune. In this connection
it will be worth our while to examine the opinions of Carlyle, as
reported by Frank Harris. The two were discussing notables of the
century, and Harris brought up the name of Darwin. Carlyle described
the two brothers as “solid, healthy[12] men, not greatly gifted,
but honest and careful and hardworking ...” and speaking of a
conversation with Charles Darwin after his return from the “Beagle”
voyage, said: “I saw in him then qualities I had hardly done justice
to before: a patient clear-mindedness, fairness too, and, above all,
an allegiance to facts, just as facts, which was most pathetic to me;
it was so instinctive, determined, even desperate, a sort of belief
in its way, an English belief, that the facts must lead you right if
you only followed them honestly, a poor, groping, blind faith--all
that seems possible to us in these days of flatulent unbelief and
piggish unconcern for everything except swill and straw.”[13]
We need not, like Carlyle, abuse this “allegiance to facts”; it
is the foundation-stone of all reliable scientific work, and the
scientist who abandons it is sure to bring disaster to himself and
his work. And yet, to maintain that fact-hunting is, of necessity, a
mark of genius is absurd.
It is largely the qualities that prevent us from ranking Darwin as
a genius that establish his eminence as a research scientist. He is
great not for his ideas, for they had been worked out before him,
but for the clearness with which he stated his conclusions, and the
wealth of proof which he brought to their defence. The earliest
evolutionists tried to solve their problems by deduction, making the
theory first, and searching for the facts afterward. Darwin’s method
was just the opposite. As he himself says, he searched for fact
after fact, at the same time straining to keep all thought of theory
from his mind. Finally, when he had ascertained how things actually
were, and had arranged his information, he set forth to formulate a
theory that might accord fully with what he knew to be the truth.
He took the ancient, indefinite idea of evolution and welded it into
an organized theory, and armed it with an array of facts that made
it irresistible. While some of Darwin’s beliefs have failed to show
the importance he assigned them, and others of them are very probably
errors, there are few indeed who seriously, from the standpoint of
science, care to question the conception that all living things have
developed from earlier living things of simpler or more primitive
character. His careful, painstaking work gained for his ideas a world
wide acceptance among thinking men, and made Charles Darwin one of
the greatest figures in the history of science.
The story of Darwin’s life is a story of long, careful study and
preparation, of rapid publication of his discoveries when he set out
to write them, and finally of triumph over those who opposed him. He
was born on the twelfth of February, 1809, the same day that brought
the world Abraham Lincoln. Someone has said that on that day the
world’s greatest liberators were born--in America the one who would
free the bodies of men from bondage; in England the man who would
free their minds from a no less real slavery to custom, power, and
worn-out dogma.
When he was sixteen years old, Darwin went to Edinburgh to study
medicine. But he was already a rebel against dryness and dead
academic thought, and wrote home that the lectures in anatomy were
quite as dry as was the lecturer himself. After two years of
medicine he gave up his work at Edinburgh, and went to Cambridge to
become a preacher. But while studying for the ministry the young
Darwin spent a great deal of his time with nature, and acquired
something of a reputation as a naturalist. When, in 1831, he was
offered the chance to make a five years’ trip around the world as
naturalist on the exploring ship “Beagle” he did not delay long in
accepting. The things seen, and the facts learned on that long voyage
probably had more to do with making Darwin a great naturalist than
any other single phase of his life. On his return to England the
young man set about writing up the results of his studies while on
his trip, and put into this book most of the arguments which he had
to give in favor of evolution. In 1856 he sent this report to Sir
Joseph Hooker, then the leading authority on plants in England, and
finally in 1859 published his great book, “The Origin of Species.”
This was the first concise statement of a theory of evolution, backed
up by actual evidence, and it created a furore both in Europe and
America. Some scientists eagerly took up with Darwin’s ideas, seeing
in them the explanation of facts that they had long been unable to
understand. Others, lacking in breadth of knowledge, or unwilling
to give up old beliefs, fought bitterly against evolution. The
controversy involved not only scientists, but the churchmen, and was
a leading feature in newspapers, magazines, and books. “The Origin
of Species” ran into many editions, and was translated into several
languages. Darwin found himself a center of interest for the world,
and his theory a cause of heated argument for all who cared to talk
or write about it.
