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Title: The Whence and the Whither of Man
Author: John Mason Tyler
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THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN
A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity
to Environment
Being the Morse Lectures of 1895
by
JOHN M. TYLER
Professor of Biology, Amherst College
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1896
Morse Lectures
1893--THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN
MODERN THEOLOGY. By Rev. A.M.
Fairbairn, D.D. 8vo, $2.50
1894--THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. By Rev.
William Elliot Griffis, D.D.
12mo, $2.00.
1895--THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF
MAN. By Professor John M. Tyler.
12mo, $1.75.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION
The question.--The two theories of man's origin.--The argument
purely historical.--Means of tracing man's ancestry and
history.--Classification.--Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis.
CHAPTER II
PROTOZOA TO WORMS: CELLS, TISSUES, AND ORGANS
Amoeba: Its anatomy and physiology.--Development of the
cell.--Hydra: The development of digestive and reproductive organs,
and of tissues.--Forms intermediate between amoeba and hydra:
Magosphæra, volvox.--Embryonic development.--Turbellaria: Appearance
of a body wall, of ganglion, and nerve-cords.
CHAPTER III
WORMS TO VERTEBRATES: SKELETON AND HEAD
Worms and the development of organs.--Mollusks: The external
protective skeleton leads to degeneration or stagnation.--Annelids
and arthropods: The external locomotive skeleton leads
to temporary rapid advance, but fails of the goal.--Its
disadvantages.--Vertebrates: The internal locomotive skeleton leads
to backbone and brain.--Reasons for their dominance.--The primitive
vertebrate.
CHAPTER IV
VERTEBRATES: BACKBONE AND BRAIN
The advance of vertebrates from fish through amphibia and reptiles
to mammals.--The development of skeleton, appendages, circulatory
and respiratory systems, and brain.--Mammals: The oviparous
monotremata.--Marsupials.--Placental mammals.--Development of the
placenta.--Primates.--Arboreal life and the development of the
hand.--Comparison of man with the highest apes.--Recapitulation of
the history of man's origin and development.--The sequence of
dominant functions.
CHAPTER V
THE HISTORY OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS SEQUENCE OF FUNCTIONS
Mode of investigation.--Intellect.--Sense-perceptions.--Association.
--Inference and understanding.--Rational intelligence.--Modes of mental
or nervous action.--Reflex action, unconscious and comparatively
mechanical.--Instinctive action: The actor is conscious, but guided
by heredity.--Intelligent action.--The actor is conscious, guided by
intelligence resulting from experience or observation.--The will
stimulated by motives.--Appetites.--Fear and other prudential
considerations.--Care for young and love of mates.--The dawn of
unselfishness.--Motives furnished by the rational intelligence:
Truth, right, duty.--Recapitulation: The will, stimulated by ever
higher motives, is finally to be dominated by unselfishness and love
of truth and righteousness.--These rouse the only inappeasable
hunger, and are capable of indefinite development.--Strength of
these motives.--Their complete dominance the goal of human
development.
CHAPTER VI
NATURAL SELECTION AND ENVIRONMENT
The reversal of the sequence of functions leads to extermination,
degeneration, or, rarely, to stagnation.--Natural selection becomes
more unsparing as we go higher.--Extinction.--Severity of the
struggle for life.--Environment one.--But lower animals come into
vital relation with but a small part of it.--It consists of a myriad
of forces, which, as acting on a given form, may be considered as
one grand resultant.--Environment is thus a power making at first
for digestion and reproduction, then for muscular strength and
activity, then for shrewdness, finally for unselfishness and
righteousness.--An ultimate "power, not ourselves, making for
righteousness," a personality.--Our knowledge of this personality
may be valid, even though very incomplete.--Religion.--Conformity to
the spiritual in or behind environment is likeness to God.--The
conservative tendency in evolution.
CHAPTER VII
CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT
Human environment.--The development of the family as the school of
man's training.--The family as the school of unselfishness and
obedience.--The family as the basis of social life.--Society as an
aid to conformity to environment by increasing intelligence and
training conscience.--Mental and moral heredity.--Personal
magnetism.--Man's search for a king.--The essence of
Christianity.--Conformity to environment gives future supremacy, but
often at the cost of present hardship.--Conformity as obedience to
the laws of our being.--Environment best understood through the
study of the human mind.--Productiveness and prospectiveness of
vital capital.--Faith.
CHAPTER VIII
MAN
Composed of atoms and molecules, hence subject to chemical and
physical laws.--As a living being.--As an animal.--As a
vertebrate.--As a mammal.--As a social being.--As a personal and
moral being.--The conflict between the higher and the lower in
man.--As a religious being.--As hero.--He has not yet
attained.--Future man.--He will utilize all his powers, duly
subordinating the lower to the higher.--The triumph of the common
people.
CHAPTER IX
THE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE
Subject of the Bible.--_Man_: Body, intellect, heart.--_God_:
Law, sin, and penalty.--God manifested in Christ.--Salvation, the divine
life permeating man--Faith.--Prayer.--Hope.--The Church.--The
battle.--The victory.--The crown.
CHAPTER X
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
The struggle for existence.--Natural selection.--Correlation of
organs.--Fortuitous variation.--Origin of the fittest.--Nägeli's
theory: Initial tendency supreme.--Weismann and the Neo-Darwinians:
Natural selection omnipotent.--The Neo-Lamarckians.--Comparison of
the Neo-Darwinian and the Neo-Lamarckian views.--"Individuality" the
controlling power throughout the life of the organism.--Transmission
of special effects of use and disuse.--Summary.
CHART SHOWING SEQUENCE OF ATTAINMENTS AND OF DOMINANT FUNCTIONS
PHYLOGENETIC CHART OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
In the year 1865 Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, to whom the
world is indebted for the application of the principles of
electro-magnetism to telegraphy, gave the sum of ten thousand
dollars to Union Theological Seminary to found a lectureship in
memory of his father, the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., theologian,
geographer, and gazetteer. The subject of the lectures was to have
to do with "The relations of the Bible to any of the sciences." The
ten chapters of this book correspond to ten lectures, eight of which
were delivered as Morse Lectures at Union Theological Seminary
during the early spring of 1895. The first nine chapters appear in
form and substance as they were given in the lectures, except that
Chapters VI. and VII. were condensed in one lecture. Chapter X. is
new, and I have not hesitated to add a few paragraphs wherever the
argument seemed especially to demand further evidence or
illustration.
One of my friends, reading the title of these lectures, said: "Of
man's origin you know nothing, of his future you know less." I fear
that many share his opinion, although they might not express it so
emphatically.
It would seem, therefore, to be in order to show that science is now
competent to deal with this question; not that she can give a final
and conclusive answer, but that we can reach results which are
probably in the main correct. We may grant very cheerfully that we
can attain no demonstration; the most that we can claim for our
results will be a high degree of probability. If our conclusions are
very probably correct, we shall do well to act according to them;
for all our actions in life are suited to meet the emergencies of a
probable but uncertain course of events.
We take for granted the probable truth of the theory of evolution as
stated by Mr. Darwin, and that it applies to man as really as to any
lower animal. At the same time it concerns our argument but little
whether natural selection is "omnipotent" or of only secondary
importance in evolution, as long as it is a real factor, or which
theory of heredity or variation is the more probable.
If man has been evolved from simple living substance protoplasm, by
a process of evolution, it will some day be possible to write a
history of that process. But have we yet sufficient knowledge to
justify such an attempt?
Before the history of any period can be written its events must have
been accurately chronicled. Biological history can be written only
when the successive stages of development and the attainments of
each stage have been clearly perceived. In other words, the first
prerequisite would seem to be a genealogical[A] tree of the animal
kingdom. The means of tracing this genealogical tree are given in
the first chapter, and the results in the second, third, and fourth
chapters of this book.
[Footnote A: See Phylogenetic Chart, p. 310.]
Now, for some of the ancestral stages of man's development a very
high degree of probability can be claimed. One of man's earliest
ancestors was almost certainly a unicellular animal. A little later
he very probably passed through a gastræa stage. He traversed fish,
amphibian, and reptilian grades. The oviparous monotreme and the
marsupial almost certainly represent lower mammalian ancestral
stages. But what kind of fish, what species of amphibian, what form
of reptiles most closely resembles the old ancestor? How did each of
these ancestors look? I do not know. It looks as if our ancestral
tree were entirely uncertain and we were left without any foundation
for history or argument.
But the history of the development of anatomical details, however
important and desirable, is not the only history which can be
written, nor is it essential. It would be interesting to know the
size of brain, girth of chest, average stature, and the features of
the ancient Greeks and Romans. But this is not the most important
part of their history, nor is it essential. The great question is,
What did they contribute to human progress?
Even if we cannot accurately portray the anatomical details of a
single ancestral stage, can we perhaps discover what function
governed its life and was the aim of its existence? Did it live to
eat, or to move, or to think? If we cannot tell exactly how it
looked, can we tell what it lived for and what it contributed to the
evolution of man?
Now, the sequence of dominant functions or aims in life can be
traced with far more ease and safety, not to say certainty, than one
of anatomical details. The latter characterize small groups, genera,
families, or classes; while the dominant function characterizes all
animals of a given grade, even those which through degeneration
have reverted to this grade.
Even if I cannot trace the exact path which leads to the
mountain-top, I may almost with certainty affirm that it leads from
meadow and pasture through forest to bare rock, and thence over snow
and ice to the summit; for each of these forms a zone encircling the
mountain. Very similarly I find that, whatever genealogical tree I
adopt, one sequence in the dominance of functions characterizes them
all; digestion is dominant before locomotion and locomotion before
thought.
And it is hardly less than a physiological necessity that it should
be so. The plant can and does exist, living almost purely for
digestion and reproduction, and the same is true of the lowest and
most primitive animals. A muscular system cannot develop and do its
work until some sort of a digestive system has arisen to furnish
nutriment, any more than a steam-engine can run without fuel. And a
brain is of no use until muscle and sense-organs have appeared.
This sequence of dominant functions,[A] of physiological dynasties,
would seem therefore to be a fact. And our series of forms described
in the second, third, and fourth chapters is merely a concrete
illustration showing how this sequence may have been evolved. The
substitution of other terms in the anatomical series there
described--amoeba, volvox, etc.--would not affect this result. By
a change in the form of our history we have eliminated to a large
extent the sources of uncertainty and error. And the dominant
function of a group throws no little light on the details of its
anatomy.
[Footnote A: See condensed Chart of Development, etc., p. 309.]
If we can be satisfied that ever higher functions have risen to
dominance in the successive stages of animal and human development,
if we can further be convinced that the sequence is irreversible, we
shall be convinced that future man will be more and more completely
controlled by the very highest powers or aims to which this sequence
points. Otherwise we must disbelieve the continuity of history. But
the germs of the future are always concealed in the history of the
present. Hence--pardon the reiteration--if we can once trace this
sequence of dominant functions, whose evolution has filled past
ages, we can safely foretell something at least of man's future
development.
The argument and method is therefore purely historical. Here and
there we will try to find why and how things had to be so. But all
such digressions are of small account compared with the fact that
things were or are thus and so. And a mistaken explanation will not
invalidate the facts of history.
The subject of our history is the development, not of a single human
race nor of the movements of a century, but the development of
animal life through ages. And even if our attempts to decipher a few
pages here and there in the volumes of this vast biological history
are not as successful as we could hope, we must not allow ourselves
to be discouraged from future efforts. Even if our translation is
here and there at fault, we must never forget the existence of the
history. Some of the worst errors of biologists are due to their
having forgotten that in the lower stages the germs of the higher
must be present, even though invisible to any microscope. Our study
of the worm is inadequate and likely to mislead us, unless we
remember that a worm was the ancestor of man. And a biologist who
can tell us nothing about man is neglecting his fairest field.
Conversely history and social science will rest on a firmer basis
when their students recognize that many human laws and institutions
are heirlooms, the attainments, or direct results of attainments, of
animals far below man. We are just beginning to recognize that the
study of zoölogy is an essential prerequisite to, and firm
foundation for, that of history, social science, philosophy, and
theology, just as really as for medicine. An adequate knowledge of
any history demands more than the study of its last page. The
zoölogist has been remiss in not claiming his birthright, and in
this respect has sadly failed to follow the path pointed out by Mr.
Darwin.
For palæontology, zoölogy, history, social and political science,
and philosophy are really only parts of one great science, of
biology in the widest sense, in distinction from the narrower sense
in which it is now used to include zoölogy and botany. They form an
organic unity in which no one part can be adequately understood
without reference to the others. You know nothing of even a
constellation, if you have studied only one of its stars. Much less
can the study of a single organ or function give an adequate idea of
the human body.
Only when we have attained a biological history can we have any
satisfactory conception of environment. As we look about us in the
world, environment often seems to us to be a chaos of forces aiding
or destroying good and bad, fit and unfit, alike.
But our history of animal and human progress shows us successive
stages, each a little higher than the preceding, and surviving, for
a time at least, because more completely conformed to environment.
If this be true, and it must be true unless our theory of evolution
be false, higher forms are more completely conformed to their
environment than lower; and man has attained the most complete
conformity of all. Our biological history is therefore a record of
the results of successive efforts, each attaining a little more
complete conformity than the preceding. From such a history we ought
to be able to draw certain valid deductions concerning the general
character and laws of our environment, to discover the direction in
which its forces are urging us, and how man can more completely
conform to it.
If man is a product of evolution, his mental and moral, just as
really as his physical, development must be the result of such a
conformity. The study of environment from this standpoint should
throw some light on the validity of our moral and religious creeds
and theories. It would seem, therefore, not only justifiable, but
imperative to attempt such a study.
Our argument is not directly concerned with modern theories of
heredity, or variation, or with the "omnipotence" or secondary
importance of natural selection. And yet Nägeli, and especially
Weismann, have had so marked an influence on modern thought that we
cannot afford to neglect their theories. We will briefly notice
these in the closing chapter.
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION
The story of a human life can be told in very few words. A youth of
golden dreams and visions; a few years of struggle or of neglected
opportunities; then retrospect and the end.
"We come like water, and like wind we go."
But how few of the visions are realized. Faust sums up the whole of
life in the twice-repeated word _versagen_, renounce, and history
tells a similar story. Terah died in Haran; Abraham obtained but a
grave in the land promised him and his children; Jacob, cheated in
marriage, bitterly disappointed in his children, died in exile,
leaving his descendants to become slaves in the land of Egypt; and
Moses, their heroic deliverer, died in the mountains of Moab in
sight of the land which he was forbidden to enter. You may answer
that it is no injury that the promise is too large, the vision too
grand, to be fulfilled in the span of a single life, but must become
the heritage of a race. But what has been the history of Abraham's
descendants? A death-grapple for existence, captivity, and
dispersion. Their national existence has long been lost.
Was there ever a nation of grander promise than Greece or Rome? But
Greece died of premature old age, and Rome of rottenness begotten
of sin. But each of them, you will say, left a priceless heritage to
the immortal race. But if Greece and Rome and a host of older
nations, of which History has often forgotten the very name, have
failed and died, can anything but ultimate failure await the race?
Is human history to prove a story told by an idiot, or does it
"signify" something? Is the great march of humanity, which Carlyle
so vividly depicts, "from the inane to the inane, or from God to
God?"
This is the sphinx question put to every thinking man, and on his
answer hangs his life. For according to that answer, he will either
flinch and turn back, or expend every drop of blood and grain of
power in urging on the march.
To this question the Bible gives a clear and emphatic answer. "God
created man in his own image," and then, as if men might refuse to
believe so astounding a statement, it is repeated, "in the image of
God created he him." When, and by what mode or process, man was
created we are not told. His origin is condensed almost into a line,
his present and future occupy all the rest of the book. Whence we
came is important only in so far as it teaches us humility and yet
assures us that we may be Godlike because we are His handiwork and
children, "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ of a heavenly
inheritance."
Now has Science any answer to this vital question? Perhaps. But this
much is certain; it can foretell the future only from the past. Its
answer to the question _whither_ must be an inference from its
knowledge as to _whence_ we have come. The Bible looks mainly at the
present and future; Science must at least begin with the study of
the past. The deciphering of man's past history is the great aim of
Biology, and ultimately of all Science. For the question of Man's
past is only a part of a greater question, the origin of all living
species.
We may say broadly that concerning the origin of species two
theories, and only two, seem possible. The first theory is that
every species is the result of an act of immediate creation. And
every true species, however slightly it may differ from its nearest
relative, represents such a creative act, and once created is
practically unchangeable. This is the theory of immutability of
species. According to the second theory all higher, probably all
present existing, species are only mediately the result of a
creative act. The first living germ, whenever and however created,
was infused with power to give birth to higher species. Of these and
their descendants some would continue to advance, others would
degenerate. Each theory demands equally for its ultimate explanation
a creative act; the second as much as, if not more than, the first.
According to the first theory the creative power has been
distributed over a series of acts, according to the second theory it
has been concentrated in one primal creation. The second is the
theory of the mutability of species, or, in general, of evolution,
but not necessarily of Darwinism alone.
The first theory is considered by many the more attractive and
hopeful. Now a theory need not be attractive, nor at first sight
appear hopeful, provided only it is true. But let me call your
attention to certain conclusions which, as it appears to me, are
necessarily involved in it. Its central thought is the practical
immutability of species. Each one of these lives its little span of
time, for species are usually comparatively short-lived, grows
possibly a very little better or worse, and dies. Its progress has
added nothing to the total of life; its degeneration harmed no one,
hardly even itself; it was doomed from the start. Progress there has
been, in a sense. The Creator has placed ever higher forms on the
globe. But all the progress lies in the gaps and distances between
successive forms, not in any advance made, or victory won, by the
species or individual. The most "aspiring ape," if ever there was
such a being, remains but an ape. He must comfort himself with the
thought that, while he and his descendants can never gain an inch,
the gap between himself and the next higher form shall be far
greater than that between himself and the lowest monkey.
And if this has been the history of thousands of other species, why
should it not be true of man also? Who can wonder that many who
accept this theory doubt whether the world is growing any better, or
whether even man will ever be higher and better than he now is?
Would it not be contrary to the whole course of past history, if you
can properly call such a record a history, if he could advance at
all? Now I have no wish to misrepresent this or any honestly
accepted theory, but it appears to me essentially hopeless, a record
not of the progress of life on the globe, but of a succession of
stagnations, of deaths. I can never understand why some very good
and intelligent people still think that the theory of the immediate
creation of each species does more honor to the Creator and his
creation than the theory of evolution. Evolution is a process, not
a force. The power of the Creator is equally demanded in both cases;
only it is differently distributed. And evolution is the very
highest proof of the wisdom and skill of the Creator. It elevates
our views of the living beings, must it not give a higher conception
of Him who formed them?
The plant in its first stages shows no trace of flowers, but of
leaves only. Later a branch or twig, similar in structure to all the
rest, shortens. The cells and tissues which in other twigs turn into
green leaves here become the petals and other organs of the rose or
violet. Let us suppose for a moment that every rose and violet
required a special act of immediate creation, would the springtime
be as wonderful as now? Would the rose or violet be any more
beautiful, or are they any less flowers because developed out of
that which might have remained a common branch? The plant at least
is glorified by the power to give rise to such beauty. And is not
the creation of the seed of a violet or rose something infinitely
grander than the decking of a flowerless plant with newly created
roses? The attainment of the highest and most diversified beauty and
utility with the fewest and simplest means is always the sign of
what we call in man "creative" genius. Is not the same true of God?
I think you all feel the force of the argument here.
There were at one time no flowering plants. The time came at last
for their appearance. Which is the higher, grander mode of producing
them, immediate creation of every flowering species, or development
of the flower out of the green leaves of some old club moss or
similar form? The latter seems to me at least by far the higher
mode. And to have created a ground-pine which could give rise to a
rose seems far more difficult and greater than to have created both
separately. It requires more genius, so to speak. It gives us a far
higher opinion of the ground-pine; does it disgrace the rose? We can
look dispassionately at plants. The rose is still and always a rose,
and the oak an oak, whatever its origin. And I believe that we shall
all readily admit that evolution is here a theory which does the
highest honor to the wisdom and power of the Creator. What if the
animal kingdom is continually blossoming in ever higher forms? Does
not the same reasoning hold true, only with added force? I firmly
believe that we should all unhesitatingly answer, yes, could we but
be assured that all men would everywhere and always believe that we,
men, were the results of an immediate creative act.
But why do we so strenuously object to the application to ourselves
of the theory of evolution? One or two reasons are easily seen. We
have all of us a great deal of innate snobbery, we would rather have
been born great than to have won greatness by the most heroic
struggle. But is man any less a man for having arisen from something
lower, and being in a fair way to become something higher? Certainly
not, unless I am less a man for having once been a baby. It is only
when I am unusually cross and irritable that I object to being
reminded of my infancy. But a young child does not like to be
reminded of it. He is afraid that some one will take him for a baby
still. And the snob is always desperately afraid that some one will
fail to notice what a high-born gentleman he is.
Now man can relapse into something lower than a brute; the only
genuine brute is a degenerate man. And we all recognize the strength
of tendencies urging us downward. Is not this the often unrecognized
kern of our eagerness for some mark or stamp that shall prove to all
that we are no apes, but men? It is not the pure gold that needs the
"guinea stamp." If we are men, and as we become men, we shall cease
to fear the theory of evolution. Now this is not the only, or
perhaps the greatest, objection which men feel or speak against the
theory. But I must believe that it has more weight with us than we
are willing to admit.
But some say that the theory of immediate creation and immutability
of species is the more natural and has always been accepted, while
the theory of evolution is new and very likely to be as short-lived
as many another theory which has for a time fascinated men only to
be forgotten or ridiculed.
But the idea of evolution is as old as Hindu philosophy. The old
Ionic natural philosophers were all evolutionists. So Aristophanes,
quoting from these or Hesiod concerning the origin of things, says:
"Chaos was and Night, and Erebus black, and wide Tartarus. No earth,
nor air nor sky was yet; when, in the vast bosom of Erebus (or
chaotic darkness) winged Night brought forth first of all the egg,
from which in after revolving periods sprang Eros (Love) the much
desired, glittering with golden wings; and Eros again, in union with
Chaos, produced the brood of the human race." Here the formative
process is a birth, not a creation; it is evolution pure and simple.
"According to the ancient view," says Professor Lewis, "the present
world was a growth; it was born, it came from something antecedent,
not merely as a cause but as its seed, embryo or principium.
Plato's world was a 'zoon,' a living thing, a natural production."
Furthermore, to the ancient writers of the Bible the idea of origin
by birth from some antecedent form--and this is the essential idea
of evolution--was perfectly natural. They speak of the "generations
of the heavens and the earth" as of the "generations" of the
patriarchs. The first book of the Bible is still called Genesis, the
book of births. The writer of the ninetieth Psalm says, "Before the
mountains were born, or ever thou hadst brought to birth the earth
and the world." And what satisfactory meaning can you give to the
words, "Let the earth bring forth," and "the earth brought forth,"
in immediate proximity to the words, "and God made," unless while
the ultimate source was God's creative power, the immediate process
of formation was one of evolution.
The Bible is big and broad enough to include both ideas, the human
mind is prone to overestimate the one or the other. Traces, at
least, of a similar mode of thought persisted by the Greek Fathers
of the Church, and disappeared, if ever, with the predominance of
Latin theology. To the oriental the idea of evolution is natural.
The earth is to him no inert, resistant clod; she brings forth of
herself.
But our ancestors lived on a barren soil beneath a forbidding sky.
They were frozen in winter and parched in summer. Nature was to them
no kind foster-mother, but a cruel stepmother, training them by
stern discipline to battle with her and the world. They peopled the
earth with gnomes and cobolds and giants, and their nymphs were the
Valkyre. Their God was Thor, of the thunderbolt and hammer, and who
yet lived in continual dread of the hostile powers of Nature. A
Norse prophet or prophetess standing beside Elijah at Horeb would
have bowed down before the earthquake or the fire; the oriental
waited for the "still small voice." And we are heirs to a Latin
theology grafted on to the Thor-worship of our pagan ancestors. The
idea of a Nature producing beneficently and kindly at the word of a
loving God is foreign to all our inherited modes of thought. And our
views of the heart of Nature are about as correct as those of our
ancestors were of God. A little more of oriental tendencies of
thought would harm neither our theology nor our life.
What, then, is the biblical idea of Nature? God speaks to the earth,
in the first chapter of Genesis, and the earth responds by "giving
birth" to mountains and living beings. It is evidently no mere
lifeless, inert clod, but pulsating with life and responsive to the
divine commands. While yet a chaos it had been brooded over by the
Divine Spirit. It is like the great "wheels within wheels," with
rings full of eyes round about, which Ezekiel saw in his vision by
the river Chebar. "When the living creatures went, the wheels went
by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the
earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to
go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were
lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creatures
(or of life) was in the wheels." And above the living creatures was
the firmament and the throne of God. So Nature may be material, but
it is material interpenetrated by the divine; if you call it a
fabric, the woof may be material but the warp is God. This view
contains all the truth of materialism and pantheism, and vastly
more than they, and it avoids their errors and omissions.
To the old metaphysical hypothesis of evolution Mr. Darwin gave a
scientific basis. It had always been admitted that species were
capable of slight variation and that this divergence might become
hereditary and thus perhaps give rise to a variety of the parent
species. But it was denied that the variation could go on increasing
indefinitely, it seemed soon to reach a limit and stop. Early in the
present century Lamarck had attempted to prove that by the use and
disuse of organs through a series of generations a great divergence
might arise resulting in new species. But the theory was crude,
capable at best of but limited application, and fell before the
arguments and authority of Cuvier. The times were not ripe for such
a theory. Some fifty years later, Mr. Darwin called attention to the
struggle for existence as a means of aggregating these slight
modifications in a divergence sufficient to produce new species,
genera, or families. His argument may be very briefly stated as
follows:
1. There is in Nature a law of heredity; like begets like.
2. The offspring is never exactly like the parent; and the members
of the second generation differ more or less from one another. This
is especially noticeable in domesticated plants and animals, but no
less true of wild forms. If the parent is not exactly like the other
members of the species, some of its descendants will inherit its
peculiarities enhanced, others diminished.
3. Every species tends to increase in geometrical progression. But
most species actually increase in number very slowly, if at all. Now
and then some insect or weed escapes from its enemies, comes under
favorable food conditions, and multiplies with such rapidity that it
threatens to ravage the country. But as it multiplies it furnishes
an abundance of food for the enemies which devour it, or of food and
place for the parasites in and upon it; and they increase with at
least equal rapidity. Hence while the vanguard increases
prodigiously in numbers, because it has outrun these enemies, the
rear is continually slaughtered. And thus these plagues seem in
successive generations to march across the continent.
And yet even they give but a faint idea of the reproductive powers
of plants and animals. The female fish produces often many
thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of eggs. Insects
generally from a hundred to a thousand. Even birds, slowly as they
increase, produce in a lifetime probably at least from twelve to
twenty eggs. Now let us suppose that all these eggs developed, and
all the birds lived out their normal period of life, and reproduced
at the same rate. After not many centuries there would not be
standing room on the globe for the descendants of a single pair.
Again, of the one hundred eggs of an insect let us suppose that only
sixty develop into the first larval, caterpillar, stage. Of these
sixty, the number of members of the species remaining constant, only
two will survive. The other fifty-eight die--of starvation,
parasites, or other enemies, or from inclement weather. Now which
two of all shall survive? Those naturally best able to escape their
enemies or to resist unfavorable influences; in a word, those best
suited to their conditions, or, to use Mr. Darwin's words,
"conformed to their environment."
Now if any individual has varied so as to possess some peculiarity
which enables it even in slight degree to better escape its enemies
or to resist unfavorable conditions, those of its descendants who
inherit most markedly this peculiar quality or variation will be the
most likely to escape, those without it to perish. If a form varies
unfavorably, becomes for instance more conspicuous to its enemies,
it will almost certainly perish. Thus favorable variations tend to
increase and become more marked from generation to generation.
Now it has always been known that breeders could produce a race of
markedly peculiar form or characteristics by selecting the
individuals possessing this quality in the highest degree and
breeding only from these. The breeder depends upon heredity,
variation, and his selection of the individuals from which to breed.
Similarly in nature new species have arisen through heredity,
variation, and a selection according to the laws of nature of those
varying in conformity with their environment. And this Mr. Darwin
called natural, in contrast with the breeder's artificial,
"selection," arising from the "struggle for existence," and
resulting in what Mr. Spencer has called the "survival of the
fittest."
Let us take a single illustration. Many of the species of beetles on
oceanic islands have very rudimentary wings, or none at all, and yet
their nearest relatives are winged forms on some neighboring
continent. Mr. Darwin would explain the origin of these evidently
distinct wingless species as follows: They are descended from winged
ancestors blown or otherwise transported thither from the
neighboring continent. But beetles are slow and clumsy fliers, and
on these wind-swept islands those which flew most would be blown out
to sea and drowned. Those which flew the least, and these would
include the individuals with more poorly developed wings, would
survive. There would thus be a survival in every generation of a
larger proportion of those having the poorest wings, and destruction
of those whose wings were strong, or whose habits most active. We
have here a natural selection which must in time produce a species
with rudimentary or aborted wings, just as surely as a human
breeder, by artificial selection can produce such an animal as a pug
or a poodle. These, like sin, are a human device; nature should not
be held responsible for them.
But you may urge that the variation which would take place in a
single generation would be, as a rule, too slight to be of any
practical value to the animal, and could not be fostered by natural
selection until greatly enhanced by some other means. Let us think a
moment. If ten ordinary men run in a foot-race, the two foremost may
lead by several feet. But if the number of runners be continually
increased the finish will be ever closer until finally but an atom
more wind or muscle or pluck would make all the difference between
winning and losing the prize.
Similarly the million or more young of any species of insect in a
given area may be said to run a race of which the prize is life, and
the losing of which means literally death. The competition is
inconceivably severe. How indefinitely slight will be the difference
between the poorest of the 2,000 or 20,000 survivors and the best
of the more than 900,000 which perish. The very slightest favorable
variation may make all the difference between life and sure death.
And yet these indefinitely slight variations continued and
aggregated through ages would foot up an immense total divergence.
The chalk cliffs of England have been built up of microscopic
shells.
I have tried to give you very briefly a sketch of the essential
points of Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution. But you should all read
that marvel of patience, industry, clear insight, close reasoning,
and grand honesty, the "Origin of Species." I have no time to give
the arguments in its favor or to attempt to meet the objections
which may arise in your minds. I ask you to believe only this much;
that the theory is accepted with practical unanimity by scientific
men because it, and it alone, furnishes an explanation for the facts
which they discover in their daily work. And this is the strongest
proof of the truth of any accepted theory.
Inasmuch as it is accepted by all scientists and largely by the
public, it is certainly worth your while to know whether it has any
bearing on the great moral and religious questions which you are
considering. And in these lectures I shall take for granted, what
some scientists still doubt, that man also is a product of
evolution. For the weight of evidence in favor of this view is
constantly increasing, and seems already to strongly preponderate.
Also I wish in these lectures to grant all that the most ardent
evolutionist can possibly claim. Not that I would lower man's
position, but I have a continually increasing respect for the
so-called "lower animals."
Now if the theory of evolution be true, and really only on this
condition, life has had a history; and human history began ages
before man's actual appearance on the globe, just as American
history began to be fashioned by Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans
before they set foot even in England. We study history mainly to
deduce its laws; and that knowing them we may from the past forecast
the future, prepare for its emergencies, and avoid or wisely meet,
its dangers. And we rely on these laws of history because they are
the embodiment of ages of human experience.
Whatever be our system of philosophy we all practically rely on past
experience and observation. Fire burns and water drowns. This we
know, and this knowledge governs our daily lives, whatever be our
theories, or even our ignorance, of the laws of heat and
respiration. Now human history is the embodiment of the experience
of the race; and we study it in the full confidence that, if we can
deduce its laws, we can rely on racial experience certainly as
safely as on that of the individual. Furthermore, if we can discover
certain great movements or currents of human action or progress
moving steadily on through past centuries, we have full confidence
that these movements will continue in the future. The study of
history should make us seers.
But the line of human progress is like a mountain road, veering and
twisting, and often appearing to turn back upon itself, and having
many by-roads, which lead us astray. If we know but a few miles of
it we cannot tell whether it leads north or south or due west. But
if from any mountain-top we can gain a clear bird's-eye view of its
whole course, we easily distinguish the main road, its turns become
quite insignificant, we see that it leads as directly as any
engineering skill could locate it through the mountains to the
fertile plains and rich harvests beyond.
Now our knowledge of the history of man covers so brief a period
that we can scarcely more than hazard a guess as to the trend of
human progress. Many of the most promising social movements are like
by-roads which, at first less steep and difficult, end sooner or
later against impassable obstacles. And even if there be a main line
of march, advance seems to alternate with retreat, progress with
retrogression. To illustrate further, the great waves rush onward
only to fall back again, and we can hardly tell whether the tide is
flowing or ebbing.
Yet already certain tendencies appear fairly clear. Governments tend
to become democratic, if we define democracy as "any form of
government in which the will of the people finds sovereign
expression." The tendency of society seems to be toward furnishing
all its members equality of opportunity to make the most of their
natural endowments. But if we are convinced that these statements
express even vaguely the tendency of human development in all its
past history, we are confident that these tendencies will continue
in the future for a period somewhat proportional to their time of
growth in the past. If we are wise, we try to make our own lives and
actions, and those of our fellows, conform to and advance them.
Otherwise our lives will be thrown away.
But if the theory of evolution be true, human history is only the
last page of the one history of all life. If we are to gain any
adequate, true, extensive view of human progress, we must read more
than this. We must take into account the history of man when he was
not yet man. And if we believe in the future continuance of
tendencies of a few centuries' growth, we shall rest assured of the
permanence of tendencies which have grown and strengthened through
the ages.
Our confidence in the results of historical study is therefore
proportioned to the extent and thoroughness of the experience which
they record, and to the time during which these laws can be proven
to have held good. If I can make it even fairly probable that these
laws, on obedience to which human progress and success seem to
depend, are merely quoted from a grander code applicable to all life
in all times, your confidence in them will be even greater. I trust
I can prove to you that the animal kingdom has not drifted aimlessly
at the mercy of every wind and tide and current of circumstance. I
hope to show that along one line it has from the beginning through
the ages held a steady course straight onward, and that deviation
from this course has always led to failure or degeneration. From so
vast a history we may hope to deduce some of the great laws of true
success in life. Furthermore, if along this central line, at the
head of which man stands, there always has been progress, we cannot
doubt that future progress will be as certain, and perhaps far more
rapid. In all the struggle of life we shall have the sure hope of
success and victory; if not for ourselves still for those who shall
come after us. "We are saved by hope." And we may be confident that
this hope will never make us ashamed.
Finally, even from our present knowledge of the past progress of
life we shall hope to catch hints at least that man's only path to
his destined goal is the straight and narrow road pointed out in the
Bible. If in this we are even fairly successful we shall find a
relation and bond between the Bible and Science worthy of all
consideration. And this is the only agreement which can ever satisfy
us.
If I wished to bring before you a view of the development of man, I
should best choose individuals or families from various periods of
human history from the earliest times down to the present. I should
try to tell you how they looked and lived. But if anyone should
attempt to condense into three lectures such a history of even one
line of the human race, you would probably think him insane. Even if
he succeeded in giving a fairly clear view of the different stages,
the successive stages would be so remote from one another, such vast
changes would necessarily remain unnoticed or unexplained that you
would hardly believe that they could have any genetic relation or
belong to one developmental series.
But the history which I must attempt to condense for you is measured
by ages, and the successive terms of the series will be indefinitely
more remote from each other than the life and thoughts of Lincoln or
Washington from those of our most primitive Aryan ancestor or of the
rudest savage of the Stone Age. The series must appear exceedingly
disconnected. Systems of organs will apparently spring suddenly into
existence, and we shall have no time to trace their origin or
earlier development. Even if we had an abundance of time many gaps
would still remain; for the forms, which according to our theory
must have occupied their place, have long since disappeared and
left no trace nor sign. We have generally no conception at all of
the amount of extermination and degeneration which have taken place
in past ages.
I grant frankly that I do not believe that the forms which I have
selected represent exactly the ancestors of man. They have all been
more or less modified. I claim only that in the balance and relative
development of their organic systems--muscular, digestive, nervous,
etc.--they give us a very fair idea of what our ancestor at each
stage must have been. But it is on this balance and relative
development of the different systems, that is, whether an animal is
more reproductive, digestive, or nervous, that my argument will in
the main be based.
But if the older ancestors have so generally disappeared, and their
surviving relatives have been so greatly modified, how can we make
even a shrewd guess at the ancestry of higher forms? The genealogy
of the animal kingdom has been really the study of centuries,
although the earlier zoölogists did not know that this was to be the
result of their labors. The first work of the naturalist was
necessarily to classify the plants and animals which he found, and
catalogue and tabulate them so that they might be easily recognized,
and that later discovered forms might readily find a place in the
system. Hypotheses and theories were looked upon with suspicion.
"Even Linnæus," says Romanes, "was express in his limitations of
true scientific work in natural history to the collecting and
arranging of species of plants and animals." The question, "What is
it?" came first; then, "How did it come to be what it is?" We are
just awakening to the question, "Why this progressive system of
forms, and what does it all mean?"
Let us experiment a little in forming our own classification of a
few vertebrates. We see a bat flying through the air. We mistake it
for a bird. But a glance at it shows that it is a mammal. It is
covered with hair. It has fore and hind legs. Its wings are
membranes stretched between the fingers and along the sides of the
body. It has teeth. It suckles its young. In all these respects it
differs from birds. It differs from mammals only in its wings. But
we remember that flying squirrels have a membrane stretching along
the sides of the body and serving as a parachute, though not as
wings. We naturally consider the wings as a sort of after-thought
superinduced on the mammalian structure. We do not hesitate to call
it a mammal.
The whale makes us more trouble; it certainly looks remarkably like
a fish. But the fin of its tail is horizontal, not vertical. Its
front flippers differ altogether from the corresponding fins of
fish; their bones are the same as those occurring in the forelegs of
mammals, only shorter and more crowded together. Later we find that
it has lungs, and a heart with four chambers instead of only two, as
in fish. The vertebræ of its backbone are not biconcave, but flat in
front and behind. And, finally, we discover that it suckles its
young. It, too, is in all its deep-seated characteristics a mammal.
It is fish-like only in characteristics which it might easily have
acquired in adaptation to its aquatic life. And there are other
aquatic mammals, like the seals, in which these characteristics are
much less marked. Their adaptation has evidently not gone so far.
Now the first attempts resulted in artificial classifications, much
like our grouping of bats with birds and whales with fish. All
animals, like coral animals and starfishes, whose similar parts were
arranged in lines radiating from a centre, were united as radiates,
however much they might differ in internal structure and grade of
organization. But this radiate structure proved again to be largely
a matter of adaptation.
Practically all animals having a heavy calcareous shell were grouped
with the snails and oysters as mollusks. But the barnacle did not
fit well with other mollusks. Its shell was entirely different. It
had several pairs of legs; and no mollusk has legs. The barnacle is
evidently a sessile crab or better crustacean. Its molluscan
characteristics were only skin-deep, evidently an adaptation to a
mode of life like that of mollusks. The old artificial systems were
based too much on merely external characteristics, the results of
adaptation. When the internal anatomy had been thoroughly studied
their groups had to be rearranged.
Reptiles and amphibia were at first united in one class because of
their resemblance in external form. Our common salamanders look so
much like lizards that they generally pass by this name. But the
young salamander, like all amphibia, breathes by gills, its skeleton
differs greatly from, and is far weaker than, that of the lizard,
and there are important differences in the circulatory and other
systems. Moreover, practically all amphibia differ from all reptiles
in these respects. Evidently the fact that the alligator and many
snakes and turtles (of which neither the young nor the embryos ever
breathe by gills) live almost entirely in the water, is no better
reason for classifying these with amphibia than to call a whale a
fish, and not a mammal, because of its form and aquatic life.
When the comparative anatomy of fish, amphibia, and reptiles had
been carefully studied it was evident that the amphibia stood far
nearer the fish in general structure, while the higher reptiles
closely approached birds. Then it was noticed that our common fish
formed a fairly well-defined group, but that the ganoids, including
the sturgeons, gar-pikes, and some others, had at least traces of
amphibian characteristics. Such generalized forms, with the
characteristics of the class less sharply marked, were usually by
common consent placed at the bottom of the class. And this suited
well their general structure, while in particular characteristics
they were often more highly organized than higher groups of the same
class.
The palæontologist found that the oldest fossil forms belonged to
these generalized groups, and that more highly specialized
forms--that is, those in which the special class distinctions were
more sharply and universally marked--were of later geological
origin. Thus the oldest fish were most like our present ganoids and
sharks, though differing much from both. Our common teleost fish,
like perch and cod, appeared much later. The oldest bird, the
archæopteryx, had a long tail like that of a lizard, and teeth; and
thus stood in many respects almost midway between birds and
reptiles. And most of the earliest forms were "comprehensive,"
uniting the characteristics of two or more later groups. Thus as the
classification became more natural, based on a careful comparison of
the whole anatomy of the animals, its order was found to coincide in
general with that of geological succession.
Then the zoölogist began to ask and investigate how the animal grew
in the egg and attained its definite form. And this study of
embryology brought to light many new and interesting facts. Agassiz
especially emphasized and maintained the universality of the fact
that there was a remarkable parallelism between embryos of later
forms and adults of old or fossil groups. The embryos of higher
forms, he said, pass through and beyond certain stages of structure,
which are permanent in lower and older members of the same group.
You remember that the fin on the tail of a fish is as a rule
bilobed. Now the backbone of a perch or cod ends at a point in the
end of the tail opposite the angle between the two lobes, without
extending out into either of them. In the shark it extends almost to
the end of the upper lobe. Now we have seen that sharks and ganoids
are older than cod. In the embryo of the cod or perch the backbone
has, at an early stage, the same position as in the shark or ganoid;
only at a later stage does it attain its definite position.
So Agassiz says the young lepidosteus (a ganoid fish), long after it
is hatched, exhibits in the form of its tail characters thus far
known only among the fossil fishes of the Devonian period. The
embryology of turtles throws light upon the fossil chelonians. It is
already known that the embryonic changes of frogs and toads coincide
with what is known of their succession in past ages. The
characteristics of extinct genera of mammals exhibit everywhere
indications that their living representatives in early life resemble
them more than they do their own parents. A minute comparison of a
young elephant with any mastodon will show this most fully, not only
in the peculiarities of their teeth, but even in the proportion of
their limbs, their toes, etc. It may therefore be considered as
a general fact that the phases of development of all living
animals correspond to the order of succession of their extinct
representatives in past geological times. The above statements are
quoted almost word for word from Professor Agassiz's "Essay on
Classification." The larvæ of barnacles and other more degraded
parasitic crustacea are almost exactly like those of Crustacea in
general. The embryos of birds have a long tail containing almost or
quite as many vertebræ as that of archæopteryx. But most of these
never reach their full development but are absorbed into the pelvis,
or into the "ploughshare" bone supporting the tail feathers. Thus
older forms may be said to have retained throughout life a condition
only embryonic in their higher relatives. And the natural
classification gave the order not only of geological succession but
also of stages of embryonic development. Thus the system of
classification improved continually, although more and more
intermediate forms, like archæopteryx, were discovered, and certain
aberrant groups could find no permanent resting-place.
But why should the generalized comprehensive forms stand at the
bottom rather than the top of the systematic arrangement of their
classes? Why should the system of classification coincide with the
order of geologic occurrence, and this with the series of embryonic
stages? Above all, why should the embryos of bird and perch form
their tails by such a roundabout method? Why should the embryo of
the bird have the tail of a lizard? No one could give any
satisfactory explanation, although the facts were undoubted.
Mr. Darwin's theory was the one impulse needed to crystallize these
disconnected facts into one comprehensible whole. The connecting
link was everywhere common descent, difference was due to the
continual variation and divergence of their ancestors. The
classification, which all were seeking, was really the ancestral
tree of the animal kingdom. Forms more generalized should be placed
lower down on the ancestral tree, and must have had an earlier
geological occurrence because they represented more nearly the
ancestors of the higher. But this explains also the facts of
embryonic development.
According to Mr. Darwin's theory all the species of higher animals
have developed from unicellular ancestors. It had long been known
that all higher forms start in life as single cells, egg and
spermatozoon. And these, fused in the process of fertilization, form
still a single cell. And when this single cell proceeds through
successive embryonic stages to develop into an adult individual it
naturally, through force of hereditary habit, so to speak, treads
the same path which its ancestors followed from the unicellular
condition to their present point of development. Thus higher forms
should be expected to show traces of their early ancestry in their
embryonic life. Older and lower adult forms should represent
persistent embryonic stages of higher. It could not well be
otherwise.