How revolutionary Darwin’s work was, and how unwillingly he himself
came to the conclusion that organic evolution was an undeniable
truth, it is hard for us to understand. For most of us, some at
least, of the essential facts of evolution are every-day knowledge;
we look upon the anti-evolutionist as a strange anachronism--a
hang-over from a past age. But in Darwin’s day conditions were very
different. Thus we find him, in a letter written in 1844 to the great
botanist Hooker, saying:
“I have been ... engaged in a very presumptuous 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 organisms, etc., and
with the character of the American fossil mammifers[14], etc., that
I determined to collect, blindly, every sort of fact, which could
bear in any way on what are species.... At last, gleams of light
have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion
that I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing
a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense[15]
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.” This
last statement, as we shall see by reference to the “Origin of
Species” was not wholly true.
Another glimpse at the state of affairs in 1859 and the immediately
succeeding years may be found in Darwin’s anxiety to convince Hooker,
Lyell, and Huxley that species were variable and changeable, and his
rejoicing when Huxley wrote out his very guarded acceptance of the
Darwinian version of organic evolution. We find it hard to conceive
of Huxley, the “warhorse of Darwinism” reluctantly agreeing to most
of Darwin’s points, but at the same time voicing strong objections
to others. And yet these very objections of Huxley’s, made in 1859,
were in 1921 paraded before an audience at one of the country’s
most famous universities as evidence against the truth of organic
evolution!
In France, even more than in England, the “Origin of Species”
was held in disapproval. A translation of the book was offered
to a noted publisher of Paris, and was unceremoniously refused.
The country which had praised Cuvier, and ridiculed Lamarck and
St.-Hilaire was not going to receive willingly the contributions
of an iconoclastic Englishman. We are not surprised to find Darwin
depressed by the European reception of his theories, and writing to
Huxley: “Do you know of any good and speculative foreigners to whom
it would be worth while to send my book?”
But what was this “new” theory of evolution that so aroused the
world? What were its characteristics, and how did if differ from
the theories of Aristotle, Kant, Buffon, and Charles Darwin’s own
grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin?
The theory of evolution set forth in the “Origin of Species”
contained three principal factors: (1) the constant variation of
animals and plants, (2) the struggle for existence, and (3) the
natural selection of those organisms which possess variations which
are of value to them in their attempt to keep alive.
The idea of variation was based upon simple observation. Dr.
Herbert Walter has said that “variation is the most constant thing
in nature,” and paradoxical as that may seem, it is nevertheless
true. No man looks exactly like another man, no tree exactly like
another tree, no shell exactly like another shell. The Japanese
artists appreciate this variation, and make use of their knowledge in
painting, which is one of the reasons why their art is not readily
appreciated by the occidental who is much inclined to “lump” things.
No Japanese artist would think of painting two dogs, or two streams,
or two houses that resembled each other in every respect, for he
knows that every thing in the universe, whether it be alive or dead,
organic or inorganic, differs from every other thing in the universe.
Sometimes the difference is easily seen, as that between a shark
and a goldfish, or a Negro and a Scandinavian or Teuton. At others
it is almost indistinguishable, and can be discovered only by the
most accurate micrometer, or the most precise chemical analysis. But
always the difference exists, the variation is present, and this fact
is the basis for Darwin’s belief in the inborn necessity for all
living things to vary.
The second factor, that of a struggle for existence, was suggested
to Darwin by a reading of Malthus’ classic paper on population.
All creatures normally tend to increase in numbers. Mating fish
produce millions of eggs in a season; chickens rear nestfulls of
young; rabbits and guinea-pigs produce litter after litter of young
from the matings of two parents--everywhere, both in nature and in
domestication, living things seem to be on the increase. And yet
we have no evidence that (excluding the rather doubtful influence
of man) there are more animals on earth today than there were half
a million years ago; the probabilities are that there are fewer.
Clearly, therefore, some process is at work which prevents the
seeming increase from taking place.
In order to understand something of the complexity of this process,
let us select a specific example. Among marine animals, the
oysters are remarkable for the immense numbers of eggs which they
produce--the average for the American oyster is probably about
16,000,000. If all the progeny of a single oyster were to live
and reproduce, and their progeny were to do likewise, and so on
until there were great-great-grandchildren, the total number of
oysters that were descendants of the original pair would be about
66,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and their shells would
make a mass eight times as great as the earth.