But the path which the embryo has to follow from the egg to the
adult form is continually lengthening as life advances ever higher.
From egg to sponge is, comparatively speaking, but a step; it is a
long march from the egg to the earthworm; and the vertebrate embryo
makes a vast journey. But embryonic life is and must remain short.
Hence in higher forms the ancestral stages will often be slurred
over and very incompletely represented. And the embryo may, and
often does, shorten the path by "short-cuts" impossible to its
original ancestor. Still it will in general hold true, and may be
recognized as a law of vast importance, that any individual during
his embryonic life repeats very briefly the different stages through
which his ancestors have passed in their development since the
beginning of life. Or, briefly stated, ontogenesis, or the embryonic
development of the individual, is a brief recapitulation of
phylogenesis, or the ancestral development of the phylum or group.
The illustration and proof of this law is the work of the
embryologist. We have time to draw only one or two illustrations
from the embryonic development of birds. We have already seen that
the embryonic bird has the long tail of his reptilian ancestor. In
early embryonic life it has gill-slits leading from the pharynx to
the outside of the neck like those through which the water passes in
the respiration of fish. The Eustachian tube and the canal of the
external ear of man, separated only by the "drum," are nothing but
such an old persistent gill-slit. No gills ever develop in these,
but the great arteries run to them, and indeed to all parts of the
embryo, on almost precisely the same general plan as in the adult
fish. Only later is the definite avian circulation gradually
acquired.
This law is even more strikingly illustrated in the embryonic
development of the vertebral column and skull, if we had time to
trace their development. And the development of the excretory system
points to an ancestor far more primitive than even the fish. Our
embryonic development is one of the very strongest evidences of our
lowly origin.
Thus we have three sources of information for the study of animal
genealogy. First, the comparative anatomy of all the different
groups of animals; second, their comparative embryology; and third,
their palæontological history. Each source has its difficulties or
defects. But taken all together they give us a genealogical tree
which is in the main points correct, though here and there very
defective and doubtful in detail. The points in which we are left
most in doubt in regard to each ancestor are its modes of life and
locomotion, and body form. But these may temporarily vary
considerably without affecting to any great extent the general plan
of structure and the line of development of the most important
deep-seated organs.
I have chosen a line composed of forms taken from the comparative
anatomical series. All such present existing forms have probably
been modified during the lapse of ages. But I shall try to tell you
when they have diverged noticeably from the structure of the
primitive ancestor of the corresponding stage. It is much safer for
us to study concrete, actual forms than imaginary ones, however real
may have been the former existence of the latter. And, after all,
their lateral divergence is of small account compared with the great
upward and onward march of life, to the right and left of which they
have remained stationary or retrograded somewhat, like the tribes
which remained on the other side of Jordan and never entered the
Promised Land.
To recapitulate: Our question is the Whence and the Whither of man.
To this question the Bible gives a clear and definite answer. Can
Science also give an answer, and is this in the main in accord with
the answer of Scripture? Science can answer the question only by the
historical method of tracing the history of life in the past and
observing the goal toward which it tends. If the evolution theory be
true, the record of human achievement and progress forms only one
short chapter in the history of the ages. If from the records of
man's little span of life on the globe we can deduce laws of history
on whose truth we can rely, with how much greater confidence and
certainty may we rely on laws which have governed all life since its
earliest appearance?--always provided that such can be found.
Our first effort must therefore be to trace the great line of
development through a few of its most characteristic stages from the
simplest living beings up to man. This will be our work in the three
succeeding lectures. And to these I must ask you to bring a large
store of patience. Anatomical details are at best dry and
uninteresting. But these dry facts of anatomy form the foundation on
which all our arguments and hopes must rest.
But if you will think long and carefully even of anatomical facts,
you will see in and behind them something more and grander than
they. You will catch glimpses of the divinity of Nature. Most of us
travel threescore years and ten stone-blind in a world of marvellous
beauty. Why does the artist see so much more in every fence-corner
and on every hill-side than we, set face to face with the grandest
landscapes? Primarily, I believe, because he is sympathetic, and
looks on Nature as a comrade as near and dear as any human sister
and companion. As Professor Huxley has said, "they get on rarely
together." She speaks to the artist; to us she is dumb, and ought to
be, for we are boorishly careless of her and her teachings.
Nature, to be known, must be loved. And though you have all the
knowledge of a von Humboldt, and do not love her, you will never
understand her or her teachings. You will go through life with her,
and yet parted from her as by an adamantine wall.
I do not suppose that the author of the book of Job had ever studied
geology, or mineralogy, or biology, but read him, and see whether
this old prince of scientific heroes had loved, and understood, and
caught the spirit of Nature. And what a grand, free spirit it was,
and what a giant it made of him. I do not believe that Paul ever had
a special course of anatomy or botany. But if he had not pondered
long and lovingly on the structure of his body, and the germination
of the seed, he never could have written the twelfth and fifteenth
chapters of the first letter to the Corinthians. And time fails to
speak of David and all the writers of the Psalms, and of those
heroic souls misnamed the "Minor" Prophets.
Study the teachings of our Lord. How he must have considered the
lilies of the field, and that such a tiny seed as that of the
mustard could have produced so great an herb, and noticed and
thought on the thorns and the tares and the wheat, and watched the
sparrows, and pondered and wondered how the birds were fed. All his
teaching was drawn from Nature. And all the study in the world could
never have taught him what he knew, if it had not been a loving and
appreciative study.
There is one strange and interesting passage in John's Gospel, xv.
1: "I am the true vine." My father used to tell us that the Greek
word [Greek: alêthinê], rendered true, is usually employed of the
genuine in distinction from the counterfeit, the reality in
distinction from the shadow and image. Is not this perhaps the clew
to our Lord's use of natural imagery? Nature was always the
presentation to his senses of the divine thought and purpose. He
studied the words of the ancient Scripture, he found the same words
and teachings clearly and concretely embodied in the processes of
Nature. The interpretation of the Parable of the Sower was no mere
play of fancy to him; it was the genuine and fundamental truth,
deeper and more real than the existence of the sower, the soil, and
the seed. The spiritual truth was the substance; the tangible soil
and seed really only the shadow. And thus all Nature was to him
divine.
We all of us need to offer the prayer of the blind man, "Lord, that
our eyes may be opened." Let us learn, too, from the old heathen
giant, Antæus, who, after every defeat and fall, rose strengthened
and vivified from contact with his mother Earth. You will experience
in life many a desperate struggle, many a hard fall. There is at
such times nothing in the world so strengthening, healing, and
life-giving as the thoughts and encouragements which Nature pours
into the hearts and minds of her loving disciples. She will set you
on your feet again, infused with new life, filled with an
unconquerable spirit, with unfaltering courage, and an iron will to
fight once more and win. In every battle her inspiring words will
ring in your ears, and she will never fail you. We may not see her
deepest realities, her rarest treasures of thought and wisdom; but
if we will listen lovingly for her voice, we may be assured that she
will speak to us many a word of cheer and encouragement, of warning
and exhortation. For, to paraphrase the language of the nineteenth
Psalm, "She has no speech nor language, her voice is not heard. But
her rule is gone out throughout all the earth, and her words to the
end of the world."
CHAPTER II
PROTOZOA TO WORMS: CELLS, TISSUES, AND ORGANS
The first and lowest form in our ancestral series is the amoeba, a
little fresh-water animal from 1/500 to 1/1000 of an inch in
diameter. Under the microscope it looks like a little drop of
mucilage. This semifluid, mucilaginous substance is the Protoplasm.
Its outer portion is clear and transparent, its inner more granular.
In the inner portion is a little spheroidal body, the nucleus. This
is certainly of great importance in the life of the animal; but just
what it does, or what is its relation to the surrounding protoplasm
we do not yet know. There is also a little cavity around which the
protoplasm has drawn back, and on which it will soon close in again,
so that it pulsates like a heart. It is continually taking in water
from the body, or the outside, and driving it out again, and thus
aids in respiration and excretion. The animal has no organs in the
proper sense of the word, and yet it has the rudiments of all the
functions which we possess.
A little projection of the outer, clearer layer of protoplasm, a
pseudopodium, appears; into this the whole animal may flow and thus
advance a step, or the projection may be withdrawn. And this power
of change of form is a lower grade of the contractility of our
muscular cells. Prick it with a needle and it contracts. It
recognizes its food even at a microscopic distance; it appears
therefore to feel and perceive. Perhaps we might say that it has a
mind and will of its own. It is safer to say that it is irritable,
that is, it reacts to stimuli too feeble to be regarded as the cause
of its reaction. It engulfs microscopic plants, and digests them in
the internal protoplasm by the aid of an acid secretion. It breathes
oxygen, and excretes carbonic acid and urea, through its whole body
surface. Its mode of gaining the energy which it manifests is
therefore apparently like our own, by combustion of food material.
[Illustration: 1. AMOEBA PROTEUS. HERTWIG, FROM LEIDY.
_ek_, ectosarc; _en_, endosarc; _N_, food particles;
_n_, nucleus; _cv_, contractile vesicle.]
It grows and reaches a certain size, then constricts itself in the
middle and divides into two. The old amoeba has divided into two
young ones, and there is no parent left to die, and death, except by
violence, does not occur. But this absence of death in other rather
distant relatives of the amoeba, and probably in the amoeba
itself, holds true only provided that, after a series of
self-divisions, reproduction takes place after another mode. Two
rather small and weak individuals fuse together in one animal of
renewed vigor, which soon divides into two larger and stronger
descendants. We have here evidently a process corresponding to the
fertilization of the egg in higher animals; yet there is no egg,
spermatozoon, or sex.
It is a little mass of protoplasm containing a nucleus, and
corresponds, therefore, to one of the cells, most closely to the
egg-cell or spermatozoon of higher animals. If every living being is
descended from a single cell, the fertilized egg, it is not hard to
believe that all higher animals are descended from an ancestor
having the general structure or lack of structure of the amoeba.
But is the amoeba really structureless? Probably it has an
exceedingly complex structure, but our microscopes and technique are
still too imperfect to show more than traces of it. Says Hertwig:
"Protoplasm is not a single chemical substance, however complicated,
but a mixture of many substances, which we must picture to ourselves
as finest particles united in a wonderfully complicated structure."
Truly protoplasm is, to borrow Mephistopheles' expression concerning
blood, a "quite peculiar juice." And the complexity of the nucleus
is far more evident than that of the protoplasm. Is protoplasm
itself the result of a long development? If so, out of what and how
did it develop? We cannot even guess. But the beginning of life may,
apparently must, have been indefinitely farther back than the
simplest now existing form. The study of the amoeba cannot fail to
raise a host of questions in the mind of any thoughtful man.
As we have here the animal reduced, so to speak, to lowest terms, it
may be well to examine a little more closely into its physiology and
compare it briefly with our own.
The amoeba eats food as we do, but the food is digested directly
in the internal protoplasm instead of in a stomach; and once
digested it diffuses to all parts of the cell; here it is built up
into compounds of a more complex structure, and forms an integral
part of the animal body. The dead food particle has been transformed
into living protoplasm, the continually repeated miracle of life.
But it does not remain long in this condition. In contact with the
oxygen from the air it is soon oxidized, burned up to furnish the
energy necessary for the motion and irritability of the body. We are
all of us low-temperature engines. The digestive function exists in
all animals merely to bring the food into a soluble, diffusible
form, so that it can pass to all parts of the body and be used for
fuel or growth. In our body a circulatory system is necessary to
carry food and oxygen to the cells and to remove their waste. For
most of our cells lie at a distance from the stomach, lungs, and
kidney. But in a small animal the circulatory system is often
unnecessary and fails. Breathing and excretion take place through
the whole surface of the body. The body of the frog is devoid of
scales, so that the blood is separated from the surrounding water
only by a thin membrane, and it breathes and excretes to a certain
extent in the same way.
But another factor has to be considered. If we double each dimension
of our amoeba, we shall increase its surface four times, its mass
eight-fold. Now the power of absorbing oxygen and excreting waste is
evidently proportional to the excretory and respiratory surface, and
much the same is true of digestion. But the amount of oxygen
required, and of waste to be removed is proportional to the mass;
for every particle of protoplasm requires food and oxygen, and
produces waste. The particles of protoplasm in our new, larger
amoeba can therefore receive only half as much oxygen as before,
and rid themselves of their waste only half as fast. There is
danger of what in our bodies would be called suffocation and
blood-poisoning. The amoeba having attained a certain size meets
this emergency by dividing into two small individuals, the division
is a physical adaptation. But the many-celled animal cannot do this;
it must keep its cells together. It gains the additional surface by
folding and plaiting. And the complicated internal structure of
higher animals is in its last analysis such a folding and plaiting
in order to maintain the proper ratio between the exposed surface of
the cells and their mass. And each cell in our bodies lives in one
sense its own individual life, only bathed in the lymph and
receiving from it its food and oxygen instead of taking it from the
water.
But in another sense the cells of our body live an entirely
different life, for they form a community. Division of labor has
taken place between them, they are interdependent, correlated with
one another, subject therefore to the laws of the whole community or
organism. There are many respects in which it is impossible to
compare Robinson Crusoe with a workman in a huge watch factory; yet
they are both men.
Both the amoeba and we live in the closest relation to our
environment, and conformity to it is evidently necessary: life has
been defined as the adjustment of internal relations to external
conditions. We continually take food, use it for energy and growth,
and return the simpler waste compounds. We are all of us, as
Professor Huxley has said, "whirlpools on the surface of Nature;"
when the whirl of exchange of particles ceases we die. We have seen
that the fusion of two amoebæ results in a new rejuvenated
individual. Why is a mixture of two protoplasms better than one? We
can frame hypotheses; we know nothing about it. What of the mind of
the amoeba? A host of questions throng upon us and we can answer
no one of them. All the great questions concerning life confront us
here in the lowest term of the animal series, and appear as
insoluble as in the highest.
Our second ancestral form is also a fresh-water animal, the hydra.
This is a little, vase-shaped animal, which usually lives attached
to grass-stems or sticks, but has the power to free itself and hang
on the surface of the water or to slowly creep on the bottom. The
mouth is at the top of the vase, and the simple, undivided cavity
within the vase is the digestive cavity. Around the mouth is a ring
of from four to ten hollow tentacles, whose cavities communicate
freely underneath with the digestive cavity. Not only is food taken
in at the mouth, but indigestible material is thrown out here. The
animal may thus be compared to a nearly cylindrical sack with a
circle of tubes attached to it above. The body consists of two
layers of cells, the ectoderm on the outside and the entoderm lining
the digestive cavity. Between these two is a structureless, elastic
membrane, which tends to keep the body moderately expanded.
The food is captured by the tentacles; but digestion takes place
only partially in the digestive cavity, for each surrounding cell
engulfs small particles of food and digests them within itself. The
entodermal cells behave in this respect much like a colony of
amoebæ. The cells of both layers have at their bases long muscular
fibrils, those of the ectodermal cells running longitudinally, those
of the entoderm transversely. The animal can thus contract its body
in both directions, or, if the body contain water and the transverse
muscles are contracted, the pressure of the water lengthens the body
and tends to extend the tentacles.
On the outside of the elastic membrane, just beneath the ectoderm,
is a plexus or cobweb of nervous cells and fibrils. As in every
nervous system, three elements are here to be found. 1. An afferent
or sensory nerve-fibril, which under adequate stimulus is set in
vibration by some cell of the epidermis or ectoderm, which is
therefore called a sensory cell. 2. A central or ganglion
cell, which receives the sensory impulse, translates it into
consciousness, and is the seat of whatever powers of perception,
thought, or will the animal possesses. This also gives rise to the
efferent or motor impulses, which are conveyed by (3) a motor fibril
to the corresponding muscle, exciting its contraction. But there are
also nerve-fibrils connecting the different ganglion cells, so that
they may act in unison. In the higher animals we shall find these
central or ganglion cells condensed in one or a few masses or
ganglia. But here they are scattered over the whole surface of the
elastic supporting membrane.
The reproductive organs for the production of eggs and spermatozoa
form little protuberances on the outside of the body below the
tentacles. But hydra reproduces mostly by budding; new individuals
growing out of the side of the old one, like branches from the trunk
of a tree, but afterward breaking free and leading an independent
life. There are special forms of cells besides those described;
nettle cells for capturing food, interstitial cells, etc., but these
do not concern us.
The distance from the single-celled amoeba to hydra is vast,
probably really greater than that between any other successive terms
of our series. It may therefore be useful to consider one or two
intermediate forms and the parallel embryonic stages of higher
animals, and to see how the higher many-celled animal originates
from the unicellular stage.
The amoeba is an illustration of a great kingdom of similar,
practically unicellular forms, which have played no unimportant part
in the geological history of the globe. These are the protozoa. They
include, first of all, the foraminifera, which usually have shells
composed of carbonate of lime. These shells, settling to the bottom
of the ocean, have accumulated in vast beds, and when compacted and
raised above the surface, form chalk, limestone, or marble,
according to the degree and mode of their hardening.
The protozoa include also the flagellata, a great, very poorly
defined mass of forms occupying the boundary between the plant and
animal kingdoms. They are usually unicellular, and their protoplasm
is surrounded by a thin, structureless membrane. This prevents their
putting out pseudopodia as organs of motion. Instead of these they
have at one end of the ovoid or pear-shaped body a long,
whiplash-like process or thread, a flagellum, and by swinging this
they propel themselves through the water. These flagellata seem to
have a rather marked tendency to form colonies. The first individual
gives rise to others by division. But the division is not complete;
the new individuals remain connected by the undivided rear end of
the body. And such a colony may come to contain a large number of
individuals.
[Illustration: 2. MAGOSPHÆRA PLANULA. LANG, FROM HAECKEL.]
Such a colony is represented by magosphæra. This is a microscopic
globular form, discovered by Professor Haeckel on the coast of
Norway. It consists of a large number of conical or pear-shaped
individual cells, whose apices are turned toward the centre of the
sphere. The cells are cemented together by a mucilaginous substance.
Around their exposed larger ends, which form the surface of the
sphere, are rows of flagella, by whose united action the colony
rolls through the water. After a time each individual absorbs its
flagella, the colony is broken up, the different individuals settle
to the bottom, and each gives rise by division to a new colony. This
group of cells may be considered as a colony or as an individual.
Each term is defensible.
Volvox is also a spheroidal organism, composed often of a very large
number of flagellated cells. But it differs from magosphæra in
certain important respects. In the first place its cells have
chlorophyl, the green coloring matter of plants. It lives therefore
on unorganized fluid nourishment, carbon dioxide, nitrates, etc. It
is a plant. But certain characteristics render it probable that it
once lived on solid food and was therefore an animal. For where
almost the sole difference between plants and animals is in the
fluid or solid character of their food, a change from the one form
into the other is not as difficult or improbable as one might
naturally think. And plants and animals are here so near together,
and travelling by roads so nearly parallel, that, even if volvox
never was an animal, it might still serve very well to illustrate a
stage through which animals must have passed.
The cells of volvox do not form a solid mass, but have arranged
themselves in a single layer on the outer surface of the sphere. For
a time, under favorable circumstances, volvox reproduces very much
like magosphæra, and each cell can give rise to a new, many-celled
individual. But after a time, especially under unfavorable
circumstances, a new mode of reproduction appears. Certain cells
withdraw from the outer layer into the interior of the colony. Here
they are nourished by the other cells and develop into true
reproductive elements, eggs and spermatozoa. Fertilization, that is,
the union of egg and spermatozoon, or mainly of their nuclei, takes
place; and the fertilized egg develops into a new organism. But the
other cells, which have been all the time nourishing these, seem now
to lack nutriment, strength, or vitality to give rise to a new
colony. They die.
We find thus in volvox division of labor and corresponding
difference of structure or differentiation; certain cells retain the
power of fusing with other corresponding cells, and thus of
rejuvenescence and of giving rise to a new organism. And these
cells, forming a series through all generations, are evidently
immortal like the protozoa. Natural death cannot touch them. These
are the reproductive cells. The other cells nourish and transport
them and carry on the work of excretion and respiration. These
latter correspond practically to our whole body. We call them
somatic cells. In volvox they are entirely subservient to, and exist
for, the reproductive cells, and die when they have completed their
service of these. The body is here only a vehicle for ova.
Furthermore, in volvox there has arisen such an interdependence of
cells that we can no longer speak of it as a colony. The colony has
become an individual by division of labor and the resulting
differentiation in structure.
But hydra gives us but a poor idea of the coelenterata, to which
kingdom it belongs. The higher coelenterata have nearly or quite
all the tissues of higher animals--muscular, connective, glandular,
etc. And by tissues we mean groups of cells modified in form and
structure for the performance of a special work or function. The
protozoa developed the cell for all time to come, the coelenterata
developed the tissues which still compose our bodies. But they had
them mainly in a diffuse form. A sort of digestive and reproductive
system they did possess. But the work of arranging these tissues and
condensing them into compact organs was to be done by the next
higher group, the worms.
Let us now take a glance at certain stages of embryonic development
which correspond to these earliest ancestral forms. We should expect
some such correspondence from the fact already stated that the
embryonic development of the individual is a brief recapitulation of
the ancestral development of the species or larger group. The egg of
the lowest vertebrate, amphioxus, shows these changes in a simple
and apparently primitive form.
[Illustration: 3. IMMATURE EGG-SHELL FROM OVARY OF ECHINODERM.
HATSCHEK, FROM HERTWIG.]
The fertilized egg of any animal consists of a single cell, a little
mass of protoplasm containing a nucleus and surrounded by a
structureless membrane. The egg is globular. The nucleus undergoes
certain very peculiar, still but little understood, changes and
divides into two. The protoplasm also soon divides into two masses
clustering each around its own nucleus. The plane of division will
be marked around the outside by a circular furrow, but the cells
will still remain united by a large part of the membrane which
bounds their adjacent, newly formed, internal faces.
Let us suppose that the egg lay so that the first plane of division
was vertical and extending north and south. Each cell or half of the
egg will divide into two precisely as before. The new plane of
division will be vertical, but extending east and west. Each plane
passes through the centre of the egg, and the four cells are of the
same form and size, like much-rounded quarters of an orange. The
third plane will lie horizontal or equatorial, and will divide each
of these quarters into an upper and lower octant. The cells keep on
dividing rapidly, the eight form sixteen, then thirty-two, etc. The
sharp angle by which the cells met at the centre has become rounded
off, and has left a little space, the segmentation cavity, filled
with fluid in the middle of the embryo. The cells continue to press
or be crowded away from the centre and form a layer one cell deep on
the surface of the sphere.
This embryo, resembling a hollow rubber ball filled with fluid, is
called a blastosphere. It corresponds in structure with the fully
developed volvox, except, of course, in lacking reproductive cells.
[Illustration: 4. GASTRULA. HATSCHEK, FROM HERTWIG.
Outer layer is the ectoderm; inner layer, the entoderm; internal
cavity, the archenteron; mouth of cavity, blastopore.]
If the rubber ball has a hole in it so that I can squeeze out the
water, I can thrust the one-half into the other, and change the ball
into a double-walled cup. A similar change takes place in the
embryo. The cells of the lower half of the blastosphere are slightly
larger than those of the upper half. This lower hemisphere flattens
and then thrusts itself, or is invaginated, into the upper
hemisphere of smaller cells and forms its lining. This cup-shaped
embryo is called the gastrula. The cup deepens somewhat and becomes
ovoid. Take a boiled egg, make a hole in the smaller end and remove
the yolk, and you have a passable model of a gastrula. The shell
corresponds to the ectoderm or outer layer of smaller cells; the
layer of "white" represents the entoderm or lining of larger cells.
The space occupied by the yolk corresponds to the archenteron or
primitive digestive cavity; and the opening at the end to the
primitive mouth or blastopore. Ectoderm and entoderm unite around
the mouth. Both the blastosphere and gastrula often swim freely by
flagella.
You can hardly have failed to notice how closely the gastrula
corresponds to a hydra, and many facts lead us to believe that the
still earlier ancestor of the hydra was free swimming, and that the
tentacles are a later development correlated with its adult sessile
life. Yet we must not forget that the hydra is even now not quite
sessile, it moves somewhat. And our ancestor was almost certainly a
free swimming gastræa, or hypothetical form corresponding in form
and structure to the gastrula. The ancestor of man never settled
down lazily into a sessile life.
But how is an adult worm or vertebrate formed out of such a
gastrula? To answer this would require a course of lectures on
embryology. But certain changes interest us. Between the ectoderm
and entoderm of the gastrula, in the space occupied by the
supporting membrane of hydra, a new layer of cells, the mesoderm,
appears. This has been produced by the rapid growth and reproduction
of certain cells of the entoderm which have migrated, so to speak,
into this new position. In higher forms it becomes of continually
greater importance, until finally nearly all the organs of the body
develop from it. In our bodies only the lining of the mid-intestine
and of its glands has arisen from the entoderm. And only the
epidermis, or outer layer of our skin, and the nervous system and
parts of our sense-organs have arisen from the ectoderm. But our
mid-intestine is still the greatly elongated archenteron of the
gastrula.
We may therefore compare the hydra or gastrula to a little portion
of the lining of the human mid-intestine covered with a little flake
of epidermis. This much the hydra has attained. But our bones and
muscles and blood-vessels all come from the mesoderm by folding,
plaiting, and channelling, and division of labor resulting in
differentiation of structure. Of all true mesodermal structures the
hydra has actually none, but in the ectodermal and entodermal cells
he has the potentiality of them all. We must now try to discover how
these potentialities became actualities in higher forms.
The third stage in our ancestral series is the turbellarian. This is
a little, flat, oval worm, varying greatly in size in different
species, and found both in fresh and salt water. Some would deny
that this worm belonged in our series at all. But, while doubtless
considerably modified, it has still retained many characteristics
almost certainly possessed by our primitive bilateral ancestor. The
different parts of hydra were arranged like those of most flowers,
around one main vertical axis; it was thus radiate in structure,
having neither front nor rear, right nor left side. But our little
turbellaria, while still without a head, has one end which goes
first and can be called the front end. The upper or dorsal surface
is usually more colored with pigment cells than the lower or ventral
surface, on which is the mouth. It has also a right and left side.
It is thus bilateral.
The gastræa swam by cilia, little eyelash-like processes which urge
the animal forward like a myriad of microscopic oars. In our bodies
they are sometimes used to keep up a current, _e.g._, to remove
foreign particles from the lungs. The turbellaria is still covered
with cilia, probably an inheritance from the gastræa; for, while in
smaller forms they may still be the principal means of locomotion,
in larger ones the muscles are beginning to assume this function and
the animal moves by writhing. The bilateral symmetry has arisen in
connection with this mode of locomotion and is thus a mark of
important progress.
In the turbellaria we find for the first time a true body-wall
distinct from underlying organs. The outer layer of this is a
ciliated epithelium or layer of cells. Under this an elastic
membrane may occur. Then come true body muscles, running
transversely, longitudinally and dorso-ventrally. Between the
external transverse and the internal longitudinal layers we often
find two muscular layers whose fibres run diagonally. The body is
well provided with muscles, but their arrangement is still far from
economical or effective.
Within the body-wall is the parenchym. This is a spongy mass of
connectile tissue in which the other organs are embedded. The mouth
lies in the middle, or near the front of the ventral surface. The
intestine varies in form, but is provided with its own layers of
longitudinal and transverse muscles, and usually has paired pouches
extending out from it into the body parenchym. These seem to
distribute the dissolved nutriment; hence the whole cavity is still
often called a gastro-vascular cavity as serving both digestion and
circulation. There is no anal opening, but indigestible material is
still cast out through the mouth.
The animal can gain sufficient oxygen to supply its muscles and
nerves, which are the principal seats of combustion, through the
external surface. It has, therefore, no special respiratory organs.
But the waste matter of the muscles cannot escape so easily, for
these are becoming deeper seated. Hence we find an excretory system
consisting of two tubes with many branches in the parenchym, and
discharging at the rear end of the body. This again is a sign that
the muscles are becoming more important, for the excretory system is
needed mainly to remove their waste. These tubes maybe only greatly
enlarged glands of the skin.
[Illustration: 5. TURBELLARIAN. LANG.
_va_ and _ha_, front and rear branches of gastro-vascular cavity;
_ph_, pharynx. The dark oval with fine branches represents the
nervous system.]
The nervous system consists of a plexus of fibres and cells, the
cells originating impulses and the fibres conveying them. But this
much was present in hydra also. Here the front end of the body goes
foremost and is continually coming in contact with new conditions.
Here the lookout for food and danger must be kept. Hence, as a
result of constant exercise, or selection, or both, the
nerve-plexus has thickened at this point into a little compact mass
of cells and fibres called a ganglion. And because this ganglion
throughout higher forms usually lies over the oesophagus, it is
called the supra-oesophogeal ganglion. This is the first faint and
dim prophecy of a brain, and it sends its nerves to the front end of
the body. But there run from it to the rear end of the body four to
eight nerve-cords, consisting of bundles of nerve-threads like our
nerves, but overlaid with a coating of ganglion cells capable of
originating impulses. These cords are, therefore, like the plexus
from which they have condensed, both nerves and centres;
differentiation has not gone so far as at the front of the body.
Sense organs are still very rudimentary. Special cells of the skin
have been modified into neuro-epithelial cells, having sensory hairs
protruding from them and nerve-fibrils running from their bases.
[Illustration: 6. CROSS-SECTION OF TURBELLARIAN. HATSCHEK, FROM
JIJIMA.
_e_, external skin; _rm_, lateral muscles; _la_ and _li_,
longitudinal muscles; _mdv_, dorso-ventral muscles; _pa_,
parenchyma; _h_, testicle; _ov_, oviduct; _dt_, yolk-gland; _n_,
ventral nerve; _i_, gastro-vascular cavity.]
In a very few turbellaria we find otolith vesicles. These are
little sacks in the skin, lined with neuro-epithelial cells and
having in the middle a little concretion of carbonate of lime hung
on rather a stiffer hair, like a clapper in a bell. Such organs
serve in higher animals as organs of hearing, for the sensory hairs
are set in vibration by the sound-waves. It is quite as probable
that they here serve as organs for feeling the slightest vibrations
in the surrounding water, and thus giving warning of approaching
food or danger. The animal has also eyes, and these may be very
numerous. They are not able to form images of external objects, but
only of perceiving light and the direction of its source. A little
group of these eyes lies directly over the brain, near the front end
of the body; the others are distributed around the front or nearly
the whole margin of the body.
The turbellaria, doubtless, have the sense of smell, although we can
discover no special olfactory organ. This sense would seem to be as
old as protoplasm itself.
This distribution of the eyes around a large portion of the margin,
and certain other characteristics of the adult structure and of the
embryonic development, are very interesting, as giving hints of the
development of the turbellaria from some radiate ancestor. The mouth
is in a most unfavorable position, in or near the middle of the
body, rarely at the front end, as the animal has to swim over its
food before it can grasp it. The animal only slowly rids itself of
old disadvantageous form and structure and adapts itself completely
to a higher mode of life.
By far the most highly developed system in the body is the
reproductive. It is doubtful whether any animal, except, perhaps,
the mollusk, has as complicated and highly developed reproductive
organs. By markedly higher forms they certainly grow simpler.
And here we must notice certain general considerations. We found
that reproduction in the amoeba could be defined as growth beyond
the limit normal to the individual. This form of growth benefits
especially the species. The needs and expenses of the individual
will therefore first be met and then the balance be devoted to
reproduction. Now the income of the animal is proportional to its
surface, its expense to its mass, and activity. And the ratio of
surface to mass is most favorable in the smallest animals.[A] Hence,
smaller animals, as a rule, increase faster than larger ones; and
this is only one illustration of the fact that great size in an
animal is anything but an unmixed advantage to its possessor. But
muscles and nerves are the most expensive systems; here most of the
food is burned up. Hence energetic animals have a small balance
remaining. Now the turbellarian is small and sluggish, with a fair
digestive system. With a great amount of nutriment at its disposal
the reproductive system came rapidly to a high development, and
relatively to other organs stands higher than it almost ever will
again.
[Footnote A: Cf. p. 35.]
It is only fair to state that good authorities hold that so
primitive an animal could not originally have had so highly
developed a system, and that this characteristic must be acquired,
not ancestral.
That certain portions of it may be later developments may be not
only possible but probable. But anyone who has carefully studied the
different groups of worms, will, I think, readily grant that in the
stage of these flat worms reproduction was the dominant function,
which had most nearly attained its possible height of development.
From this time on the muscular and nervous systems were to claim an
ever-increasing share of the nutriment, and the balance for
reproduction is to grow smaller.
At the close of this lecture I wish to describe very briefly a
hypothetical form. It no longer exists; perhaps it never did. But
many facts of embryology and comparative anatomy point to such a
form as a very possible ancestor of all forms higher than flat
worms, viz., mollusks, arthropods, and vertebrates.
It was probably rather long and cylindrical, resembling a small
and short earthworm in shape. The skin may have been much like
that of turbellaria. Within this the muscles run in only
two-directions--longitudinally and transversely. Between these and
the intestine is a cavity--the perivisceral cavity--like that of our
own bodies, but filled with a nutritive fluid like our lymph. This
cavity seems to have developed by the expansion and cutting off of
the paired lateral outgrowths of the digestive system of some old
flat worm. But other modes of development are quite possible. The
intestine has now an anal opening at or near the rear end of the
body. The food moves only from front to rear, and reaches each part
always in a certain condition. Digestion proper and absorption have
been distributed to different cells, and the work is better done.
Three portions can be readily distinguished: fore-intestine with the
mouth, mid-intestine, as the seat of digestion and absorption, and
hind-intestine, or rectum, with the anal opening. The front and
hind-intestine are lined with infolded outer skin.
The nervous system consists of a supra-oesophageal ganglion with
four posterior nerve-cords--one dorsal, two lateral, and one (or
perhaps two) ventral. There were probably also remains of the old
plexus, but this is fast disappearing. The excretory system consists
of a pair of tubes discharging through the sides of the body-wall,
and having each a ciliated, funnel-shaped opening in the
perivisceral cavity. These have received the name of nephridia.
Through these also the eggs and spermatozoa are discharged. The
reproductive organs are modified patches of the peritoneum, or
lining of the perivisceral cavity.
The number of muscles or muscular layers has been reduced in this
animal. But such a reduction in the number of like parts in any
animal is a sign of progress. And the longitudinal muscles have
increased in size and strength, and the animal moves by writhing.
Such a worm has the general plan of the body of the higher forms
fairly well, though rudely, sketched. Many improvements will come,
and details be added. But the rudiments of the trunk of even our own
bodies are already visible. Head, in any proper sense of the term,
and skeleton are still lacking; they remain to be developed.
And yet, taking the most hopeful view possible concerning the animal
kingdom, its prospects of attaining anything very lofty seem at this
point poor. Its highest representative is a headless trunk, without
skeleton or legs. It has no brain in any proper sense of the word,
its sense-organs are feeble; it moves by writhing. Its life is
devoted to digestion and reproduction. Whatever higher organs it has
are subsidiary to these lower functions. And yet it has taken ages
on ages to develop this much. If _this_ is the highest visible
result of ages on ages of development, what hope is there for the
future? Can such a thing be the ancestor of a thinking, moral,
religious person, like man? "That is not first which is spiritual,
but that which is natural (animal, sensuous); and afterward that
which is spiritual." First, in order of time, must come the body,
and then the mind and spirit shall be enthroned in it. The little
knot of nervous material which forms the supra-oesophageal
ganglion is so small that it might easily escape our notice; but it
is the promise of an infinite future. The atom of nervous power
shall increase until it subdues and dominates the whole mass.
CHAPTER III
WORMS TO VERTEBRATES: SKELETON AND HEAD
In tracing the genealogy of any American family it is often
difficult or impossible to say whether a certain branch is descended
from John Oldworthy or his cousin or second cousin. In the latter
cases to find the common ancestor we must go back to the grandfather
or great-grandfather. The same difficulty, but greatly enhanced,
meets us when we try to make a genealogical tree of the animal
kingdom. Thus it seems altogether probable that all higher forms are
descended from an ancestor of the same general structure and grade
of organization as the turbellaria, although probably free swimming,
and hence with somewhat different form and development, especially
of the muscular system. It seems to me altogether probable that all,
except possibly Mollusca, are descended from a common ancestor
closely resembling the schematic worm last described. Some would,
however, maintain that they diverged rather earlier than even the
turbellaria; others after the schematic worm, if such ever existed.
As far as our argument is concerned it makes little difference which
of these views we adopt.
From our turbellaria, or possibly from some even more primitive
ancestor, many lines diverged. And this was to be expected. The
coelenterata, as we saw in hydra, had developed rude digestive and
reproductive systems. The higher groups of this kingdom had
developed all, or nearly all, the tissues used in building the
bodies of higher animals--muscular, reproductive, connectile,
glandular, nervous, etc. But these are mostly very diffuse. The
muscular fibrils of a jelly-fish are mostly isolated or parallel in
bands, rarely in compact well-defined bundles. The tissues have
generally not yet been moulded into compact masses of definite form.
There are as yet very few structures to which we can give the name
of organs. To form organs and group them in a body of compact
definite form was the work pre-eminently of worms. The material for
the building was ready, but the architecture of the bilateral animal
was not even sketched. And different worms were their own
architects, untrammelled by convention or heredity, hence they built
very different, sometimes almost fantastic, structures.
We must remember, too, the great age of this group. They are present
in highly modified forms in the very oldest palæozoic strata, and
probably therefore came into existence as the first traces of
continental areas were beginning to rise above the primeval ocean.
They are literally "older than the hills." They were exposed to a
host of rapidly changing conditions, very different in different
areas. This prepares us for the fact that the worms represent a
stage in animal life corresponding fairly well to the Tower of Babel
in biblical history. The animal kingdom seems almost to explode into
a host of fragments. Our genealogical tree fairly bristles with
branches, but the branches do not seem to form any regular whorls or
spirals. Few of them have developed into more than feeble growths.
They now contain generally but few species. Many of them are
largely or entirely parasitic, and in connection with this mode of
life have undergone modifications and degeneration which make it
exceedingly difficult to decipher their descent or relationships.
Four of these branches have reached great prominence in numbers and
importance. One or two others were formerly equally numerous and
have since become almost extinct; so the brachiopoda, which have
been almost entirely replaced by mollusks. The same may very
possibly be true of others. For of the amount of extinction of
larger groups we have generally but an exceedingly faint conception.
Indeed in this respect the worms have been well compared to the
relics which fill the shelves of one of our grandmother's
china-closets.
The four great branches are the echinoderms, mollusks, articulates,
and vertebrates. The echinoderms, including starfishes, sea-urchins,
and others straggled early from the great army. We know as yet
almost nothing of their history; when deciphered it will be as
strange as any romance. The vertebrates are of course the most
important line, as including the ancestors of man. But we must take
a little glance at mollusks, including our clams, snails, and
cuttle-fishes; and at the articulates, including annelids and
culminating in insects. The molluscan and articulate lines, though
divergent, are of great importance to us as throwing a certain
amount of light on vertebrate development; and still more as showing
how a certain line of development may seem, and at first really be,
advantageous, and still lead to degeneration, or at best to but
partial success.
When we compare the forms which represent fairly well the direction
of development of these three lines, a snail or a clam with an
insect and a fish, we find clearly, I think, that the fundamental
anatomical difference lies in the skeleton; and that this resulted
from, and almost irrevocably fixed, certain habits of life.
We may picture to ourselves the primitive ancestor of mollusks as a
worm having the short and broad form of the turbellaria, but much
thicker or deeper vertically. A fuller description can be found in
the "Encyclopædia Britannica," Art., Mollusca. It was hemi-ovoid in
form. It had apparently the perivisceral cavity and nephridia of the
schematic worm, and a circulatory system. In this latter respect it
stood higher than any form which we have yet studied. Its nervous
system also was rather more advanced. It had apparently already
taken to a creeping mode of life and the muscles of its ventral
surface were strongly developed, while its exposed and far less
muscular dorsal surface was protected by a cap-like shell covering
the most important internal organs. But the integument of the whole
dorsal surface was, as is not uncommon in invertebrates, hardening
by the deposition of carbonate of lime in the integument. And this
in time increased to such an extent as to replace the primitive,
probably horny, shell.
Into the anatomy of this animal or of its descendants we have no
time to enter, for here we must be very brief. We have already
noticed that the most important viscera were lodged safely under the
shell. And as these increased in size or were crowded upward by the
muscles of the creeping disk, their portion of the body grew upward
in the form of a "visceral hump." Apparently the animal could not
increase much in length and retain the advantage of the protection
of the shell; and the shell was the dominating structure. It had
entered upon a defensive campaign. Motion, slow at the outset,
became more difficult, and the protection of the shell therefore all
the more necessary. The shell increased in size and weight and
motion became almost impossible. The snail represents the average
result of the experiment. It can crawl, but that is about all; it is
neither swift nor energetic. Even the earthworm can outcrawl it. It
has feelers and eyes, and is thus better provided with sense-organs
than almost any worm. It has a supra-oesophageal ganglion of fair
size.
The clams and oysters show even more clearly what we might call the
logical results of molluscan structure. They increased the shell
until it formed two heavy "valves" hanging down on each side of the
body and completely enclosing it. They became almost sessile, living
generally buried in the mud and gaining their food, consisting
mostly of minute particles of organic matter, by means of currents
created by cilia covering the large curtain-like gills. Their
muscular system disappeared except in the ploughshare-shaped "foot"
used mostly for burrowing, and in the muscles for closing the shell.
That portion of the body which corresponds to the head of the snail
practically aborted with nearly all the sense-organs. The nervous
system degenerated and became reduced to a rudiment. They had given
up locomotion, had withdrawn, so to speak, from the world; all the
sense they needed was just enough to distinguish the particles of
food as they swept past the mouth in the current of water. They have
an abundance of food, and "wax fat." The clam is so completely
protected by his shell and the mud that he has little to fear from
enemies. They have increased and multiplied and filled the mud.
"Requiescat in pace."
But zoölogy has its tragedies as well as human history. Let us turn
to the development of a third molluscan line terminating in the
cuttle-fishes. The ancestors of these cephalopods, although still
possessed of a shell and a high visceral hump, regained the swimming
life. First, apparently, by means of fins, and then by a simple but
very effective use of a current of water, they acquired an often
rapid locomotion. The highest forms gave up the purely defensive
campaign, developed a powerful beak, led a life like that of the old
Norse pirates, and were for a time the rulers and terrors of the
sea. With their more rapid locomotion the supra-oesophageal
ganglion reached a higher degree of development, and it was served
by sense-organs of great efficiency. They reduced the external
shell, and succeeded, in the highest forms, of almost ridding
themselves of this burden and encumbrance. Traces of it remain in
the squids, but transformed into an internal quill-like, supporting,
not defensive, skeleton. They have retraced the downward steps of
their ancestors as far as they could. And the high development of
their supra-oesophageal ganglion and sense-organs, and their
powerful jaws and arms, or tentacles, show to what good purpose they
have struggled. But the struggle was in vain, as far as the
supremacy of the animal kingdom was concerned. Their ancestors had
taken a course which rendered it impossible for their descendants to
reach the goal. Their progress became ever slower. They were
entirely and hopelessly beaten by the vertebrates. They struggled
hard, but too late.
The history of mollusks is full of interest. They show clearly how
intimately nervous development is connected with the use of the
locomotive organs. The snail crept, and slightly increased its
nervous system and sense-organs. The clam almost lost them in
connection with its stationary life. The cephalopods were
exceedingly active, developed, therefore, keen sense-organs and a
very large and complicated supra-oesophagal ganglion, which we
might almost call a brain.
The articulate series consists of two groups of animals. The higher
group includes the crabs, spiders, thousand-legs, and finally the
insects, and forms the kingdom of arthropoda. The lower members are
still usually reckoned as worms, and are included under the
annelids. Of these our common earthworm is a good example, and near
them belong the leeches. But the marine annelids, of which nereis,
or a clam-worm, is a good example, are more typical. They are often
quite large, a foot or even more in length. They are composed of
many, often several hundred, rings or segments. Between these the
body-wall is thin, so that the segments move easily upon each other,
and thus the animal can creep or writhe.
These segments are very much alike except the first two and the
last. If we examine one from the middle of the body we shall find
its structure very much like that of our schematic worm. Outside we
find a very thin, horny cuticle, secreted by the layer of cells just
beneath it, the hypodermis. Beneath the skin we find a thin layer of
transverse muscles, and then four heavy bands of longitudinal
muscles. These latter have been grouped in the four quadrants, a
much more effective arrangement than the cylindrical layer of the
schematic worm. Furthermore, the animal has on each segment a pair
of fin-like projections, stiffened with bristles, the parapodia.