Now it is quite obvious that the earth cannot hold, and cover with
water, a mass of oyster shells eight times as great as itself; the
oceans, if they were spread evenly over the surface (which they never
were, and never can be), would accommodate but a few of the great
horde. Neither do those same oceans contain enough food to satisfy,
or begin to satisfy, the needs of these theoretical descendants of a
single oyster. Clearly, therefore, space and food alone are enough to
prevent the undue multiplication of creatures upon the earth.
But there are factors other than space and food which aid in
accomplishing the result. There are water conditions, animal enemies
such as the starfish, and a host of other means by which the
population of oysters is kept down. And even if it were to increase
greatly, the numbers of starfish would at the same time increase,
and simultaneously set about decreasing the numbers of the oysters,
which decrease would in turn cut down the numbers of the starfish,
and so on. Thus we see that the maximum abundance of an organism
is arbitrarily set by the conditions under which that organism
lives. It may attain the limit set for it, but beyond that it may go
only temporarily. Then the surplus dies from starvation, crowding,
animal and plant enemies, and a thousand other of the factors which
constantly work in the constant warfare of nature, the never-ending
“struggle for existence.”
The third factor of Darwinian evolution, that of natural selection,
is based upon the other two. Darwin supposed that the individuals of
a species, or variety, exhibited variations for two reasons: because
it was part of their very nature to do so, and because the conditions
of their environment forced them. In the course of this constant
change there would, of necessity, be some modifications that were
of value to their possessors, while others would appear which were
of more or less definite harm. In the course of the struggle for
existence, those creatures which possessed helpful variations would
naturally possess a certain advantage over those which lacked it or
which exhibited variations which were of harmful nature. Thus in a
cold, snowy climate, that animal which developed a white coat would
be much safer from detection than his companions which might have
fur of a dark hue, either in approaching his prey, or in escaping
his pursuers. The ultimate outcome of this would be that the white
animal would populate the region, while his colored brethren would
soon become extinct. The same principle, Darwin thought, applied to
mental advantages; the more skillful mind triumphed over the less;
the quick-witted animal lived at the expense of the clumsy-witted
one. Throughout the earth, those animals most capable of living
lived, brought forth young, and thus perpetuated their capabilities,
both mental and physical. This process quite plainly helped in the
development of man, and in his progress, but singularly enough,
within his ranks today it does not operate. Great mental capacity is
not today the most important survival factor among humanity. As the
archeologist Keith has pointed out a great philosopher or artist may
lead a life of misery, want, and despair, and leave no descendants,
while a thoughtless, happy Burman will live out his days believing
that the earth is flat and Buddha an all-powerful god, but will leave
behind him a large and rapidly multiplying family.
During the years just prior to the appearance of the “Origin,” Darwin
had an almost complete confidence in the power of natural selection
to account for all the phenomena of evolution. Even in the year
when that work appeared, he wrote Lyell: “Grant a simple archetypal
creature, like the Mud-fish or Lepidosiren, with five senses and some
vestige of mind, and _I believe Natural Selection will account for
the production of every vertebrate animal_.” In publication, however,
he was more cautious, saying, “I am convinced that Natural Selection
has been the main, but not the exclusive means of modification.”
From his extreme position on the effective ability of natural
selection to seize upon a variation and so foster it that a new
species would appear, Darwin slowly but not unwillingly receded.
Ten years after the first publication of the Darwinian theory[16],
he admitted that variations might not have been so supremely
important as he supposed; in 1878 he believed in the direct action
of environment in producing variations, as did Buffon; in 1880
he adopted Lamarck’s theory of the use and disuse of parts. In
1881, in the “Descent of Man,” Darwin lays much stress upon sexual
selection, the idea that members of one sex rendered themselves
particularly attractive in order to capture the attentions of their
would-be mates. This, however, is really a subdivision of the natural
selection idea--in the general reliability of which the famous
evolutionist still believed.
* * * * *
As we have said, in the estimate of Darwin’s general environment,
the world of the middle nineteenth century did not welcome the new
prophet of natural law in the natural world. Many scientists accepted
Darwinism, or at least, the principle of evolution, without reserve;
others made reservations; most of the “intelligentsia” declared it
to be without the slightest element of truth. The public in general,
and especially the church, clung to the old, valueless doctrine of
a multitude of special creations by an omnipotent deity, apparently
forgetting that the greatest of the church fathers, Aquinas and
Augustine, had been prominent evolutionists in their day. There arose
about Darwin’s theories a storm of argument that lasted for many
years, and involved scientists, theologians, philosophers, and laymen
throughout the world.
Darwin, although an excellent and self-confident scientist, was
modest, retiring, and greatly hampered by ill-health contracted
during his “Beagle” voyage. He was forced to leave the work of
publicly defending his theories to other men, the most noted of whom
was Thomas Henry Huxley, the “Bulldog of Evolution.” Huxley was an
accomplished scientist, a powerful speaker, and one of the finest of
European writers of science for the every-day man. He wrote, taught,
and lectured in defense of the evolution theory; after a long,
hard day at the university, he would spend the evening lecturing
before crowds of workingmen from London’s factories, telling them
how one species came from another, and how a single-celled creature
developed into a complex animal with hundreds of millions of cells
in its body, at the same time reconstructing during its growth the
entire evolutionary history of its kind. It was largely because of
the lectures and magazine articles of this tireless scientist, who
believed in the truth of evolution, and enjoyed the task of fighting
for his beliefs, that Darwin achieved so early an almost complete
victory over the scientists who opposed him. Of course, the triumph
was not all-embracing; there are still a few people who follow the
natural sciences and yet refuse to believe that one species can
arise, either by natural selection or by some other means, from
another species without the interference of a deity. And the public
at large, particularly that portion of it which lives far away from
museums, zoological gardens, and centers where illustrated talks on
natural science are regularly given, still believes in the theory
of special creation. But that belief neither signifies defeat for
Darwin and his followers, nor casts doubt upon the essential truth of
their ideas; it simply means that the theory of evolution is still
relatively young, and that popular education is in its infancy.
CHAPTER VI.
THE POST-DARWINIANS: DEVRIES AND THE
MUTATION THEORY.
The period between 1860 and 1900 was occupied largely by elaborations
of the Darwinian conception of evolution, and arguments as to whether
or not organic descent was a fact. In those four decades there were
many famous workers--Alfred Russell Wallace, co-discoverer with
Darwin of the theory of selection; Weismann and Haeckel, Germany’s
great evolutionists; the philosopher, Spencer; Cope, the American
paleontologist, and Huxley, the English champion of scientific
rationalism--these, and a host of others spent their lives in
demonstrating the workings of evolution. But unfortunately, the
opposition which they encountered forced them to write and work
largely along lines of argument and thus much of their work was
fruitless so far as the discovery of new principles is concerned.
During this same period the doctrine of evolution suffered much
from over-enthusiasm on the part of some of its defenders. Even
Wallace overdid the hypothesis of sexual selection, and the kindred
hypotheses of concealing and protective coloration. Naturalists
sought to explain every coloring of animals and plants as being of
some value to them, and therefore the real cause of the existence
of the species; not a few carried the idea of value in sexual
differences, such as those between the male and female peacock,
to a similar extreme. But in spite of the inaccuracies which they
published, these enthusiasts did far more good than harm, for they
aided greatly in securing popular support for the main theory.
It was toward the beginning of this century that evolutionary
studies received another great stimulus. Professor Hugo de Vries,
a Dutch botanist of considerable note, proposed what he called the
“mutation theory” as a substitute for Darwin’s conception of “natural
selection.” He began his studies by attempting to produce by careful
selection a variety of buttercup which should contain in its flower
more than the normal number of petals. He actually achieved the
desired increase, but it was far from a stable condition; while
some of the flowers possessed eight, nine, or ten petals, and a few
as high as thirty-one, many of them possessed the original number,
five. When selection was abandoned there appeared at once a general
retrogression toward the primitive state, and this fact caused de
Vries to conclude that selection alone was not enough to cause
the formation of a new species of plant or animal[17]. Instead,
he concluded that when a change of permanent value took place in
a plant or animal it was something entirely different from the
constant variations on which Darwin and his followers relied; it was
a discontinuous variation--a ‘sport,’ the florist or gardener would
call it--to which de Vries applied the new name mutation. Mutation,
he believed, involved a very definite change in the reproductive
cells of the organism--a change which had absolutely no relation to
the environment. They arose from conditions within the plant and
animal, and might or might not affect it favorably. Those mutations
which were not beneficial would be eliminated by selection; those
which were of value to the creature would probably be preserved.