These are moved by special muscles and form effective organs of
creeping.
[Illustration: 7. EUNICE LIMOSA (ANNELID). LANG, FROM EHLERS.
Front and hind end seen from dorsal surface.
_fa, fp, fc_, feelers; _a_, eye; _k_, gill;
_p_, parapodia; _ac_, anal cirri.]
Within the muscles is the perivisceral cavity, and in its central
axis the intestine, segmented like the body-wall. The reproductive
organs are formed from patches of the lining of the perivisceral
cavity, and the reproductive elements, when fully developed, fall
into the perivisceral fluid and are carried out by nephridia, just
such as we found in the schematic worm. Beside the perivisceral
cavity and its fluid there is a special circulatory system. This
consists mainly of one long tube above the intestine and a second
below, with often several smaller parallel tubes. Transverse
vessels run from these to all parts of the body. The dorsal tube
pulsates and thus acts as a heart. The surface of the body no longer
suffices to gather oxygen, hence we find special feathery gills on
the parapodia. But these gills are merely expanded portions of the
body wall, arranged so as to offer the greatest possible amount of
surface where the capillaries of the blood system can be almost
immediately in contact with the surrounding water.
[Illustration: 8. CROSS-SECTION OF BODY SEGMENT OF ANNELID. LANG.
_dp_ and _vp_, dorsal and ventral halves of parapodia; _b_ and _ac_,
bristles; _k_, gill; _dc_ and _vc_, feelers; _rm_, lateral muscles;
_lm_, longitudinal muscles; _vd_, dorsal blood-vessel; _vo_, ventral
blood-vessel; _bm_, ventral ganglion; _ov_, ovary; _tr_, opening of
nephridium in the perivisceral cavity; _np_, tubular portion of
nephridium. The circles containing dots represent eggs floating in
the perivisceral fluid.]
The nervous system consists of a large supra-oesophageal ganglion
in the first segment; then of a chain of ganglia, one to each
segment, on the ventral side of the body. With one ganglion in each
segment there is far more controlling, perceptive, ganglionic
material than in lower worms. Furthermore the supra-oesophageal
ganglion is relieved of a large part of the direct control of the
muscles of each segment, and is becoming more a centre of control
and perception for the body as a whole. It is more like our brain,
commander-in-chief, the other ganglia constituting its staff. The
sense-organs have improved greatly. There are tentacles and otolith
vesicles as very delicate organs of feeling, or possibly of hearing
also.
But the annelids were probably the first animals to develop an eye
capable of forming an image of external objects. The importance of
this organ in the pursuit of food or the escape from enemies can
scarcely be over-estimated. The lining of the mouth and pharynx can
be protruded as a proboscis, and drawn back by powerful muscles, and
is armed with two or more horny claws. Eyes and claws gave them a
great advantage over their not quite blind but really visionless and
comparatively defenceless neighbors, and they must have wrought
terrible extinction of lower and older forms. But while we cannot
over-estimate the importance of these eyes, we can easily exaggerate
their perfectness. They were of short range, fitted for seeing
objects only a few inches distant, and the image was very imperfect
in detail. But the plan or fundamental scheme of these eyes is
correct and capable of indefinitely greater development than the
organs of touch or smell, perhaps greater even than the otolith
vesicle.
And the reflex influence of the eye on the brain was the greatest
advantage of all. Hitherto with feeble muscles and sense-organs it
has hardly paid the animal to devote more material to building a
larger brain. It was better to build more muscle. But now with
stronger muscles at its command, and better sense-organs to report
to it, every grain of added brain material is beginning to be worth
ten devoted to muscle. The muscular system will still continue to
develop, but the brain has begun an almost endless march of
progress. The eye becomes of continually increasing advantage and
importance because it has a capable brain to use it; and brain is a
more and more profitable investment, because it is served by an
ever-improving eye.
[Illustration: 9. MYRMELEO FORMICARIUS. ANT-LION. HERTWIG, FROM
SCHMARDA.
1, adult; 2, larva; 3, cocoon.]
The annelid had hit upon a most advantageous line of development,
which led ultimately to the insect. The study of the insect will
show us clearly the advantages and defects of the annelid plan.
First of all, the insect, like the mollusk, has an external
skeleton. But the skeleton of the mollusk was purely protective, a
hindrance to locomotion. That of the insect is still somewhat
protective, but is mainly, almost purely, locomotive. It is never
allowed to become so heavy as to interfere with locomotion. In the
second place, the insect has three body regions, having each its own
special functions or work. And one of these is a head. The annelid
had two anterior segments differing from those of the rest of the
body; these may, perhaps, be considered as the foreshadowings of a
structure not yet realized; they can only by courtesy be called a
head. Thirdly, the insect has legs. The annelid had fin-like
parapodia, approaching the legs of insects about as closely as the
fins of a fish approach the legs of a mammal. The reproductive and
digestive systems, while somewhat improved, are not very markedly
higher than those of annelids. The excretory system has more work to
perform and reaches a rather higher development.
But in these organs there is no great or striking change; the time
for marked and rapid development of the digestive and reproductive
systems has gone by. Material can be more profitably invested in
brain or muscle. Air is carried to all parts of the body by a
special system of air-sacks and tubes. This is a very advantageous
structure for small animals with an external skeleton. In very large
animals, or where the skeleton is internal, it would hardly be
practicable; the risk of compression of the tubes at some point, and
of thus cutting off the air-supply of some portion of the body,
would be altogether too great.
The circulatory system is very poor. It consists practically only of
a heart, which drives the blood in an irregular circulation between
the other organs of the body much as with a syringe you might keep
up a system of currents in a bowl of water. But the rapidity of the
flow of the blood in our bodies is mainly to furnish a supply of
oxygen to the organs. A tea-spoonful of blood can carry a fair
amount of dissolved solid nutriment like sugar, it can carry at each
round but a very little gas like oxygen. Hence the blood must make
its rounds rapidly, carrying but a little oxygen at each circuit.
But in the insect the blood conveys only the dissolved solid
nutriment, the food; hence a comparatively irregular circulation
answers all purposes.
The skeleton is a thickening of the horny cuticle of the annelid on
the surface of each segment. The horny cylinder surrounding each
segment is composed of several pieces, and on the abdomen these are
united by flexible, infolded membranes. This allows the increase in
the size of the segment corresponding to the varying size of the
digestive and reproductive systems. In this part of the body the
skeletal ring of each segment is joined to that of the segments
before and behind it in the same manner. But in other parts of the
body we shall find the skeletal pieces of each segment and the rings
of successive segments fused in one plate of mail. The legs are the
parapodia of annelids carried to a vastly higher development. They
are slender and jointed, and yet often very powerful. A large
portion of the muscular system of the body is attached to these
appendages.
But the insect has also jaws. The annelid had teeth or claws
attached to the proboscis. But true jaws are something quite
different. They always develop by modifying some other organ. In the
insect they are modified legs. This is shown first by their
embryonic development. But the king- or horseshoe-crab has still no
true jaws, but uses the upper joints of its legs for chewing. There
are primitively three pairs of jaws of various forms for the
different kinds of food of different species or higher groups. But
some of them may disappear and the others be greatly modified into
awls for piercing, or a tube for sucking honey. Into the wonderful
transformations of these modified legs we cannot enter.
The muscles are no longer arranged to form a sack as in annelids.
Transverse muscles, running parallel to the unyielding plates of
chitin or horn could accomplish nothing. They have largely
disappeared. The work of locomotion has been transferred from the
trunk to the legs.
The abdomen of the insect is as clearly composed of distinct
segments as the body of the annelid. Of these there are perhaps
typically eleven. The thorax is composed of three segments, distinct
in the lowest forms, fused in the highest. This fusion of segments
in the thorax of the highest forms furnishes a very firm framework
for the attachment of wings and muscles. These wings are a new
development, and how they arose is still a question. But they give
the insect the capability of exceedingly rapid locomotion.
The three pairs of jaws, modified legs, in the rear half of the head
show that this portion is composed of three segments. For only one
pair of legs is ever developed on a single segment. Embryology has
shown that the portion of the head in front of the mouth is also
composed of three segments. Possibly between the præ- and post-oral
portions still another segment should be included, making a total of
seven in the head. The head has thus been formed by drawing forward
segments from the trunk, and fusing them successively with the first
or primitive head segment. This is difficult to conceive of in the
fully developed insect, where the boundary between head and thorax
is very sharp. But the ancestors of insects looked more like
thousand-legs or centipedes, and here head and thorax are much less
distinct. But in the annelid the mouth is on the second segment;
here it is on the fourth. It has evidently travelled backward. That
the mouth of an animal can migrate seems at first impossible, but if
we had time to examine the embryology of annelids and insects, it
would no longer appear inconceivable or improbable. And its backward
migration brought it among the legs which were grasping and chewing
the food. And in vertebrates the mouth has changed its position,
though not in exactly the same way. Our present mouth is probably
not at all the mouth of the primitive ancestor of vertebrates. Thus
in the insect three segments have fused around the mouth, and three,
possibly four, in front of it. This makes a head worthy of the name.
The ganglia of the three post-oral segments, which bear the jaws,
have fused in one compound ganglion innervating the mouth and jaws.
Those of the three præ-oral segments have fused to form a brain.
Eyes are well developed, giving images sometimes accurate in detail,
sometimes very rude. Ears are not uncommon. The sense of smell is
often keen.
Perhaps the greatest advance of the insect is its adaptation to land
life. This gives it a larger supply of oxygen than any aquatic
animal could ever obtain. This itself stimulates every function, and
all the work of the body goes on more energetically. Then the heat
produced is conducted off far less rapidly than in aquatic forms.
Water is a good conductor of heat, and nearly all aquatic animals
are cold-blooded. The few which are warm-blooded are protected by a
thick layer of non-conducting fat. In all land animals, even when
cold-blooded, the work of the different systems is aided by the
longer retention of the heat in the body.
Let us recapitulate. The schematic worm had a body composed of two
concentric tubes. The outer was composed of the muscles of the body
covered by the protective integument. The inner tube was the
alimentary canal with its special muscles. Between these two was the
perivisceral cavity, filled with nutritive fluid, lymph, and
furnishing a safe lodging-place for the more delicate viscera. It
represented fairly the trunk of higher animals.
The annelid added segmentation, and thus greater freedom of motion
by the parapodia. But the segments were still practically alike. In
the insect division of labor took place, that is, each group of
segments was allotted its own special work; and these groups of
segments were modified in structure to best suit the performance of
this part of the work of the body. The abdomen was least modified
and its eleven segments were devoted to digestion, reproduction, and
excretion--the old vegetative functions. Three segments were united
in the thorax; all their energy was turned to locomotion, and the
insect became thus an exceedingly active, swift animal. The third
body-region, the head, includes six segments, of which three
surrounded the mouth and furnished the jaws, while two more were
crowded or drawn forward in order that their ganglia might be added
to the old supraoesophageal ganglion and form a brain. It is
interesting to note that a form, peripatus, still exists which
stands almost midway between annelids and insects and has only four
segments in the head. The formation of the head was thus a gradual
process, one segment being added after another.
In the turbellaria the dominant functions were digestion and
reproduction, and their organs composed almost the whole body. Here
only eleven segments at most are devoted to these functions, and
nine in head and thorax to locomotion and brain. Head and thorax
have increased steadily in importance, while the abdomen has
decreased as steadily in number of segments. And the brain is
increasing thus rapidly because there are now muscles and
sense-organs of sufficient power to make such a brain of value. And
this brain perceives not only objects and qualities, but invisible
relations between these, and this is an advance amounting to a
revolution. It remembers, and uses its recollections. It is capable
of learning a little by experience and observation. The A, B, C of
thinking was probably learned long before the insect's time, and the
bee shows a fair amount of intelligence.
The line of development which the insect followed was comparatively
easy and its course probably rapid. Certain crustacea, aquatic
arthropoda, are among the oldest fossils, and it is possible that
insects lived on the land before the first fish swam in the sea.
They had fine structure and powers; and yet during the later
geologic periods they have scarcely advanced a step, and are now
apparently at a standstill. They ran splendidly for a time, and then
fell out of the race. What hindered and stopped them?
One vital defect in their whole plan of organization is evident. The
external skeleton is admirably suited to animals of small size, but
only to these. In larger animals living on land it would have to be
made so heavy as to be unwieldy and no longer economical. Their mode
of breathing also is fitted only for animals of small size having
an external skeleton. Whatever may be our explanation the fact
remains that insects are always small. This is in itself a
disadvantage. Very small animals cannot keep up a constant high
temperature unless the surrounding air is warm, for their radiating
surface is too large in comparison with their heat-producing mass.
At the first approach of even cool weather they become chilled and
sluggish, and must hibernate or die. They are conformed to but a
limited range of environment in temperature.
But small size is, as a rule, accompanied by an even greater
disadvantage. It seems to be almost always correlated with short
life. Why this is so, or how, we do not know. There are exceptions;
a crow lives as long as a man; or would, if allowed to. But, as a
rule, the length of an animal's days is roughly proportional to the
size of its body. And the insect is, as a rule, very short-lived. It
lives for a few days or weeks, or even months, but rarely outlasts
the year. It has time to learn but little by experience. The same
experience must be passed, the same emergency arise and be met, over
and over again during the lifetime of the same individual if the
animal is to learn thereby. And intelligence is based upon
experience. Hence insects can and do possess but a low grade of
intelligence. But instinct is in many cases habit fixed by heredity
and improved by selection. The rapid recurrence of successive
generations was exceedingly favorable to the development of
instincts, but very unfavorable to intelligence. Insects are
instinctive, the highest vertebrates intelligent. The future can
never belong to a tiny animal governed by instincts. Mollusks and
insects have both failed to reach the goal; another plan of
structure than theirs must be sought if the animal kingdom is to
have a future.
The future belonged to the vertebrate. To begin with less
characteristic organs the digestive system is much like that of the
annelid or schematic worm, but with greatly increased glandular and
absorptive surfaces. The present mouth of nearly all vertebrates is
probably not primitive. It is almost certainly one of the gill-slits
of some old ancestor of fish, such as now are used to discharge the
water which is used for respiration. The jaws are modified branchial
arches or the cartilaginous or bony rods which in our present fish
support the fringe of gills. These have formed a pair of exceedingly
effective and powerful jaws. The reproductive system holds still to
the old type and shows little if any improvement. The excretory
organs, kidneys, are composed primitively of nephridial tubes like
those of the schematic worm or annelid, but immensely increased in
number, modified, and improved in certain very important
particulars. The muscles in simplest forms are composed of heavy
longitudinal bands, especially developed toward the dorsal surface
of the body to the right and left of the axial skeleton. Locomotion
was produced by lashing the tail right and left, as still in fish.
There is improvement in all these organs, except perhaps the
reproductive, but nothing very new or striking. The great
improvement from this time on was not to be sought in the vegetative
organs, or even directly to any great extent in muscles.
The new and characteristic organ was not the vertebral column, or
series of vertebræ, or backbone, from which the kingdom has derived
its name. This was a later production. The primitive skeleton was
the notochord, still appearing in the embryos of all vertebrates and
persisting throughout life in fish. This is an elastic rod of
cartilage, lying just beneath the spinal marrow or nerve-cord, which
runs backward from the brain. The nerve-centres are therefore here
all dorsal, and the notochord or skeleton lies between these and the
digestive or alimentary canal. The skeleton of the clam or snail is
purely protective and a hindrance to locomotion. That of the insect
is almost purely locomotive, but external, that of the vertebrate
purely locomotive and internal. It does not lie outside even of the
nervous system, although this system especially required, and was
worthy of, protection. It does not protect even the brain; the skull
of vertebrates is an after-thought. It is almost the deepest seated
of all organs. But lying in the central axis of the body it
furnishes the very best possible attachment for muscles. Around this
primitive notochord was a layer of connectile tissue which later
gave rise to the vertebræ forming our backbone.
[Illustration: 10. CROSS-SECTION OF AXIAL SKELETON OF PETROMYZON.
HERTWIG, FROM HIEDERSHEIM.
_SS_, skeletogenous layer; _Ob_, _Ub_, dorsal and ventral processes
of _SS_; _C_, notochord; _Cs_, sheath of notochord; _Ee_, elastic
external layer of sheath; _F_, fatty tissue; _M_, spinal marrow;
_P_, sheath of _M_.]
The nervous system on the dorsal surface of the notochord consists
of the brain in the head and the spinal marrow running down the
back. The brain of all except the very lowest vertebrates consists
of four portions: 1. The cerebrum, or cerebral lobes, or simply
"forebrain," the seat of consciousness, thought, and will, and from
which no nerves proceed. Whether the primitive vertebrate had any
cerebrum is still uncertain. 2. The mid-brain, which sends nerves to
the eyes, and in this respect reminds us of the brain of insects.
Its anterior portion appears from embryology to be very primitive.
3. The small brain, or cerebellum, which in all higher forms is the
centre for co-ordination of the motions of the body. 4. The medulla,
which controls especially the internal organs. The spinal marrow, or
that portion of the nervous system which lies outside of the head,
is at the same time a great nerve-trunk and a centre for reflex
action of the muscles of the body. But the development of these
distinct portions and the division of labor between them must have
been a long and gradual process.
We have every reason to believe that here, as in insects, the head
has been formed by annexation of segments from the rump and the
fusion of their nervous matter with that of the brain. But here,
instead of only three segments, from nine to fourteen have been
fused in the head to furnish the material for the brain. Notochord
and backbone may be the most striking and apparent characteristic of
vertebrates, but their predominant characteristic is brain. On this
system they lavished material, giving it from three to four times as
much as any lower or earlier group had done. They very early set
apart the cerebral lobes to be the commander-in-chief and centre of
control for all other nerve-centres. To this all report, and from it
all directly or indirectly receive orders. It can say to every
other organ in the body, "Starve that I may live." It is the seat of
thought and will. The other portions of the brain report to it what
they have gathered of vision or sound; it explains the vision or
song or parable. It is relieved as far as possible from all lower
and routine work that it may think and remember and govern. The
vertebrate built for mind, not neglecting the body.
Every trait of vertebrates is a promise of a great future. Its
internal skeleton gives it the possibility of large size. This gave
it in time the victory in the struggle with its competitors, as to
whether it should eat or be eaten. It is vigorous and powerful, for
all its organs are at the best. It gives the possibility of later,
on land, becoming warm-blooded, _i.e._, of maintaining a constant
high temperature. It is thus resistant to climate and hardship. In
time its descendants will face the arctic winter as well as the heat
of the tropics.
But it has started on the road which leads to mind. The greater size
is correlated with longer life. The lessons of experience come to it
over and over again, and it can and must learn them. It is the
intelligent, remembering, thinking type. The insect had begun to
peer into the world of invisible and intangible relations, the
vertebrate will some day see them. This much is prophecied in his
very structure. He must be heir to an indefinite future.
* * * * *
You have probably noticed that the vertebrate differs greatly from
all his predecessors. The gulf between him and them is indeed wide
and deep. His origin and ancestry are yet far from certain. But an
attempt to decipher his past history, though it may lead to no sure
conclusions, will yet be of use to us. Practically all aquatic
vertebrates lead a swimming life, neither sessile nor creeping. The
embryonic development of our appendages leads to the same
conclusion. We must never forget that the embryonic development of
the individual recapitulates briefly the history of the development
of the race. Now the legs and arms, or fore- and hind-legs, of
higher vertebrates and the corresponding paired fins of fish develop
in the embryo as portions of a long ridge extending from front to
rear of the side of the body.
This justifies the inference that the primitive vertebrate ancestor
had a pair of long fins running along the sides of the body, but
bending slightly downward toward the rear so as to meet one another
and continue as a single caudal fin behind the anal opening. Such
fins, like the feathers of an arrow, could be useful only to keep
the animal "on an even keel" as it was forced through the water by
the lateral sweeps of the tail. They would have been useless for
creeping.
But there is another piece of evidence that he was a free swimming
form. All vertebrates breathe by gills or lungs, and these are
modified portions of the digestive system, of the walls of the
oesophagus, from which even the lung is an embryonic outgrowth.
Now practically all invertebrates breathe through modified portions
of the integument or outer surface of the body, and their gills are
merely expansions of this. In the annelid they are projections of
the parapodia, in the mollusk expansions of the skin, where the foot
or creeping sole joins the body. Why did the vertebrate take a new
and strange, and, at first sight, disadvantageous mode of
breathing? There must have been some good reason for this. The most
natural explanation would seem to be that he had no projections on
his outer surface which could develop into gills, and farther, that
he could not afford to have any. Now projections on the lower
portion of the sides of the body would be an advantage in creeping,
but a hindrance in any such mode of swimming as we have described,
or indeed in any mode of writhing through the water.
Furthermore, if he lived, not a creeping life on the bottom, but
swimming in the water above, he would have to live almost entirely
on microscopic animals and embryos; and these would be most easily
captured by a current of water brought in at the mouth. The whole
branchial apparatus in its simplest forms would seem to be an
apparatus for sifting out the microscopic particles of food and only
later a purely respiratory apparatus. Moreover, we have seen that
the parapodia of annelids naturally point to the development of an
external skeleton, for their muscles are already a part of the
external body-wall and attached to the already existing horny
cuticle. The logical goal of their development was the insect.
Now I do not wish to conceal from you that many good zoölogists
believe that the vertebrate is descended from annelids; but for this
and other reasons such a descent appears to me very improbable. It
would seem far more natural to derive the vertebrate from some free
swimming form like the schematic worm, whose largest nerve-cord lay
on the dorsal surface because its branches ran to heavy muscles much
used in swimming. Later the other nerve-cords degenerated, for such
a degeneration of nerve-cords is not at all impossible or
improbable. "No thoroughfare" is often written across paths
previously followed by blood or nervous impulses, when other paths
have been found more economical or effective.
But where did the notochord come from? I do not know. It always
forms in the embryo out of the entoderm or layer which becomes the
lining of the intestine. Now this is a very peculiar origin for
cartilage, and the notochord is a very strange cartilage even if we
have not made a mistake in calling it cartilage at all. My best
guess would be that it is simply a thickened portion of the upper
median surface of the intestine to keep the "balls" of digesting
nutriment or other hard particles in the intestine from "grinding"
against the nerve-cord as they are crowded along in the process of
digestion. Once started its elasticity would be a great aid in
swimming.
Professor Brooks has called attention to the fact that the higher a
group stands in development, the longer its ancestors have
maintained a swimming life. Thus we have noticed that the sponges
were the first to settle; then a little later the mass of the
coelenterates followed their example. But the etenophora, the
nearest relatives of bilateral animals, have remained free swimming.
Then the flat worms and mollusks took to a creeping mode of life,
while the annelids and vertebrates still swam. Then the annelids
settled to the bottom and crept, and all their descendants remained
creeping forms. The vertebrates alone remained swimming, and
probably neither they nor their descendants ever crept until they
emerged on the land, or as amphibia were preparing for land
life. If this be true, it is a fact worthy of our most careful
consideration. The swimming life would appear to be neither as easy
nor as economical as the creeping. It is certainly hard to believe
that food would not have been obtained with less effort and in
greater abundance at the bottom than in the water above. The
swimming life gave rise to higher and stronger forms; but did its
maintenance give immediate advantage in the struggle for existence?
This is an exceedingly interesting and important question, and
demands most careful consideration. But we shall be better prepared
to answer it in a future lecture.
The period of development of mollusks, articulates, and vertebrates,
is really one. They developed to a certain extent contemporaneously.
The development of vertebrates was slow, and they were the last to
appear on the stage of geological history.
You must all have noticed that development, during this period,
takes on a much more hopeful form than during that described in the
last chapter. Then digestion and reproduction were dominant. Now
muscle is of the greatest importance. If this fails of development,
as in mollusks, the group is doomed to degeneration or at best
stagnation. But we have seen the dawn of a still higher function. In
insects and vertebrates the brain is becoming of importance, and
absorbing more and more material. This is the promise of something
vastly higher and better. Better sense-organs are appearing, fitted
to aid in a wider perception of more distant objects. The vertebrate
has discovered the right path; though a long journey still lies
before it. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.
CHAPTER IV
VERTEBRATES: BACKBONE AND BRAIN
In tracing man's ancestry from fish upward we ought properly to
describe three or four fish, an amphibian, a reptile, and then take
up the series of mammalian ancestors. But we have not sufficient
time for so extended a study, and a simpler method may answer our
purpose fairly well. Let us fix our attention on the few organs
which still show the capacity of marked development, and follow each
one of these rapidly in its upward course.
We must remember that there are changes in the vegetative organs.
The digestive and excretory systems improve. But this improvement is
not for the sake of these vegetative functions. Brain and muscle
demand vastly more fuel, and produce vastly more waste which must be
removed. At almost the close of the series the reproductive system
undergoes a modification which is almost revolutionary in its
results. But we shall find that this modification is necessitated by
the smaller amount of material which can be spared for this
function; not by its increasing importance, still less its dominance
for its own worth. The vertebrate is like an old Roman; everything
is subordinated to mental and physical power. He is the world
conqueror.
The important changes from fish upward affect the following organs:
1. The skeleton. A light, solid framework must be developed for the
body. 2. The appendages start as fins, and end as the legs and arms
of man. 3. The circulatory and respiratory systems developed so as
to carry with the utmost rapidity and certainty fuel and oxygen to
the muscular and nervous high-pressure engines. Or, to change the
figure, they are the roads along which supplies and munitions can be
carried to the army suddenly mobilized at any point on the frontier.
4. Above all, the brain, especially the cerebrum, the crown and goal
of vertebrate structure. The improvement is now practically
altogether in the animal organs of locomotion and thought. Still,
among these animal organs, the lower systems will lead in point of
time. The brain must to a certain extent wait for the skeleton.
1. The skeleton. The axial skeleton consists, in the lowest fish, of
the notochord, a cylindrical unsegmented rod of cartilage running
nearly the length of the body. This is surrounded by a sheath of
connective tissue, at first merely membranous, later becoming
cartilaginous or gristly. Pieces of cartilage extend upward over the
spinal marrow, and downward around the great aortic artery, forming
the neural and hæmal arches. These unite with the masses of
cartilage surrounding the notochord to form cartilaginous vertebræ,
which may be stiffened by an infiltration of carbonate of lime. The
vertebral column of sharks has reached this stage. Then the
cartilaginous vertebræ ossify and form a true backbone. I have
described the process as if it were very simple. But only the
student of comparative osteology can have any conception of the
number of experiments which were tried in different groups before
the definite mode of forming a bony vertebra was attained. At the
same time the skull was developing in a somewhat similar manner. But
the skull is far more complex in origin and undergoes far more
numerous and important changes than the simpler vertebral column.
Into its history we have no time to enter.
And what shall we say of bone itself as a mere material or tissue,
with its admirable lightness, compactness, and flawlessness. And
every bone in our body is a triumph of engineering architecture. No
engineer could better recognize the direction of strain and stress,
and arrange his rods and columns, arches and buttresses, to suitably
meet them, than these problems are solved in the long bone of our
thigh. And they must be lengthened while the child is leaping upon
them. An engineer is justly proud if he can rebuild or lengthen a
bridge without delaying the passage of a single train. But what
would he say if you asked him to rebuild a locomotive, while it was
running even twenty miles an hour? And yet a similar problem had to
be solved in our bodies.
But the vertebral column is not perfected by fish. The vertebræ with
few exceptions are hollow in front and behind, biconcave; and
between each two vertebræ there is a large cavity still occupied by
the notochord. Thus these vertebræ join one another by their edges,
like two shallow wine-glasses placed rim to rim. Only gradually is
the notochord crowded out so that the vertebræ join by their whole
adjacent surfaces. Even in highest forms, for the sake of mobility,
they are united by washer-like disks of cartilage. Biconcave
vertebræ persisted through the oldest amphibia, reptiles, and
birds. But finally a firm backbone and skull were attained.
2. The appendages. Of these we can say but little. The fish has
oar-like fins, attached to the body by a joint, but themselves
unjointed. By the amphibia legs, with the same regions as our own
and with five toes, have already appeared. The development of the
leg out of the fin is one of the most difficult and least understood
problems of vertebrate comparative anatomy. The legs are at first
weak and scarcely capable of supporting the body. Only gradually do
they strengthen into the fore- and hind-legs of mammals, or into the
legs and wings of birds and old flying reptiles.
3. Changes in the circulatory and respiratory systems. The fish
lives altogether in the water and breathes by gills, but the dipnoi
among fishes breathes by lungs as well as gills. As long as
respiration takes place by gills alone, the circulation is simple;
the blood flows from the heart to the gills, and thence directly all
over the body; the oxygenated blood from the gills does not return
directly to the heart. But the blood from the lungs does return to
the heart; and there at first mixes in the ventricle with the impure
blood which has returned from the rest of the body. Gradually a
partition arises in the ventricle, dividing it into a right and left
half. Thus the two circulations of the venous blood to the lungs,
and of the oxygenated blood over the body, are more and more
separated until, in higher reptiles, they become entirely distinct.
As the animal came on land and breathed the air, more completely
oxygenated blood was carried to the organs, and their activity was
greatly heightened. As more and more heat was produced by the
combustion in muscular and nervous tissues, and less was lost by
conduction, the temperature of the body rose, and in birds and
mammals becomes constant several degrees above the highest summer
temperature of the surrounding air.
The changes in the brain affect mainly the large and small brain.
The cerebellum increases with the greater locomotive powers of the
animal. But its development is evidently limited. The large brain,
or cerebrum, is in fish hardly as heavy as the mid-brain; in
amphibia the reverse is true. In higher recent reptiles the cerebrum
would somewhat outweigh all the other portions of the brain put
together. In mammals it extends upward and backward, has already in
lower forms overspread the mid-brain, and is beginning to cover the
small brain. But this was not so in the earliest mammals. Here the
cerebrum was small, more like that of reptiles. But during the
tertiary period the large brain began to increase with marvellous
rapidity. It was very late in arriving at the period of rapid
development, but it kept on after all the other organs of the body
had settled down into comparative rest, perhaps retrogression.
We have given thus a rapid sketch in outline of the changes in the
most characteristic systems between fish and mammals. Some of the
changes which took place in mammals were along the same lines, but
one at least is so new and unexpected that this highest class
demands more careful and detailed examination.
The mammal is a vertebrate. Hence all its organs are at their best.
But mammals stand, all things considered, at the head of
vertebrates. The skeleton is firm and compact. The muscles are
beautifully moulded and fitted to the skeleton so as to produce the
greatest effect with the least mass and weight of tissue. The
sense-organs are keen, and the eye and ear especially delicate, and
fitted for perception at long range. Yet in all these respects they
are surpassed by birds. As a mere anatomical machine the bird always
seems to me superior to the mammal. It is not easy to see why it
failed, as it has, to reach the goal of possibility of indefinite
development and dominance in the animal world. Why he stopped short
of the higher brain development I cannot tell. The fact remains that
the mammal is pre-eminent in brain power, and that this gave him the
supremacy.
But mammals came very late to the throne, and the probability of
their ever gaining it must for ages have appeared very doubtful.
They seem to have been a fairly old group with a very slow early
development. Reptiles especially, and even birds, were far more
precocious than these slower and weaker forms which crept along the
earth. But reptiles and birds, like many other precocious children,
soon reached the limit of their development. They had muscle, the
mammal brain and nerve; the mammal had the staying power and the
future. Bitter and discouraging must have been the struggle of these
feeble early mammals with their larger, swifter, and more powerful,
reptilian relatives. And yet, perhaps, by this very struggle the
mammal was trained to shrewdness and endurance.
The primitive mammals laid eggs like reptiles or birds. Only two
genera, echidna and platypus, survive to bear witness of these old
oviparous groups, and these only in New Zealand. These retain
several old reptilian characteristics. Their lower position is shown
also by the fact that the temperature of their bodies is, at least,
ten degrees Fahrenheit below that of higher mammals. One of these
carries the egg in a pouch on the ventral surface; the other, living
largely in water, deposits its eggs in a nest in a burrow in the
side of the bank of the stream.
After these came the marsupials. In these the eggs develop in a sort
of uterus; but there is no placenta, in the sense of an organic
connection between the embryo and the uterus of the mother. The
young are at birth exceedingly small and feeble. The adult giant
Kangaroo weighs over one hundred pounds; the young are at birth not
as large as your thumb. They are placed by the mother in a marsupial
pouch on her ventral surface, and here nourished till able to care
for themselves.
Pardon a moment's digression. The marsupials, except the opossum,
are confined to Australia, and the oviparous mammals, or monotremes,
to New Zealand. Formerly the marsupials, at least, ranged all over
Europe and Asia, for we have indisputable evidence in their fossil
remains. But they have survived only in this isolated area, and here
apparently only because their isolation preserved them from the
competition with higher forms. If the Australian continent had not
been thus early cut off from all the rest of the world, the only
trace of both these lower groups would have been the opossum in
America and certain peculiarities in the development of the egg in
higher mammals. This shows us how much weight should be assigned to
the formerly popular argument of the "missing links." The wonder is
not that so many links are missing, but that any of these primitive
forms have come down to us. For we see here another proof of the
fearful extermination of lower forms during the progress of life on
the globe. It seems as if the intermediate forms were less common
among these most recent animals than among the older types. This may
not be true, for it is not easy to compare the gap between two
mammals with that between two worms or insects, and mistakes are
very easily made. But it seems as if extermination had done its work
more ruthlessly among these highest forms than among their humbler
and lower ancestors. I would not lay much weight on such an opinion;
but, if true, it has a meaning and is worthy of study.
In higher, true, placental mammals the period of pregnancy is much
longer, and the young are born in a far higher stage of development,
or rather, growth. The stage of growth at which the young are born
differs markedly in different groups. A new-born kitten is a much
feebler, less developed being than a new-born calf. An embryonic
appendage, the allantois, used in reptiles and birds for
respiration, has here been turned to another purpose. It lays itself
against the walls of the uterus, uterine projections interlock with
those which it puts forth, and the blood of the mother circulates
through a host of capillaries separated from those of the blood
system of the embryo only by the thinnest membrane. This is the
placenta, developed, in part from the allantois of the embryo, in
part from the uterus of the mother. It is not a new organ, but an
old one turned to better and fuller use. In these closely
associated systems of blood-vessels, nutriment and oxygen diffuse
from the blood of the mother into that of the embryo, and thus rapid
growth is assured. The importance and far-reaching effect of this
new modification in the old reproductive system cannot be
over-estimated. The internal intra-uterine development of the young,
and the mammalian habit of suckling them, far more than any other
factors, have made man what he is. Some explanation must be sought
for such a fact.
We have already seen that any animal devotes to reproduction the
balance between income and expenditure of nutriment. Now, the
digestive system is here well developed, and the income is large.
But we have already noticed that, as animals grow larger, the ratio
between the digestive surface and the mass to be supported grows
continually smaller. On account of size alone the mammal has but a
small balance. But the amount of expenditure is proportional to the
mass and activity of the muscular and nervous systems. And the
mammal is, and from the beginning had to be, an exceedingly active,
energetic, and nervous animal. The income has increased, but the
expenses have far outrun the increase. The mammal can devote but
little to reproduction.
Moreover, it requires a large amount of material to form a mammalian
egg, such as that of the monotreme. It requires indefinitely more
nutriment to build a mammal than a worm, for the former is not only
larger and more perfect at birth; it is also vastly more
complicated. The embryonic journey has, so to speak, lengthened out
immensely. One monotreme egg represents more economy and saving than
a thousand eggs of a worm. Moreover, where the individuals are
longer lived and the generations follow one another at longer
intervals, the number of favorable variations and the possibility of
conformity to environment through these is greatly lessened. In such
a group it is of the utmost importance that every egg should
develop; the destruction of a single one is a real and important
loss to the species. It is not enough to produce such an egg; it
must be most scrupulously guarded. Even the egg of the platypus is
deposited in a nest in a hole in the bank, and the female Echidna
carries the egg in a marsupial pouch until it develops.
Notice further that among certain species of fish, amphibia, and
reptiles, the females carry the eggs in the body until the embryos
or young are fairly developed. Viviparous forms are unknown by
birds, probably because this mode of development is incompatible
with flight, their dominant characteristic. Putting these facts
together, what more probable than that certain primitive egg-laying
mammals should have carried the eggs as long as possible in the
uterus. The embryo under these conditions would be better nourished
by a secretion of the uterine glands than by a very large amount of
yolk. The yolk would diminish and the egg decrease in size, and thus
the marsupial mode of development would have resulted. And, given
the marsupial mode of development and an embryo possessing an
allantois, it is almost a physiological necessity that in some forms
at least a placenta should develop. That the placenta has resulted
from some such process of evolution is proven by its different
stages of development in different orders of mammals. And even the
feeblest attachment of the allantois of the embryo to the wall of
the uterus would be of the greatest advantage to the species.
This is not the whole explanation; other factors still undiscovered
were undoubtedly concerned. But even this shows us that the internal
development of the young and the habit of suckling them was a
logical result of mammalian structure and position. The grand
results of this change we shall trace farther on.
The changes from the lower true mammals to the apes are of great
interest, but we can notice only one or two of the more important.
The prosimii, or "half apes," including the lemurs, are nearly all
arboreal forms. Perhaps they were driven to this life by their more
powerful competitors. The arboreal life developed the fingers and
toes, and most of these end, not with a claw, but with a nail. The
little group has much diversity of structure, and at present finds
its home mainly in Madagascar; though in earlier times apparently
occurring all over the globe. The brain is more highly developed
than in the average mammal, but far inferior to that of the apes.
They have a fairly opposable thumb.
The highest mammals are the primates. Their characteristics are the
following: Fingers and toes all armed with nails, the eyes
comparatively near together and fully enclosed in a bony case. The
cerebrum with well-developed furrows covers the other portions of
the brain. There is but one pair of milk-glands, and these on the
breast. The differences between hand and foot become most strongly
marked by the "anthropoid" apes. These have become accustomed to an
upright gait in their climbing; hence the feet are used for
supporting the body and the hands for grasping. Both thumb and
great toe are opposable; but the foot is a true foot, and the hand a
true hand, in anatomical structure. The face, hands, and feet have
mainly lost the covering of hair. They have no tail, or rather its
rudiments are concealed beneath the skin. These include the gibbon,
the orang, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee.
We can sum up the few attainments of mammals in a line. The lower
forms attained the placental mode of embryonic development; the
higher attained upright gait, hands and feet, and a great increase
of brain. Anatomically considered these were but trifles, but the
addition of these trifles revolutionized life on the globe. The
principal anatomical differences between man and the anthropoid ape
are the following: Man is a strictly erect animal. The foot of the
ape is less fitted for walking on the ground, where he usually "goes
on all fours." The skull is almost balanced on the condyles by which
it articulates with the neck, and has but slight tendency to tip
forward. The facial portion, nose and jaws, is less developed and
retracted beneath the larger cranium or brain-case. This has greatly
changed the appearance of the head. Protruding jaws and chin, even
when combined with large cranium and brain, always give man the
appearance of brutality and low intelligence.
The pelvis is broad and comparatively shallow. The legs, especially
the thighs, are long. The foot is long and strong, and rests its
lower surface, not merely the outer margin as in apes, on the
ground. The elastic arch of the instep must be excepted in the above
description, and adds lightness and swiftness to his otherwise slow
gait. The great toe is short and generally not opposable. The
muscles of the leg are heavy and the knee-joint has a very broad
articulating surface. But the great result of man's erect posture is
that the hand is set free from the work of locomotion, and has
become a delicate tactile and tool-using organ. The importance of
this change we cannot over-estimate. The hand was the servant of the
brain for trying all experiments. Had not our arboreal ancestors
developed the hand for us we could never have invented tools nor
used them if invented. And its reflex influence in developing the
brain has been enormous. The arm is shorter and the hand smaller.
The brain is absolutely and relatively large, and its surface
greatly convoluted. This gives place for a large amount of "gray
matter," whose functions are perception, thought, and will. For this
gray matter forms a layer on the outside of the brain.
Thus, even anatomically, man differs from the anthropoid apes. His
whole structure is moulded to and by the higher mental powers, so
that he is the "Anthropos" of the old Greek philosophers, the being
who "turns his face upward." Yet in all these anatomical respects
some of the apes differ less from him than from the lower apes or
"half apes." And every one of these can easily be explained as the
result of progressive development and modification. Whoever will
deny the possibility or probability of man's development from some
lower form must argue on psychological, not on anatomical, grounds;
and it grows clearer every day that even the former but poorly
justify such a denial.
But it is interesting to note that no one ape most closely
approaches man in all anatomical respects. Thus among the
anthropoids the orang is perhaps most similar to man in cerebral
structure, the chimpanzee in form of skull, the gorilla in feet and
hands. No evolutionist would claim that any existing ape represents
the ancestor of man. The anthropoids represent very probably the
culmination of at least three distinct lines of development. But we
must remember that in early tertiary times apes occurred all over
Europe, and probably Asia, many degrees farther north than now. In
those days, as later, the fauna and flora of northern climates were
superior in vigor and height of development to that of Africa or
Australia. It is thus, to say the least, not at all improbable that
there existed in those times apes considerably, if not far, superior
to any surviving forms. Whether the palæontologist will find for us
remains of such anthropoids is still to be seen.
But you will naturally ask, "Is there not, after all, a vast
difference between the brain of man and that of the ape?" Let us
examine this question as fully as our very brief time will allow.
Considerable emphasis used to be laid on the facial angle between a
line drawn parallel to the base of the skull and one obliquely
vertical touching the teeth and most prominent portion of the
forehead. Now this angle is in man very large--from seventy-five to
eighty-five degrees, or even more, and rarely falling below
sixty-five degrees. But this angle depends largely on the protrusion
of the jaws, and varies greatly in species of animals showing much
the same grade of intelligence. In some not especially intelligent
South American monkeys the facial angle amounts to about sixty-five
degrees. In this respect the skull of a chimpanzee reminds us of a
human skull of small cranial capacity and large jaws, in which the
cranium has been pressed back and the jaws crowded forward and
slightly upward.
The weight of the brain in proportion to that of the body has been
considered as of great importance, and within certain limits this is
undoubtedly correct. Thus, according to Leuret, the weight of the
brain is to that of the whole body: In fish, 1:5,668; in reptiles,
1:1,320; in birds, 1:212; in mammals, 1:186. These figures give the
averages of large numbers of observations and have a certain
amount of value. But within the same class the ratio varies
extraordinarily. Thus the weight of the brain is to that of the
whole body: In the elephant, 1:500; in the largest dogs, 1:305; in
the cat, 1:156; in the rat, 1:76; in the chimpanzee, 1:50; in man,
1:36; in the field-mouse, 1:31; in the goldfinch, 1:24.
From this series it is evident that the relative weight of the brain
is no index of the intelligence of the animal. Indeed if the brain
were purely an organ of mind, there is no reason that it should be
any larger in an elephant than in a mouse, provided they had the
same mental capacity. As animals grow larger the weight of the
brain, relatively to that of the body, decreases, and considering
the size of man it is remarkable that it should form so large a
fraction of his weight. Still the fraction in the chimpanzee is not
so much smaller. It is still possible that this fraction is above
the normal for the chimpanzee, for some of the observations may have
been taken on animals which had died of consumption or some other
wasting disease. I have not been able to find whether this
possibility of error has been scrupulously avoided.
A fair idea of the size of the brain may be obtained by measuring
the cranial capacity. This varies in man from almost one-hundred
cubic inches to less than seventy. In the gorilla its average is
perhaps thirty, in the orang and chimpanzee rather less, about
twenty-eight. This is certainly a vast difference, especially when
we remember that the gorilla far exceeds man in weight.
Le Bon tells us that of a series of skulls forty-five per cent, of
the Australian had a cranial capacity of 1,200 to 1,300 c.c., while
46.7 per cent. of modern Parisian skulls showed a capacity of
between 1,500 and 1,600 c.c. The skull of the gorilla contains about
five hundred and seventy cubic centimetres. Broca found that the
cranial capacity of 115 Parisian skulls, of probably the higher
classes from the twelfth century, averaged about 1,426 cubic
centimetres, while ninety of those of the poorer classes of the
nineteenth century averaged about 1,484. His observations seemed to
prove that there has been a steady increase in Parisian cranial
capacity from the twelfth to the nineteenth century.
Turning to the actual weight of the brain, that of Cuvier weighed
64.5 ounces, and a few cases of weights exceeding 65 ounces have
been recorded. The lowest limit of weight in a normal human brain
has not yet been accurately determined. From 34 to 31 ounces have
been assigned by different writers. The brain of a Bush woman was
computed by Marshall at 31.5 ounces, and weights of even 31 ounces
have been recorded without any note to show that the possessors were
especially lacking in intelligence. As Professor Huxley says in his
"Man's Place in Nature," a little book which I cannot too highly
recommend to you all, "It may be doubted whether a healthy human
adult brain ever weighed less than 31 or 32 ounces, or that the
heaviest gorilla brain has ever exceeded 20 ounces. The difference
in weight of brain between the highest and the lowest men is far
greater, both relatively and absolutely, than that between the
lowest man and the highest ape. The latter, as has been seen, is
represented by 12 ounces of cerebral substance absolutely, or by
32:20 relatively. But as the largest recorded human brain weighed
between 65 and 66 ounces, the former difference is represented by 33
ounces absolutely, or by 65:32 relatively."
But there is another characteristic of the brain which seems to bear
a close relation to the degree of intelligence. The surface of the
human brain is not smooth but covered with convolutions, with
alternating grooves or sulci, which vastly increase its surface and
thus make room for more gray matter. Says Gratiolett: "On comparing
a series of human and simian brains we are immediately struck with
the analogy exhibited in the cerebral forms in all these creatures.
There is a cerebral form peculiar to man and the apes; and so in the
cerebral convolutions, wherever they appear, there is a general
unity of arrangement, a plan, the type of which is common to all
these creatures." Professor Huxley says: "It is most remarkable
that, as soon as all the principal sulci appear, the pattern
according to which they are arranged is identical with the
corresponding sulci in man. The surface of the brain of the monkey
exhibits a sort of skeleton map of man's, and in the man-like apes
the details become more and more filled in, until it is only in
minor characters that the chimpanzee's or orang's brain can be
structurally distinguished from man's."
The facts of anatomy, at least, are all against us. Struggle as we
may, be as snobbish as we will, we cannot shake off these poor
relations of ours. Our adult anatomy at once betrays our ancestry,
if we attempt to deny it. Read the first chapter of that remarkable
book by Professor Drummond on the "Ascent of Man," the chapter on
the ascent of the body, and the second chapter on the scaffolding
left in the body. The tips of our ears and our rudimentary ear
muscles, the hair on hand and arm, and the little plica semilunaris,
or rudimentary third eyelid in the inner angle of our eyes, the
vermiform appendage of the intestine, the coracoid process on our
shoulder-blades, the atlas vertebra of our necks--to say nothing of
the coccyx at the other end of the backbone--many malformations, and
a host of minor characteristics all refute our denial.
If we appeal from adult anatomy to embryology the case becomes all
the worse for us. Our ear is lodged in the gill-slit of a fish, our
jaws are branchial arches, our hyoid bone the rudiment of this
system of bones supporting the gills. Our circulation begins as a
veritable fish circulation; our earliest skeleton is a notochord;
Meckel's cartilage, from which our lower jaw and the bones of our
middle ear develop, is a whole genealogical tree of disagreeable
ancestors. Our glandula thyreoidea has, according to good
authorities, an origin so slimy that it should never be mentioned in
polite society. The origin of our kidneys appears decidedly vermian.
Time fails me to read merely the name of the witnesses which could
be summoned from our own bodies to witness against us.
Even if the testimony of some of these witnesses is not as strong
as many think, and we have misunderstood several of them, they are
too numerous and their stories hang too well together not to impress
an intelligent and impartial jury. But what if it is all true? What
if, as some think, our millionth cousin, the tiger or cat, is
anatomically a better mammal than I? His teeth and claws and
magnificent muscles are of small value compared with man's mental
power.
What a comedy that man should work so hard to prove that his chief
glory is his opposable thumb, or a few ounces of brain matter! Man's
glory is his mind and will, his reason and moral powers, his vision
of, and communion with, God. And supposing it be true, as I believe
it is true, that the animal has the germ of these also, does that
cloud my mind or obscure my vision or weaken my action? It bids me
only strive the harder to be worthy of the noble ancestors who have
raised me to my higher level and on whose buried shoulders I stand.
Whatever may have been our origin, whoever our ancestors, we are
men. Then let us play the man. If we will but play our part as well
as our old ancestors played theirs, if we will but walk and act
according to our light one-half as heroically and well as they
groped in the darkness, we need not worry about the future. That
will be assured.
Says Professor Huxley: "Man now stands as on a mountain-top far
above the level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his
grosser nature by reflecting here and there a ray from the infinite
source of truth. And thoughtful man, once escaped from the blinding
influences of traditional prejudice, will find in the lowly stock
whence man has sprung the best evidence of the splendor of his
capacities, and will discern in his long progress through the past a
reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler future."
We have sketched hastily and in rude outline the anatomical
structure of the successive stages of man's ancestry; let us now, in
a very brief recapitulation, condense this chronicle into a
historical record of progress.
We began with the amoeba. This could not have been the beginning.
In all its structure it tells us of something earlier and far
simpler, but what this earlier ancestor was we do not know. Rather
more highly organized relatives of the amoeba, the flagellata,
have produced a membrane, and swim by means of vibratile,
whiplash-like flagella. We must emphasize that these little animals
correspond in all essential respects to the cells of our bodies;
they are unicellular animals. And the cell once developed remains
essentially the same structure, modified only in details, throughout
higher animals. And these unicellular animals have the rudiments of
all our functions. Their protoplasm and functions seem to differ
from those of higher animals only in degree, not in kind. And the
more we consider both these facts the more remarkable and suggestive
do they become.
Cells with membranes can unite in colonies capable of division of
labor and differentiation. And magosphæra is just such a little
spheroidal colony. But the cells are still all alike, each one
performs all functions equally well. But in volvox division of labor
and differentiation of structure have taken place. Certain cells
have become purely reproductive, while the rest gather nutriment for
these, but are at the same time sensitive and locomotive, excretory
and respiratory. The first function to have cells specially devoted
to it is the reproductive; this is a function absolutely necessary
for the maintenance of the species. For the nutritive cells die when
they have brought the reproductive cells to their full development.
These few nutritive cells represent the body of all higher animals
in contrast with the reproductive elements. And with the development
of a body, death, as a normal process, enters the world. The
dominant function is here evidently the reproductive, and the whole
body is subservient to this.
In hydra the union and differentiation of cells is carried further.
But the cells are still much alike and only slowly lose their own
individuality in that of the whole animal. This is shown in the fact
that each entodermal cell digests its own particles of food,
although the nutriment once digested diffuses to all parts of the
body. Also almost any part of the animal containing both ectoderm
and entoderm can be cut off and will develop into a new animal.
But beside the reproductive cells and tissues hydra has developed a
very simple digestive system, in which the newly caught food at
least macerates and begins to be dissolved. This is the second
essential function. The animal can, and the plant as a rule does,
exist with only the lowest rudiments of anything like nervous or
muscular power; but no species can exist without good powers of
digestion and reproduction. These essential organs must first
develop and the higher must wait. And the inner, digestive, layer of
cells persists in our bodies as the lining of the mid-intestine. We
compared hydra therefore to a little patch of the lining of our
intestine covered with a flake of epidermis; only these layers in
hydra possess powers lost to the corresponding cells of our bodies
in the process of differentiation. Notice, please, that when cell or
organ has once been developed it persists, as a rule, modified, but
not lost. Nature's experiments are not in vain; her progress is very
slow but sure. But hydra has also the promise of better things,
traces of muscular and nervous tissue. There are still no compact
muscles, like our own, much less ganglion or brain or nerve-centre
of individuality. The tissues are diffuse, but they are the
materials out of which the organs of higher animals will
crystallize, so to speak. Notice also that these higher muscles and
nerves are here entirely subservient to, and exist for, digestion
and reproduction.
In the turbellaria the reproductive system has reached a very high
grade of development. It is a complex and beautifully constructed
organ. The digestive system has also vastly improved; it has its own
muscular layers, and often some means of grasping food. But it is
slower in reaching its full development than the reproductive
system. But all the muscles are no longer attached to the stomach;
they are beginning to assert their independence, and, in a rude way,
to build a body-wall. But they are in many layers, and run in almost
all directions. Some of these layers will disappear, but the most
important ones, consisting of longitudinal and transverse fibres,
will persist in higher forms. Locomotion by means of these muscles
is slowly coming into prominence. They are no longer merely slaves
of digestion.
But a muscular fibril contracts only under the stimulus of a nervous
impulse. More nerve-cells are necessary to control these more
numerous muscular fibrils. The animal now moves with one end
foremost, and that end first comes in contact with food, hindrances,
or injurious surroundings. Here the sensory cells of feeling and
their nerve fibrils multiply. Remember that these neuro-epithelial
sensory cells are suited to respond not merely to pressure, but to a
variety of the stimuli, chemical, molecular, and of vibration, which
excite our organs of smell, taste, and hearing. Such organs and the
directive eyes appear mainly at this anterior end. But a ganglion
cell sends an impulse to a muscle because it has received one along
a sensory nerve from one or more of these sensory cells. Hence the
ganglion cells will increase in number. The old cobweb-like plexus
condenses into a little knot, the supra-oesophageal ganglion. This
ganglion cannot do much, if any, thinking; it is rather a steering
organ to control the muscles and guide the animal. It is the servant
of the locomotive system. Yet it is the beginning of the brain of
higher animals, and probably still persists as an infinitesimal
portion of our human brain. And all this is the prophecy of a head
soon to be developed. An excretory system has appeared to carry off
the waste of the muscles and nerves.
In the schematic worm and annelid the reproductive system is
simpler, though perhaps equally effective. It takes the excess of
nutriment of the body. The muscular system has taken the form of a
sack composed of longitudinal and transverse fibres. The
perivisceral cavity, formed perhaps by cutting off and enlarging the
lateral pouches of the turbellarian digestive system, serves as a
very simple but serviceable circulatory system. But in the annelid
and all higher forms a special system of tubes has developed to
carry the nutriment, and usually oxygen also, needed to keep up the
combustion required to furnish the energy in these active organs.
The digestive system has attained its definite form with the
appearance of an anal opening and the accompanying division of labor
and differentiation into fore-, mid-, and hind-intestine.
The digestive and reproductive systems have thus nearly attained
their final form. From the higher worms upward the digestive system
will improve greatly. Its lining will fold and flex and vastly
increase the digestive and absorptive surfaces. The layer of cells
which now secrete the digestive fluids will in part be replaced by
massive glands. Far better means of grasping food than the horny
teeth of annelids will yet appear. But all these changes are
inconsiderable compared with the vast advance made by the muscular
and nervous systems. Reproduction and digestion are losing their
supremacy in the animal body. Their advance and improvement will
require but little further attention.
In the annelid especially, and to some extent in the schematic worm,
the supra-oesophageal ganglion is relieved in part of the direct
control of the muscular fibrils and has become an organ of
perception and the seat of government of lower nervous centres. In
all higher forms it innervates directly only the principal
sense-organs of the head. And at this stage the light-perceiving
directive eye has developed into a form-perceiving, eidoscopic
organ. The eye was short of range and its images were perhaps rude
and imperfect, but it was a visual eye and had vast possibilities.
The animal is taking cognizance of ever more subtle elements in its
environment. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the eidoscopic
eye first awakened the slumbering animal mind, for its reflex effect
upon the supra-oesophageal ganglion cannot be over-estimated. The
animal will very soon begin to think.
Between the turbellarian and the annelid many aberrant lines
diverged. Some of these attained a comparatively high level and then
seemed to meet insuperable obstacles, while others came to an end or
turned downward very early. Three of these demanded attention, those
leading to mollusks, insects, and vertebrates. And it is interesting
to notice that the fundamental difference between these three lines
was the skeleton, or perhaps we ought to say it was the habit of
life which led to the development of such a skeleton.
The mollusk took to a sluggish, creeping mode of life, under an
external purely protective skeleton; the insect to a creeping mode
of life, with an external but almost purely locomotive skeleton; the
vertebrate kept on swimming and developed an internal locomotive
skeleton. And it must already have become clear to you that the
destiny of these different lines was fixed not so much directly by
the skeleton itself as by its reflex effect in moulding the
muscular, and ultimately the nervous, system.
The insects formed their skeleton by thickening the horny cuticle of
the annelid. They transformed the annelid parapodia into legs and
developed wings. They attained life in the air. They devoted the
muscles of the body largely to the extremities and gained swift
locomotion. They have a fair circulatory and an excellent
respiratory system. Best of all, they developed a head and a brain
by fusing the three anterior ganglia of the body. The insect could
and does think. Such a structure ought to lead to great and high
results. But actually their possibilities were very limited. They
have not progressed markedly during the last geological period.
Their external skeleton was easily attained and brought speedy
advantages, which for a time placed them far above all competitors.
But it limited their size and length of life and opportunities, and
finally their intelligence. They remained largely the slaves of
instinct. They followed an attractive and exceedingly promising
path, but it led to the bottom of a cliff, not to the summit.
The mollusks, clams, and snails took an easier, down-hill road. They
formed a shell, and it developed large enough to cover them. It
hampered and almost destroyed locomotion and reduced nerve to a
minimum. But nerves are nothing but a nuisance anyhow. And why
should they move? Food was plenty down in the mud, and if danger
threatened, they withdrew into the shell. They stayed down in the
mud and let the world go its way. If grievously afflicted by a
parasite they produced a pearl--to save themselves from further
discomfort. They developed just enough muscle and nervous system to
close the shell or drag it a little way; that was all. Digestion and
reproduction retained the supremacy. They were fruitful and
multiplied, and produced hosts of other clams and snails. The
present was enough for them and they had that.
For if the winner in the struggle for existence is the one who gains
the most food, the most entire protection against discomfort, danger
from enemies or unfavorable surroundings, and the most fruitful and
rapid reproduction--and these are all good--then the clam is the
highest product of evolution. It never has been surpassed--I venture
to say it never can be--except possibly by the tape-worms. I can
never help thinking with what contempt these primitive oysters, if
they had had brains enough, would have looked down upon the toiling,
struggling, discontented, fighting, aspiring primitive vertebrates.
How they would have wondered why God allowed such disagreeable,
disturbing, unconventional creatures to exist, and thanked him that
he had made the world for them, and heaven too, if there be such a
place for mollusks. Their road led to the Slough of Contentment.
But even in molluscan history there was a tragic chapter. The squids
and cuttle-fishes regained the swimming life, and in their latest
forms gave up the protective shell. But its former presence had so
modified their structure that any great advance was impossible. It
was too late. The sins of the fathers were visited upon the children
in the thousandth generation.
The vertebrate developed an internal skeleton. This was necessarily
a slow growth, and the type came late to supremacy. The longitudinal
muscles are arranged in heavy bands on each side of the back, and
the animal swims rapidly. The sense-organs are keen. The brain
contains the ganglia of several or many segments and is highly
differentiated. It has a special centre of perception, thought, and
will; it is an organ of mind. The vertebrate has the physical and
mental advantages of large size.
First the definite form and mode of developing a vertebra is
attained. Then the vertebral column is perfected. The fins are
modified into legs. The lungs increase in size and the heart becomes
double. The animal emerges on land; and, with a better supply of
oxygen and less loss of heat, all the functions are performed with
the highest possible efficiency. First, apparently, amphibia, then
reptiles, and finally mammals of enormous size and strength
appeared. It looked as if the earth were to be an arena where
gigantic beasts fought a never-ending battle of brute force. But
these great brutes reproduced slowly, had therefore little power of
adaptation, were fitted to special conditions, and when the
conditions changed they disappeared. The bird tried once more the
experiment of developing the locomotive powers to the highest
possible extent. It became a flying machine, and every organ was
moulded to suit this life. Every ounce of spare weight was thrown
aside, the muscles were wonderfully arranged and of the highest
possible efficiency. The body temperature is higher than that of
mammals. The whole organization is a physiological high-pressure
engine. The sense-organs are perhaps the finest and keenest in the
whole animal kingdom. The brain is inferior only to that of mammals.
The experiment could not have been tried under more favorable
conditions; it was not a failure, it certainly was not a success
when compared with that of mammals.
The possibilities of every system except one had been practically
exhausted. Only brain development remained as the last hope of
success. Here was an untried line, and the mammals followed it.
During the short tertiary period the brain in many of their genera
seems to have increased tenfold. By the arboreal life of the highest
forms the hand is developed as the instrument of the thinking brain.
The battle is beginning to become one of wits, and the crown will
soon pass from the strongest to the shrewdest. Mind, not muscle,
much less digestion or reproduction, is the goal of the animal
kingdom. And we shall see later that the mammalian mode of
reproduction and of care of the young led to an almost purely mental
and moral advance. For these could have but one logical outcome,
family life. And the family is the foundation of society. And family
and social life have been the school in which man has been compelled
to learn the moral lessons, the application of which has made him
what he is.
You must all, I think, have noticed that the different systems of
organs succeed one another in a certain definite order; and that
each stage from the lowest to the highest is characterized by the
predominance of a certain function or group of functions. This
sequence of functions is not a deduction but a fact. Place side by
side all possible genealogical trees of the animal kingdom, whether
founded on comparative anatomy, embryology, palæontology, or all
combined. They will all disclose this sequence of functions arranged
in the same order. Let me call your attention to the fact that this
order is not due to chance, but rests upon a physiological basis. We
might almost claim that if the evolution of man from the single cell
be granted, no other order of their occurrence is possible.
The protozoa are mostly, though not purely, nutritive and
reproductive. These functions are essential to the existence of the
species. Naturally in the early protozoan colonies, and in forms
like hydra, these functions predominated. But mere digestive tissue
is not enough for digestion. Muscles are needed to draw the food to
the mouth, to keep the digestive sack in contact with it, and for
other purposes. A little higher they are used to enable the animal
to go in search of its food. They are still, however, more or less
entirely subservient to digestion. But in the highest worms we are
beginning to see signs that muscles are predominating in the body;
and we feel that, while mutually helpful, the digestive system
exists for the muscles, and these latter are becoming the aim of
development. From worms upward there is a marked advance in physical
activity and strength. The muscles thicken and are arranged in
heavier bands. Skeleton and locomotive appendages and jaws follow in
insects and vertebrates. The direct battle of animal against animal,
and of strength opposed to strength or activity, becomes ever
sharper. The strongest and most active are selected and survive.
And yet this is not the whole truth. Some power of perception is
possessed by every animal. But until muscles had developed the
nervous system could be of but little practical value. Knowledge of
even a great emergency is of little use, if I can do nothing about
it. But when the muscles appeared, nerves and ganglion cells were
necessary to stimulate and control them. And this highest system
holds for a long time a position subordinate to that of the lower
muscular organ. Its development seems at first sight extraordinarily
slow. Only in insects and vertebrates has it become a centre of
instinct and thought. Through the sense-organs it is gaining an ever
clearer, deeper, and wider knowledge of its environment. First it is
affected only by the lower stimuli of touch, taste, and smell. Then
with the development of ear and eye it takes cognizance of ever
subtler forces and movements. Memory comes into activity very early.
The animal begins to learn by experience. The brain is becoming not
merely a steering but a thinking organ. More and more nervous
material is crowded into it and detailed for its work. Wits and
shrewdness are beginning to count for something in the battle. Not
only the animal with the strongest muscles, but the one with the
best brain survives. And thus at last the brain began to develop
with a rapidity as remarkable as its long delay. Thus each higher
function is called into activity by the next lower, serves this at
first, and only later attains its supremacy.
And yet the advance of the different functions is not altogether
successive. Muscle and nerve do not wait for digestion and
reproduction to show signs of halting before they begin to advance.
They all advance at once. But the progress of reproduction and
digestion is most rapid at first, and it appears as if they would
outrun the others. But in the ascending series the others follow
after, and soon overtake and pass by them. And these lower
functions, when out-marched, do not lag behind, but keep in touch
with the others, forming the rear-guard and supply-train of the
army. And notice that each organ holds the predominance about as
long as it shows the power of rapid improvement. The length of its
reign is pretty closely proportional to its capacity of development.
The digestive system reaches that limit early, the muscular system
is capable of indefinitely higher complexity, as we see in our hand.
But the muscular system has nearly or quite reached its limit. The
body had seen its day of dominance before man arrived on the globe.
But where is the limit to man's mental or moral powers? Every
upward step in knowledge, wisdom, and righteousness only opens our
eyes to greater heights, before unperceived and still to be
attained. These capacities, even to our dim vision, are evidently
capable of an indefinite, perhaps infinite, development. What, as
yet only partially developed, faculty remains to supersede them? As
being capable of an endless development and without a rival, may we
not, _must_ we not, consider them as ends in themselves? They are
evidently what we are here for. Everything points to a spiritual end
in animal evolution. The line of development is from the
predominantly material to the predominance of the non-material. Not
that the material is to be crowded out. It is to reach its highest
development in the service of the mind. The body must be sustained
and perfected, but it is not the end. The goal is mind, the body is
of subordinate importance.
But if this is true, we must study carefully the development of mind
in the animal. The question presses upon us; if there is a sequence
of physical functions in animal development, is there not perhaps
also a sequence in the development of the mental faculties? What is
the crowning faculty of the human mind and how is its fuller
development to be attained? Let us pass therefore to the question of
mind in the animal kingdom.
CHAPTER V
THE HISTORY OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS SEQUENCE OF FUNCTIONS
We have sketched hastily the development of the human body. This
portion of our history is marked by the successive dominance of
higher and higher functions. It is a history treating of successive
eras. There is first the period of the dominance of reproduction and
digestion, purely vegetative functions, characteristics of the plant
just as truly as of the animal. This period extends from the
beginning of life up to the time when the annelid was the highest
living form yet developed. But in insects and lower vertebrates
another system has risen to dominance. This is muscle. The
vertebrate no longer devotes all, or the larger part, of its income
to digestion and reproduction. If it did, it would degenerate or
disappear. The stomach and intestine are improved, but only that
they may furnish more abundant nutriment for building and supporting
more powerful muscles better arranged. The history of vertebrates is
a record of the struggle for supremacy between successive groups of
continually greater and better applied muscular power. Here strength
and activity seem to be the goal of animal development, and the
prize falls to the strongest or most agile. The earth is peopled by
huge reptiles, or mammals of enormous strength, and by birds of
exceeding swiftness. This portion of our history covers the era of
muscular activity.
But these huge brutes are mostly doomed to extinction, and the bird
fails of supremacy in the animal kingdom. "The race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong." All the time another system
has been slowly developing. The complicated nervous system has
required ages for its construction and arrangement. Only in the
highest mammals does the brain assert its right to supremacy. But
once established on its throne the brain reigns supreme; its right
is challenged by no other organ. The possibilities of all the other
organs, _as supreme rulers_, have been exhausted. Each one has been
thoroughly tested, and its inadequacy proven beyond doubt by actual
experiment. These formerly supreme lower organs must serve the
higher. The age of man's existence on the globe is, and must remain,
the era of mind. For the mind alone has an inexhaustible store of
possibilities.
The development of all these systems is simultaneous. From the very
beginning all the functions have been represented, all the systems
have been gradually advancing. Hydra has a nervous system just as
really as man. It has no brain, but it has the potentiality and
promise of one, and is taking the necessary steps toward its
attainment. But while the development of all is simultaneous, their
culmination and supremacy is successive, first stomach and muscle,
then brain and mind. That was not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. But now
that the mind has once become supreme, man must live and work
chiefly for its higher development. Thus alone is progress possible.
But the word mind calls up before us a long list of powers. And the
questions arise, Is one mode and line of mental action just as much
the goal of man's development as another? Is man to cultivate the
appetite for food and sense gratification just as much as the hunger
for righteousness? Or is appetite in the mind like digestion in the
body, a function, necessary indeed and once dominant, but no longer
fitted for supreme control? Is there in the development of the
mental powers or functions just as really a sequence of dominance as
in that of the bodily functions? Are there older and lower powers
and modes of action, which, though once supreme, must now be rigidly
kept down in their proper lower place? Are there lower motives, for
which the very laws of evolution forbid us to live, just as truly as
they forbid a man's living for stomach or brute strength instead of
brain and mind? Are these lower powers merely the foundation
on which the higher motives and powers are to rise in their
transcendent glory? This is the question which we now must face,
and it is of vital importance.
We have come to one of the most important and difficult subjects of
zoölogy. Let us distinctly recognize that it is not our task to
explain the origin of mind, or even of a single mental faculty. I
shall take for granted what many of you will not admit, that the
germs of all man's highest mental powers are present undeveloped in
the mind, if you will call it so, of the amoeba. The limits of
this course of lectures have required us to choose between
alternatives, either to attempt to prove the truth of the theory of
evolution, or taking this for granted, to attempt to find its
bearings on our moral and religious beliefs. I have chosen the
latter course, and here, as elsewhere, will abide by it. I should
not have followed such a course if I did not thoroughly believe that
man also, in mind as well as body, is the product of evolution. But
this is no reason for your accepting these views. You are asked only
to judge impartially of the tendencies of the theory. We take for
granted, I repeat, that all man's mental faculties are germinally,
potentially, present in protoplasm; we seek the history of their
development.
We must remember, further, that the science of animal or comparative
psychology is yet in its infancy. Even reliable facts are only
slowly being sifted and recorded in sufficient numbers to make
deductions at all safe. And even of these facts different writers
give very different explanations. As Mr. Romanes has well said, "All
our knowledge of mental faculties, other than our own, really
consists of an inferential interpretation of bodily activities--this
interpretation being founded on our subjective knowledge of our own
mental activities. By inference we project, as it were, the human
pattern of our own mental chromograph on what is to us the otherwise
blank screen of another mind." The value and clearness of our
inferences will be proportional to the similarity of the animal to
ourselves. Thus we can educate many of our higher mammals by a
system of rewards and punishments, and we seem therefore to have
good reason to believe that fear and joy, anger and desire, certain
powers of perception and inference, are in their minds similar to
our own. But fear in a fish is certainly a much dimmer apprehension
of danger than in us, even if it deserves the name of apprehension.
And the mental state which we call "alarm" in a fly or any lower
animal is very difficult to clearly imagine or at all express in
terms of our own mind.
Some investigators have made the mistake of projecting into the
animal mind all our emotions and complicated trains of thought. Thus
Schwammerdam apparently credits the snail with remorse for the
commission of excesses. Others go to the other extreme and make
animals hardly more than mindless automata. We are warned,
therefore, by our very mode of study, to be cautious, not too
absolutely sure of our results, nor indignant at others who may take
a very different view. And yet by moving cautiously and accepting
only what seems fairly clear and evident we may arrive at very
valuable and tolerably sure results.
The human mind, and the animal mind apparently, manifests itself in
three states or functions. These are intelligence, the realm of
knowledge; susceptibility, the realm or state of feelings or
emotions; will, the power or state of choice. Let us trace first the
development of intelligence or the intellect in the animal. Let us
try to discover what kinds of knowledge are successively attained
and the mode and sequence of their attainment. Hydra appears to be
conscious of its food. It recognizes it partially by touch, perhaps
also by feeling the waves caused by its approach. It seems also to
recognize food at a little distance by a power comparable to our
sense of smell. Stronger impacts cause it to contract. It neither
sees nor hears; it probably does little or no thinking. Its
knowledge is therefore limited to the recognition of objects either
in contact with, or but slightly removed from, itself. And its
recognition of the objects is very dim and incomplete, obtained
through the sense of touch and smell.
A little higher in the animal world a rude ear has developed, first
as a very delicate organ for feeling the waves caused by approaching
food or enemies; only later as an organ of hearing. Meanwhile the
eye has been developing, to perceive the subtle ether vibrations.
The eye of the turbellaria distinguishes only light from darkness,
that of the annelid is a true visual organ. Now the brain can begin
to perceive the shape of objects at a little distance. Touch and
smell, hearing, sight; such is sequence of sense perceptions. The
sense-organs respond to continually more delicate and subtle
impacts, and cover an ever-widening range of more and more distant
objects. Up to this point intelligence has hardly included more than
sense-perceptions.
But these sense-perceptions have been all the time spurring the mind
to begin a higher work. At first it is conscious merely of objects,
and its main effort is to gain a clearer and clearer perception of
these.
Now it is led to undertake, so to speak, the work of a sense-organ
of a higher grade. It begins to directly see invisible relations
just as truly as through the eye it has perceived light. First
perhaps it perceives that certain perceptions and experiences,
agreeable or disagreeable, occur in a certain sequence. It begins to
associate these. It learns thus to recognize the premonitory
symptoms of nature's favor or disfavor, and thus gains food or
avoids dangers. The bee learns to associate accessible nectar with a
certain spot on the flower marked by bright dots or lines,
"honey-guides," and the chimpanzee that when a hen cackles there is
an egg in the nest. But association is only the first lesson;
inference and understanding follow.
The child at kindergarten receives a few blocks. It admires and
plays with them. Then it is taught to notice their form. After a
time it arranges them in groups and learns the first elements of
number. But when it has advanced to higher mathematics, the blocks,
or figures on the blackboard, become only symbols or means of
illustrating the great theorems and propositions of that science.
Thus the animal has begun in the kindergarten way to dimly perceive
that there are real, though intangible and invisible, relations
between objects. But what is all human science but the clearer
vision, and farther search into, and tracing of these same
relations? And what is all advance of knowledge but a perception of
ever subtler relations? What is even the knowledge of right but the
perception of the subtlest and deepest and widest relations of man
to his environment? The animal seems to be steadily advancing along
the path toward the perception of abstract truth, though man alone
really attains it.
And the higher power of association and inference which we call
understanding, aided by memory, results in the power of learning by
experience, so characteristic of higher vertebrates. The hunted bird
or mammal very quickly becomes wary. A new trap catches more than a
better old one until the animals have learned to understand it, and
young animals are trapped more easily than old. Cases showing the
limitations of mammalian intelligence are interesting in this
connection. A cat which wished to look out and find the cause of a
noise outside, when all the windows were closed by wooden blinds,
jumped upon a stand and looked into a mirror. Her inference as to
the general use of glass was correct; all its uses had not yet come
within the range of her experience. A monkey used to stop a hole in
the side of a cage with straw. The keeper, to tease him, used to
pull this out. But one day the monkey tugged at a nail in the side
of his cage until he had pulled it out, and thrust it into the hole.
But when it was pushed back he fell into a rage. His inference that
the nail-head could not be pulled through was entirely correct; he
had failed to foresee that it could be pushed back. Many such
instances have probably come within the range of your observation,
if you have noticed them. But many of the facts which Mr. Romanes
gives us concerning the intelligence of monkeys, apes, and baboons
would not disgrace the intelligence of children or men.
Mr. Romanes relates the following account of a little capuchin
monkey from Brazil:
"To-day he obtained possession of a hearth-brush, one of the kind
which has the handle screwed into the brush. He soon found the
way to unscrew the handle, and having done that he immediately
began to try to find out the way to screw it in again. This he in
time accomplished. At first he put the wrong end of the handle
into the hole, but turned it round and round the right way for
screwing. Finding it did not hold he turned the other end of the
handle and carefully stuck it into the hole, and began again to
turn it the right way. It was of course a difficult feat for him
to perform, for he required both his hands in order to screw it
in, and the long bristles of the brush prevented it from
remaining steady or with the right side up. He held the brush
with his hind hand, but even so it was very difficult for him to
get the first turn of the screw to fit into the thread; he worked
at it, however, with the most unwearying perseverance until he
got the first turn of the screw to catch, and he then quickly
turned it round and round until it was screwed up to the end. The
most remarkable thing was, that however often he was disappointed
in the beginning, he never was induced to try turning the handle
the wrong way; he always screwed it from right to left. As soon
as he had accomplished his wish he unscrewed it again, and then
screwed it in again the second time rather more easily than the
first, and so on many times. When he had become by practice
tolerably perfect in screwing and unscrewing, he gave it up and
took to some other amusement. One remarkable thing is that he
should take so much trouble to do that which is no material
benefit to him. The desire to accomplish a chosen task seems a
sufficient inducement to lead him to take any amount of trouble.
This seems a very human feeling, such as is not shown, I believe,
by any other animal. It is not the desire of praise, as he never
notices people looking on; it is simply the desire to achieve an
object for the sake of achieving an object, and he never rests
nor allows his attention to be distracted until it is done....
"As my sister once observed while we were watching him conducting
some of his researches, in oblivion to his food and all his other
surroundings--'When a monkey behaves like this it is no wonder
that man is a scientific animal!'"[A]
[Footnote A: Romanes: Animal Intelligence, pp. 490, 498.]
In the highest mammals we find also different degrees of attention
and concentration of thought and observation. This difference can
easily be noticed in young hunting dogs. A trainer of monkeys said
that he could easily select those which could most easily be taught,
by noticing in the first lesson whether he could easily gain and
hold their attention. This was easy with some, while others were
diverted by every passing fly; and the latter, like heedless
students, made but slow progress.
It is interesting to notice that one of the perceptions which we
class among the highest is apparently developed comparatively early.
I refer to the æsthetic perception of the beautiful. Now, the
perception of beauty is generally considered as not very far below
or removed from the perception of truth and right. But some insects
and birds apparently possess this perception and the corresponding
emotion in no low degree. The colors of flowers seem to exist mainly
for the attraction of insects to insure cross-fertilization, and
certain insects seem to prefer certain colors. But you may say that
these afford merely sense gratification like that which green
affords to our eyes or sugar to our tastes.
But does not the grouping of colors in the flower appeal to some
æsthetic standard in the mind of the insect? What of the tail of the
peacock? Its iridescent rings and eyes evidently appeal to something
in the mind of the female. Do form and grouping minister to pure
sense gratification? What of the song of the thrush? Does not the
orderly and harmonious arrangement of notes and cadences appeal to
some standard of order of arrangement, and hence idea of harmony, in
the mind of the bird's mate?
Now, I grant you readily that the A B C of this training is mere
sense gratification at the sight of bright colors. Most insects and
birds have probably not advanced much beyond this first lesson.
Savages have generally stopped there or reverted to it. But any
appreciation of form and harmonious arrangement of cadence and
colors seems to me at least to demand some perception which we must
call æsthetic, or dangerously near it. But here you must judge
carefully for yourselves lest you be misled. For remember, please,
that those schemes of psychology farthest removed from, and least
readily reconcilable to, the theory of evolution maintain that
perception of beauty is the work of the rational faculty, which also
perceives truth and right in much the same way that it perceives
and recognizes beauty. If the animal has the æsthetic perception, it
has the faculty which, at the next higher stage of development, will
perceive, and recognize as such, both truth and right. We are
considering no unimportant question; for on our answer to this
depends our answer to questions of far greater importance.
Does it look as if the animal had begun to learn the first rudiments
of the great science of rights, of his own rights and those of
others? This is an exceedingly difficult question, though often
answered unhesitatingly in the negative. But what of the division of
territory by the dogs in oriental cities, a division evidently
depending upon something outside of mere brute strength and power to
maintain, and their respect of boundaries? The female is allowed, I
am told by an eye-witness long resident in Constantinople, to
distribute her puppies in unoccupied spots through the city without
interference. But when she has once located them, she is not allowed
to return and visit them, or pass that way again. So the account by
Dr. Washburn of platoons of dogs coming in turn, and peaceably, to
feed on a dead donkey in the streets of Constantinople, would seem
to be most naturally explained by some dim recognition of rights.
Rook communities have not received the attention and investigation
which they deserve, but their actions are certainly worthy of
attention. Concerning the sense of ownership in dogs and other
mammals opinions differ, and yet many facts are most naturally
explained on such a supposition.
Just one more question in this connection, for we are in the
borderland or twilightland where it is much safer to ask questions
than to attempt to answer them. How do you explain the "instinctive"
fear of man on the part of wild and fierce animals? They certainly
do not quail before his brute strength, for a blow at such a time
breaks the charm and insures an attack. They quail before his eye
and look. Is not this the answering of a personality in the animal
to the personality in man; a recognition of something deeper than
bone and muscle? And may not, as Mr. Darwin has urged, this fear in
the presence of a higher personality be the dim foreshadowing of an
awe which promises indefinitely better things? Is, after all, the
attachment of a dog to his master something far deeper than an
appetite for bones or pats, or a fear of kicks?
A host of other and similar questions throng upon us here, to no one
of which we can give a definite answer. We need more investigation,
more light. We must not rest contented with old prejudices or accept
with too great certainty new explanations. The questions are worthy
of careful and patient investigation. The study of comparative
anatomy has thrown a flood of light on the structure and working of
the human body in health and disease. We shall never fully
understand the mind of man until we know more of the working of the
mind of the animal.
It would seem to be clear that there is a sequence of dominance in
the faculties of the intellect. First, the only means of acquiring
knowledge is through sense-perception. But memory dawns far down in
the animal kingdom. And thus the animal begins to associate past
experience with present objects. The bee remembers the gaining of
honey in the past, associated with the color of the flower which she
now sees, and knows that honey is to be attained again. Thus in time
association leads to inference, and understanding has dawned. But
the highest faculty of the intellect is the rational intelligence,
which perceives beauty, truth, and goodness. This is the last to
develop. Traces of its working may be perhaps discovered below man,
but only in man does it become dominant. Through it I perceive my
rights and duties, and come to the consciousness of my own
personality as a moral agent. This tells me of the relation of my
own personality to other persons and things. And these are evidently
the most important objects of human study. The attainment of this
knowledge and the development of this faculty are evidently the goal
of human intellectual development. This it is which has insured
progress and raised man ever higher above the brutes.
Before we can proceed to the study of the will we must clearly
recognize and define certain modes of mental and nervous action,
which sooner or later manifest themselves in muscular activity. For,
while certain of our bodily activities are clearly voluntary, others
take place wholly, or in part independently, of the individual will.
Between these different modes of bodily action we must distinguish
as clearly as may be possible.
1. Reflex Action. I touch something cold or hot in the dark,
suddenly and unexpectedly. I draw back my hand involuntarily and
before I have perceived the sensation of cold or heat. You tell me
to keep my eyes open while you make a sudden pass at them with your
hand. I try hard to do so, but my eyes shut for all that. I shut
them unconsciously and against my own will. I say, "They shut of
themselves." Now, this is not true, but the explanation is not
difficult. These and similar actions are entirely possible, although
the continuity between spinal marrow and brain may have been so
interrupted by some accident that sensation in the reflexly active
part fails altogether. A bird flaps its wings after its head is cut
off, and yet the seat of consciousness and will is certainly in the
brain. A patient with a "broken back," and paralyzed in his legs,
will draw up his feet if they are tickled, although he is entirely
unable to move them by any effort of his will and has no
consciousness of the irritation.
The physiological action is in this case clear. The vibration of the
nerve caused by the tickling travels from the foot to the
appropriate centre in the spinal marrow, and here gives rise to, or
is switched off as, a motor impulse travelling back to the muscles
of the leg, causing them to contract. In the injured patient the
nervous impulse cannot reach the brain, the seat of consciousness,
and hence this is not awakened. Normally consciousness does result
in a majority of such cases, but only after the beginning or
completion of the appropriate action. Yet the movements of our
internal organs, intestine and heart, go on continually, and in
health we remain entirely unconscious of their action.
But reflex actions may be anything but simple. We walk and talk, and
write or play the piano without ever thinking of a single muscle or
organ. Yet we had once to learn with much effort to take each step
or frame each letter. Thus actions, originally conscious and
intended, easily become reflex; often repeated the brain leaves
their control to the lower centres. We often say, "I did not intend
to do that; I could not help it." We forget that this excuse is our
worst condemnation. It is a confession that we have allowed or
encouraged a habit to wear a groove from which the wheels of our
life cannot escape. The essential characteristic of reflex action is
therefore that from beginning to completion it goes on independently
of consciousness.
2. Instinct. This is a much-abused word. It is frequently applied to
all the mental actions of animals without much thought or care as to
its meaning. Let us gain a definition from the study of a typical
case lest we use the word as a cloak for ignorance or negligent
thoughtlessness. Watch a spider building its wonderful geometrical
web. The web is a work of art, and every motion of the spider
beautifully adapted to its purpose. But the spider is not therefore
necessarily an artist. Let us see of how much the spider is probably
conscious, remembering that our best judgment is but an inference.
We have good reason to believe that she is conscious of the stimulus
to action, hunger. She may be, probably is, conscious of the end to
be attained--to catch a fly for her dinner. She seems conscious of
what she is doing. In all these respects this differs from reflex
action. But she is probably unconscious of the exact fitness of the
means to the end. We do not believe that she has adopted the
geometrical pattern, because she has discovered or calculated that
this will make the closest and largest net for the smallest outlay
of labor and material. Furthermore the young spider builds
practically as good a web as the old one. She has inherited the
power, not developed or gained it by experience or observation. And
all the members of the species have inherited it in much the same
degree of perfection.
Concerning the origin of instincts there are several theories. Some
instincts would seem to be the result of non-intelligent, perhaps
unconscious, habits becoming fixed by heredity and improved by
natural selection; others would appear to be modifications of
actions originally due to intelligence. Instinct is therefore
characterized by consciousness of the stimulus to act, of the means
and end, without the knowledge of the exact adaptation of means to
end. It is hereditary and characterizes species or large groups.
3. Intelligent Action. You come in cold and sit down before an open
fire. You push the brands together to make the fire burn. Applying
once more the criterion of consciousness to this action we notice
that you are conscious of the stimulus to act, of the steps of the
action, and of the end to be attained, exactly as in instinctive
action. But finally, and this is the essential characteristic of
intelligent action, you are aware to a certain extent of the fitness
of the means to the attainment of the end. This piece of knowledge
you had to acquire for yourself. Erasmus Darwin defined a fool as a
man who had never tried an experiment. Experience and observation,
not heredity, are the sources of intelligence. Intelligence is power
to think, and a man may be very learned--for do we not have learned
pigs?--and yet have very little real intelligence. Hence this is
possessed by different individuals in very varying degrees.
We may now briefly compare these three kinds of nervous action.
Reflex action is involuntary and unconscious. The actor may, and
usually does, become conscious of the action after it has been
commenced or completed, but this is not at all necessary or
universal.
Instinctive action is to a certain extent voluntary and conscious.
The actor is conscious of the stimulus, the means and mode, and the
end or purpose of the action. Of the exact fitness or adaptation of
the means to the end the actor is unconscious.
Intelligent action is conscious and voluntary. The actor is
conscious of the stimulus to act, of the means and mode, and to a
certain extent of the adaptation of the means to the end. This last
item of knowledge, lacking in instinctive action, is acquired by
experience or observation.
Reflex action may be regarded as a comparatively mechanical, though
often very complex, process; the reflex ganglia appear to be hardly
more than switch-boards. There is stimulus of the sense-organs, and
thus what Mr. Romanes has called "unfelt sensation," unfelt as far
as the completion of the action is concerned. But in instinct the
sensation no longer remains unfelt; perception is necessary,
consciousness plays a part. And this consciousness is a vastly more
subtle element, differing as much apparently from the vibration of
brain, or nervous, molecules as the Geni from the rubbing of
Aladdin's lamp, to borrow an illustration.
But this element of consciousness is one which it is exceedingly
difficult to detect in our analysis, and yet upon it our
classification and the psychic position of an animal must to a
great extent depend. The amoeba contracts when pricked,
jelly-fishes swim toward the light, the earthworm, "alarmed" by the
tread of your foot, withdraws into its hole. Are these and similar
actions reflex or instinctive? A grain of consciousness preceding an
action which before has been reflex changes it into instinct. Mr.
Romanes, probably correctly, regards them as purely reflex. We must,
I think, believe that these actions result in consciousness even in
the lowest forms. The selection and attainment of food certainly
looks like conscious action. Probably all nerve-cells or nervous
material were originally, even in the lowest forms, dimly conscious;
then by division of labor some became purely conductive, others more
highly perceptive. The important thing for us to remember in our
present ignorance is not to be dogmatic.
Furthermore, the gain of a grain of consciousness of the adaptation
of certain means to special ends changes instinctive action into
intelligent, and its loss may reverse the process. Fortunately we
have found that in so far as actions, even instinctive, are modified
by experience, they are becoming to that extent intelligent. This
criterion of intelligence seems easily applied. But this profiting
by experience must manifest itself within the lifetime of the
individual, or in lines outside of circumstances to which its
ordinary instincts are adapted, or we may give to individual
intelligence the credit due really to natural selection. We must be
cautious in our judgments.
These reflex actions are performed independently of consciousness or
will. Consciousness may, probably does, attend the selection and
grasping of food; but most of the actions of the body will go on
better without its interference. It is not yet sufficiently
developed, or, so to speak, wise enough to be intrusted with much
control of the animal.
Among higher worms cases of instinct seem proven. Traces of it will
almost certainly be yet found much lower down. Fresh-water mussels
migrate into deeper water at the approach of cold weather. And if
the clam has instincts, there is no reason why the turbellaria
should not also possess them. But all higher powers develop
gradually, and their beginnings usually elude our search. Along the
line leading from annelids to insects instinct is becoming dominant.