Thus, in de Vries’ mind evolution was a process due primarily to
internal causes, its course being merely guided by environment,
which selected those mutations capable of surviving.
Without question, de Vries had a real basis for his theory. Mutations
do take place among both wild and domestic creatures; thus among
the dandelions there constantly appear special types which breed
true and are, as Castle has called them, “little species within the
dandelion species.” Similar mutations are well known in peas, beans,
evening primroses, and such domestic animals as the sheep. Clearly,
therefore, species do arise as de Vries stated; the question is, is
this the only way in which they arise?
This problem was raised little more than twenty years ago--a period
far too short to allow for the settling of a question that is merely
another statement of the problem that has puzzled scientists and
philosophers for more than twenty centuries.
There is, however, excellent reason for believing that the
conceptions of both de Vries and Darwin are true; that neither of
them excludes the other from operation. Thus in the famous chalk
formation of England there may be found an evolutionary chain of
sea urchins which, according to the general consensus of opinion,
represent true Darwinian evolution. As N. C. Macnamara says, “They
are first found in their shelled, sparsely ornamented forms, from
which spring, as we ascend the zone, all the other species of the
genus. The progression is unbroken and minute in the last degree. We
can connect together into continuous series each minute variation
and each species of graduation of structure so insensible that not a
link in the chain of evidence is wanting.”
On the other hand, the writer has recently completed a microscopic
study of a group of ancient lamp-shells--animals which looked somewhat
like molluscs, but which were very different internally--with
altogether different results. The particular changes involved were
minor matters of surface markings, which could have had no conceivable
importance to the animals. Selection, therefore, may be virtually
ruled out; indeed, many of the different forms lived close together,
with apparently equal success. But in the small markings on the shells
there appear, as one follows the series from bottom to top, very
decided changes, and those changes are, in some cases, abrupt and
complete.
In others the variations are very small--indeed they could be
distinguished only with the microscope--but so far as could be told,
were distinct. This, therefore, points to a course of evolution that
was clearly a matter of mutation, without any apparent governing by
the process of natural selection.
The conclusion which we may reach, therefore, is that both natural
selection and mutation operate in the development of new forms
from old. The variations, for which Darwin was at a complete loss
to account, are in many cases the mutations emphasized by de Vries
and his followers. But to what extent climate, food, habits, and
multitudinous other environmental factors, coupled with such
internal ones as racial old age, complicate the processes of
variation and selection cannot yet be said. De Vries, in his mutation
theory, supplied one of the deficiencies of Darwinism, and at the
same time led scientists in general to realize that evolution is a
far more complex problem than was supposed during the later portion
of the last century. Darwin’s primitive mudfish, with its trace of
mind, and the process of natural selection, will not by any means
account for the multitude of higher vertebrate forms which people,
and have peopled the lands and waters of the globe.
At the same time the scientific public was awaking to the fact that
evolution was an almost inconceivably complex affair, many of the
post-Darwinian hypotheses began to show themselves of very doubtful
importance. The theory of sexual selection, which Darwin elaborated
in the “Descent of Man” began a steady decline. Such selection
undoubtedly does take place, but it is not carried on to so great
an extent as was once supposed. The idea of the protective value of
colors and color arrangement, too, began to be doubted, although at
the same time its principles became much better known and therefore
more strongly emphasized by some naturalists. Inheritance of directly
acquired characters was proved to be an impossibility, and much
doubt was thrown upon the hypothesis of use and disuse. Instead of
legs disappearing because they are not used, they are now thought
to disappear because the evolutionary processes going on within
the animal demands their disappearance. What these processes are we
do not know, but our frank avowal of ignorance gives us a certain
confidence that we shall eventually find out.
But it is not only ideas that have changed within the last two
decades; methods of study have undergone an even greater revolution.