A supraoesophageal ganglion has developed, and has been relieved
of most of the direct control of the muscles. Very good sense-organs
are also present. From this time on consciousness becomes clearer,
and the brain is beginning to assert its right to at least know what
is going on in the body, and to have something to say about it.
Still, as long as the actions remain purely instinctive the brain,
while conscious, is governed by heredity. The animal does as its
ancestors always have. It does not occur to it to ask why it should
do thus or otherwise, or whether other means would be better fitted
to the end in view. It acts exactly like most of the members of our
great political and theological parties. And until the animal has a
better brain this is its best course and is favored by natural
selection.
But the hand of even the best dead ancestors cannot always be
allowed to hold the helm. The brain is still enlarging, the
sense-organs bring in fuller and more definite reports of a wider
environment. Greater freedom of action by means of a stronger
locomotive system is bringing continually new and varied
experiences. And if, as in vertebrates, longer life be added,
frequent repetition of the experience deepens the impression.
Slowly, as if tentatively, the animal begins to modify some of its
instincts, at first only in slight details, or to adopt new lines of
action not included in its old instincts, but suited to the new
emergencies. This is the dawn of intelligence. Its beginnings still
remain undiscovered. Mr. Darwin believes that traces of it can be
found in earthworms and other annelids. He also tells us that
oysters taken from a depth never uncovered by the sea, and
transported inland, open their shells, lose the contained water, and
die; but that left in reservoirs, where they are occasionally left
uncovered for a short time, they learn to keep their shells shut,
and live for a much longer time when removed from the water. If
oysters can learn by experience, lower worms probably can do the
same.
Certain experiments made on sea-anemones, actinæ animals a little
more highly organized than hydra, demand repetition under careful
observation.[A] The observer placed on one of the tentacles of a
sea-anemone a bit of paper which had been dipped in beef-juice. It
was seized and carried to the mouth and here discarded. This
tentacle after one or two experiments refused to have anything more
to do with it. But other tentacles could be successively cheated.
The nerve-cells governing each tentacle appear to have been able to
learn by experience, but each group in the diffuse nervous system
had to learn separately. The dawn of this much of intelligence far
down in the animal kingdom would not be surprising, for the
selection and grasping of food has always involved higher mental
power than most of the actions of these lowest animals. Memory goes
far down in the animal kingdom. Perhaps, as Professor Haeckel has
urged, it is an ultimate mental property of protoplasm. And the
memory of past experience would continually tend to modify habit or
instinct.
[Footnote A: These experiments have been continued with most
interesting and valuable results by Dr. G.H. Parker, of Harvard
University.]
It is unsafe, therefore, to say just where intelligence begins. At a
certain point we find dim traces of it; below that we have failed to
find them. But that they will not be found, we dare not affirm. In
the highest insects instinct predominates, but marks of intelligence
are fairly abundant. Ants and wasps modify their habits to suit
emergencies which instinct alone could hardly cope with. Bees learn
to use grafting wax instead of propolis to stop the chinks in their
hives, and soon cease to store up honey in a warm climate.
Our knowledge of vertebrate psychology is not yet sufficient to give
a history of the struggle for supremacy between instinct and
intelligence, between inherited tendency and the consciousness of
the individual. But the outcome is evident; intelligence prevails,
instinct wanes. The actions of the young may be purely instinctive;
it is better that they should be. But instinct in the adult is more
and more modified by intelligence gained by experience. There is
perhaps no more characteristic instinct than the habit of
nest-building in birds. And yet there are numerous instances where
the structure and position of nests have been completely changed to
suit new circumstances. And the view that this habit is a pure
instinct, unmodified by intelligence, has been disproved by Mr.
Wallace. But while size of brain, keenness of sense-organs, and
length of life may be rightly emphasized as the most important
elements in the development of vertebrate intelligence, the
importance of the appendages should never be forgotten. Cats seem to
have acquired certain accomplishments--opening doors, ringing
door-bells, etc.--never attained by the more intelligent dog, mainly
because of the greater mobility and better powers of grasping of the
forepaws. The elephant has its trunk and the ape its hand. The power
of handling and the increased size of the brain aided each other in
a common advance.
The teachableness of mammals is also a sign of high intelligence.
The young are often taught by the parent, a dim foreshadowing of the
human family relation. And we notice this capacity in domestic
animals because of its practical value to man. And here, too, we
notice the difference between individuals, which fails in instinct.
All spiders of the same species build and hunt alike, although
differences caused by the moulding influence of intelligence will
probably be here discovered. But among individual dogs and horses we
find all degrees of intelligence from absolute stupidity to high
intelligence. And many mammals are slandered grievously by man. The
pig is not stupid, far from it.
Still only in man does intelligence reign supreme and clearly show
its innate powers. But even in man certain realms, like those of the
internal organs, are rarely invaded by consciousness, but are
normally left to the control of reflex action. These actions go on
better without the interference of consciousness.
But other lines of action are relegated as rapidly as possible to
the same control. We learn to walk by a conscious effort to take
each step; afterward we take each step automatically, and think only
whither we wish to go. We learn by conscious effort to talk and
write, to sing, or play the piano. Afterward we frame each letter or
note automatically, and think only of the idea and its expression.
So also in our moral and spiritual nature.[A]
[Footnote A: Mr. James Freeman Clarke has stated this better than I
can. "We may state the law thus: 'Any habitual course of conduct
changes voluntary actions into automatic or involuntary (_i.e._,
reflex) actions.' By practice man forms habits, and habitual action
is automatic action, requiring no exercise of will except at the
beginning of the series of acts. The law of association does the
rest. As voluntary acts are transformed into automatic, the will is
set free to devote itself to higher efforts and larger attainments.
After telling the truth a while by an effort, we tell the truth
naturally, necessarily, automatically. After giving to good objects
for a while from principle, we give as a matter of course. Honesty
becomes automatic; self-control becomes automatic. We rule over our
spirit, repress ill-temper, keep down bad feelings, first by an
effort, afterwards as a matter of course.
"Possibly these virtues really become incarnate in the bodily
organization. Possibly goodness is made flesh and becomes
consolidate in the fibres of the brain. Vices, beginning in the
soul, seem to become at last bodily diseases; why may not virtues
follow the same law? If it were not for some such law of
accumulation as this, the work of life would have to be begun
forever anew. Formation of character would be impossible. We should
be incapable of progress, our whole strength being always employed
in battling with our first enemies, learning evermore anew our
earliest lessons. But by our present constitution he who has taken
one step can take another, and life may become a perpetual advance
from good to better. And the highest graces of all--Faith, Hope, and
Love--obey the same law." See James Freeman Clarke, Every-Day
Religion, p. 122.]
There has been therefore in the successive forms and stages of
animal life a clear sequence of dominant nervous actions. The
actions of all animals below the annelid are mainly reflex or
automatic, unconscious and involuntary. But in insects and lower
vertebrates the highest actions at least are instinctive.
Consciousness plays a continually more important part. Still the
actions are controlled by hereditary tendency far more than by the
will of the individual. But in man instinct has been almost entirely
replaced by conscious, voluntary, intelligent action. And yet in
man, as rapidly as possible, actions which at first require
conscious effort become, through repetition and habit, reflex and
automatic. All our conscious effort and the energy of the will,
being no longer required for these oft-repeated actions, are set
free for higher attainments. The territory which had to be conquered
by hard battles has become an integral part of the realm. It now
hardly requires even a garrison, but has become a source of supplies
for a new advance and march of conquest.
But all this time we have been talking about action and have not
given a thought to the will. And we have spoken as if conscious
perception and intelligence directly controlled will and action. But
this is of course incorrect. Will is practically power of choice.
You ask me whether I prefer this or that, and I answer perhaps that
I do not care. Until I "care" I shall never choose. The perception
must arouse some feeling, if it is to result in choice. I see a
diamond in the road and think it is merely a piece of glass. I do
not stop. But as I am passing on; I remember that there was a
remarkable brilliancy in its flash. It must have been, after all, a
gem. My feelings are aroused. How proud I shall feel to wear it. Or
how much money I can get for it. Or how glad the owner will be when
it is returned to her. I turn back and search eagerly. Perception is
necessary, but it is only the first step. The perception must excite
some feeling, if choice or exertion of the will is to follow. This
is a truism.
Now reflex action takes place independently of consciousness or
will. Instinctive action may be voluntary, but it is, after all, not
so much the result of individual purpose as of hereditary tendency.
Is there then no will in the animal until it has become intelligent?
I think there has been a sort of voluntary action all the time. Even
the amoeba selects or chooses, if I may use the word, its food
among the sand grains. And the will is stimulated to act by the
appetite. Hunger is the first teacher. And how did appetite develop?
Why does the animal hunger for just the food suited to its digestion
and needs? We do not know. And the reproductive appetite soon
follows. One of these results from the condition of the digestive,
the other from that of the reproductive, cells or protoplasm. These
appetites are due to some condition in a part of the organism and
can be _felt_. They are in a sense not of the mind but of the body.
And the response to them on the part of the mind is in some respects
almost comparable to reflex action. But the mode of the response is,
to a certain extent at least, within the control of consciousness.
They train and spur the will as pure reflex action never could. But
the will is as yet hardly more than the expression of these
appetites. It expresses not so much its own decision as that of the
stomach. It is the body's slave and mouthpiece. And once again it is
best and safest for the animal that it should be so.
And these appetites are at first comparatively feeble. There is but
little muscle or nerve and but little food is required. But these
continually strengthen and spur the will harder and more frequently.
And the will stirs up the weary and flagging muscles. The will may
be a poor slave and the appetites hard taskmasters. But under their
stern discipline it is growing stronger and more completely
subjugating the body. Better slavery to hard taskmasters than
rottenness from inertia. The first requirement is power, activity,
and then this power can be directed to ever higher ends. You cannot
steer the vessel until she has sails or an engine; with no "way on"
she will not mind the helm, she only drifts. But the condition of
the animal at this stage certainly looks very unpromising. Can the
will emancipate itself from appetite and control it? Or is it to
remain the slave of the body?
In time an emotion appears which marks the influence not directly of
the body but of the individual consciousness. This is fear; it is
for the body, but not, like hunger, directly of it. It arises in the
mind. It results from experience and memory. The first animal which
feared took a long step upward. But when and where was the dawn of
fear? I touch a sea-anemone and it contracts. Has it felt fear? I
think not. The action certainly may be purely reflex. Natural
selection, not mind, deserves the credit of that action. But I am
sure that the cat fears the dog, or the dog the cat, as the case may
be. I have little or no doubt that the bird fears the cat. I am
inclined to believe that the insect fears the bird and the spider
the wasp. But does the highest worm fear? I do not know. I do not
see how there can have been any fear until there was a nerve-centre
highly enough developed to remember past experiences of danger and
fair sense-organs to report the present risk.
Other emotions soon follow. Anger appears early. The order of
appearance of these emotions or motives I shall not attempt to give
to you. Indeed this is to us of relatively slight importance. The
important point to notice is that a host of these have appeared in
mammals and birds, and that each one of these is a new spur to the
will. And the will of a horse or dog, to say nothing of a pig, is by
no means feeble. And these are slowly emancipating the animal from
the tyranny of appetite. But how slow the progress is! Has the
emancipation yet become complete in man? I need not answer.
The will has in part, at least, escaped from abject slavery to
appetite; it sometimes rises superior to fear. But it is evidently
self-centred. The animal may have forgotten the claims of his dead
ancestors, he is certainly fully alive to his own interests. Can he
even partially rise superior to prudential considerations, as he has
to some extent to the claims of appetite? Is it possible to develop
the unselfish out of the purely selfish? And if so, how is this to
be accomplished? It is not accomplished in the animal; it is but
very incompletely accomplished in man. It will be accomplished one
day.
In action, at least, the animal is not purely selfish. As Mr.
Drummond has shown, reproduction, that old function and first to
gain an organ, is not primarily for the benefit of self, but for the
species. And not only the storing up of material in the egg, but
care for the young after birth, is found in some fish and insects,
and increases from fish upward. I readily grant you that this in its
beginnings may be purely instinctive, and that not a particle of
genuine affection for the young may as yet be present in the mind of
the parent. But beneficial habits may, under the fostering care of
selection, develop into instincts. The animal may at first be
unconscious of these, and yet they may grow continually stronger.
But one day the animal awakens to its actions, and from that time on
what had been done blindly and unconsciously is continued
consciously, intelligently, and from set purpose. This story is
repeated over and over again in the history of the animal-kingdom.
The care for the young once started as an instinct, affection will
follow from the very association of parent with young. Certainly in
birds and mammals there seems to be a very genuine love of the
parents for their young. This is at first short lived, and the young
are and have to be driven away, often by harsh treatment, to shift
for themselves. But while it lasts it certainly seems entirely real
and genuine. And how strong it is. "A bear robbed of her whelps" is
no meaningless expression. And even the weak and timid bird or
mammal becomes strong and fierce in defence of her young. In the
presence of this emotion appetite and fear are alike forgotten.
But this affection or love once started does not remain limited to
parent and offspring. Mammals, especially the higher forms, are
social. They frequently go in herds and troops, and appear to have a
genuine affection for each other. You all know how in herds of
cattle or wild horses the males form a circle around the females and
young at the approach of wolves. A troop of orangs were surprised by
dogs at a little distance from their shelter. The old male orangs
formed a ring and beat off the dogs until the females and young
could escape, and then retreated. But as they were now in
comparative safety a cry came from one young one, who had been
unable to keep up in the scramble over the rocks, and was left on a
bowlder surrounded by the dogs. Then one old orang turned back,
fought his way through the dogs, tucked the little fellow under one
arm, fought his way out with the other, and brought the young one to
safety. I call that old orang a hero, but I am prejudiced and may
easily be mistaken.
In a cage in a European zoölogical garden there were kept together a
little American monkey and a large baboon of which the former was
greatly afraid. The keeper, to whom the little monkey was strongly
attached, was one day attacked and thrown down by the baboon and in
danger of being killed. Then the little monkey ran to his help, and
bit and beat his tyrant companion until he allowed the keeper to
escape. We are all proud that the little monkey was an American.
Instances of disinterested actions are so common among dogs and
horses that farther illustrations are entirely unnecessary. And
disinterested action is limited to fewer cases because the
environment is rarely suited to its development in the animal world.
But do you answer that the affection of the dog is never really
disinterested, but a very refined form of selfishness. Possibly. But
it were to be greatly desired that selfishness would more frequently
take that same refined form among men. But I cannot see how
selfishness can ever become so refined as to lead an animal to die
of grief over its master's grave.
And if refined selfishness were all, I for one cannot help believing
that the dog would long ago have been asleep on a full stomach
before the kitchen fire. Has no attempt been made to prove that all
human actions are due to selfishness more or less refined? It is
very unwise to apply tests and use arguments concerning animals
which, if applied with equal strictness to human conduct, would
prove human society irrational and purely selfish.
Mammals may be self-centred. But the highest forms have set their
faces away from self and toward the non-self; some have at least
started on the road which leads to unselfishness.
And man is governed to a certain extent by prudential
considerations. If he entirely disregarded these he would not be
wise. But the development of the rational faculty has brought before
his mind a series of motives higher than these, which are slowly but
surely superseding them. Truth, right, and duty are motives of a
different order. With regard to these there can be no question of
profit or loss. Here the mind cannot stop to ask, Will it pay? Self
must be left out of account.
"When duty whispers low, Thou must,
The soul replies, I can."
And thus man rises above appetite, above prudential considerations,
and becomes a free and moral agent. And family and social life bring
him into new relations, press home upon him new duties and
responsibilities, every one of which is a new motive compelling him
to rise above self. And thus the unselfish, altruistic emotions have
made man what he is, and are in him, ever advancing toward their
future supremacy. But some one will say, This is a very pretty
theory; it is not history. But the perception of truth and right is
certainly a fact, the result of ages of development. And the very
highest which the intellect can perceive is bound to become the
controlling motive of the will. It always has been so. It must be
so, if evolution is not to be purely degeneration. Thus only has man
become what he is. And the voice of the people demanding truth and
justice, whenever and wherever they see them, is the voice of God
promising the future triumph of righteousness. For it is proof
positive that man's face is resolutely set toward these, as his
ancestors have always marched steadily toward that which was the
highest possible attainment.
We find thus that there is a sequence in the motives which control
the will. The first and lowest motives are the appetites, and here
the will is the mouthpiece of the bodily organs. Then fear and a
host of other prudential considerations appear. The lowest of these
tend purely to the gratification of the senses or to the avoidance
of bodily discomfort. But they originate in the mind, and that is a
great gain. But the higher prudential considerations take into
account something higher than mere bodily comfort or discomfort.
Approbation and disapprobation are motives which weigh heavily with
the higher mammals. The lower prudential considerations are purely
selfish. The higher ones, which stimulate to action for
fellow-animals or men, show at least the dawn of unselfishness. And
the altruistic motives, which stimulate to action for the happiness
and welfare of others, predominate in, and are characteristic of,
man. The human will is slowly rising above the dominance of
selfishness. With the dawn of the rational perception of truth,
right, and duty, the very highest motives begin to gain control.
And the will becomes more and more powerful as the motives become
higher. It is almost a mis-use of language to speak of the will of a
slave of appetite. He is governed by the body, not at all by the
mind.
The man who is governed by prudential considerations, and is always
asking, Will it pay? is the incarnation of fickleness, instability,
and feebleness. The apparent strength of the selfish will is usually
a hollow sham. But truth, right, and love are motives stronger than
death. And the will, dominated by these, gives the body to be
burned. The man of the future will have an iron will, because he
will keep these highest motives constantly before his mind.
In the preceding lectures we have traced the sequence of functions
and have found that brain and mind, not digestion and muscle, are
the goal of animal development. In this lecture we have attempted to
trace a corresponding series of functions in the realm of mind. We
have found, I think, that there has been an orderly and logical
development of perceptions, modes of action, and finally of motives
in the animal mind. Let us now briefly review this history and see
whether it throws any light on the path of man's future progress.
Most of the sensory cells of the animal minister at first to reflex
action, and there is thus little true perception. The stimuli which
have called forth the reflex action may result afterward in
consciousness; but until brain and muscle have reached a higher
grade, this could be of but slight benefit to the animal. Perception
and consciousness are exercised mainly in the recognition and
attainment of food. When the animal begins to show fear, we may
feel tolerably certain that it has been conscious of past experience
of danger and remembers these experiences. But the sense-organs are
all the time improving, whether as servants of conscious perception
or of reflex action, and the development of the higher sense-organs,
especially of the eyes, has called forth a higher development of the
brain. The brain continually develops both through constant exercise
and through natural selection. Through the higher and more delicate
sense-organs it perceives a continually wider range of more subtile
elements in its environment. And the higher the sense-organ the more
directly and purely does it minister to consciousness. The eye, when
capable of forming an image, is almost never concerned in a purely
reflex action.
From the constant recurrence of perceptions and experiences in a
constant order the animal begins to associate these, and when he has
perceived the one to expect the other. Out of this grows, in time,
inference and understanding. The mind is beginning to turn its
attention not merely to objects and qualities, but to perceive
relations. And thus it has taken the first step toward the
perception of abstract truth. And if it has the æsthetic perception
and can perceive beauty, we have every reason to believe that the
same faculty will one day perceive truth and right. But on the
purely animal plane of existence these powers could be of but little
service, and we can expect to find them developed only very slightly
and under peculiar surroundings. And in this connection it is
interesting to notice the great results of man's training and
education in the dog. For the wolf and the jackal, the dog's
nearest relatives, if not his actual ancestors, are not especially
intelligent mammals. Compared with them the dog is a sage and a
saint.
The earliest form of action is the reflex. This is independent of
both consciousness and will. The only conscious voluntary action of
the animal is limited mainly or entirely to the recognition and
attainment of food. The motive for the exertion of the will is the
appetite, and the will is the slave or mouthpiece of the body. Far
higher than this is the stage of instinct. Here the animal is
conscious of its actions and new motives begin to appear. But the
animal is guided by tendencies inherited from its ancestors. The
will has, so to speak, advisory power; it is by no means supreme.
But with a wider and deeper knowledge of its environment, with the
memory of past experiences, carried by the higher locomotive powers
into new surroundings, brought face to face with new emergencies
outside of the range of its old instincts, it is compelled to try
some experiments of its own. It begins to modify these instincts,
and in time altogether does away with many of them. It has risen a
little above its old abject slavery to the appetites, it is slowly
throwing off the bondage to heredity. New emotions or motives have
arisen appealing directly to the individual will. The heir has been
long enough under guardians and regents, it assumes the government
and can rightly say, "L'état, c'est moi."
But a greater problem confronts it; can it rise above self? The
animal often seems absolutely selfish. Can the unselfish be
developed out of the selfish? This seems at first sight impossible.
And the first lessons are so easy, the first steps so short, that we
do not notice them. Reproduction comes to the aid of mind. The
young are born more and more immature. They begin to receive the
care of the parent. The love of the parent for the young is at first
short lived and feeble. But it is the genuine article, and, like the
mustard-seed planted in good soil, must grow. It strengthens and
deepens. Soon it begins to widen also. Social life, very rude and
imperfect, appears. And the members of this social group support,
help, and defend one another. And doing for one another and helping
each other, however slightly and imperfectly, strengthens their
affection for one another. The animal is still selfish, so is man
frequently, but it is in a fair way to become unselfish, and this is
all we can reasonably expect of it.
For these are vast revolutions from reflex action to instinct, and
from instinct to the reign of the individual will, and from appetite
to selfishness on the ground of higher motives, and from immediate
gratification to prudential considerations. And the crowning change
of all is from selfishness to love. And each one of them takes time.
Remember that the Old Testament history is the record of how God
taught one little people that there is but one God, Jehovah. Think
of the struggles, defeats, and captivities which the Israelites had
to undergo before they learned this lesson, and even then only a
fraction of the people ever learned it at all. As the prophet
foretold, so it came to pass. Though Israel was as the sand by the
sea-shore, but a remnant was saved.
But while we seek to do full justice to the animal, let us not
underestimate the vast differences between it and man. The true
evolutionist takes no low view of man's present actual attainments;
in his possibilities he has a larger faith than that of the
disbeliever in evolution. In intelligence and thought, in will power
and freedom of choice, in one word, in all that makes up character
and personality, man is immeasurably superior to the animal. These
powers raise him to a new plane of being, give him an indefinitely
higher and broader life, and his appearance marks a new era. He
alone is a moral, responsible being, to a certain extent the former
of his own destiny and recorder of his doom, if he fails. This gives
to all his actions a peculiar stamp of a dignity only his. What he
is and is to be we must attempt to trace in another lecture. But to
one or two characteristic results of his progress we must call
attention here.
The principal subject of man's study is not so much the things which
surround him as his relation to them and theirs to each other. His
environment has become really one, not so much one of tangible and
visible objects as of invisible relations. And these will demand
endless investigation. The more he studies them the more wonderful
do they become. The vein broadens and grows indefinitely richer the
deeper he searches into it. We find thus the purpose of the
intellect; it is to study environment.
And now a little about motives. The animal begins with appetite, and
some animals and men never get any farther. And yet how easily this
appetite for food is satiated! We all remember our experiences as
children around the Thanksgiving or Christmas table. What a
disappointment it was to us to find how soon our appetite had
forsaken us, and that we had lost the power of enjoying the
delicacies which we had most anticipated. And over-indulgence often
brought sad results and was followed by a period of penitential
fasting. And the appetites for sense gratification must always lead
to this result. They not only crave things which "perish with the
using;" temporarily at least, often permanently, the appetite itself
perishes with the gratification.
But what of the appetite, if you will pardon the expression, for
truth and right? All attainment only strengthens it; and, instead of
enslaving, it makes men ever more free. And yet what a power there
is in the appetite for truth and righteousness? In obedience to it
man gives his body to be burned, or pours out his life-blood drop by
drop for its attainment, and rejoices in the sacrifice. There are
victims to appetite: there are only martyrs to truth. This soul
hunger for truth and right, growing more intense as the soul is
filled with the object of desire, is the only one capable of
indefinite development and dominance of the will. This must be and
is the mental goal of animal development, if man has a future
corresponding in length at all to his past. Otherwise the history of
life becomes a "story told by an idiot." For its satisfaction is the
only one which never causes satiety, and of which over-indulgence is
impossible. All others lead only to a slough of despond, or the
deeper and more treacherous slough of contentment, beyond which rise
no delectable mountains or golden city.
And now in closing let me call your attention to one thought of
practical vital importance.
According to the theory which we have agreed to adopt, higher
species have arisen through a process of natural selection, those
species surviving which are best conformed to their environment.
And this applies to man as well as to lower animals. All knowledge
is in man, therefore, primarily, a means by which he may conform to
environment, survive, and progress. But conformity includes more
than mere knowledge of environment. A man might have all knowledge,
and yet refuse to conform; and then his knowledge could not save him
from destruction. For conformity alone gives survival. Conformity in
man requires an effort of the will. It is intelligent, but it is
also voluntary action. And knowledge is a necessary means of
conformity because through it we see how we may conform, and because
it furnishes the motives which stimulate the will to the necessary
effort.
Now, that faculty of the intellect which is dominant in man, and
which has raised him immeasurably above the animal, and made him
man, is the rational intelligence. If there is any such thing as a
law of history or as continuity in evolution, man's future progress
must depend upon his clearer vision and recognition of the
perceptions of this faculty. Through it man perceives beauty, truth,
and goodness, and attains knowledge of himself as a person and moral
agent, and recognizes his rights and duties. Of all this the animal
is and remains unconscious; indeed he is not yet a moral being and
person in any proper sense of the word.
Inasmuch as the rational perception is the dominant faculty in man,
it must perceive the lines along which he is to conform. Truth,
right, and duty must be his watchwords. These are to be the rules
and motives of all his actions. He cannot live for the body, but for
something higher, the mind. This was proven before man appeared on
the globe. He is to be a mental, intelligent being. But he is not to
be governed by appetite or mere prudential considerations. These are
animal, not human motives. These are not to be disregarded any more
than digestion can be safely disregarded by man. But they are not to
be his chief motives. He must subordinate these to the higher
motives furnished by right and duty. Man is not merely a mental but
a moral being. If he sinks below this plane of life he is not
following the path marked out for him in all his past development.
In order to progress, the higher vertebrate had to subordinate
everything to mental development. In order to become man it had to
develop the rational intelligence. In order to become higher man,
present man must subordinate everything to moral development. This
is the great law of animal and human development clearly revealed in
the sequence of physical and mental functions.
Must man be a religious being also? This question we must try to
answer in a future lecture.
CHAPTER VI
NATURAL SELECTION AND ENVIRONMENT
I have attempted to show that animal development has not been an
aimless drifting. Functions developed and organs arose and were
perfected in a certain order. First the purely vegetative organs
appeared, and the animal lived for digestion and reproduction; then
came muscle and it brought with it nerve. But these were not enough;
the brain had all the time been gradually improving, and now it
becomes the dominant function to which all others are subordinated.
The experiment was fairly tried. Mere digestion and reproduction are
carried to about the highest perfection which can be expected of
them in worms and mollusks. The bird tried what could be done with
digestion ministering to locomotion guided by the very keenest
sense-organs and controlled by no mean brain. Even this experiment
was not a success. But one organ remained, the brain, and on its
mental possibilities depend the future of the animal kingdom.
Vegetative organs and muscle have been tried and found wanting.[1]
[Footnote 1: See chart, p. 310.]
We have followed hastily the development of mind. The mind began its
career as the servant of digestion, recognizing and aiding to attain
food. Action is at first mainly reflex. But conscious perception
plays an ever more important part. The animal is at first guided by
natural selection through the survival of the most suitable reflex
actions, then by inherited tendencies, finally by its own conscious
intelligence and will. The first motives are the appetites, but
these are succeeded by ever higher motives as the perceptions become
clearer and more subtile relations in environment are taken into
account. Governed first purely by appetites, the will is ever more
influenced by prudential considerations, and finally shows
well-developed "natural affections." It has set its face toward
unselfishness.
Digestion and muscle, as well as mind, have persisted in man. He is
not, cannot be, disembodied spirit. And in his mental life reflex
action and instinct, appetite and prudence, are still of great
importance. But the higher and supreme development of these powers
could never have resulted in man. They might alone have produced a
superior animal, never man. His mammalian structure found its
logical and natural goal in family and social life. And even the
lowest goal of family life is incompatible with pure selfishness,
and as family life advanced to an ever higher grade it became the
school of unselfishness and love. And social life had a similar
effect.
Moreover, man as a social being early began to learn that he could
claim something from his fellows, and that he owed something to
them. If he refused to help others, they would refuse to help him.
This was his first, very rude lesson in rights and duties. Love,
duty, and right have ever since been the watchwords of his
development and progress. We have not yet considered, and must for
the present disregard, the value and efficiency of religion in
aiding his advance. At present we emphasize only the historical
fact that man has not become what he is by a higher development of
the body, nor by giving free rein to appetite, nor yet by making the
dictates of selfish prudence supreme. And if there is any such thing
as continuity in history, such modes and aims of life, if now
followed, would surely only brutalize him and plunge him headlong in
degeneration. He must live for right, truth, love, and duty. In just
so far as he makes any other aim in life supreme, or allows it to
even rival these, he is sinking into brutality. This is the clear,
unmistakable verdict of history, and we shall do well to heed it.
But granting all that can be claimed for this sequence, have not the
lower forms whose anatomy we have sketched--worm, fish, and
bird--halted at various points along this line of march? Yet they
have evidently survived. And if they have found safe resting-places,
cannot higher forms turn back and join them? In other words, is not
degeneration easier than advance and just as safe? What is the
result if an animal tries to return to a lower plane of life or
refuses to take the next upward step? Generally extermination. The
very classification of worms in a number of small isolated groups,
which must once have been connected by a host of intermediate forms,
is indisputable proof of most terrible extermination. They did not
go forward, and the survivors are but an infinitesimal fraction of
those which perished. Let us take an illustration where palæontology
can help us. The earth was at one time covered with marsupial
mammals. Some advanced into placental forms. The great mass remained
behind. And outside of Australia the opossums are the only survivors
of them all. And this is only one example where a thousand could be
given. Place is not long reserved for mere cumberers of the ground.
There are so few exceptions to this statement that we might almost
call it a law of biology.
Let us see how it fares with an animal which retreats to a lower
plane of life. A worm, rather than seek its own food, becomes a
parasite. It degenerates, but still is easily recognized as a worm.
A crustacean tries the same experiment, though living outside of its
host instead of in it. It sinks to a place even lower, if possible,
than that of the parasitic worm. A locomotive form becomes sessile.
It loses most of its muscles and the larger part of its nervous
system; and even the digestive system, which it has made the goal of
its existence, is inferior to that of its locomotive ancestors and
relatives. But to the vertebrate these lowest depths of stagnation
and degeneration are, as a rule, impossible. From true fish upward
parasitism and sessile life are practically impossible. Here
stagnation and degeneration mean, as a rule, extinction. Of all the
relatives of vertebrates back to worms only the very aberrant lines
of amphioxus and of the tunicata remain. Of the rest not a single
survivor has yet been discovered. And yet what hosts of species must
have peopled the sea. The primitive round-mouthed fishes have
practically disappeared. The ganoids survive in a few species out of
thousands. The amphibia of the carboniferous and the next period and
the reptiles of the mesozoic have disappeared; only a few feeble
degenerate remnants persist. And this was necessarily so. Each
advancing form crowded hardest on those which occupied the same
place and sought the same food, that is, the members of the same
species. And the first to suffer from its competition were its own
brethren. Death, rarely commuted into life imprisonment, is the
verdict pronounced on all forms which will not advance. And does not
the same law of advance or extinction apply to man? What is the
record of successive civilizations but its verification?
Notice once more that as we ascend in the scale of development
natural selection selects more unsparingly and the path to life
narrows. It is a very easy matter for the lowest forms to get food.
Indeed the plant sits still and its food comes to it. And the battle
of brute force can be fought in a multitude of ways--by mere
strength, by activity, by offensive or defensive armor, or even by
running into the mud and skulking. It is harder to gain knowledge,
and yet many roads lead to an education. Colleges are by no means
the only seats of education. And many totally uneducated men have
college diplomas. And life is, after all, the great university, and
here the sluggard fails and the plucky man with the poor "fit" often
carries off the honors.
"But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it:
And the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of corals or of pearls:
For the price of wisdom is above rubies."
And when it comes to righteousness there is only one right, and
everything else is wrong. "Wide is the gate and broad is the way
that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto
life, and few there be that find it." Therefore "strive to enter in
at the strait gate." And remember that "strive" means wrestle like
one of the athletes in the old Olympic games.
"I saw also that the Interpreter took Christian again by the hand
and led him into a pleasant place, where was built a stately
palace beautiful to behold; at the sight of which Christian was
greatly delighted. He saw also, upon the top thereof, certain
persons walking, who were clothed all in gold. Then said
Christian, May we go in thither?
"Then the Interpreter took him and led him up toward the door of
the palace; and, behold, at the door stood a great company of
men, as desirous to go in, but durst not. There also sat a man at
a little distance from the door at a table-side, to take the name
of him that should enter therein; he saw also that in the
door-way stood many men in armour, to keep it, being resolved to
do to the men that would enter what hurt and mischief they could.
Now was Christian somewhat in amaze. At last, when every man
started back for fear of the armed men, Christian saw a man of a
very stout countenance come up to the man that sat there to
write, saying, Set down my name, Sir; the which when he had done,
he saw the man draw his sword, and put an helmet upon his head,
and rush toward the door upon the armed men, who laid upon him
with deadly force; but the man, not at all discouraged, fell to
cutting and hacking most fiercely. So after he had received and
given many wounds to those that attempted to keep him out, he cut
his way through them all, and pressed forward into the palace, at
which there was a pleasant voice heard from those that were
within, even of those that walked upon the top of the palace
saying:
"'Come in, come in;
Eternal glory thou shalt win.'
"So he went in, and was clothed in such garments as they.
"Then Christian smiled, and said, I think verily I know the
meaning of this."--Bunyan's, Pilgrim's Progress, p. 44.
If you wish to climb the Matterhorn many paths lead up the lower
slopes, and a stumble here may cost you only a sprain. And I suppose
that several paths lead to the base of the cone. But thence to the
summit there is but one path, and a misstep means death. Pardon
these quotations and illustrations. They are my only means of at all
adequately presenting to you a scientific man's conception of the
meaning of the struggle for life. The laws of evolution are written
in blood and bear the death penalty. For
"Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And battered with the shocks of doom
To shape and use."
There would seem therefore to be going on a process of natural
selection. Natural selection seems to select more unsparingly and
the struggle for life--or even existence--to grow fiercer as we
advance from lower forms to higher in the animal kingdom.
But the theory which we have agreed to accept teaches us that these
survivors are those which or who have conformed to their environment
and that they have survived because of their conformity. And what do
we mean by environment? And does not man modify his environment?
Certainly he changes by irrigation a desert into a garden. He
carries water against its tendency to the hill-top. But he has
learned to do this only by studying the laws which govern the
motions of fluids and rigorously obeying them. He must carry his
water in strong pipes and take it from some higher point, or must
use heat or some means to furnish the force to drive it to the
higher point. He cannot change a single iota of the law, and gains
control of the elements only by obedience to their laws. Electricity
is man's best servant as long as he respects its laws, but it kills
him who disobeys them. But does not man make his own surroundings in
social life? He merely enters upon a new mode of life; and if this
new mode be in conformity with the eternal forces and laws of
environment man prospers in this new mode of life and conforms still
more closely.
There is, indeed, but one environment, but the lower animal comes in
contact with, and is affected by, but a small portion of its
elements. Form and color were in the world before the animal had
developed an eye, but up to this time these could have but little
effect on animal life. Light vibrations were present in ether long
before the animal by responding to them made them any part of its
own true environment. There is vastly more in environment than man
has yet discovered, and he will discover these elements only by
obedience to their laws.
Environment includes ultimately all the forces and elements which go
to make up our world or universe. It is an exceedingly general term.
I might say that under the environment of certain wheels, springs,
and spindles, which we call a Jacquard loom, silk threads become a
ribbon worthy of a queen. Is Nature and environment only a huge
divine loom to weave man and something higher yet? One great
difference is evident. Under normal conditions the silk must become
a ribbon. But protoplasm can fail to conform and become waste.
Environment is a very hard word to define, and our views concerning
it may differ.
One thing, however, seems to me clear and evident. If each
successive stage in the ascending series is selected or survives on
account of its conformity to environment there must be some element
or power, something or somewhat in environment specially
corresponding in some way to, or suited to drawing out, the
characteristic of this ascending stage on account of which it
survives. The forces and elements of environment make and work
against those at each stage who wander from the right path, and for
those who follow it. And thus natural selection arises as the total
result of the combined working of all these forces. They all unite
in one resultant working along a certain line, and natural selection
is the effect of this resultant. In the stage represented by hydra
the forces of environment combine in a resultant which works for
digestion and reproduction and the best development of their organs.
But as the animal changes he comes into a new relation or occupies a
new position in respect to these forces. New elements in the old
environment are beginning to press upon him. And the resultant
changes accordingly. He may be compared to a steamer at sea which
raises a sail. The wind has been blowing for hours, but the sail
gives it a new hold on the ship. Steam and wind now combine in a new
resultant of forces. From worms upward environment manifests itself
through natural selection as a power working for muscular force and
brute strength or activity.
But soon natural selection ceases to select on the ground of brute
force. After a time environment proves to be a power making for
shrewdness. And when the mammal has appeared the resultant of the
forces of environment impels more and more toward unselfishness, and
when man has appeared environment proves to be a "power, not
ourselves, that makes for righteousness." But what shall we say of
an environment which unmasks itself at last as a power making for
intelligence, unselfishness, and righteousness? Someone may answer
it is a host of chemical and physical forces bringing about very
high ends. That is very true, but is it the whole truth? The
thinking man must ask, How did it come about, and why is it that all
these forces work together for such high moral and intelligent ends?
We face, therefore, the question, Can an environment which proves
finally and ultimately to be a power not ourselves making for
righteousness and unselfishness be purely material and mechanical?
Or must there be in or behind it something spiritual? Shall we best
call environment, in its highest manifestation, "it" or "him?"
The old argument of Socrates, as on the last day of his life he sits
discoursing with his friends, still holds good. He is discussing the
same old question, whether there is anything more than force,
material, mechanism in the world. He says that one might assign as
"the cause why I am sitting here that my body is composed of bones
and muscles; that the bones are solid and separate, and that the
muscles can be contracted and extended, and are all inclosed in the
flesh and skin; and that the bones, being jointed, can be drawn by
the muscles, and so I can move my legs as you see; and that this is
the reason why I am sitting here. But by the dog, these bones and
muscles would long ago have carried me to Megara or Booetia, moved
by my opinion of what was best, if I had not thought it more right
and honorable to submit to the sentence pronounced by the state than
to run away from it. To call such things causes is absurd. For there
is a great difference between the cause and that without which the
cause would not produce its effect."
If there is no intelligence or love of truth in the cause, how can
there be anything higher in the effect? And if Socrates had been
only bone and muscle, he ought to have run away.
Our problem stands somewhat as follows: We have given protoplasm, a
strange substance of marvellous capacities, which we call functions,
and possessing a power of developing into beings of ever higher
grades of organization. Environment proves to be a combination of
forces working for the higher development of functions in a certain
orderly sequence. And every lower function in the ascending line
demands the development of the next higher. Digestion demands
muscle, and muscle nerve, and nerve brain. We shall soon see that
mammalian structure had to culminate in the family, and the family
demands unselfishness and obedience. Environment therefore proves
from the beginning to have been unceasingly working for the highest
end; never, even temporarily, merely for the lower. For we have seen
that environment works most unsparingly against those who, having
taken certain of the steps in the ascending path, fail to continue
therein.
But in order to attain this highest end for which it has always been
working, an immense number of subsidiary ends have had to be
attained. These are not merely digestion and brain, but a host of
others: _e.g._, in vertebrates, vertebræ of the right substance,
position, form, arrangement, and union. And in the ascending line,
for whose highest forms it has continually worked, the difficulties
of attaining each subsidiary end have been successively solved, and
through this host of subsidiary ends the animal kingdom has advanced
straight to its goal of intelligence and righteousness. Now the
whole process is a grand argument for design. But I would not
emphasize the process so much as the end attained. This especially,
when attained by conformity to that environment, demands more than
mere mindless atoms in or behind that environment. Can we call the
ultimate power which makes for righteousness "it?" Can we call it
less than "Him, in whom we live and move and have our being?"
The history of life is a grand drama. "Paradise Lost" and
Shakespeare's plays are but fragments of it. But without
intelligence they could never have been composed; without a choice
of means and ends they could never have been placed upon the stage.
Does the plot of this grander drama of evolution demand no
intelligence in its ultimate cause and producer? Is the succession
of steps, each succeeding the other in such order as to lead to
truth and right and continual progress toward a spiritual goal, is
this plot possible without a great composer who has seen the end
from the beginning? Could it ever have been executed upon the stage
of the world, and perhaps of the universe, without an executing
will?
Now I freely grant you that this is no mathematical demonstration.
Natural science does not deal in demonstrations, it rests upon the
doctrine of probabilities; just as we have to order our whole lives
according to this doctrine. Its solution of a problem is never the
only conceivable answer, but the one which best fits and explains
all the facts and meets the fewest objections. The arguments for the
existence of a personal God are far stronger than those in favor of
any theory of evolution. But we very rightly test the former
arguments, indefinitely more rigidly and severely, just because our
very life hangs on them. On the other hand, we should not reject
them as useless, because they are not of an entirely different kind
from those on which all the actions and beliefs of our common daily
life are based. There is a scepticism which is merely a credulity of
negations. This also we should avoid.
We have considered a few of the reasons for thinking that, with the
material, there must be something spiritual in environment, that if
the woof is material the warp is God. Here we need not delay long.
Blank atheism seems to be at present unpopular and generally
regarded as unscientific. The so-called philosophic materialism of
the present day seems to be in general far nearer to pantheism than
to the old form of materialism which recognized only atoms and
mechanism. Atheism as a power to deform the lives of men has, for
the present, lost its hold, and even agnosticism is respectful. The
materialism against which we have to struggle is not that of the
school, but of the shop, of society, of life. There are
comparatively few now who avow a system of philosophy making
mindless atoms their first cause.
But there is a far grosser, more deadly materialism of the heart
and will. It sits unrebuked in the front pews of our churches and
controls alike church and parish, caucus and legislature. It calls
on us all to fall down and worship, promising the world if we obey,
the cross if we refuse. And we bow to it; and that is all it asks,
for a nod on our part makes us its slaves. It is the idolatry of
money, position, shrewdness, learning--in one word, of success. It
takes all the strength out of our morality, loyalty and obedience to
God out of our religion, and makes cowards and liars of us, who
should be heroes. It makes our religion a byword with honest
unbelievers. And if they are honest scientific minds, waiting for
evidence of the practical value of our religion, why should they
believe, when we live so successfully down to the religion which we
would scorn to openly profess? Our fathers may have been narrow or
straight-laced; they were not cross-eyed from trying to keep one eye
on God and the other on the main chance. What is the use of
whispering, "Lord, Lord," Sundays, if we shout, "Oh, Baal, hear us,"
all the rest of the week. Let us at least be honest, and "if Baal be
god, follow him," and avow it. And worst, and most hideous, of all,
we are not so much hypocrites as self-deceived. Let us not forget
the old Greek doctrine of Ate, goddess of judicial blindness, sent
down only upon those who were living the unpardonable sin of
indifference.
But supposing that there is in environment something more and other
than material, can we possibly know anything about it?
I am in a boat near the mouth of a river. The boat is tossed by the
waves, driven by currents of wind, and now and then temporarily
turned by eddies. I seem to look out upon a chaos of apparently
conflicting forces. But all the time the wind and tide are sweeping
me homeward. Now the wind, which sometimes indeed does shift, and
the great tidal wave are steadily bearing me in a certain direction,
though wave and eddy and gust may often make this appear doubtful to
me. So, underneath all waves and eddies of environment, there is a
great tidal wave, bearing man steadily onward; and I gain a certain
amount of valid knowledge of environment from the direction in which
it is bearing me.
Let us change the illustration. Man survives as all his ancestors
have survived before him, through conformity to environment.
Environment has therefore during ages past been continually making
impressions upon him. And he can draw valid inferences concerning
the one power, which must underlie the apparent host of forces of
environment, from the impressions which these have left upon the
structure of his mind and character. By studying himself he gains
valid knowledge of what is deepest in environment. For man is the
most completely and closely conformed thereto of all living beings.
But man _is_ a religious being. This is a fact which demands
explanation just as much as bone and muscle. Now no evolutionist
would believe that the eye could ever have developed without the
stimulus of light acting upon the cells of the skin. Place the
animal in darkness and the eye becomes rudimentary and disappears.
Could a visual organ for seeing moral and religious truth have ever
originated in the mind of man had there been no corresponding
pulsation and thrill of a corresponding reality in environment? Is
not the one development just as improbable or inconceivable as the
other?
And this is the reason that, when man awakened to himself and his
own powers, he knew that there was and must be a God. "Pass over the
earth," says Plutarch; "you may discover cities without walls,
without literature, without monarchs, without palaces and wealth;
where the theatre and the school are not known; but no man ever saw
a city without temples and gods, where prayers and oaths and oracles
and sacrifices were not used for obtaining pardon or averting evil."
Given man and environment as they are, and a belief in God is a
necessary result. But you may ask, if we are to worship a personal
God, why might not a conscious and religious hydra, with equal
right, worship an infinite stomach, and the annelid a god of mere
brute force?
There stands in Florence a magnificent statue by Michel Angelo. A
human figure is only partially hewn out of the stone. He never
finished it. If you could have seen the master hewing the chips with
hasty, impatient blows from the shapeless block, you would have been
tempted to say that he was but a stonecutter, and but a hasty
workman at that. Even now we do not know exactly what form and
expression he would have given to the still unfinished head. But no
one can examine it and hesitate to pronounce it a grand work of a
master-mind. In any manifestly incomplete work you must judge the
purpose and character and powers of the workman or artist by its
highest possibilities, just so far as you have any reason to believe
that these possibilities will be realized. You must look at the
rudely outlined heroic human figure in the block of stone, not at
the rough unfinished pedestal, if you would know Michel Angelo. So
in the hydra and the annelid you must look at the possibilities of
the nervous system before you or he think that digestion and muscle
are all.
Once more the highest powers dawn far down in the animal kingdom.
There are traces of mind in the amoeba, and of unselfishness in
the lower mammals. If there were a goal of human development higher
and other than unselfishness, wisdom, and love, we should have seen
traces of it before this. But have we found the faintest sign of any
such? Moreover, remember that a function continues to develop about
as long as it shows the capacity for development. And during that
period environment is a power making for its higher development. But
is there any limit to the possible development of the three mental
activities mentioned above? I can see none. Then must we not expect
that environment will always make for these? And will environment
ever manifest itself to man as the seat or instrument of a power
possessing higher faculties other than these? Man must worship a
personal God of wisdom, unselfishness, and love, or cease to
worship. The latter alternative he never yet has been able to take,
and society survive under its domination. So I at least am compelled
to read the finding of biological history.
But let us grant for the sake of argument that man contains still
undeveloped germs of faculties capable of perceiving and attaining
something as much higher than wisdom and love as these are higher
than brute force. You will answer, this is not only inconceivable,
it is impossible. Still let us grant the possibility. We notice,
first of all, that it is against the whole course of evolution that
these faculties should be other than mental, and what we class under
powers pertaining to our personality. For ages past evidently, and
no less really from the very beginning, evolution has worked for the
body only as a perfect vehicle of mind, and for this as leading to
will and character. And human development has led, and ever more
tends, as Mr. Drummond has shown, to the arrest, though not the
degeneration, of the body. It is to remain at the highest possible
stage of efficiency as the servant of mind. These higher powers will
thus be mental and personal powers. And how has any and every
advance to higher capabilities been attained in the animal kingdom?
Merely by the most active possible exercise of the next lower power.
This is proven by the sequence of physical and mental functions. We
shall attain, therefore, any higher mental capacities only by the
continual practice of wisdom and love. That is our only path to
something higher, if higher there shall ever be. But if we find that
the God of our environment is a God of something higher than love
and righteousness, will these cease to be characteristics of his
nature and essence? Not at all.
I have learned, perhaps, to know my father as a plain citizen. If I
later find that he is a king and statesman, with powers and mental
capacities of which I have never dreamed, do I therefore from that
time cease to think of him as wise and kind and good? Not in the
least. I only trust his love and wisdom as guide of my little life
all the more. And shall not the same be true of God though he be
king of all worlds and ages? It becomes unwise and wrong to worship
God as the God of might only when we have found that he is a God
also of something higher and nobler, of love; and after we have
perceived this fully and worship him as love, we rest in the arms of
his infinite power.
But now that the work has gone thus far, we can see that all
development must take place along personal, spiritual lines; and are
compelled to believe in a spiritual cause who knew the end from the
beginning. And man's farther progress depends upon his conformity to
this spiritual environment. And what is conformity to the personal
element in our environment but likeness to him? This is my only
possible mode of conformity to a person--to become like him in word,
action, thought, and purpose, and finally in all my being. Very far
from a close resemblance we still are. But we are more like him than
primitive man was; and our descendants will resemble him far more
closely than we. And thus man, conscious of his environment, and
that means capable of knowing something about God, knows at least
what God requires of him, namely, righteousness, love, and likeness
to himself; or, as the old heathen seer expressed it, "to do justly,
love mercy, and walk humbly before God." Man is and must be a
religious being. And he conforms consciously. Thus to be more like
God he must know more about him, and to know more about him he must
become more like him. The two go hand in hand, and by mutual
reaction strengthen each other. I will not enter into the most
important question of all, whether we can ever really know a person
unless we have some love for him. The facts of evolution seem to me
to admit of but one interpretation, that of Augustine: "Thou hast
formed me for thee, O Lord, and my restless spirit finds no rest but
in thee." Granted, therefore, a personal God in and behind
environment, however dimly perceived, and conformity to environment
means god-likeness; for conformity to a person can mean nothing less
than likeness to him.
Some of you must, all of you should, have read Professor Huxley's
"Address on Education." In it he says, "It is a very plain and
elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of
every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with
us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game
infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game
which has been played for unknown ages, every man and woman of us
being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The
chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the
universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature.
The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his
play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our
cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest
allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest
stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which
the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is
checkmated--without haste, but without remorse.
"My metaphor," he continues, "will remind some of you of the famous
picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with
man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture
a calm, strong angel, who is playing for love, as we say, and would
rather lose than win--and I should accept it as an image of human
life."[1]
[Footnote 1: Huxley: Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 31.]
This is a marvellous illustration, and in general as true as it is
beautiful and grand. But that "calm, strong angel who is playing for
love, as we say, and would rather lose than win," is certainly a
very strange antagonist. Is it, after all, possible that our
clear-eyed scientific man has altogether misunderstood the game? Is
not the "calm, strong angel" more probably our partner? Certainly
very many things point that way. And who are our antagonists? Look
within yourself and you will always find at least a pair ready to
take a hand against you, to say nothing of the possibilities of
environment. "Rex regis rebellis." Our partner is trying by every
method, except perhaps by "talking across the board," to teach us
the laws and methods of this great game. And calls and signals are
always allowable. The game is not finished in one hand; he gives us
a second and third, and repeats the signals, and never misleads.
Only when we carelessly or obstinately refuse to learn, and wilfully
lose the game beyond all hope, does he leave us to meet our losses
as best we may.
Let us carry the illustration a step farther. Who knows that the
game was, or could be, at first taught without talking across the
board? I can find nothing in science to compel such a belief, many
things render it improbable. Grant a personality in environment to
which personality in man is to conform and gain likeness.
Environment can act on the digestive and muscular systems through
mere material. But how can personality in environment act on
personality in man except by personal contact or by symbols easy of
comprehension according to its own laws? Some method of attaining
acquaintance at least we should certainly expect.
But some of you may ask, How can any theory of evolution guarantee
that anything of the present shall survive in the future? It is
continually changing and destroying former types. The old order of
everything changes and passes away, giving place to the new. But is
this the whole truth? Evolution is a radical process, but we must
never forget that it is also, and at the same time, exceedingly
conservative. The cell was the first invention of the animal
kingdom, and all higher animals are and must be cellular in
structure. Our tissues were formed ages on ages ago; they have all
persisted. Most of our organs are as old as worms. All these are
very old, older than the mountains, and yet I cannot doubt that they
must last as long as man exists. Indeed, while Nature is wonderfully
inventive of new structures, her conservatism in holding on to old
ones is still more remarkable. In the ascending line of development
she tries an experiment once exceedingly thorough, and then the
question is solved for all time. For she always takes time enough to
try the experiment exhaustively. It took ages to find how to build a
spinal column or brain, but when the experiment was finished she had
reason to be, and was, satisfied. And if this is true of bodily
organs we should expect that the same law would hold good when the
animal development gradually passes over into the spiritual. And
what is human history but the record of moral and religious
experiments, and their success or failure according as the
experimenters conformed to the laws of the spiritual forces with
which they had to do?
We need not fear that our old fundamental beliefs will be lost.
Their very age shows that they have been thoroughly tested in the
great experiment of human history and found sure. Modified they may
be; they will be used for higher purposes and the building of better
characters than ours. They will not be lost or discarded. We too
often think of nature as building like man, with huge scaffoldings,
which must later be torn down and destroyed. But in the forest the
only scaffolding is the heart of oak.
We have seen that the sequence of functions in animal development
has culminated in man's rational, moral nature. He alone has the
clear perception of the reality of right, truth, and duty. The
pursuit of these has made him what he is. His advance, if there is
any continuity in history, depends upon his making these the ruling
motives and aims of his life. He must continually grow in
righteousness and unselfishness, if he is not to degenerate and give
place to some other product of evolution. Moreover, as these moral
faculties are capable of indefinite, if not infinite, development,
they must dominate his life through a future of indefinite duration.
For the length of the period of dominance of a function has always
been proportional to the capacity of that function for future
development. These can never, so far as we can see, be superseded,
for no rival to them can be discovered. We have found in them the
culmination of the sequence of functions.
We have attempted to show in this lecture that reversal of this
grand sequence has always led to degeneration, or, in higher forms,
far more frequently, to extinction. As we ascend, natural selection
works more, rather than less, unsparingly. And as advance depends
upon conformity to environment, and as the highest forms must be
regarded as therefore most completely conformed, we gain our most
adequate knowledge of environment when we study it as working
especially for these. For these have been from the very beginning
its far-off, chief aim and goal. Viewed from this standpoint,
environment proves to be a host of interacting forces uniting in a
resultant "power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," and
unselfishness.
Inasmuch as man's rational moral nature, his personality, is the
result of the last and longest step toward and in conformity to
environment, these powers correspond to that which is at the same
time highest, and deepest, and most fundamental in that environment.
This power which makes for righteousness is therefore to be regarded
as personal and spiritual rather than material. It is God immanent
in nature. And it is mainly to this personal and spiritual element
in his environment that man is in the future to more completely
conform. Conformity to this element in man's environment does not so
much result in life as it _is_ life; failure to conform is death.
And the pressure of environment upon man, compelling him to choose
between life through conformity and non-conformity with death, can
be most naturally and adequately explained as the expression of his
will. We know what he requires of us.
Our knowledge of him is very incomplete, but may be valid as far as
it extends. And it would seem to be valid, for it has been tested by
ages of experiment. The results of this grand experiment have been
summed up in man's fundamental religious beliefs. And farther
knowledge will be gained by more complete obedience to the
requirements already known. The evidence, that these fundamental
religious beliefs will persist, is of the same character as that
upon which rests our belief in the persistence of cells and tissues.
The one is rooted in the structure of our minds; the other, in the
structure of our bodies. But, after all, only will can act upon
will, and personality upon personality. It remains for us to examine
how man was compelled by his very structure to develop a new element
in his environment, conformed indeed to the laws of his old
environment, but better fitted to draw out the moral and spiritual
side of his nature. And in connection with this study we may hope to
gain some new light on the laws of conformity.
CHAPTER VII
CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT
We are too prone to think that soil and climate, hill-side or plain,
mountain and shore, temperature and rainfall, constitute the sole or
the most important elements in human environment. Every one of these
elements is doubtless important. Frost, drought, or barrenness of
soil may make a region a desert, or dwarf the development of its
inhabitants. Mountaineer, and the dweller on the plain, and the
fisherman on the shore of the ocean develop different traits through
the influence of their surroundings. In too warm a climate the human
race loses its mental and moral vigor and degenerates. This is
undeniable.
But, though one soil and climate and set of physical surroundings
may be more conducive than another to the development of heroism,
truthfulness, unselfishness, and righteousness, no one is essential
to their production or sure to give rise to them. Moral and
religious character is a feature of man's personality, and our
personality is moulded mainly by the men and women with whom we
associate. A man is not only "known by the company which he keeps;"
he is usually fashioned by and conforms to it. As President Seelye
has well said, "The only motive which can move a will is either a
will itself, or something into which a will enters. It is not a
thought, but only a sentiment, a deed, or a person, by which we
become truly inspired. It is not the intellect, but the heart and
will, through which and by which we are controlled. It is not the
precepts of life, but life itself, by which alone we are begotten
and born unto life.
"Now, there are two ways in which living power, personal power, the
power of a will, may enter a soul and give it life; the one is when
God's will works upon us, and the other when our wills work upon one
another. God's will may directly penetrate ours, enabling us to will
and to do of his good pleasure; and our own wills, thus inspired,
may be the torch to kindle other wills with the same inspiration. It
is in only one of these two ways that a human soul can be truly
inspired; and, without a true inspiration, no amount of instruction,
whether in duty, or life, or anything else, will change a single
moral propensity."[A]
[Footnote A: Seelye: Christian Missions, p. 154.]
Even though a Lincoln may rise above his hereditary position or his
surroundings, they are the school in which he is trained; the
gymnasium in which his mental and moral fibre is strengthened.
Family and social life form thus the element of man's environment by
which he is mostly moulded, and to which he most naturally and
completely conforms. Let us therefore briefly trace the origin of
this new element of man's environment, and then notice the effect
upon him of conformity to its laws, and see whither these would lead
him.
We have already seen that intra-uterine development of the young was
being carried ever farther by mammals, and we found one explanation
of this in the fact that each mammalian egg represented a large
amount of nutriment, and that the mammal had very little material to
spare for reproduction. Very possibly, too, the newly hatched
mammals were exposed to even more numerous and greater dangers than
the young of birds. Even among lower mammals the young is feeble at
birth. But the human infant is absolutely helpless. And the centre
of its helplessness is its brain. Its eyes and ears are
comparatively perfect, but its perceptions are very dim. Its muscles
are all present, but it must very slowly and gradually learn to use
them. Its language is but a cry, its few actions reflex. The
new-born kitten may be just as helpless, but in a few weeks it will
run and play and hunt, and after a few months can care for itself.
Not so the child. It must be cared for during months and years
before it can be given independence. Its brain is so marvellously
complex that it is finished as a thinking and willing and
muscle-controlling mechanism only long after birth. This means a
period of infancy during which the young clings helplessly to the
mother, who is its natural protector. And during this period the
mother and young have to be cared for and protected by the male. And
the period of infancy and the protection of the female and young are
just as truly, though in far less degree, characteristic of the
highest apes as of man.
I can give you only this very condensed and incomplete abstract of
Mr. John Fiske's argument; you must read it for yourself in his
"Destiny of Man." And as he has there shown, this can have but one
result, and that is the family life of man. And we may yet very
possibly have to acknowledge that family life of a very low grade
is just as truly characteristic of the higher apes as of lower man.
And thus the family life of man is the physiological result of, and
rooted in, mammalian structure.
And the benefits of family life are too great and numerous to even
enumerate. First of all the family is the school of unselfishness.
All the love of the parent is drawn out for the helpless and
dependent child, and grows as the parent works and thinks for it.
And the child returns a fraction of his parents' love. Within the
close bond of the family the struggle for place and opportunity is
replaced by mutual helpfulness; and this doing and burden-bearing
with and for each other is a constant exercise in the practice of
love. And with out this mutual love and helpfulness the family
cannot exist.
And slowly man begins to apply the lessons learned in the family to
other relations with partners, neighbors, and friends. Slowly he
discovers that an entirely selfish life defeats its own ends. A
voice within him tells him continually that love is better than
selfishness and ministering better than being ministered unto. It
dawns upon him that it is against the nature of things that other
people should be so selfish and grasping; a few begin to apply the
moral to themselves, and a few of these to act accordingly.
And what a change the few steps which man has taken in this
direction have wrought in his life. Says Professor Huxley: "In place
of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint, in place of
thrusting aside or treading down all competitors, it requires that
the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows;
its influence is directed not so much to the survival of the
fittest as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It
repudiates the gladiatoral theory of existence."
It is a vast change from the "gladiatorial theory" to that of
"mutual helpfulness." Call it a revolution, if you will. Revolutions
are not unheard of in the history of the animal kingdom any more
than in human history. We have seen, first, digestion and
reproduction on the throne of animal organization, then muscle, and
finally brain. Each of these changes is in one sense a revolution.
A little before the summer solstice the earth is whizzing away from
the sun; a few weeks later it is whizzing with equal rapidity in
almost the opposite direction. In the very nature of things it could
not be otherwise. But so silently and gradually does it come about
that we never feel the reversal of the engine; indeed the engine has
not been reversed at all. Very similar is the change of the struggle
of brute against brute to that of man for man. Indeed human
development seems now to be almost at such a solstice where the
power that makes for love is almost exhausted in opposing the
tendency toward selfishness. We shall not always stay at the
solstice; soon we shall make more rapid progress. And unselfishness
like the family relation is firmly rooted in mammalian structure.
And man owes almost everything to family life. First the child gains
the advantage of the parent's experience. He is educated by the
parent. In a few formative and receptive years he gains from the
parent the results of centuries of human experience. The process is
thus cumulative, the investment bears compound interest. And yet
this is peculiar to man only in degree. Have you never watched a
cat train her kittens? And the education of the child in the savage
family is very incomplete.
The family is the first and fundamental of all higher social and
political unities. And without the persistence of the family the
larger social unit would become an inert mass. All the individual
ambition, all desire for family advancement, must be retained as
still a motive for energetic advance. And all the training which
social life can give reaches the individual most effectively, or
solely, through the family. Society without the family would be like
an army without company or regimental organization. Thus the very
existence, not only of training in love and mutual helpfulness, but
even of society itself as a mere organization, depends upon the
existence and improvement of family life. And as so much depended
upon and resulted from it, it could not but be fostered and improved
by natural selection. The tribe or race with the best family life
has apparently survived. But all social animals have some means of
communicating very simple thoughts or perceptions. The simplest
illustrations of this are the calls and warning cries of mammals and
birds. It is not impossible that the higher mammals have something
worthy of the name of language. But man alone, with his better brain
and better anatomical structure of throat and mouth, and the closer
interdependence with his fellows, has attained to articulate speech.
And this again has become the bond to a still closer union.
Now our only question is, How does social life enable and aid man to
conform to environment? We are interested not so much in his
happiness as in his progress. It helps and improves the body by
giving him a better and more constant supply of more suitable food,
and better protection from inclemency of the weather, and in many
other ways. Baths and gymnasia are built, and medical science
prolongs life. Yet make the items as many as you can, and what a
long list of disadvantages to man physically you must set over
against these. Many of these evils will doubtless disappear as
society becomes better organized, but some will always remain to
plague us. We pamper or abuse our stomachs, and dyspepsia results.
We live in hot-houses, and a host of diseases are fostered by them.
Indeed it would be hard to count up the diseases for which social
life is directly or indirectly responsible. Social life becomes more
and more complicated, and our nervous systems cannot bear the
strain. Medical science saves alive thousands who would otherwise
die, and these grow up to bear children as weak as themselves. We
are looking now at the physical side alone; and from this standpoint
the survival of the invalid is a sore evil. Now society will and
must become healthier; we shall not always abuse our bodies as
sinfully as we now do. Still, viewed from the standpoint of the body
alone, the best, as it seems to me, which we can claim, is that
social life does no more harm than good.
What has social life done for man intellectually? Much. It gives him
schools and colleges. But are our systems of education an unmixed
good? How many of our schools and colleges are places where men are
stuffed with facts until they have no time nor inclination to think?
They may turn out learned men; do they produce thinkers? And how
about the spread of knowledge? Is it not a spread of information?
And most of what goes forth from the press is not worthy of even
that name, or is information which a man had better be without. We
are proud of being a nation of readers. And reading is good, if a
man thinks about what he reads; otherwise it is like undigested food
in the stomach, an injury and a curse. A dyspeptic gourmand is
helped by "cutting down his rations." In our mental disease we need
the same course of treatment. Let us read fewer books and papers and
think more about what we do read.
Society may foster original thinking; it is none the less opposed to
it.
"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."
This is the motto of all great parties in Church and State. Still
social life has undoubtedly fostered thought. We think vastly more
and better than primitive man; still we have much to learn. Society
puts the experience of centuries at the service of every individual.
Poor and unsatisfactory as are our modes of education, they are a
great blessing intellectually and will become more helpful.
And, after all, the friction of mind against mind in social
life--provided social intercourse is this, and not the commingling
of two vacua--is a continual education of inestimable advantage. And
all these advantages would without language have been absolutely
impossible. Intellectually our debt to society is inestimable.
And how does social life aid man morally? I cannot help believing
that primitive society was the first school of the human conscience.
It was a rude school, but it taught man some grand lessons.
The primitive clan would seem to have existed as a rude army for
the defence of its members and for offensive operations against
enemies. Individual responsibility on the part of its members was
slight for offences against individuals of other clans, or against
the gods. For any such offence of one of its members the whole clan
was held, or held itself, largely responsible. If one man sinned,
the clan suffered. It could not therefore afford to pardon wilful
disobedience to regulations made by it or its leaders. Its very
existence depended on this strict discipline. And much the same
stern discipline has to be maintained in our modern armies or they
become utterly worthless.
Furthermore, man, as a social being, is very ready to accept the
estimate of his actions placed upon them by his fellows. It is not
easy to resist public opinion now. The tie of class or professional
feeling is a tremendous power for good and evil. It must have been
almost irresistible in that primitive army, which summarily outlawed
or killed the obstinately disobedient. But all obedience was lauded
and rewarded. It had to be so. And if the tribe was worthy to
survive, because its regulations were better than those of its
rivals, or perhaps as nearly just and right as were well possible,
it was altogether best and right it should be so. The voice of the
people was, in a very rude, stammering way, the voice of God. And
those who survived became more and more obedient, and found
themselves, when disobedient, feeling debased, and mean, and
unworthy, as their fellows considered them. And all this feeling
tended to develop a conscience in the individual answering to the
estimates and regulations of the community.
And remember that the primitive religion is a tribal religion. The
gods felt toward a man just as his neighbors did. A public opinion
of this sort is irresistible, and a man's conscience and estimate of
himself and his actions must conform to it. But you may say a man
may grant that this opinion is in a sense irresistible, and find
himself very miserable and unhappy under its condemnation. But he
would not feel remorse; this is a very different feeling. Possibly
it may be. I am not so sure. But what I am interested in maintaining
is that the condemnation of one's fellow-men puts more vividly
before one's eyes, and emphasizes, the condemnation of one's own
self. It may often be a necessary step in self-conviction. And what
is most important, even in our own case, the condemnation of our
fellows often brings with it self-condemnation.
Try the experiment, as you will some day, of following a course of
action which you feel fairly confident is right, but which all your
neighbors think is foolish and wrong. See if you do not feel twinges
within you which you must examine very closely to distinguish from
twinges of conscience. If you do not, I see but one explanation--you
are conscious that God is with you, and content with this majority.
But in the case of primitive man God was always on the side of one's
tribe.
Now this does not explain the origin of man's conception of right;
it presupposes such a conception in some dim form. I do not now know
why right is right or beauty beautiful. I only know they are so.
Where or when either of these perceptions dawned I do not know. But,
given some such dim perception, I believe that primitive human
society gave it its iron grip on every fibre of man's nature.
Before the animal could safely be allowed to govern itself
intelligently it had to serve a long apprenticeship to reflex action
and instinct. And man's moral nature had to undergo a similar
apprenticeship to tribal regulation and tribal conscience. Only
slowly was instinct modified and replaced by intelligent action. And
how this old tribal conscience persists. Often for good, although
there it were better replaced by an individual conscience working
for right. But how slowly you and I learn that there is a higher
responsibility than to party or class. How often my vote and action
are controlled, not by my own conscience, but by the opinion of my
fellows, or the feeling that, if my party suffers defeat, God's work
will suffer at the hands of my opponents. And what is all this but
the survival in a very degenerate form of the old tribal conscience
of primitive man? And he knew, and could know, nothing better: I can
and do.
But society slowly works for unselfishness. The love learned in the
family manifests itself in ever-widening circles; it must do so if
it is the genuine article. It works for neighbors and friends, then
for the poor and helpless of the community. Then it spreads to other
communities and nations. For genuine love recognizes no bounds of
time or place. Slowly we learn that we are our brother's keepers,
and that the brotherhood cannot stop short of the human race.
Goodness and kindness radiate from one, perhaps unknown, member of
the community to his fellows, and thence all over the world. And the
world is the better for his one action.
Primitive society was thus the best possible school of conscience;
and the family and it are the great school of unselfishness. But
society is even more and better than this. It is the medium through
which thought, power, and moral and religious life can spring from
man to man. This is its last and culminating advantage: it is that
for which society really exists.
For, in the close bonds of family and social life, a new possibility
of development has arisen based upon articulate speech. We might
almost call it a new form of heredity, independent of all
blood-relationship. Progress in anatomical structure in the animal
kingdom was slow, because any improvement could be transmitted only
to the direct descendants of its original possessor. But in all
matters pertaining to or based upon mind, a new invention, or idea,
or system becomes the property of him who can best appreciate it.
The torch is always handed on to the swiftest runner. Thus Socrates
is the true father of Plato, and Plato of Aristotle. Whoever can
best understand and appreciate and enter into the spirit of Socrates
and Plato becomes heir to their thoughts and interprets them to us.
And the thought of one man enriches all races and times.
But a great teacher like Socrates is not merely an intellectual
power. "Probe a little deeper, surgeon," said the French soldier,
"and you'll find the emperor." Napoleon may have impressed himself
on the soldier's intellect; he had enthroned himself in his heart.
"Slave," said the old Roman, Marius, to the barbarian who had been
sent into the dungeon to despatch him, "slave, wouldst thou kill
Cains Marius?" And the barbarian, though backed by all the power of
Rome, is said to have fled in dismay. Why did he run away? I do not
know. I only know that I should have done the same. One more
instance. Some thirty years ago the northern army was fleeing, a
disorganized mob, toward Winchester. Early had fallen upon them
suddenly in the gray of the morning, and, while one corps still held
its ground, the rest of the army was melting away in panic. Then a
little red-faced trooper came tearing down the line shouting, "Face
the other way boys; face the other way." And those panic-stricken
men turned and rolled an irresistible avalanche of heroes upon the
Confederate lines. What made them turn about? It was something which
I can neither define nor analyze--the personal power of Sheridan. It
is the secret of every great leader of men. Now Sheridan had
imparted more than information to these men. Is it too much to say
that he put himself into them? From such men power streams out like
electricity from a huge dynamo.
Now society furnishes the medium through which such a man can act.
You have all met such men, though probably not more than one or two
of them. But one such man is a host. They may be men of few words.
But their very presence and look calls out all that is good in you;
and while you are with them evil loses its power. Says the gay and
licentious Alcibiades, in Plato's "Banquet" concerning Socrates:
"When I heard Pericles or any other great orator, I was entertained
and delighted, and I felt that he had spoken well. But no mortal
speech has ever excited in my mind such emotions as are excited by
this magician. Whenever I hear him, I am, as it were, charmed and
fettered. My heart leaps like an inspired Corybant. My inmost soul
is stung by his words as by the bite of a serpent. It is indignant
at its own rude and ignoble character. I often weep tears of regret
and think how vain and inglorious is the life I lead. Nor am I the
only one that weeps like a child and despairs of himself. Many
others are affected in the same way."
These men are the real kings. Their power for good, and sometimes
for evil, is inestimable. And the great advantage of social life, as
a means of conforming to environment, is the medium which it
furnishes to conduct the power of such men. Man's last effort toward
conformity to environment, the struggle for existence in its last
most real form, is the life and death grapple between good and evil.
For here good and evil, righteousness and sin, come face to face in
spiritual form; "we wrestle not with flesh and blood." Life is more
than a game of chess or whist; it is a great battle; every man must,
and does, take sides; he must fight or die. And the real kings of
society are, as a rule, on the side of truth, and aid its triumph.
For one essential condition of such leadership is the power to
inspire confidence in the love of the king for his willing subject.
A suspicion of selfish aims in the leader breaks this bond. The hero
must be self-forgetful. This is one reason for man's hero-worship,
and the magnetic, dominant power of the hero. But evil is
essentially selfish and can gain and hold this kingship only as long
as it can deceive. And these kings "live forever." Dynasties and
empires disappear, but Socrates and Plato, Luther and Huss, Cromwell
and Lincoln, rule an ever-widening kingdom of ever more loyal
subjects.
And society will have leaders; men may set up whatever form of
government they will, they are always searching for a king. And this
is no sign of weakness or credulity. Man's desire for leadership is
only another proof of the vast future which he knows is before him,
and into which he longs to be guided. The wiser a man is, the more
he desires to be taught; the nobler he becomes, the more
whole-souled is the homage which he pays to the noblest. Is it a
sign of weakness or ignorance in students, of adult age and ripe
manhood, to flock to some great university to hear the wisdom and
catch the inspiration of some great master? When Jackson fell Lee
exclaimed, "I have lost my right arm." Was Jackson any the less for
being the right arm to deal, as only he could, the crushing blows
planned by the great strategist?
But is not man to be independent and free? Certainly. But he gains
freedom from the petty tyranny of robber-baron or boss, and from the
very pettiest tyranny of all, the service of self, only as he finds
and enlists under the king. Serve self and it will plunge you in,
and drag you through, the ditch, till your own clothes abhor you.
You are free to choose your teacher and guide and example. But
choose you will and must. I am not propounding theories; I am
telling you facts. Whether for better or worse man always does and
will choose because he must. Look about you, look into yourselves.
Have you no hero whom you admire and strive to resemble? no teacher
to whom you listen? You must and do have your example and teacher.
Is he teaching you to conform to environment, or leading you to be
ground in pieces by its forces all arrayed against you?
The Carpenter of Nazareth stood before Pilate. "And Pilate said
unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I
am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into
the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that
is of the truth heareth my voice." And Pilate would not wait for the
answer to his question, What is truth? and the Jews chose Barabbas.
Would you and I have acted differently? The answer of our Lord to
Pilate contains the essence of Christianity. "You a king," says
Pilate in astonishment; "where is your power to enforce your
authority?" And our Lord's answer seems to me to mean substantially
this: Roman legions shall suffer defeat, rout, and extermination;
and Roman power shall cease to terrify. All its might must decay.
But "everyone that is of the truth" shall attach himself to me with
a love which will brave rack and stake. All your power cannot give a
grain of new life. I can and will infuse my own divine life, my own
divine _self_, into men. And this new life is invincible, immortal,
all-conquering. I have infused myself into a few fishermen, and they
will infuse _me_ into a host of other men. Thus I will transfigure
into my own character every man in the world, who is of the truth,
and therefore will hear my voice. All the power of Rome cannot
prevent it, and whatever opposes it must go down before it.
Christianity is the contagion of a divine life. Society is the
medium through which it could and was to work. Greece had prepared
the language necessary for its spread. Roman power had built its
highways and levelled all obstructions.
"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." "Not by might, nor by
power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."
But, you will object, the grandest kings have had, as a rule, the
fewest loyal subjects. The prophets and seers are stoned. Elijah
stands alone on Carmel and opposed to him are more than a thousand
prophets of Baal, with court and king at their head. Heroism does
not pay, and heroes are few. Right is always in a hopeless minority.
Let us look into this matter carefully, for the objection, even if
overstated, certainly contains a large amount of truth.
Let us go back to two forms having much the same grade of
organization: both worms. One of them sets out to become a
vertebrate, building an internal skeleton. The other forms an
external skeleton and becomes a crab. To form its skeleton the crab
had only to thicken the cuticle already present in the annelid. It
had to modify the already existing parapodia and their muscles,
changing them to legs. The external skeleton gave from the start a
double advantage--protection and better locomotion. Every grain of
thickening aided the animal in the struggle for existence in both
these ways. The very fact that the skeleton was external may have
rendered it more liable to variation, because it was thus exposed to
continual stimuli. And the best were rapidly sifted out by Natural
Selection. The change and development went on with comparative
rapidity. In the mollusk the change was apparently still more easy
and the development still more rapid.
But the development of an internal skeleton was more difficult and
slower. It was of no use for the protection of the animal, and only
gradually did it become of much service in locomotion. Being
deep-seated it very possibly changed all the more slowly.
Furthermore, a cartilaginous rod, like the notochord, even fully
developed, hardly enabled the animal to fight directly with the
mail-clad crab. The internal skeleton had to become far more highly
developed before its great advantages, and freedom from
disadvantages, became apparent. The mollusk and crab were working a
mine rich in surface deposits although soon exhausted. The
vertebrate lead was poor at the surface, and only later showed its
inexhaustible richness. It looked as if the vertebrate were making a
very poor speculation.
Whether this explanation be true or not, a glance at a chart,
showing the geological succession of occurrence of the different
kingdoms, proves that in the oldest palæozoic periods there were
well-developed cuttlefish and crabs before there were any
vertebrates worthy of the name. If any were present, their skeleton
was purely cartilaginous and not preserved.
I think we may go farther, although in this latter consideration we
may very possibly be mistaken. We have already seen that the
progress made by any animal may be measured more or less accurately
by the length of time during which its ancestors maintained a
swimming life. The ancestors of the coelenterates settled to the
bottom first. Then successively those of flatworms, mollusks,
annelids, and crabs. All this time the ancestors of vertebrates were
swimming in the water above. Food was probably more abundant,
certainly more easily and economically obtained by a creeping life,
on the bottom. But thither the vertebrate could not go. There his
mail-clad competitors were too strong for him. Those which settled
and tried to compete in this sort of life perished. We may have to
except the ascidia, but they paid for their success by the loss of
nearly all their vertebrate characteristics. The future progress of
vertebrates depended upon their continual activity in the swimming
life. And they were forced by their environment to maintain this.
Otherwise they might, probably would, never have attained their
present height of organization. Certainly at this time you would
have found it hard to believe that the victory was to fall to these
weaker and smaller vertebrates.
Let us come down to a later period. Reptiles, mammals, and birds are
struggling for supremacy. Of the power and diversity of form of
these old reptiles we have generally no adequate conception. The
forms now living are but feeble remnants. There were huge
sea-serpents, and forms like our present crocodiles, but far more
powerful. Others apparently resembled in form and habit the
herbivorous and carnivorous mammals of to-day. Others strode or
leaped on two legs. And still others flew like bats or birds. They
were terrible forms, with coats of mail and powerful jaws and teeth.
And they were active and swift. When we look at them we see that the
vertebrate, though slow in gaining the lead, is sure to hold it. The
internal skeleton gave fewer advantages at the start; its greatest
superiority had lain in future possibilities.
But which vertebrate is heir to the future? It would have been a
hard choice between reptile and bird. I feel sure that I, for one,
should not have selected the mammal, a small, feeble being, hiding
in holes and ledges, and continually hard put to it to escape
becoming a mouthful for some huge reptile. And yet the persecution,
the impossibility of contending by brute strength, may have forced
the mammal into the line of brain-building and placental
development. The early development of mammals appears to have been
slow. Palæontology proves that they were long surpassed by reptiles
and birds. But the little mammal had the future. The battle was to
go against the strong.
Once again. The arboreal life of higher mammals would seem to be
most easily explained by the view that they were driven to it by
stronger carnivorous mammals having possession of the ground. Brain
was good, for it planned escape from enemies. But it did not give
its possessor immediate victory over muscle, tooth, and claw in the
tiger. That was to come far later with the invention of traps and
guns. Brain gave its possessor a sure hold of the future, and just
enough of the present to enable it to survive by a hard struggle.
And the same appears to have been true of primitive man.
Thus all man's ancestors have had to lead a life of continual
struggle against overwhelming odds and of seeming defeat. It was a
life of hardship, if not of positive suffering. The organ which was
to give them future supremacy, whether it was backbone, placenta, or
brain, could in its earlier stages aid them only to a hardly won
survival. The present apparently, and really as far as freedom from
discomfort and danger is concerned, always belongs to forms
hopelessly doomed to degeneration or stagnation. Crabs, not
primitive vertebrates, were masters of the good things of the sea;
and, in later times, reptiles, not mammals, of those of the land.
Any progressive form has to choose between the present and the
future. It cannot grasp both. I am not propounding to you any
metaphysical theories, but plain, dry, hard facts of palæontology;
explain them as you will.
And here we must add our last word about conformity to environment;
and it is a most important consideration. Conformity to environment
is not such an adaptation as will confer upon an animal the greatest
immunity from discomfort or danger, or will enable it to gain the
greatest amount of food and place, and produce the largest number of
offspring. Indeed, if you will add one element to those mentioned
above, namely, that all these shall be attained with the least
amount of effort, they insure degeneration beyond a doubt. This is
the conformity of the bivalve mollusk. The clam has abundance of
food, enormous powers of reproduction, almost perfect protection
against enemies, and lives a life of almost absolute freedom from
discomfort, and the clam is really lower than most worms.
If an animal is to progress, it must keep such a conformity ever
secondary to a still more important element, namely, conformity or
obedience to the laws of its own structure and being. This second
element the mollusk and every creeping stage neglected, and the
result of this neglect was stagnation or degeneration. Activity was
essential to progress from the very structure and laws of
development of the animal, while a great abundance of food was not.
A life of ease, for the same reason, necessarily results in
degeneration.
But you will ask, What becomes of Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution,
if obedience to the laws of individual being is more important than
conformity to external conditions? Both are evidently necessary, and
they are not so different as they may seem at first sight. They are
really one and the same. Bringing out the best and highest there is
in us, is the only true conformity to that which is deepest and
surest and most enduring in our environment. That in environment
which makes for digestion is almost palpable and tangible, that
which makes for activity less so perhaps; but that which makes for
brain and truth and right is intangible and invisible. We easily
fail to notice it; and, unless we take a careful view of the course
of development in the highest forms of life, we may be inclined to
deny its existence. But it is surely there, if man is a product of
evolution.
Each successive stage of animal life is not the preceding stage on a
higher plane, but the preceding stage modified in conformity to the
environment of that from which it has just arisen. Says Professor
Hertwig[A]: "During the process of organic development the external
is continually becoming an integral part of the individual. The germ
is continually growing and changing at the expense of surrounding
conditions." Every stage thus contains the result of a host of
reactions to a ruder and older portion of environment. And the
higher we go the more has the original protoplasm and structure been
modified as the result of these reactions.
[Footnote A: Hertwig: Zeit- und Streitfragen, p. 82.]
We have seen clearly that environment must be studied through its
effect upon living beings. Viewed from any other standpoint it
appears to be a myriad, almost a chaos, of interacting, apparently
conflicting, forces. The resultant of some of these is shown by the
animal at any stage of its development. And as the animal advances,
the resultant determining its new line, or stage, of advance,
includes new forces, to which it has only lately become sensitive.
And thus the human mind, as the last and highest product of
evolution, mirrors most adequately the resultant of all its forces.
If we would know environment we must study ourselves, not atoms
alone, nor rocks, nor worms.
Extremely sensitive photographic plates, after long exposure, have
proven the existence of stars so dim and far-off as to be invisible
to the best telescopes. Man's mind is just such a sensitive plate;
it is the only valid representation of environment.
The truth would appear to be that the law is present in environment,
but hard to read; but it is stamped upon our structure and being so
deeply and plainly that the dullest of us cannot fail to read it. We
learned the fact of gravitation the first time that we fell down in
learning to walk, long afterward we learned that its law guided
earth and moon. And it is the presence of this law within us, and
our own knowledge that we are conscious of it, that makes man
without excuse. But conformity to that which is deepest in
environment often, always, demands non-conformity to some of the
most palpable of surrounding conditions.
There is no better statement of the ultimate law of conformity than
the words of Paul: "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is
that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
And this difference is exactly what I have been trying to put before
you. The mollusk conformed, but the vertebrate conformed in a very
different way, and was transformed, "metamorphosed," to translate
the Greek word literally, into something higher. And let us not
forget that man conforms consciously and voluntarily, if at all; he
is able to read in himself and environment the law to which lower
forms have been compelled unconsciously to conform.
These facts merely illustrate a great law of life. No man's eye,
much less hand, can grasp the whole of the present and at the same
time the future. Rather what we usually call present advantage is
not advantage at all, but the first step in degeneration. If one
will be rich in old age he must deny himself some gratifications in
youth; his present reward is his self-control. If a man will climb
higher than his fellows he must expect to be sometimes solitary; his
reward is the ever-widening view, though the path be rougher and the
air more biting than in their lower altitude. If he point to heights
yet to attain, the majority will disbelieve him or say, "Our present
height was good enough for our ancestors, it is good enough for us.
Why sacrifice a good thing and make yourself ridiculous scrambling
after what in the end may prove unattainable?" If you discover new
truths you will certainly be called a subverter of old ones. And
this is entirely natural. The upward path was never intended to be
easy.
Read the "Gorgias" of Plato, and let us listen to the closing words
of Socrates in that dialogue: "And so, bidding farewell to those
things which most men account honors, and looking onward to the
truth, I shall earnestly endeavor to grow, so far as may be, in
goodness, and thus live, and thus, when the time comes, die. And, to
the best of my power, I exhort all other men also; and you
especially, in my turn, I exhort to this life and contest, which is,
I protest, far above all contests here." You must remember that
Callicles has been taunting Socrates with his lack of worldly wisdom
and the certainty that in any court of justice he would be
absolutely helpless because of his lack of knowledge of the
rhetorician's art: "This way then we will follow, and we will call
upon all other men to do the same, not that which you believe in and
call upon me to follow; for that way, Callicles, is worth nothing."
And Socrates met the end which he expected: death at the hands of
his fellow-citizens.
And here perhaps a little glimmer of light is thrown into one of the
darkest corners of human experience. The wise old author of
Ecclesiastes writes: "There is a just man that perisheth in his
righteousness; and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in
his wickedness. There is a vanity which is done upon the earth, that
there be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of
the wicked; again, there be wicked men to whom it happeneth
according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is
vanity." "I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to
the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men
of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all" (Eccles. viii.
14; ix. 11). It is this element of chance that threatens to make a
mockery of effort, and sometimes seems to make life but a travesty.
The terrible feature of Tennyson's description of Arthur's last, dim
battle in the west is not the "crash of battle-axe on shattered
helm," but the all-engulfing mist.
Perhaps this is all intended to teach us that riches and favor, and
even bread, are not the essentials of life, and that failure to
attain these is not such ruin as we often think. But no man ever
struggled for wisdom, righteousness, unselfishness, and heroism
without attaining them; even though the more he attained the more
dissatisfied he became with all previous attainment. And if our
slight attainments in wisdom and knowledge always brought wealth and
favor, we might rest satisfied with the latter, instead of clearly
recognizing that wisdom must be its own reward. Uncertainty and
deprivation are the best and only training for a hero, not sure
reward paid in popular plaudits.
Political economists speak of the productiveness and prospectiveness
of capital. We may well borrow these terms, using them in a somewhat
modified sense. In our sense capital is productive in so far as it
gives an immediate return; it is prospective in proportion as the
return is expected largely in the future. A "pocket" may yield an
immediate very large return of gold nuggets at a very slight expense
of labor and appliances, but it is soon exhausted. In a mine the ore
may be poor near the surface, but grow richer as the shaft deepens;
the vein is narrow above, but widens below. The returns are at first
small, its inexhaustible richness becomes apparent only after
considerable time and labor. The value of the "pocket" is purely
productive, that of the mine largely or purely prospective. Indeed
it may be opened at a loss. But even a rich mine may be worked
purely for its productive value; it may be "skinned."
Let us apply this thought to the development of a species; although
what is true of the species will generally be true of the individual
also, for the development of the two is, in the main, parallel. In
the animal all functions are to a certain extent productive, and all
directly or indirectly prospective. When we examine the sequence of
functions we cannot but notice how largely their value is
prospective. As long as a lower function is rising to supremacy in
the animal, it appears to be retained purely for its productive
value; thus digestion in hydra or gastræa. But after a time animals
appeared which had some muscle and nerve. And, by the process of
natural selection, those animals which used digestion as an end for
its productive value became food for, and gave place to, those using
it as a means of supporting muscle and nerve of greater prospective
value. And similarly, those animals which used muscle, or even mind,
productively gave place to others using these prospectively.
In other words, the functions and capacities of any animal, the
extent of its conformity to environment, may be regarded as its
capital. The animal may use this capital productively or
prospectively. It may spend its income, and more too; it may
increase its capital. Now social capital will always fall sooner or
later to those communities whose members use it most prospectively,
who are willing to forego, to quite an extent, present enjoyment,
and look for future return. The same is true of all development.