De Vries, at almost the same time he discovered mutation,
rediscovered the fact that heredity was by no means so mysterious
and erratic as it had been generally thought. Animals and plants, he
discovered, possessed many characters which behaved in very definite
ways when two varieties were crossed, and that the characters of an
organism could be determined largely by the interbreeding of its
ancestors. Thus arose the science of _genetics_, which seeks to
find out the numerous factors underlying the various phenomena of
heredity. And since heredity is the base of all evolution, genetics
has for its ultimate aim the determination of the causes of that
great process which is responsible for the existence of whatever
animals and plants inhabit and have inhabited the earth. The
geneticist is the most modern of evolutionists; he is not satisfied
with finding out what has taken place in the past; he sets out to
make evolution, or tiny portions of it, take place within his own
laboratories and greenhouses.
* * * * *
Today, despite the assertions of a few of its opponents, the theory
of organic evolution is more thoroughly alive than it has ever
been before. Paleontologists are studying their fossil shells and
corals and bones in order to find out what has taken place during
the millions upon millions of years during which living things
have inhabited our planet. Anatomists are studying the bodies of
modern animals, from the simplest to the highest, to determine their
relationships one to the other; embryologists are tracing out the
evolution of the individual in his life before birth. The geneticists
are breeding plants, rabbits, mice, fishes, flies, potato bugs so
that they may discover what evolution is doing today. Everywhere
men are studying, comparing, experimenting. Their purpose is not
to discover whether or not evolution is a fact; on that point they
have long ago been satisfied. They are trying to find out how it
operates and what forms it has produced; how differences arise among
organisms, and what are their effects, and by what means they are
passed from one generation to another until they become part and
parcel of the inheritance, thereby establishing a new species.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Modified after Zeller and Osborn.
[2] Osborn, “From the Greeks to Darwin,” p. 86.
[3] This claim has at various times been disputed;
Osborn, however, accepts it without question.
[4] “From the Greeks to Darwin,” pp. 101-102.
[5] Quoted by Osborn, with the comment: “As Haeckel
observes, Darwin rose up as Kant’s Newton.”
[6] Osborn, on whose writings most of this chapter is
based, comments that Scotland was “a country which
the Mayor evidently considered so remote that
his observation would probably not be gainsaid.”
This important fact, that the faker could not be
contradicted, probably was responsible for many of
the absurdities published. However, when we examine
the general state of knowledge at that time, we
are forced to admit that this is not the whole
explanation. Without much question, many of these
writers were at least partly serious, and actually
believed the impossible tales which they printed,
just as they believed they had seen witches and
ghosts.
[7] The “Scientific Monthly” contains an interesting
article on the history of scientific illustration,
showing many of the remarkable pictures to be found
in early works.
[8] Carl von Linne was the greatest naturalist of
eighteenth century Sweden. He lived from 1707 to
1778, and for many years was professor at the
University of Upsala.
[9] In Buffon’s day the Americas were still the “New
World,” and it was customary with naturalists of the
time to consider it new, not only in discovery, but
in its plant and animal inhabitants. For them, the
animals of America came from the Old World, just
as did its white settlers; the idea of opposite
migrations was quite unheard of. How different this
conception was from the actual state of affairs can
be seen by reference to such books as Osborn’s “Age
of Mammals.”
[10] Osborn, op. cit. p. 138.
[11] Op. cit., pp. 181-182. The need of which Dr. Osborn
speaks was not by any means confined to science of
Goethe’s time. The great characteristic of modern
paleontology, for example, is observation without
either generalization or philosophy. It is for this
reason that the science of fossils has yielded
relatively meagre data on evolution.
[12] This was not true of the naturalist in later life,
when he was for years a semi-invalid.
[13] “Contemporary Portraits,” pp. 12-13.
[14] “Mammifers” = mammals; that is, animals which suckle
their young.
[15] Darwin seemed unable to speak of Lamarck without
contempt or derision. Certainly he was not familiar
with Lamarck’s writings in the French, and
attributed to that naturalist certain erroneous
ideas for which he was not responsible. Also, it
would seem that Darwin failed to make allowances for
Lamarck’s insuperable handicaps, and his position
as a pioneer, and therefore adopted an attitude of
unjustified antagonism.
[16] “Darwinism,” or “The Darwinian Theory” refers to the
theory of natural selection, and the sub-theory of
sexual selection, ~not~ to the theory or concept of
organic evolution.
[17] This conclusion was probably unjustified; his
observation covered too short a period to mean a
great deal.
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