Sessile forms and mollusks, and, in a less degree, crabs and
reptiles, worked for immediate return. They are like extravagant
heirs who draw on their capital and sooner or later come to poverty.
The primitive vertebrate, the mammal, and the other ancestors of man
used their capital prospectively, and it increased, as if at
compound interest.
The spendthrift appears at first sight to have the greatest
enjoyment in life, the rising business man works hard and foregoes
much. I believe that the latter is really by far the happier of the
two. But, if you can spend only a day or two in a city, and your
examination is superficial, you may easily make the mistake of
considering the spendthrift as the most successful man in the
community. So, in our brief visit to the world in times past, we
picked out the crab, the reptile, and the carnivore as its rising
members.
Once more, capital can be spent very quickly; to use it
prospectively requires time. This is a truism; but it does no harm
to call attention to truisms which have been neglected. Organs and
powers of great prospective value are slow and difficult of
development. If their increase is to be at all rapid, they must
start early. If their development and culture is deferred, there
will be little or no advance, but probably degeneration.
Extravagance grows rapidly and soon becomes irresistible; habits of
saving must be formed early. The same is true of the development of
all other virtues.
There is in the child an orderly sequence of development of mental
traits. While these powers are in their earlier, so to speak
embryonic, stages of development, they can be fostered and increased
or retarded. They are still plastic. Very early in a child's life
acquisitiveness shows itself; he begins to say "I," and "mine," and
desires things to be his "very own." And this can be fostered so
that the child will grow up a "covetous machine." Or he may be
taught to share with others.
Not so much later, while the child is still in the lower grades of
his school life, comes the period of moral development. If, during
this period, these powers are fostered and cultivated, they may, and
probably will, be dominant throughout his life. And herein lies the
dignity and glory of the unappreciated, underpaid, and overworked
teachers of our "lower" schools, that they have the opportunity to
cultivate these moral powers of the child during these most critical
years of his life. Repression or neglect here works life-long and
irreparable harm. The young man goes out into the world. Here
"practical" men continually instruct him by precept upon precept,
line upon line, that he cannot afford to be generous until he has
acquired wealth; that he must first win success for himself, and
that he can then help others. And, unless his character is like
pasture-grown oak, he follows and improves upon their teachings. _He
reverses the sequence of functions._ He puts acquisitiveness first
and right and sterling honesty and unselfishness second. For a score
or more of years he labors. At first he honestly intends to build up
a strong character and a generous nature just as soon as he can
afford to; but for the present he cannot afford it. If he is to
succeed, he must do as others do and walk in the beaten track. He
wins wealth and position, or learning and fame. He now has the
ability and means to help others, but he no longer cares to do so.
Loyalty to truth, sterling honesty--the genuine, not the
conventional counterfeit--unselfishness, in one word, character,
these are plants of slow growth. They require cultivation by habit
through long years. In his case they have become aborted and
incapable of rejuvenescence. But his rudiment of a moral nature
feels twinges of remorse. He ought not to have reversed the sequence
of functions, and he knows it. But he cannot retrace his steps. He
made the development of character impossible when he made wealth his
first and chief aim. If he has a million dollars he tries to insure
his soul by leaving in his will one-tenth to build a church, or,
possibly, one-half for foreign missions. In the latter case he will
be held up as a shining example to all the youth of the land, and
the churches will ring with his praises. But what has been the
effect of his life on the moral, social capital of the community? Is
the world better or worse for his life? He has all his life been
disseminating the germs of a soul-blight more infectious and deadly
than any bodily disease.
If he has made learning or fame his chief aim, he probably has not
the money to buy soul-insurance. He takes refuge in agnosticism,
like an ostrich in a bush. His agnosticism is in his will; he does
not wish to see. Or its cause is atrophy, through disuse, of moral
vision. He cannot see. There are agnostics of quite another stamp,
whom we must respect and honor for their sterling honesty and
high character, though we may have little respect for their
philosophical tenets. But how much has our scholar advanced the
morality of the community? He has probably done even more harm than
the business man, who is a mere "covetous machine."
The "practical" man has reversed the sequence of functions.
Character is, and must be, first; and wealth, learning, power, and
fame are the materials, often exceedingly refractory, which it must
subjugate to its growth and use. And this subjugation is anything
but easy. The reversal of the sequence results in a moral
degradation and poverty indefinitely more dangerous to the community
than the slums of our great cities. For these may be controlled and
cleansed; but the moral slum floods our legislatures and positions
of honor and trust, and invades the churches. The mental and moral
water-supply of the community is loaded with disease-germs.
The social wealth of a community is the sum total of the wealth of
its individual members. And a community is truly wealthy only when
this wealth is, to a certain extent, diffused. If there is any truth
in our argument that the sequence of functions culminates in
righteousness and unselfishness, the real social wealth of a
community consists in its moral character, not in its money, or even
in its intelligence. We may rest assured that character, resulting
in industry and economy, will bring sufficient means of subsistence,
so that all its members will be fed and housed and clothed. And art
and culture, of the most ennobling and inspiring sort, will surely
follow. And even if such literature failed as largely composes our
present _fin-de-siècle_ garbage-heap, we would not regret its
absence. That community will and must survive in which the largest
proportion of members make the accumulation of character their chief
and first aim. And to this community every rival must in time yield
its place and power, and all its acquisitions. And in every
advancing community the position of any class or profession will in
time be determined by its moral wealth.
But this moral wealth is intangible. The rewards and penalties of
moral law easily escape notice in our hasty and superficial study of
life. The God immanent in our environment often seems to hide
himself. The altar of Jehovah is fallen down, and Baal's temples are
crowded with loud-mouthed worshippers. The bribes of present
enjoyment and of immediate success loom up before us, and we doubt
if any other success is possible.
But the law of progress, even now so dimly discernible in
environment, is written in our minds in letters of fire. For we have
already seen that environment can be understood only by tracing its
effects in the development of life. What is best and highest in us
is the record of the working of what is best and highest in
environment. And the personal God so dimly seen in environment is
revealed in man's soul. Man must study himself, if he is to know
what environment requires of him. And if the knowledge of himself
and of the laws of his being is the highest knowledge, is not the
vision of, and struggle toward, higher attainments, not yet realized
and hence necessarily foreseen, the only mode of farther progress?
And what is this pursuit of, and devotion to, ideals not yet
realized and but dimly foreseen, if it is not Faith, "the substance
of things hoped for, and evidence of things not seen?" By it alone
can man "obtain a good report." Man must "walk by faith, not by
sight." "For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are not seen are eternal."
CHAPTER VIII
MAN
In Kingsley's fascinating historical romance, Raphael Aben-Ezra says
to Hypatia, "Is it not possible that we have been so busy discussing
what the philosopher should be, that we have forgotten that he must
first of all be a man?" This truth we too often forget. No
statesman, philosopher, least of all teacher, can be truly great who
is not, first of all, and above all, a great man. And in our study
of man are we not prone to forget that he stands in certain very
definite and close relations with surrounding nature?
Man has been the object of so much special study, his position,
owing to his higher moral and mental power, is so unique that he has
often been regarded not only as a special creation, but as created
to occupy a position not only unique, but also exceptional, above
many of the very laws of nature, and not bound by them. Many speak
and write of him as if it were his chief glory and prerogative to be
as far removed as possible, not only from the animal, but even from
the whole realm of nature. The mistake of making him an exception
arises, after all, not so much from too high a conception of man, at
least of his possibilities, as from too low a view of nature.
But however this view may have arisen, it is one-sided and mistaken.
Man certainly has a place in Nature--not above it. If he is the
goal toward which the ascending series of living forms has
continually tended, he is a part of the series--the real goal lies
far above him.
Pascal says, "It is dangerous to show a man too clearly how closely
he resembles the brute without showing him at the same time his
greatness. It is equally dangerous to impress upon him his greatness
without his lowliness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in
ignorance of both. But it is of great advantage to point out to him
both characteristics side by side."
A great German thinker began his work on the human soul with a
discussion of the law of gravitation.
All study of man must begin with the study of the atom. Man's life
we have seen to be the aggregate of the work of all the cells of his
body. But the protoplasm which composes his cells is a chemical
compound, and hence subject to all the laws of all the atoms of
which it is composed. And its molecules, or the smallest
mechanically separable compounds of these atoms, are arranged and
related according to the laws of physics, so as to permit or produce
the play of certain forces which are always the result of atomic or
molecular combination. Every motive or thought demands the
combustion of a certain amount of material which has been already
assimilated in the microscopic cellular laboratories of our body.
Every vital activity is manifested at least through chemical and
physical forces. And the elements of the fuel for our engines we
receive through plants from the inorganic world. For the plant, as
we have seen, stores up as potential energy in its compounds the
actual energy of the sun's rays. And thus man lives and thinks by
energy, obtained originally from the sun. But man not only consumes
food and fuel. The complicated protoplasm is continually wearing out
and being replaced. Every cell in our bodies is a centre toward
which particles of material stream to be assimilated and form for a
time a part of the living substance, and then to be cast out again
as dead matter. Our very existence depends upon this continual
change. There is synthesis of simple substances into more complex
compounds, and then analysis of these complex compounds into
simpler, and from this latter process results the energy manifested
in every vital action. We are all whirlpools on the surface of
nature; when the whirling ceases we disappear. Man, like every other
living being, exists in a condition of constant interchange with
surrounding nature; he is rooted in innumerable ways in the
inorganic world.
And because of these close relations the great characteristic of
living beings is the necessity and power of conformity to
environment. Hence a very common definition of life is the continual
adjustment of internal relations to external relations or
conditions. To a very slight extent man can rise superior to certain
of the ruder elements of his surroundings, but he gains this victory
only by learning and following the laws of the very environment
which he succeeds in subjecting to himself. Indeed his higher
development and finer build bring him into touch with an
indefinitely wider range of surroundings than even the lower animal.
Forces, conditions, and relations which never enter the sphere of
life of lower forms, crowd and press upon him and he cannot escape
them. His higher position, instead of freeing him from dependence
upon environment and subjection to law, makes him thus more
sensitive, as well as more capable of exact conformity to an
environment of almost infinite complexity; and more sure of absolute
ruin, if ignorant, negligent, or disobedient. The words of the
German poet are literally true:
"Nach ehernen, eisernen, grossen Gesetzen,
Müssen wir alle unseres Daseins
Kreise vollenden."
But man is an animal. And the principal characteristic of an animal
is that it eats a certain amount of solid food. The plant lives on
fluid nutriment, and this comes to it by the process of diffusion in
every drop of water and breath of air. The acquisition of food
requires no effort, and the plant makes none. It has therefore
always remained stationary and almost insensible. Not taking the
first step it has never taken any of the higher ones. But solid food
would not, as a rule, come to the animal--though stationary and
sessile animals are not uncommon in the water--he must go in search
of it. This called into play the powers of locomotion and
perception. And in the sequence of function we have seen digestion
calling for the development of muscle; and muscle, of nerve and
brain. And the brain became the organ of mind.
Man as a mere animal is necessarily active and energetic; otherwise
he stagnates and degenerates. Labor is a curse, but work a blessing;
and man's best work, of every kind, is done in the friction of life,
not in ease and quiet. Man is, further, a being composed of cells,
tissues, and organs, which were successively developed for him by
the lower animal kingdoms. The old view, that man was the microcosm,
had in it a certain amount of every important truth. We need to be
continually reminded of our indebtedness in a thousand ways to the
lowest and most insignificant forms of life.
Man is a vertebrate animal. This means that he has a locomotive, not
protective, skeleton, composed of cartilage--a tough, elastic,
organic material, hardened, as a rule, by the deposition of mineral
salts, mainly phosphate of lime, in exceedingly fine particles, so
as to form a homogeneous, flawless, elastic, tough, light, and
unyielding skeleton, held together by firm ligaments.
The skeleton is internal, and this fact, as we have seen, gives the
possibility of large size. And size is in itself no unimportant
factor. Professor Lotze maintains that without man's size and
strength, agriculture and the working of metals, and thus all
civilization, would have been impossible. But we have already seen
that there is an extreme of size, _e.g._, in the elephant, which
makes its possessor clumsy, able to exist only where there are large
amounts of food in limited areas, slow to reproduce, and lacking in
adaptability. This extreme also is avoided in man; in this, as in
many other particulars, he holds the golden mean. But we have also
seen that large size is, as a rule, correlated with long life and
great opportunity for experience and observation. And these are the
foundations of intelligence. Hence the deliverance of the higher
vertebrate, and especially of man, from any iron-bound subjection to
instinct.
And here another question of vital importance meets us. Is man's
life at present as long as it should or can be? The question is
exceedingly difficult, but a negative answer seems more probable. We
cannot but hope that, with a better knowledge of our physical
structure, a clearer vision of the dangers to which we are exposed,
more study of the laws of physiology, heredity, and of our
environment, and above all, less reckless disregard of these in a
mad pursuit of pleasure, wealth, and position, man's period of
mature, healthy, and best activity may be lengthened, perhaps, even
a score of years. The mitigation of hurry and worry alone, the two
great curses of our American civilization, might postpone the
collapse of our nervous systems longer than we even dream. And if we
could add even five years to the working life of our statesmen,
scholars, and discoverers, the work of these last five years, with
the advantage of all previously acquired knowledge and experience,
might be of more value than that of their whole previous life. Human
advance could not but be greatly, or even vastly, accelerated.
Moreover, we have seen that the history of vertebrates is really the
history of the development of the cerebrum, forebrain or large
brain, as we call it in man. This is the seat in man of
consciousness, thought, and will. This portion as a distinct and new
lobe first appears in lowest vertebrates, increases steadily in size
from class to class, reaches its most rapid development by mammals,
and its culmination in man. During the tertiary period--the last of
the great geological periods--the brain in many groups of mammals
increased in size, both absolutely and relatively, eight to tenfold.
Dr. Holmes says, that the education of a child should begin a
century or two before its birth; man really began his mental
education at least as early as the appearance of vertebrate life.
But man is a mammal. This means that every organ is at its best. The
digestive system, while making but a small part of the weight of the
body, and built mainly on the old plan, is wonderfully perfect in
its microscopic details. The muscles are heavy and powerful,
arranged with the weight near the axis of the body, and replaced
near the ends of the appendages by light, tough sinews. The higher
mammal is this compact, light, and agile. The skeleton is strong,
and the levers of the appendages are fitted to give rapidity of
motion even at the expense of strength. And this again is possible
only because of the high development and strength of the muscles.
Moreover, the highest mammals are largely arboreal, and in
connection with this habit have changed the foreleg into an arm and
hand. The latter became the servant of the brain and gave the
possibility of using tools.
But increase in size and activity, and the expense of producing each
new individual, led to the adoption of placental development. And
the mammal is so complex, the road from the egg to the fully
developed young is so long, that a long period of gestation is
necessary. And even at birth the brain, especially of man, is
anything but complete. Hence the necessity of the mammalian habit of
suckling and caring for the young. And this feebleness and
dependence of the young had begun far below man to draw out maternal
tenderness and affection. And the mammalian mode of reproduction and
care of young led to a more marked difference and interdependence
between the sexes.
The result of this is man's family life, as Mr. John Fiske has
shown so beautifully in that fascinating monograph, "The Destiny of
Man." And family life once introduced becomes the foundation and
bulwark of all civilization, morality, and religion. Far down in the
mammalian series, before the development of the family, maternal
education has become prominent, and the young begins life, benefited
by the experiences of the parent. How much more efficient is this in
family life. But, furthermore, the family is perhaps the first,
certainly the most important, of those higher unities in which men
are bound together. Social life of a sort undoubtedly existed,
before man, among birds, insects, and lower mammals. The community
was often defective or incomplete in unity, or existed under such
limitations that it could not show its best results, but that it was
of vast benefit from an even higher than mere physical standpoint,
no one will, I think, deny. But with the family a new era of
education and social life began.
First of all, the struggle for existence is thereby greatly modified
and mitigated. This crowding out and trampling down of the weaker by
the stronger is transferred, to a certain extent, from the
individual to the family and, in great degree, from the family to
larger and larger social units. For within the limits of the family
competition tends to be replaced by mutual helpfulness, and not only
are the loneliness and horror of the struggle between isolated
individuals banished, but, what is vastly more, the family becomes
the school of unselfishness and love. And what has thus become true
of the single family, and groups of nearly related families, is
slowly being realized in the larger units of communities and
states. For, as families and communities are just as really
organisms as are the individual men and women, whose soundness
depends upon the healthy activity of every organ, so there is a
survival, first of families, then of communities and rival
civilizations, in proportion to their unity and soundness in every
part. For on account of the close bonds of family and social life,
and in connection with the development of articulate speech, a new
kind of heredity, so to speak, arises, of vast importance for both
good and evil. This mental and moral heredity, over-leaping all
boundaries of blood and natural kinship, spreads light and good
influence or an immoral contagion through the community. And thus,
in sheer self-defence, society passes laws setting limits to the
oppression of the poor and weak, lest, degraded and brutalized, they
become breeding centres of physical and moral disease in the
community. The positive lesson that the surest mode of self-defence
is the elevation of these submerged classes, we are just beginning
to learn and apply.
By the ever-increasing acceleration of the development the gap
between man and the lower animal widens with wonderful rapidity. Of
course it is only in man, and higher man, that these last and
highest results of mammalian structure appear. But that, far removed
as they are, they are the results of mammalian and vertebrate
characteristics cannot, I think, be well denied. And this is only
one of innumerably possible illustrations of the fact that all our
most highly prized institutions are rooted far back in our ancestry,
often ineradicably in the very organs of our bodies. And thus
evolution, which many view only from its radical side--and it has a
radical side--is really the conservative bulwark of all that is
essentially worth possessing in the past.
But every factor in man's development tends toward intellectual and
spiritual development. Man's vast increase of brain; his finely
balanced body; his upright gait; setting his hands free from the
work of locomotion that they might become the skilful servants of
the mind; finally, articulate speech and social, and, above all,
family, life, all tended in this same direction.
And this makes the great difficulty in assigning man his
proper place in our systems of classification. Our zoölogical
classifications depend upon anatomical characteristics; and
anatomically man belongs among the order primates. But mental and
moral values cannot be expressed in terms of anatomy, any more than
we can speak of an idea of so many horse-power, and hence worth
three or four ancestral dollars. Hence, while from the zoölogical
standpoint man is a primate, and while he is very probably descended
from one of these, he has gradually risen above them mentally and
spiritually, so that he stands as far above them as they above the
lowest worm. And this leads us to the consideration of man, not
merely as a mammal, but as "Anthropos," Homo sapiens, although he
often degenerates into "Simia destructor."
From what has just been said man's pre-eminence cannot consist in
any anatomical characteristic, even of the brain--much less of
thumb, forefinger, hand, or foot. But man's mental and moral
characteristics (even though germs of these may be present in the
animal), whether differing in degree or kind from theirs, raise his
life to a totally different plane. He lives in an environment of
which the lower animal is as unconscious and ignorant as we of a
fourth dimension of space. He has the knowledge of abstract truth
and goodness, of certain standards outside of mere appetite and
desire, and feels and acknowledges, however dimly, the requirement
and the ability to conform his life to these standards. He alone can
say "I ought," and answer "I can and will." And hence man alone
actually lives in an environment of the laws of reason,
responsibility, and personality. Whatever germs of these higher
powers the animal possesses are means to material ends, to the
physical life of the animal. In man the long and slow evolution has
ended in revolution, the material and physical have been dethroned,
and truth and goodness reign supreme as ends in themselves.
But, you may object, this definition of man may be true ideally,
certainly it is not true actually. Where are the high ideals of
truth and goodness in the savage? and are these the supreme ends of
even the average American of to-day? But allowing all weight to this
objection, does it not remain true that a being who never says "I
ought," who acknowledges and manifests no responsibility, to whom
goodness does not appeal, and in whom these feelings cannot be
awakened, is either not yet or no longer man? But far more than
this, if the character of the individual is to be judged by his
tendency more than his present condition, by the way in which he is
going more than his momentary position, is not the race to be judged
and defined by a tendency, gradually though very slowly becoming
realized, and a goal, toward which it looks and which it is surely
attaining, rather than by its present realization? As we rise
higher in the animal kingdom the characteristics of the successive
higher groups are more and more slow of attainment and difficult of
realization, just because of their grander possibilities. And this
is true and important above all in the case of man. His
possibilities are beyond our powers of conception, for, if you will,
man is yet only larval man.
We have followed the sequence of functions to its culmination in a
mind completely dominated by righteousness and unselfishness,
however far above our present attainments this goal may be. We have
found that all attempts to reverse this sequence end in death or
degeneration. Failure to advance, especially in higher forms,
results in extinction or retrogression. We cannot stand still. Each
higher step is longer and more important than any preceding; each
last step is essential to life. Righteousness in the will is the
last step essential to man's progress. And if a sound mind in a
sound body is important or necessary, a sound will, resolutely set
on right, is absolutely essential. Failure to attain this is ruin.
And man can to a great extent place himself so that his surroundings
shall aid him to take this last, essential, upward step. He does
this by the choice of his associates. If he associates himself with
men who are tending upward, he will rise ever higher. If he choose
the opposite kind of associates he must sink into ever deeper
degradation; he has thereby chosen death. For his associates, once
chosen, make him like themselves. And thus natural selection makes
for the survival of those men who resolutely choose life. And
thoughtless or careless failure to choose is ruin. The man has
preferred degradation; it is only right that he should have it to
satiety.
But man is not, and never can be, pure spirit. He may "let the ape
and tiger die," but he must always retain the animal with its
natural appetites. Moreover, his higher mental capacities increase
their power. Memory recalls past gratifications as it never does to
the animal; imagination paints before him vivid pictures of similar
future enjoyments, and mental keenness and strength of will tell him
that they can all be his. But if he yields himself a slave to these
appetites, if he seeks to be an animal rather than a spiritual
being, he becomes not an animal but a brute; and the only genuine
brute is a degenerate man. And thus after conquering the world man's
very structure compels him to join battle with himself. For here, as
everywhere else, to attempt to go backward to a plane of life once
passed is to surely degenerate. The time when the prize of
pre-eminence could be won by mere physical superiority was passed
before man had a history. Physical superiority must be maintained,
and every advance in art and science, considered here as ministering
to man's physical comfort, is advantageous just so far as these
allow man freedom and aid to pursue the mental and moral line which
is the only true path left open to him. But when even these are
allowed to minister only to the animal, or to tempt to luxurious
ease and indifference to any higher aims, in a word, in so far as
they fail to minister to mental and moral advancement, they are in
great danger of becoming, if they have not already become, a curse
rather than a blessing. And we all know that this has been proven
over and over again in human history. Families, cities, and nations
rot, mainly because they cannot resist the seductions of an
overwhelming material prosperity. A man says to his soul, "Take
thine ease, eat, drink and be merry," and to that man scripture and
science say, with equal emphasis, "Thou fool!"
Every upward step in attainment of the comforts of life, of art and
science, brings man into new fields not of careless enjoyment but of
struggle. They swarm with new enemies and temptations before
unknown. The new attainments are not unalloyed blessings, they are
merely opportunities for victory or defeat. The uncertain battle is
only shifted to a little higher plane. Man has increased the forces
at his command only to meet stronger opposing hosts. And retreat is
impossible. Man remains a spiritual being only on condition that he
resolutely and vigilantly purposes to be so. To lag behind in this
spiritual path is death.
And the epitaph of nations and individuals is the record of their
defeat in this struggle to be masters and not slaves of their
material and intellectual attainments. Greece, the most intellectual
of all nations of all times, died in mental senility of moral
paralysis. Of Socrates's and Plato's "following after truth" nothing
remained but the gossipy curiosity of a second childhood, living
only to tell or to hear some new thing. And the schools of
philosophy were closed because they had nothing to tell which was
worth the knowing or hearing. All the wealth of the world was poured
into Rome, the home of Stoic philosophy, and it was smothered, and
died in rottenness under its material prosperity.
A family, race, or nation starts out fresh in its youthful physical
and mental vigor and strict obedience to moral law and in its faith
in God. For these reasons it survives in the struggle for existence.
It grows in extent and power, in intelligence and wealth. But with
this increase in wealth and power comes a deadening of the mind to
the claims of moral law, and an idolatrous worship of material
prosperity. The new generation looks upon the stern morality and
industry and self-control of its ancestors as straight-laced and
narrow. Morality may not be unfashionable, but any stern rebuke of
immorality is not conventional. Strong moral earnestness and
whole-souled loyalty to truth are not in good form. Wealth and
social position become the chief ends of men's efforts, and, to buy
these, unselfishness and truth and self-respect are bartered away.
Luxury, enervation, and effeminacy are rife, and snobbery follows
close behind them. The ancestral vigor, the insight to recognize
great moral principles, and the power to gladly hazard all in their
defence have disappeared in a mist of indifference, which beclouds
the eyes and benumbs all the powers. The race of giants is dwindling
into dwarfs. They say, when the time comes, we will rouse ourselves
and be like our fathers. And the crisis comes, but they are not
equal to it. The nation has long enough cumbered the ground, it has
already died by suicide and must now give place to a race and
civilization which has some aim in, and hence right to, existence,
and which is of some use to itself and others. If we would learn by
observation, and not by sad experience, we must remember that man is
above all, and must be a religious being conforming to the
personality of the God manifested in his environment.
Can you find anywhere a more profound or scientific philosophy of
history than that of Paul in the first chapter of Romans? "For the
invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his
everlasting power and divinity; so that they are without excuse:
because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither
gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings and their senseless
heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools. And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God
gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness."[A] And then follows
the dark picture, from which we revolt but which the ancient
historians themselves justify.
[Footnote A: Romans i. 20-22, 28.]
On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at Rome is Michel Angelo's
marvellous painting of the creation of Adam. A human figure of
magnificent strength is half-rising from its recumbent posture, as
if just awakening to consciousness, and is reaching out its hand to
touch the outstretched finger of God. The human being became and
becomes man when, and in proportion as, he puts himself in touch
with God, and is inspired with the divine life. The lower animal
conformed mainly to the material in environment, man conforms
consciously to the spiritual and personal.
Any science of human history that does not acknowledge man's
relation to a personal God is fatally incomplete; for it has missed
the goal of man's development and the chief means of his farther
advance. And a religion which does not emphasize this is worse than
a broken reed. It is a mirage of the desert, toward which thirsty
souls run only to die unsatisfied.
Man can never overcome in this battle with the allurements of
material prosperity and with the pride and selfishness of intellect,
except as he is interpenetrated and permeated with God, any more
than we can move or think, unless our blood is charged with the
oxygen of the air. It is not enough that man have God in his
intellectual creed; he must have him in his heart and will, in every
fibre of his personality, in every thought and action of life.
Otherwise his defeat and ruin are sure.
Three fatal heresies are abroad to-day: 1. Man's chief end is
avoidance of pain and discomfort, in one word, happiness; and God is
somehow bound to surfeit man with this. And this is the chief end of
a mollusk. 2. Man's chief end is material prosperity and social
position. 3. Man's chief end is intellect, knowledge. Each one of
these three ends, while good in a subordinate place, will surely
ruin man if made his chief end. For they leave out of account
conformity to environment. "Man's chief end is to glorify God and
enjoy him for ever." And just as the plant glorifies the sun by
turning to, and being permeated and vivified and built up by, the
warmth and light of its rays, similarly man must glorify God. This
is the religion of conformity to environment: man working out his
salvation because God works in him. Thus, and thus only, shall man
overcome the allurements of these lower endowments and receive the
rewards of "him that overcometh."
Thus prosperity and adversity, success and failure, continually test
a man. If he can rise superior to these, can subjugate them and make
them subserve his moral progress, he survives; if he is mastered by
them, he perishes. Through these does natural selection mainly work
to find and train great souls. They are the threads of the sieve of
destiny.
In this struggle man must fight against overwhelming odds, and the
cost of victory is dear. He must be prepared, like Socrates, to "bid
farewell to those things which most men count honors, and look
onward to the truth." He appears to the world at large, often to
himself, eminently unpractical. The majority against his view and
vote will usually be overwhelming. Truth is a stern goddess, and she
will often bid him draw sword and stand against his nearest and
dearest friends. The issue will often appear to him exceeding
doubtful. The grander the truth for which he is fighting, the
greater the need of its defence and enforcement, the greater the
probability that he will never live to see its triumph. The hero
must be a man of gigantic faith. But all his ancestors have had to
make a similar choice and to fight a similar battle. The upward path
was intended to be exceedingly hard. This is a law of biology.
Why this is so I may not know. I only know that no better and surer
way could have been discovered to train a race of heroes. For no man
ever becomes a hero who has not learned to battle with the world and
himself. Does it not look as if God loved a heroic soul as much as
men worship one, and as if he intended that man should attain to
it? Man was born and bred in hardship that he might be a hero.
"Careless seems the great avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
"Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied."
The Crown Prince of Prussia has less spending money than many a
young fellow in Berlin. He is trained to economy, industry,
self-control. He is to learn something better than habits of luxury,
to rule himself, and thus later the German Empire. The children of a
great captain, themselves to be soldiers, must endure hardness like
good soldiers. And man is to fight his way to a throne.
But his powers are still in their infancy and the goal far above
him. What he is to become you and I can hardly appreciate. First of
all, the body will become finer, fitted for nobler ends. It will not
be allowed to degenerate. It may become less fitted for the rough
work, which can be done by machinery; it will be all the better for
higher uses. It is to be transformed, transfigured. The eye may not
see so far, it will be better fitted for perceiving all the beauties
of art and nature. It will become a better means of expressing
personality, as our personality becomes more "fit to be seen." It is
continually gaining a speech of its own. And will not the ear become
more delicate, a better instrument for responding to the finest
harmonies, and better gateway to our highest feelings? We may not
have so many molar teeth for chewing food, but may not our mouths
become ever finer instruments for speech and song? In other words,
the body is to be transfigured by the mind and become its worthy
servant and representative.
As we learn to live for something better than food and clothes, and
cease to pamper the body, it will become better and healthier.
Science will stamp out many diseases, and we shall learn to prevent
others by right living. And what a change in our moral and religious
life will be made by good health. What a cheerful courage and hope
it will give.
Man will become more intelligent. He will learn the laws of heredity
and of life in general. He will see deeper into the relations of
things. He will recognize in himself and his environment the laws of
progress. He will clearly discern great moral truths, where we but
dimly see lights and shadows.
But while we would not underestimate the value and necessity of
growth in knowledge, we must as clearly recognize that the intellect
is not the centre and essence of man's being. Knowledge, while the
surest form of wealth of which no one can rob us, and the best as
the stepping-stone to the highest well-being, is like wealth in one
respect: it is not character and can be used for good or evil. If my
neighbor uses his greater knowledge as a means of overreaching us
all, it injures us and ruins him.
Our emotions, and this is but another word for our motives, stand
far nearer to the centre of life; for they control our conduct and
directly determine what we are. Knowledge of environment is good,
but of what real and permanent use is such knowledge without
conformity? Our real weakness is not our ignorance; we know the
good, but lack the will and purpose to live it out. And this is
because the thought of truth and goodness excites no such strength
of feeling as that of some lower gratification. We cannot perhaps
overrate the value of intellect; we certainly underrate the value of
emotion and feeling. "Knowledge puffeth up, love buildeth." It does
not require great intellect, it does require intense feeling to be a
hero. We slander the emotions by calling people emotional because
they are always talking about their feelings; but deep feeling is
always silent. It is not fashionable to feel deeply, and we are
dwarfed by this conventionality. We have almost ceased to wonder,
and hence we have almost ceased to learn; for the wise old Greeks
knew that wonder is the mother of wisdom.
The man of the future will probably be a man of strong appetites,
for he will be healthy; he will be prudent, because wise; but he
will hold his appetites well in leash. He will trample upon mere
prudential considerations at the call of truth or right. For in him
these highest motives will be absolute monarchs, and they are the
only motives which can enable a man to face rack and stake without
flinching. He will be a hero because he feels intensely. In other
words, he will be a man of gigantic will, because he has a great
heart. And in the man of the future all these powers will be not
only highly developed; they will be rightly proportioned and duly
subordinated. He will be a well-balanced man. But how few complete
men we now see.
We see the strong will without the clear intellect to guide it; the
gush of feeling either directed toward low ends or evaporating in
sentiment; the clear head with the cold heart. The high development
of one mental power seems to draw away all strength and vitality
from the rest. How rarely do we find the strong will guided by the
keen intellect toward the highest aims clearly discerned. Memory and
imagination must always play their part in the joy set before us.
But in addition to all these, the white heat of feeling, of which
man alone is capable, is necessary for his grandest efforts. Such a
being would be a man born to be a king. And there will be a race of
such men. And we must play the man that they may be raised upon our
buried shoulders. And they will tower above us, as the seers of old
in Judea, Athens, India, and Rome towered above their indolent,
luxurious, blind, and material contemporaries. And with all their
accelerated development, infinite possibilities will still stretch
beyond the reach of their imagination. For "men follow duty, never
overtake."
But all our analyses are unsatisfactory. In the history of any great
people there is a period when they seem to rise above themselves.
They have the strength of giants, and accomplish things before and
since impossible. We sometimes ascribe these results to the
exuberant vitality of the race at this time; and their life is large
and grand. Such was England under Elizabeth. Think of her soldiers
and explorers, her statesmen and poets. There were giants in those
days. What a healthy, hearty enjoyment they showed in all their
work, and with what ease was the impossible accomplished. The
greater the hardships to be borne or odds to be faced, the greater
the joy in overcoming them. They sailed out to give battle to the
superior power of Spain, not at the command, but by the permission,
of their queen; often without even this.
And what a vigor and vitality there is in the literature of this
period. Life is worth living, and studying, and describing. They see
the world directly as it is; not some distorted picture of it, seen
by an unhealthy mind and drawn by a feeble hand. The world is ever
new and fresh to them because they see it through young, clear eyes.
Were they giants or are we dwarfed? Which of the two lives is
normal? They used all their faculties and utilized all their powers.
Do we? The only force or product which we are willing to see wasted
is the highest mental and moral power. Our engines and turbine
wheels utilize the last ounce of pressure of the steam or water. The
manufacturers pay high wages to hands who can tend machines run at
the highest possible speed. The profits of modern business come
largely from the utilization of force or products formerly wasted.
But how far do we utilize the highest faculties of the mind, which
have to do with character, the crowning glory of human development?
Are we not eminently "penny-wise and pound-foolish?" A ship which
uses only its donkey-engines, and does nothing but take in and get
out cargo is a dismantled hulk. A captain who thinks only of cargo,
and engines, and the length of the daily run, but who takes no
observations and consults no chart, will make land only to run upon
rocks. Are we not too much like such dismantled hulks, or ships
sailing with priceless cargoes but with mad captains?
But we have not yet seen the worst results of this waste of our
highest powers. The sessile animal, which lives mainly for
digestion, does not attain as good digestive organs as his more
active neighbor, who subordinates digestion to muscle. Lower powers
reach their highest development only in proportion as they are
strictly subordinated to higher. This may be called a law of
biology. And our lower mental powers fail of their highest
development and capacity mainly because of the lack of this
subordination.
But a disused organ is very likely to become a seat of disease and
to thus enfeeble or destroy the whole body. And this disease effects
the most complete ruin when its seat is in the highest organs.
Dyspepsia is bad enough, but mania or idiocy is infinitely worse.
And our moral powers are always enfeebled, and often diseased, from
lack of strong exercise. And some blind guides, seeing only the
disease, cry out for the extirpation of the whole faculty, as some
physicians are said to propose the removal of the vermiform
appendage in children. Similarly might the drunkard argue against
the value of brain, because it aches after a debauch. Our work is
hard labor, and we gain no enjoyment in the use of our mental
powers; for the enjoyment of any activity is proportional to the
height and glory of the purpose for which it is employed. As long as
we are content to use only our lower mental faculties and to gain
low ends, our use of even these will be feeble and ineffectual, and
our lives will be poor, weak, and unhappy.
But future man will subordinate these lower powers to the higher. He
will utilize all that there is in him. And his efficiency must be
vastly greater than ours. And finally, and most important, these men
will be all-powerful, because they have so conformed to environment
that all its forces combine to work with them.
England under Elizabeth seemed to rise above itself. Think of
Holland, under William the Silent, defying all the power of Spain.
Look at Bohemia, under Ziska, a handful of peasants joining battle
with and defeating Germany and Austria combined. Think of Cromwell
and his Ironsides, before whom Europe trembled. These men were not
merely giants, they were heroes. And the essence of heroism is
self-forgetfulness. The last thought of William the Silent was not
for himself, but for his "poor people." And those rugged Ironsides,
"fighting with their hands and praying with their hearts," smote
with light good-will and irresistibly, because they struck for truth
and freedom, for right and God. These are motives of incalculable
strength, and they transfigure a man and raise him above his
surroundings and even himself. The man becomes heroic and godlike,
and when possessed by these motives he has clasped hands with God.
He is inspired and infused with the divine power and life. Such a
man has no time nor care to think of himself. To him it matters
little whether he lives to see the triumph of his cause, provided he
can hasten it. Though victory be in the future, it is sure; and the
joy of battle for so sure and grand a triumph is present reward
enough. His very faith removes mountains and turns to night armies
of the aliens. For heroism begets faith, just as surely as faith
begets heroism.
"Where there is no vision the people perish." When the member of
Congress can see nothing higher than spoils of office, nothing
larger than a silver dollar, you should not criticise the poor man
if his oratorical efforts do not move an audience like the sayings
of Webster, Lincoln, or Phillips.
Future man will be heroic and divine, because he will live in an
atmosphere of truth and right and God, and will be consciously
inspired by these divine, omnipotent motives.
But who will compose this future race? We cannot tell. And yet the
attempt to answer the question may open our eyes to truth of great
practical importance.
It would seem to be a fact that the offspring of a cross between
different races of the same species is as a rule more vigorous than
that of either pure race. Human history seems to show the same
result. The English race is a mixture of Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes,
and Normans, with a sprinkling of other races. And a new fusion of a
great number of most diverse strains is rapidly going on in the
newly populated portions of America and in Australia. The mixture
contains thus far almost purely occidental races. It will in future
almost certainly contain oriental also. For the races of India,
Japan, and even China, are no farther from us to-day than the
ancestors of many of our occidental fellow-citizens were a century
ago. Racial prejudices, however strong, weaken rapidly through
intercourse and better acquaintance. One of the grandest and least
perceived results of missionary work is the preparation for this
great fusion.
Many races will undoubtedly go down before the advance of
civilization and have no share in the future. Progress seems to be
limited to the inhabitants of temperate zones; and even here the
weaker may be crowded out before the stronger rather than absorbed
by them. But many whom we now despise may have a larger inheritance
in the future than we. God is clearly showing us that we should not
count any man, much less any nation, common or unclean. And the laws
of evolution give us a firm confidence that no good attained by any
race or civilization will fail to be preserved in the future.
The forms which seem to us at any one time the highest are as a rule
not the ancestors of the race of the future. These highest forms are
too much specialized, and thus fitted to a narrow range of space,
time, and general conditions; when these change they pass away.
Specialization is doubly dangerous when it follows a wrong line. But
whenever it is carried far enough to lead to a one-sided
development, it narrows the possibility of future advance; for it
neglects or crowds out or prevents the development of other powers
essential to life. The mollusk neglected nerve and muscle. But the
scholar may, and often does, cultivate the brain at the expense of
the rest of the body until he and his descendants suffer, and the
family becomes extinct.
The young men of the nobility of wealth, birth, and fashion usually
marry heiresses, if they can. But only in families of enormous
wealth can there be more than one or two heiresses in the same
generation. She has very probably inherited a portion of her wealth
from one or more extinct branches of the family. Moreover, not to
speak of other factors, the labor and anxiety which have been
essential to the accumulation and preservation of these great
fortunes, or the mode of life which has accompanied their use or
abuse, tend to diminish the number of children. Heiresses to very
large fortunes usually therefore belong to families which are
tending to sterility. And this has very probably been no unimportant
factor in the extinction of "noble" families.
A sound body contains many organs, all of which must be sound. And
in a sound mind there is an even greater number of faculties, all of
which must be kept at a high grade of efficiency. Man is a
marvellously complex being, and more in danger of a narrow and
one-sided development than any lower animal. And it is very easy for
a certain grade or class of society, or for a whole race, to become
so specialized, by the cultivation of only one set of faculties as
to altogether prevent its giving birth to a complete humanity. Along
certain broad lines the Greeks and Romans attained results never
since equalled. But their neglect of other, even more important,
powers and attainments, especially the moral and religious, doomed
them to a speedy decay. The rude northern races were on the whole
better and nobler, and became heirs to Greek art and letters, and
to Roman law. And this is another illustration of the advantage or
necessity of the fusion of races.
To answer the question, "Which stratum or class in the community or
world at large is heir to the future?" we must seek the one which is
still to a large extent generalized. It must be maintaining, in a
sound body, a steady, even if slow, advance of all the mental
powers. It will not be remarkable for the high development or lack
of any quality or power; it must have a fair amount of all of them
well correlated. It must be well balanced, "good all around," as we
say. And this class is evidently neither the highest nor the lowest
in the community, but the "common people, whom God must have loved,
because he made so many of them."
They have, as a rule, fair-sized or large families. Their bodies are
kept sound and vigorous by manual labor. They are compelled to think
on all sorts of questions and to solve them as best they can. They
have a healthy balance of mental faculties, even if they are not
very learned or artistic. They are kept temperate because they
cannot afford many luxuries. Their healthy life prevents an undue
craving for them. They help one another and cultivate unselfishness.
The good old word, neighbor, means something to them. They have a
sturdy morality, and you can always rely upon them in great moral
crises. They are patriotic and public-spirited; they have not so
many, or so enslaving, selfish interests. They have always been
trained to self-sacrifice and the endurance of hardship; and heroism
is natural to them. They have a strong will, cultivated by the
battle of daily life. And among them religion never loses its hold.
But what of our tendencies to specialization in education and
business? Are these wrong and injurious? Specialization, like great
wealth, is a great danger and a fearful test of character. It tends
to narrowness. If you will know everything about something, you must
make a great effort to know something about, and have some interest
in, everything. The great scholar is often anything but the
large-minded, whole-souled man which he might have become. He has
allowed himself to become absorbed in, and fettered by, his
specialty until he can see and enjoy nothing outside of it. There is
no selfishness like that of learning.
We can accomplish nothing unless we concentrate our efforts upon a
comparatively narrow line of work. But this does not necessitate
that our views should be narrow or our aims low. Teufelsdröckh may
live on a narrow lane; but his thoughts, starting along the narrow
lane, lead him over the whole world. The narrowness of our horizon
is due to our near-sightedness.
But the only absolutely safe specialization is the highest possible
development of our moral and religious powers. For their cultivation
only enlarges and strengthens all the other powers of body and mind.
"But," you will object, "does religion always broaden?" Yes. That
which narrows is the base alloy of superstition. But a religion
which finds its goal and end in conformity to environment,
character, and godlikeness can only broaden.
But there is the so-called "breadth" of the shallow mind which
attempts to find room at the same time for things which are mutually
exclusive. God and Baal, right and wrong, honesty and lying,
selfishness and love, these are mutually exclusive. You cannot find
room in your mind for both members of the pair at the same time. You
must choose. And, when you have chosen, abide by your choice. A
ladleful of thin dough fallen on the floor is very broad. But its
breadth is due to lack of consistency. Better narrowness than such
breadth.
But while individual specialization may be safe for the individual,
and beneficial to the race, the race which is to inherit the future
must remain unspecialized. It must not sacrifice future
possibilities to present rapidity of advance. And the common people
are advancing safely, slowly, but surely. Wealth and learning become
of permanent prospective and real value only when they are
invested in the masses. They are the final depositaries of all
wealth--material, intellectual, moral, and religious. Whatever, and
only that which, becomes a part of their life becomes thereby
endowed with immortality. Will we invest freely or will we wait to
have that which we call our own wrested from us? If we refuse it to
our own kin and nation, it will surely fall to foreigners. "God made
great men to help little ones."
The city of God on earth is being slowly "builded by the hands of
selfish men." But the builders are becoming continually more
unselfish and righteous, and as they become better and purer its
walls rise the more rapidly.
CHAPTER IX
THE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE
We have studied the teachings of science concerning man and his
environment, let us turn now to the teachings of the Bible. And
though eight chapters have been devoted to the teachings of science,
and only one to the teachings of the Bible, it is not because I
underestimate the importance of the latter. It is more difficult to
clearly discover just what are the teachings of Nature in science.
The lesson is written in a language foreign to most of us, and one
requiring careful study; and yet once deciphered it is clear.
Science attains the laws of Nature by the study of animal and human
history. But this record is a history of continually closer
conformity to environment on the part of all advancing forms. The
animal kingdom is the clay which is turned, as Job says, to the seal
of environment, and it makes little difference whether we study the
seal or the impression; we shall read the same sentence. Environment
has stamped its laws on the very structure of man's body and mind.
And the old biblical writers read these laws, guided by God's
Spirit, in their own hearts, and in those of their neighbors, and in
their national history, as the record of God's working, and gave us
concrete examples of the results of obedience and disobedience.
Hence the teaching of the Bible is always clear and unmistakable.
The Bible treats of three subjects--Nature, Man, and God--and the
relations of each of these to the others. I have tried to present to
you in the first chapter the biblical conception of Nature and its
relation to God. In its relation to man it is his manifestation to
us, and, in its widest sense, the sum of the means and modes through
which he develops, aids, and educates us. And in this conception I
find science to be strictly in accord with scripture.
Now what is the scriptural idea of man? Man interests us especially
in three aspects. He is a corporeal being; he is an intellectual
being; he is a moral being, with feelings, will, and personality.
Man's body. Plato considered the body as a source of evil and a
hindrance to all higher life. And Plato was by no means alone in
this. The Bible takes a very different view. Neglect of the body is
always rebuked. The only place, so far as I can find, where the body
is called vile is where it is compared with the glorious body into
which it is to be transformed. "Your bodies," writes Paul to the
Corinthians, "are members of Christ," "temples of the Holy Ghost."
But the Bible teaches that the body is to be the servant, not the
ruler, of the spirit. "I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection," continues Paul. Here again science is strictly in
accord with scripture.
Man is an intellectual being. I need not quote the praises of
knowledge in the Old Testament. They must be fresh in your mind. But
the practical Peter writes, "giving all diligence add to your faith
virtue; and to virtue knowledge." And Paul prays that the love of
the Ephesians may "abound more and more in knowledge and in all
judgment." But the important knowledge is the knowledge of God, and
of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master. And similarly science
emphasizes that the chief end of all knowledge is that we should
know the environment to which we are to conform. Knowledge is useful
to strengthen and clarify the mind, that it may see and conform to
truth and God: and if it fails to become a means to conformity, it
has failed of the chief, and practically the only, end for which it
was intended. We are to come "in the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ." But knowledge which only
puffs up and distracts the mind from the great aims and ends which
it should serve is rebuked with equal emphasis by the Bible and by
science.
I would not claim that we have set too high a value upon knowledge,
perhaps we cannot; but there is something far higher on which we are
inclined to set far too low a value. This is righteousness and love;
and true wisdom is knowledge permeated, vivified, and transfigured
by devotion to these higher ends. And in this highest realm of the
mind feeling and will rule conjointly. Love is a feeling which
always will and must find its way to activity through the will, and
it is an activity of the will roused by the very deepest feeling,
inspired by a worthy object. If you try to divorce them, both die.
Hence Paul can say, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all
mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing." And John
goes, if possible, even farther and says, "Every one that loveth is
born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God;
for God is love." And this sort of love bears and believes and hopes
and endures, and never fails. And for this reason the Bible lays
such tremendous emphasis on the heart, not as the centre of emotion
alone, but as the seat of will as well. And science points to the
same end, though she sees it afar off.
And what of God? God is a Spirit, Creator, Author, and Finisher of
all things, and filling all. But while omnipotent, omnipresent, and
omniscient, these are not the characteristics emphasized in the
Bible. He is righteous. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do
right?" is the grand question of the father of the faithful. And
when Moses prays God to show him his glory, God answers, "I will
make all my goodness pass before thee." He is the "refuge of
Israel," the "everlasting arms" underneath them, pitying them "as a
father pitieth his children." And in the New Testament we are bidden
to pray to our Father, who _is_ love, and whose temple is the heart
of whosoever will receive him. Truly a very personal being.
Now the Bible rises here indefinitely above anything that mere
natural science can describe. But can the ultimate "Power, not
ourselves, which makes for righteousness" and unselfishness, of
whose presence in environment science assures us, be ever better
described than by these words concerning the "Father of our
spirits?"
And an infinitely wise, good, and loving being will have fixed modes
of working; for "with him is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning." Thus only can man trust and know him. The old Stoic
philosopher tells us "everything has two handles, and can be
carried by one of them, but not by the other." So with God's laws.
Many seem to look upon them as a hindrance and limitation to him in
carrying out his righteous and loving will toward man. But they are
really the modes or means of his working, which he uses with such
regularity and consistency that we can always rely upon them and
him. The pure river of the water of life proceedeth from the throne
of God and of the Lamb.
If I am lying ill waiting anxiously for the physician I can think of
this great city as a mass of blocks of houses separating him from
me. But the houses have been arranged in blocks so as to leave free
streets, along which he can travel the more quickly. And God's laws
are not blocks, but thoroughfares, planned that the angels of his
mercy may fly swiftly to our aid. We are prone to forget that these
laws are expressly made for your and my benefit, as well as that of
all beings, that we may be righteous and unselfish. And this is one
ground of the apostle's faith that "all things work together for
good to them that love God." And in the Apocalypse the earth helps
the woman. It must be so.
But what if you or I try to block the thoroughfare? What would
happen to us if we tried to stop bare-handed the current of a huge
dynamo, or to hold back the torrent of Niagara? Nothing but death
can result. And what if I stem myself against the "river of the
water of life, proceeding from the throne of God," and try to turn
it aside or hold it back from men perishing of thirst? And that is
just what sin is, even if done carelessly or thoughtlessly; for men
have no right to be careless and thoughtless about some things.
"The wages of sin is death;" physical death for breaking physical
law, and spiritual death for breaking spiritual law. How can it be
otherwise? The wages are fairly earned. The hardest doctrine for a
scientific man to believe is that there can be any forgiveness of
such sin as the heedless, ungrateful breaking of such wise and
beneficent laws of a loving Father. And yet my earthly father has
had to forgive me a host of times during my boyhood. Perhaps I can
hope the same from God; I take his word for it.
But if you or I think that it is safe to trifle with God's laws, we
are terribly mistaken. The Lord proclaimed himself to Moses as "The
Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and
to the fourth generation." But someone will say, This is terrible.
It is terrible; but the question is, Does the Bible speak the truth
about nature? Is nature a "fairy godmother," or does she bring men
up with sternness and inflict suffering upon the innocent children,
if necessary, lest they copy after their sinful parents? Do the
children of the defaulter and drunkard and debauchee suffer because
of the sins of their father, or do they not? If the blessings won by
parental virtue go down to the thousandth generation, must not the
evil consequences of sin go down to the third or fourth?
That we are not under the law, but under grace, does not mean, as
some seem to think, that it is safe to sin. Otherwise the
forgiveness of God becomes the lowest form of indulgence
slanderously attributed to the Church of Rome. We gain freedom from
law as well as penalty only by obedience. The artist can safely
forget the laws and rules of his art only when by long obedience and
practice he obeys them unconsciously. We seem to be threatened with
a belief that God will never punish sin in one who has professed
Christianity. This view cheapens sin and makes pardon worthless, it
takes the iron out of the blood, and the backbone out of all our
religion and ethics. It ruins Christians and disgraces Christianity.
We sometimes seem to think that our nation or church or denomination
is so important to the carrying on of God's work that he cannot
afford to let any evil befall us, whatever we may do or be.
"Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes
of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment and pervert all equity.
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The
heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for
hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean
upon the Lord and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come
upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field,
and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as
the high places of the forest." That was plain preaching, and the
people did not like it. They would not like it any better to-day; it
would come too near the truth.
But others seem to think that God is too kind, not to say
good-natured, to allow his children to suffer for their sins. This
is part of a creed, unconsciously very widely held to-day, that
comfort, not character, is the chief end of life. Now if God is too
kind to allow his children to suffer some of the natural
consequences of sin, he is not a really kind and loving father, he
is spoiling his children. Salvation is soundness, sanity, health;
just as holiness is wholeness, escape from the disease, and not
merely from the consequences of sin. A physician, unless a quack,
never promises relief from a deep-seated disease without any pain or
discomfort. And if the disease is the result of indulgence, he warns
us that relapse into indulgence will bring a worse recurrence of the
pain. Perhaps, after all, Socrates was not so far from right when he
maintained that if a man had sinned the best and only thing for him
is to suffer for it. "God the Lord will speak peace unto his people,
and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly." And our
Lord says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the
prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say
unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. For I say unto you,
That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven." If we would be great in the kingdom of heaven we must do
and teach the commandments. One of the best lessons that the clergy
can learn from science is that law and penalty are not things of the
past. They are eternal facts; and if so, ought sometimes to be at
least mentioned from the pulpit as well as remembered in the pew.
But if God is a person striving to communicate with man, and if man
is a person intended to conform to environment by becoming like God,
what is more probable from the scientific stand-point than that God
should seek and find some means of making himself clearly known to
man in some personal way? I do not see how any scientific man who
believes in a personal God can avoid asking this question. And is
there any more natural solution of the question than that given in
the Bible? "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself."
"God, who spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath
in these last days spoken unto us by his son." Philip says, "Lord,
show us the Father and it sufficeth us." Jesus saith unto him, "Have
I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he
that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou shew us the
Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in
me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the
Father abiding in me doeth his works."
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were
evil."
Something more is needed than light. We need more light and
knowledge of our duty; we need vastly more the will-power to do it.
I know how I ought to live; I do not live thus. What I need is not a
teacher, but power to become a son of God. "I delight in the law of
God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
under the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?"
This is the terrible question. How is it to be answered? Let us
remember our illustration of the change wrought in that
panic-stricken army before Winchester by the appearance of Sheridan.
What these men needed was not information. No plan of battle
reported as sure of success by trustworthy and competent witnesses,
and forwarded from the greatest leader could have stayed that rout.
What they needed was Sheridan and the magnetic power of his
personality. This is the strange power of all great leaders of men,
whether orators, statesmen, or generals. It is intellect acting on
and through intellect, but it is also vastly more; it is will acting
on will. The leader does not merely instruct others, he inspires
them, puts himself into them, and makes them heroes like himself.
Now something like this, but vastly grander and deeper, seems to me
to have been the work of our Lord. Read John's gospel and see how it
is interpenetrated with the idea of the new life to be gained by
contact with our Lord, and how this forms the foundation of his hope
and claim to give men this new life by drawing them to himself. And
Peter says that it was impossible for the Prince of Life to be
holden of death, for he was the centre and source from which not
only new thoughts and purposes, but new will and life was to stream
out into the souls of men. This power of our Lord may have been
miraculous and supernatural in degree; I feel assured that it was
not unnatural in kind and mode of action.
And here, young men, pardon a personal word about your preaching.
You will need to preach many sermons of warning against, and
denunciation of, sin; many of instruction in duty. The Bible is a
store-house of instruction and men need it, and you must make it
clear to them. All this is good and necessary, but it is not enough.
Learn from the experience of the greatest preacher, perhaps, who
ever lived.
Paul, the greatest philosopher of ancient times, came to Athens. You
can well imagine how he had waited and longed for the opportunity to
speak in this home of philosophy and intellectual life. Now he was
to speak, not to uncultured barbarians, but to men who could
understand and appreciate his best thoughts. He preached in Athens
the grandest sermon, as far as argument is concerned, ever uttered.
I doubt if ever a sermon of Paul's accomplished less. He could not
even rouse a healthy opposition. The idea of a new god, Jesus, and a
new goddess, the Resurrection, rather tickled the Athenian fancy. He
left them, and, in deep dejection, went down to Corinth. There he
determined to know only "Christ and him crucified," and thus
preaching in material, vicious Corinth he founded a church.
Some of you will go through the same experience. You will preach to
cultured and intelligent audiences, and they will listen courteously
and eagerly as long as you tell them something new, and do not ask
them to do anything. The only possible way of reaching Athenian
intellect or Corinthian materialism and vice is by preaching Christ,
"the power of God and the wisdom of God." And you will reach more
Corinthians than Athenians.
You may preach sermons full of the grandest philosophy and
theology, and of the highest, most exact, science; you may chain men
by your logic, thrill them by your rhetoric, and move them to tears
by your eloquence, and they will go home as dead and cold as they
came. What they need is power, life. But preach "Christ and him
crucified"--not merely dead two thousand years ago--but risen and
alive for evermore, and with us to the end of the world, the
grandest, most heroic, divinest helper who ever stood by a man, one
all-powerful to help and who never forsakes, and every one of your
hearers who is not dead to truth will catch the life, and go home
alive and not alone.
So long as we preach a dead Christ we shall have a dead church, as
hopeless as the apostles were before the resurrection. "But now is
Christ risen from the dead," "alive for evermore." See how Paul and
Peter and John, and doubtless all the others, talked with him and he
with them, after he was taken from them, and you have found the
secret of their power, and of that of all the great Christian heroes
and martyrs who could truly say, Lord Jesus, we understand each
other. Better yet, prove by experience that it is possible for every
one of us.
And our Lord and Master is the connecting link between God and man,
through whom God's own Holy Spirit is poured like a mighty flood
into the hearts and lives of men, transfiguring them and filling
them with the divine power. This is the biblical idea of
Christianity; man, through Christ, flooded and permeated and
interpenetrated with the Holy Spirit of God. And thus Paul is dead
and yet alive, but fully possessed and dominated by the spirit of
Christ. Alive as never before, and yet his every thought, word, and
deed is really that of his great leader. Can you talk of self-denial
to such a Christian? He had forgotten that such a man as Saul of
Tarsus or Paul ever existed; he lives only in his Master's work, and
is transfigured by it. This, and nothing less, is Christianity, and
this is the very highest and grandest heroism. Paul conquers Europe
single-handed, alone he stands before Cæsar's tribunal, and yet he
is never alone; and from the gloom of the Mammertine dungeon he
sends back a shout of triumph. And Peter walks steadily, cheerfully,
and unflinchingly, in the footsteps of his Master to share his
cross.
Let us, before leaving this topic, notice carefully just what
religion, and especially Christianity, is not.
1. It is not merely opinion or intellectual belief in a creed. This
may be good, or even necessary, but it is not religion. "Thou
believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also
believe and tremble." We speak with pride, sometimes, of our
puissant Christendom, so industrious, so intelligent, so moral, with
its ubiquitous commerce, its adorning arts, its halls of learning,
its happy firesides, and its noble charities. And yet what is our
vaunted Christendom but a vast assemblage of believing but
disobedient men? Said William Law to John Wesley, "The head can as
easily amuse itself with a living and justifying faith in the blood
of Jesus as with any other notion." The most sacred duty may
degenerate into a dogma, asking only to be believed. "I go, sir,"
answered the son in the parable, "but went not."
2. It is not mere feeling. It is neither hope of heaven's joy, nor
fear of hell's misery. It may rightly include these, but it is
vastly more and higher. It is neither ecstasy nor remorse. The most
resolutely impenitent sinner can shout "Hallelujah," and "Woe is
me," as loudly as any saint. Now feeling is of vast importance. It
stands close to the will and stimulates it, but it is not
conformity. The will must be aroused to a robust life.
3. Christianity is these and a great deal more. Mere belief would
make religion a mere theology. Mere emotion would make it mere
excitement. The true divine idea of it is a life; doing his will,
not indolently sighing to do it, and then lamenting that we do it
not; but the thing itself in actual achievement, from day to day,
from month to month, from year to year. Thus religion rises on us in
its own imperial majesty. It is no mere delight of the understanding
in the doctrines of our faith; no mere excitement of the
sensibilities, now harrowed by fear, and now jubilant in hope; but a
warfare and a work, a warfare against sin, and a work with God.
Religion is not an entertainment, but a service. We are to set
before us the perfect standard, and then struggle to shape our lives
to it. Personal sanctity must be made a business of.[A]
[Footnote A: This page is mainly a series of quotations from Dr.
R.D. Hitchcock's sermon on "Religion, the Doing of God's Will."]
A little more than thirty years ago a regiment was sent home from
the Army of the Potomac to enforce the draft after the riots in this
city. Some of you may picture to yourselves a thousand men with silk
banners and gold lace and bright uniforms, resplendent in the
sunshine. You could not make a worse mistake.
First in that gray early morning came two old flags, so torn by shot
and shell that there was hardly enough left of them to tell whether
the State flag was that of Massachusetts or Virginia. And behind
these came scant three hundred men. All the rest were sleeping
between Washington and Richmond, some on almost every battle-field.
The uniforms were old and faded from sun and rain. Only gun-barrel
and bayonet were bright. And the men were scarred and tired and
foot-sore, haggard from hard fighting and long, swift marches. For
these men had been trained to be hurried back and forth behind the
long line of battle, that they might be hurled into it wherever the
need was greatest. I do not suppose that one of them could have
delivered a fourth-of-July oration on Patriotism. They were trained
not to talk, but to obey orders. But they had stood in the "bloody
angle" at Spottsylvania all day and all night; and in the gray dawn
of the next morning, when strength and courage are always at ebb,
faint and exhausted, their last cartridge shot away, had sprung
forward at the command of their colonel to make a last desperate,
forlorn defence with the bayonet against the advancing enemy.
Numbers do not count against men like these. What made them such
invincible heroes? It was mainly the resolute will and long training
to obey orders. A Christian should never forget that he is a soldier
in the army of the Lord of Hosts; that enlistment is easy and
quickly accomplished; but that the training is long, and that he
must learn, above all, to "endure hardness."
And so, my brothers, I beg of you to preach a heroic Christianity,
for if there ever was a heroic religion it is ours. If you offer
merely free transportation to a future heaven of delight on "flowery
beds of ease," you will enlist only the coward and the sluggard. But
everyone who has a drop of strong old Norse blood in his veins will
prefer a heathen Valhalla, though builded in hell, to such a heaven.
And his Norse instincts will be nearer truth than your counterfeit
of a debased Christianity. But preach the city of God's
righteousness on earth and now among men, and call on every heroic
soul to take sides with God against sin within himself and the evil
and misery all around him. There is an almost infinite amount of
strength, endurance, and heroism in this "slow-witted but
long-winded" human race waiting to leap up at the appeal to fight
once more and win a victory after repeated defeats before the sun
goes down. Appeal to this and point to the great "captain of our
salvation made perfect through sufferings," and every man that is of
the truth will hear in your voice the call of the Master and King.
You will not be disappointed, but among the publicans and fishermen
of America you will find heroic souls, who will leave all to follow,
as faithfully and unflinchingly as those from the shores of Galilee.
And what of faith? Faith is the personal attachment of a soul to
such a leader. Fortunately the Bible contains a scientific monograph
on this subject. I refer, of course, to the eleventh chapter of the
epistle to the Hebrews. And the whole result is summed up in a few
words of the thirteenth verse. The great heroes, like Enoch, Noah,
and Abraham, "saw the promises afar off, and were persuaded of them,
and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims on the earth."
They saw the promises afar off, dimly, on the horizon of their
mental vision; as one looks into the distance and cannot tell
whether what he sees be cloud or mountain. And until they could make
up their minds that there was some substance in the vision, they did
not embrace it. They were not credulous. Neither were they
carelessly or heedlessly sure that there was and could be nothing in
the vision but mist and fancy. They recognized that on their
decision of the question hung the life of which they meant to make
the very most. They looked again and again, and kept thinking about
it. Thus they became and were "persuaded of them." And most people
stop here with a merely intellectual faith in their heads, and very
little in their hearts and lives. Not so these old heroes; they were
not so purely and coldly intellectual that they could not _do_
anything. They "embraced them." They said, that is exactly what I
want and need, and I'll have it, if it costs me my life.
Now a promise is always conditional; if you want one thing, you must
give up something else. It involves a choice between alternatives;
you can have either one freely, you cannot have both. It was to them
as to Christ on the "exceeding high mountain," God or the world; God
with the cross, or the world with Satan thrown in. And the same
alternative confronts us.
Moses could be a good Jew or a good Egyptian. Most of us, while
resolved to be excellent Jews at heart, would have said nothing
about it, but remained sons of Pharaoh's daughter in order to
benefit the Jews by our influence in our lofty station. We should
have become miserable hybrids with all the vices and weaknesses of
both races, but with none of the virtues of either. And for all that
we should ever have done the Jews might have rotted in Egyptian
bondage. Enlargement and deliverance would have arisen to the Jews
from some other place; but we and our father's house would have been
destroyed. By faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the children of
God, etc. And certainly he did suffer for it.
They embraced the promises with their whole hearts. They were stoned
and sawn asunder rather than give them up. And what was the effect
on their characters? Having counted the cost, and being perfectly
willing to accept any loss or pain for the sake of these promises,
and hence inspired by them, they became sublime heroes. Through
faith they "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made
strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the
aliens. And others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they wandered about in
sheepskins and in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented.
Of whom the world was not worthy." That is a faith worth having, and
it is as sound philosophy as it is scripture.
"These all died in faith, not having received the promises." Did
they receive nothing? Moses and Elijah, Gideon and Barak gained
power and heroism greater than we can conceive of. Surely that was
enough. But they did not get the whole of the promise, or even the
best of it. And the simple reason was that God cannot make a promise
small enough to be completely fulfilled to a man in his earthly
life. He gets enough to make him a king, but this does not begin to
exhaust the promise. It is inexhaustible. This is the experience of
anyone who will faithfully try it. And this experience is the
grandest argument for immortality.
Therefore, "giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue ([Greek:
aretê], strength), and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge
temperance ([Greek: enkrateia], self-control), and to temperance
patience ([Greek: hypomenê], endurance), and to patience godliness,
and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness
charity" (love).
And what of prayer? How can it be answered in a universe of law? We
certainly could have no confidence that our prayers could or would
be answered if ours were not a universe of law. God's laws are, as
we have seen, his modes of working out his great plan. And the last
and highest unfolding of God's plan is the development of man. And
man is to become conformed to his environment, and conformity of
man's highest powers to his environment is likeness to God.
The laws of nature, then, are in ultimate analysis and highest aim
the different steps in God's plan of man's salvation from the
disease of sin, not merely or mainly from its consequences, and his
attainment of holiness. For this is the only true and sound manhood.
Salvation is spiritual health, resulting also in health of body and
of mind. If God's laws are his modes of carrying out his plan for
godlikeness in man, then they are so thought out as to be the means
of helping me to every real good.
The Bible declares explicitly that the aim of prayer is not to
inform God of our needs. For he knows them already. It is not to
change God's purpose, for he is unchangeable, and we should rejoice
in this. We are to pray for our daily bread; we are to pray for the
sick; and, if best for them and consistent with God's plan, they
shall recover. Elijah prayed for drought and prayed for rain, and
was answered. And Abraham's prayer would have saved Sodom, had there
been ten righteous men in the city. "Men ought alway to pray and not
to faint."
"More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."
But could not all these things be brought about without a single
prayer? Not according to the plan of man's education which God has
adopted. Whether he could well have made a plan by which material
blessings could have been bestowed upon men who do not ask for them,
I do not know. The ravens and all animals are fed without a single
prayer, for they are not fitted or intended to hold communion with
God. But a prayerless race of men has never been fed long; it has
soon ceased to exist. God's plan of salvation and ordering of the
universe involves prayer as a means of blessing and good things as
an answer to prayer. God says, I make you a co-worker with me. I
will help you in everything; but you must call on me for help, or
you will forget that I am the source of your help and strength, and
thus having lost your communion with me will die. "When Jeshurun
waxed fat he kicked." This is the oft-repeated story of the Old
Testament and of all history. And thus, while material blessings are
given in answer to prayer, these are not the chief end for which
prayer is to be offered.
Prayer is a means of conformity to environment, of godlikeness. How
do you become like a friend? Of course by associating and talking
with him. And why does it help you to associate with a hero? Simply
because you cannot be with him without being inspired with his
heroism. And so while I may pray for bread and clothes and
opportunities, and God will give me these or something better; I
will, if wise, pray for purity, courage, moral power, heroism, and
holiness. And I know that these will stream from his soul into mine
like a great river. And so I may pray for bread and be denied; for
hunger, with some higher good, may be far better for me than a full
stomach. But if I pray for any spiritual gift, which will make me
godlike, and on which as an heir of God I have a rightful claim,
every law and force in God's universe is a means to answer that
prayer. And best of all, if I pray for the gift of God's Spirit,
that is the prayer which the whole world of environment has been
framed to answer.
But this I can never have unless I hunger for it. I can never have
it to use as a means of gaining some lower good which I worship more
than God. God will not and cannot lend himself to any such idolatry.
I must be willing to give up anything and everything else for its
attainment. Otherwise the answer to the prayer would ruin me.
I cannot grasp the higher while using both hands to grasp the
lower.
Thus religion is the interpenetration and permeation of my
personality by that of God. And prayer is the communion by which
this permeation becomes possible. And faith is the vision of these
possibilities, the being persuaded by them, and the resolute purpose
to attain them. And faith in Christ is confiding communion with him
and obedience to his commands that his divine life may flow over
into me and dominate mine. And common-sense, and the more refined
common-sense which we call science, can show me no other means to
the attainment of that godlikeness which is the only true conformity
to environment.
And, holding such a belief and faith, we must be hopeful. And only
next in importance to faith and love stands hope. The hero must be
hopeful. And when times look dark about you, and they sometimes
will, you must still hope.
"O it is hard to work for God,
To rise and take his part
Upon the battle-field of earth,
And not sometimes lose heart!
"O there is less to try our faith
In our mysterious creed,
Than in the godless look of earth
In these our hours of need.
"Ill masters good; good seems to change
To ill with greatest ease;
And, worst of all, the good with good
Is at cross purposes.
"Workman of God! O lose not heart,
But learn what God is like;
And in the darkest battle-field
Thou shalt know where to strike.
"Muse on his justice, downcast soul!
Muse, and take better heart;
Back with thine angel to the field,
Good luck shall crown thy part!
"For right is right, since God is God;
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."
Hope on, be strong and of a good courage. For in the dark hours
others will lean on you to catch your hope and courage. To many a
poor discouraged soul you must be "a hiding-place from the wind and
a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Every power and force in
the universe of environment makes for the ultimate triumph of truth
and right. Defeat is impossible. "One man with God on his side is
the majority that carries the day. 'We are but two,' said Abu Bakr
to Mohammed as they were flying hunted from Mecca to Medina. 'Nay;'
answered Mohammed, 'we are three; God is with us.'"
And not only the race will triumph and regain the Paradise lost. The
city of God shall surely be with men, and God will dwell with them
and in them. But you and I can and shall triumph too.
We are prone to feel that the individual man is too insignificant a
being to be the object of God's care and forethought. But we should
not forget that it is the individual who conforms, and that the
higher and nobler race is to be attained through the elevation of
individuals, one after another. God deals with races and nations as
such. But his laws and promises are made almost entirely for the
individuals of which these larger units are concerned.
But there is another standpoint from which we may gain a helpful
view of the matter. I may be the meanest citizen of my native state,
and my father may leave me heir of only a few acres of rocky land.
But, if my title is good, every power in the state is pledged to put
me in possession of my inheritance. They who would rob me may be
strong; but the state will call out every able-bodied man, and pour
out every dollar in its treasury before it will allow me to be
defrauded of my legal rights. And it must do this for me, its
meanest citizen, else there is no government, but anarchy, and
oppression, and the rule of the strongest. And we all recognize that
this is but right and necessary, and would be ashamed of our state
and government were it not literally true.
If I travel in distant lands, my passport is the sign that all the
power of these United States is pledged to protect me from
injustice. Think of the sensitiveness of governments to any wrong
done to their private citizens. England went to war with Abyssinia
to protect and deliver two Englishmen. And shall God do less? Can he
do less? If it is only just and right and necessary for earthly
governments to thus care for their citizens, shall not the ruler and
"judge of all the earth do right?"
Now you and I are commanded to be heirs of God, to attain to
likeness to him. This is therefore our legal right, guaranteed by
him, for every command of God is really a promise. And he will
exhaust every power in the universe before he allows anything to
prevent us from gaining our legal rights, provided only that we are
earnest in claiming them.
But if I alienate my rights to my inheritance, the commonwealth
cannot help me. If I renounce my citizenship, the government of the
United States can no longer protect me. And so I can alienate my
"right to the tree of life," and to entrance into the city, and I
can forfeit my heirship to all that God would give me. "For I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord." But I can alienate and make void every promise and title, if
I will or if I do not care. This is the unique glory, and awfulness
of the human will. And we know that to them that love God all things
work together for good. "If God is for us who is against us?" It
must be so if God's laws are his modes of aiding men to conform to
environment.
And what of the church? Is it anything else or other than a means of
aiding man to conform to environment? If it fails of this, can it be
any longer the church of God? The church is a means, not an end. And
it is a means of godlikeness in man.
Some would make it a social club. The bond of union between its
members is their common grade of wealth, social position, or
intellectual attainments. And this idea of the church has deeper
root in the minds of us all than we think. I can imagine a far
better club than one formed and framed on this principle, but it is
difficult for me to imagine a worse counterfeit of a church. Others
make it a source of intellectual delectation, and the means of
hearing one or two striking sermons each week. Such a church will
conduce to the intelligence of its members, and may be rather more,
though probably less, useful than the old New England Lyceum lecture
system. Such a church is of about as much practical value to the
world at large as some consultations of physicians are to their
patients. The doctors have a most interesting discussion, but the
patient dies, and the nature of the disease is discovered at the
autopsy. Others still would make of the church a great railroad
system, over which sleeping-cars run from the City of Destruction,
with a coupon good to admit one to the Golden City at the other end.
The coaches are luxurious and the road-bed smooth. The Slough of
Despond has been filled, the Valley of Humiliation bridged at its
narrowest point, and the Delectable Mountains tunnelled. But
scoffers say that most of the passengers make full use of the
unlimited stop-over privileges allowed at Vanity Fair.
The Bible would seem to give the impression that the church is the
army of the Lord of Hosts, a disciplined army of hardy, heroic
souls, each soldier aiding his fellow in working out the salvation
which God is working in him. And it joins battle fiercely and
fearlessly with every form of sin and misery, counting not the odds
against it. And the Salvation Army seems to me to have conceived and
realized to a great extent just what at least one corps in this
grand army can and should be. And you and I can learn many a lesson
from them.
The church is the body of which Christ is the head, and you and I
are "members in particular." Let us see to it that we are not the
weak spot in the body, crippling and maiming the whole. The church
is the city of God among men, and we are its citizens, bound by its
laws, loyal servants of the Great King, sworn to obey his commands
and enlarge his kingdom, and repel all the assaults of his
adversaries. Thus the Bible seems to me to depict the church of God.
But what if the army contains a multitude of men who will not obey
orders or submit to discipline? or if the city be overwhelmed with a
mass of aliens, who see in its laws and institutions mainly means of
selfish individual advantage? Responsibility, not privilege, is the
foundation of strong character in both men and institutions. There
was a good grain of truth in the old Scotch minister's remark, that
they had had a blessed work of grace in his church; they had not
taken anybody in, but a lot had gone out.
There are plenty of churches of Laodicea to-day. May you be
delivered from them. But, thank God, there are also churches of
Philadelphia and Smyrna. May you be pastors of one of the latter. It
will not pay you a very large salary, for Demas has gone to the
church of Laodicea, because the minister of the church of Smyrna was
not orthodox, or not sufficiently spiritually minded--meaning
thereby that he rebuked the sins of actual living men in general,
and of Demas in particular--or preached politics, and did not mind
his business. And your church may be small. For many of the
congregation have gone to the church around the other corner, which
is mainly a cluster of associations, having excellent names, and
useful for almost every purpose except building up a manly, rugged,
heroic, godlike character. The minister there, they will tell you,
preaches delightful sermons. They make you "feel so good." He
annihilates pantheism, and his denunciations of materialism are
eloquent in the extreme. But his incarnations of materialism are
Huxley and Darwin, and to the uncharitable he seems to almost
carefully avoid any language which might seem to reflect upon the
dollar- and place-worship of some of the occupants of his front
pews. Now, I am not here to defend Mr. Huxley or Mr. Darwin.
Withstand them to the face wherever they are to be blamed. And for
some utterances they are undoubtedly to be blamed, honest souls as
they were. But I for one cannot help feeling that there is among the
"dwellers in Jerusalem" a materialism of the heart which is
indefinitely worse than any intellectual heresy. When you hit at the
one heresy strike hard at the other also.
Many will have left your little church of Smyrna. It had to be so.
For the divine sifting process, which is natural selection on its
highest plane, has not ceased to work. It must and shall still go
on; it cannot be otherwise. Has the great principle ceased to be
true in modern history that "though the number of the children of
Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved?"
But do not be discouraged. Preach Christ and a heroic Christianity.
Do not be afraid to demand great things of your people. Remember
that Ananias was encouraged to go to Paul because the Lord would
show Paul how great things he should suffer for the name of Jesus.
This is what appeals to the heroic in every man, and we do not make
nearly enough use of it. And the heroic Christ and his heroic
Christianity will draw every heroic soul in the community to
himself. They may not be very heroic looking. You may be in some
hill town in old Massachusetts "Nurse of heroes." Pardon me, I do
not intend to be invidious. Heroism is cosmopolitan. One of the
pillars of your church may be the school-teacher of the little red
school-house at the fork of the roads, in the yard ornamented with
alders, mulleins, and sumachs. She boards around, and is clad in
anything but silks and sealskins. But she trains well her band of
hardy little fellows, who will later fear the multitude as little as
they now mind the Berkshire winds. And from the pittance she
receives for training these rebellious urchins into heroic men she
is supporting an old mother somewhere, or helping a brother to an
education. And your deacon will be some farmer, perhaps uncouth in
appearance and rough of dress, and certainly blunt in his scanty
speech. He'll not flatter you nor your sermons; and until you've
lived with him for years you will not know what a great heart there
is in that rugged frame, and what wealth of affection in that silent
hand-shake. And there is his wife. She is round and ample, and
certainly does not look especially solemn or pious. She is aunt and
mother to the whole community, the joy of all the children, nurse of
the sick, and comfort of the dying. She is doing the work of ten at
home, and of a host in the village. And your right-hand man is
great Onesiphorus from the mill down in the valley, fighting an
uphill battle to keep the wolf from the door, while he and his wife
deny themselves everything, that their flock of children may have
better training for fighting God's battles than they ever enjoyed.
I cannot describe these men and women. If you have lived with
them, you will need no description, and would resent the
inadequacy of mine. If you have never had the good fortune to live
with them, it is impossible to make you see them as they are. When
you once have thoroughly known them, language will fail you to do
them justice, and you will prefer to be silent rather than slander
them by inadequate portrayal. They are at first sight not
attractive-looking. If you stand outside and look at them from a
distance their lives will appear to you very humdrum and prosaic.
But remember that for almost thirty years our Lord lived just such
a life in Nazareth, making ploughs and yokes; and then, when the
younger brothers and sisters were able to care for themselves,
snatched three years from supporting a peasant family in Galilee
to redeem a world. And who was Peter but a rough, hardy fisherman?
Now a Paul, trained at the feet of Gamaliel, was also needed; and
the twelve did not come from the lowest ranks of society. But they
were honest, industrious, practical, courageous, hardy, common
people. And single-handed they went out to conquer empires. And they
succeeded through the power of God in them.
Who knows the possibilities of your little church in the hilltown of
Smyrna? These men and women are the pickets of God's great host.
They are scattered up and down our land, fighting alone the great
battle, unknown of men and sometimes thinking that they must be
forgotten of God. And the picket's lonely post is what tries a man's
courage and strength.
Take your example from Paul's epistle. Greet Phebe, the
schoolmistress, and Aquila and Priscilla on their rocky farm on the
mountain-side, and greet the burden-bearing Onesiphorus. And give
them God's greeting and encouragement, for he sends it to them
through you. Show them the heroism which there is in their "humdrum"
lives; and cheer them in the efforts, of whose grandeur they are all
unconscious. Bid them "be strong and of a very good courage." For in
the character of these people there is the granite of the eternal
hills, and in their hearts should be the sunshine of God. Do not be
ashamed of your congregation. Their dimes or dollars may look
pitifully small and few on the collector's plate; only God sees the
real immensity of the gift in the self-denial which it has cost.
Your people will take sides with the cause of right, while it is
still unpopular. They have furnished the moral backbone and
unswerving integrity of many of your great business houses in this
city to-day. From those families will go forth the men whom the good
will trust and the evil fear. The power for good proceeding from
your church will be like the floods which Ezekiel saw pouring out
from beneath the threshold of the Lord's house.
For these common people, whom "God must have loved because he made
so many of them," are the true heirs to the future. And wealth and
culture, art and learning, are to burn like torches to light their
march. Finally, my young brothers, do not be bitterly disappointed
if you are not "popular preachers." Do not let too many people go to
sleep under your preaching, even if one young man did go to sleep
under one of Paul's sermons. But if now and then someone is angry at
what you have said, do not worry too much over it. Preach the truth
in love. If Elijah and John the Baptist, and Peter and Paul, were to
preach to-day I doubt greatly whether they would be popular
preachers. I cannot find that they ever were so. They would probably
be peripatetic candidates, until someone supported them as
independent evangelists. After their death we would rear them great
monuments, and then devote ourselves to railing at Timothy because
he was not more like what we imagine Paul was.
Even Socrates found that he must bid farewell to what men count
honors, if he would follow after truth. You may have the same
experience. You will have to champion many an unpopular cause, and
your people will not like it. They will say you lack tact. Now Paul
was a man of infinite tact. Witness his sermon on Mars' Hill. But if
his letters to the church in Corinth were addressed to most modern
churches, they would soon set out in search of a pastor of greater
adaptability.
If you play the man, and fight the good fight of faith, I do not see
how you can always avoid hitting somebody on the other side. And he
will pull you down if he can; and will probably succeed in sometimes
making your life very uncomfortable. Remember the teaching of
scripture and science, that the upward path was never intended to
be easy. The scriptural passages to this effect you can find all
through the gospels and epistles, and I need not quote them to you.
I will, however, tell you honestly that many are of the opinion that
these passages are now obsolete, being applicable only to the first
centuries, or to especially critical times in the history of
the church. I cannot share that view, but, lest I seem too
old-fashioned, will merely quote the ringing words of our own Dr.
Hitchcock, that "no man ever enters heaven save on his shield." And
allow me to quote in the same connection the testimony of that
prince of scientists, Professor Huxley, in his lecture on "Evolution
and Ethics:"
"If we may permit ourselves a larger hope of abatement of the
essential evil of the world than was possible to those who, in the
infancy of exact knowledge, faced the problem of existence more than
a score of centuries ago, I deem it an essential condition of the
realization of that hope that we should cast aside the notion that
the escape from pain and sorrow is the proper object of life.
"We have long since emerged from the heroic childhood of our race,
when good and evil could be met with the same 'frolic welcome;' the
attempts to escape from evil, whether Indian or Greek, have ended in
flight from the battle-field; it remains to us to throw aside the
youthful over-confidence and the no less youthful discouragement of
nonage. We are grown men, and must play the man
"... 'strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,'
"cherishing the good that falls in our way and bearing the evil in
and around us, with stout heart set on diminishing it. So far we all
may strive in one faith toward one hope:
"'It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.
"... but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note may yet be done.'"
We must be strong and of a very good courage. While the avoidance of
pain and discomfort, or even happiness, cannot be the proper end of
life, it is not a world of misery or an essentially and hopelessly
evil world. There is plenty of misery in the world, and we cannot
deny it. Neither can we deny that God has put us in the world to
relieve misery, and that until we have made every effort and
strained every nerve as we have never yet done, we, and not God, are
largely responsible for it. But behind misery stand selfishness and
sin as its cause. And here we must not parley but fight. And the
hosts of evil are organized and mighty. "The sons of this world are
for their own generation wiser than the sons of light." And we shall
never overcome them by adopting their means. But we can and shall
surely overcome. For he that is with us is more than they that be
with them. "The skirmishes are frequently disastrous to us, but the
great battles all go one way." And we long for the glory of "him
that overcometh." But the victor's song can come only after the
battle, and be sung only by those who have overcome. And we would
not have it otherwise if we could. The closing words of Dr.
Hitchcock's last sermon are the following:
"It is one of the revelations of scripture that we are to judge the
angels, sitting above them on the shining heights. It may well be
so. Those angels are the imperial guard, doing easy duty at home. We
are the tenth legion, marching in from the swamps and forests of the
far-off frontier, scarred and battered, but victorious over death
and sin."
CHAPTER X
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
In all our study we have taken for granted the truth of the theory
of evolution. If you are not already persuaded of this by the
writings of Darwin, Wallace, and many others, no words or arguments
of mine would convince you. We have used as the foundation of our
argument only the fundamental propositions of Mr. Darwin's theory.
But while all evolutionists accept these propositions they differ
more or less in the weight or efficiency which they assign to each.
In a sum in multiplication you may gain the same product by using
different factors; but if the product is to be constant, if you
halve one factor, you must double another. Evolution is a product of
many factors. One evolutionist lays more, another less, emphasis on
natural selection, according as he assigns less or more efficiency
to other forces or processes. Furthermore, evolutionists differ
widely in questions of detail, and some of these subsidiary
questions are of great practical importance and interest. It may be
useful, therefore, to review these propositions in the light of the
facts which we have gathered, and to see how they are interpreted,
and what emphasis is laid on each by different thinkers.
The fundamental fact on which Mr. Darwin's theory rests is the
"struggle for existence." Life is not something to be idly enjoyed,
but a prize to be won; the world is not a play-ground, but an arena.
And the severity of the struggle can scarcely be overrated. Only one
or two of a host of runners reach the goal, the others die along the
course. Concerning this there can be no doubt, and there is little
room for difference of interpretation.
The struggle may take the form of a literal battle between two
individuals, or of the individual with inclemency of climate or
other destructive agents. More usually it is a competition, no more
noticeable and no less real than that between merchants or
manufacturers in the same line of trade.
The weeds in our gardens compete with the flowers for food, light,
and place, and crowd them out unless prevented by man. And when the
weeds alone remain, they crowd on each other until only a few of the
hardiest and most vigorous survive. And flowers, by their nectar,
color, and odor, compete for the visits of insects, which insure
cross-fertilization. And fruits are frequently or usually the
inducements by which plants compete for the aid of animals in the
dissemination of their seeds. So there is everywhere competition and
struggle; many fail and perish, few succeed and survive.
In a foot-race it is often very difficult to name the winner. Muscle
alone does not win, not even good heart and lungs. Good judgment,
patience, coolness, courage, many mental and moral qualities, are
essential to the successful athlete. So in the struggle for life.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
The total of "points" which wins this "grand prize" is the
aggregate of many items, some of which appear to us very
insignificant. Hence, when we ask, "Who will survive?" the answer is
necessarily vague. Mr. Darwin's answer is, Those best conformed to
their environment; and Mr. Spencer's statement of the survival of
the fittest means the same thing.
The judges who pronounce and execute the verdict of death, or award
the prize of life, are the forces and conditions of environment. We
have already considered the meaning of this word. Many of its forces
and conditions are still unknown, or but very imperfectly
understood. But known or unknown, visible or invisible, the result
of their united action is the extinction or degradation of these
individuals which deviate from certain fairly well-marked lines of
development. We must keep clearly before our minds the fact that the
world of living beings makes up by far the most important part of
the environment of any individual plant or animal. Two plants may be
equally well suited to the soil and climate of any region; but if
one have a scanty development of root or leaf, or is for any reason
more liable to attacks from insects or germs, other things being
equal, it will in time be crowded out by its competitor. Worms are
eaten by lower vertebrates, and these by higher. An animal's
environment, like that of a merchant or manufacturer, is very
largely a matter of the ability and methods of its competitors. And
man, compelled to live in society, makes that part of the
environment by which he is most largely moulded.
This process of extinction Mr. Darwin has called "natural
selection." Natural selection is not a force, but a process,
resulting from the combined action of the forces of environment. It
is not a cause in any proper sense of the word, but a result of a
myriad of interacting forces. The combination of these forces in a
process of natural selection leading directly to a moral and
spiritual goal demands an explanation in some ultimate cause. This
explanation we have already tried to find.
It is a process of extinction. It favors the fittest, but only by
leaving them to enjoy the food and place formerly claimed, or still
furnished, by the less fit. In any advancing group, as the less fit
are crowded out, and the better fitted gain more place and food and
more rapid increase, the whole species becomes on an average better
conformed. More abundant nourishment and increased vigor seem also
to be accompanied by increased variation. And by the extinction of
the less fit the probability is increased that more fit individuals
will pair with one another and give rise to even fitter offspring,
possessing perhaps new and still more valuable variations.
But if, of a group of weaker forms, those alone survive which adopt
a parasitic life, those which in adult life move the least will
survive and reproduce; there will result the survival of the least
muscular and nervous. This degeneration will continue until the
species has sunken into equilibrium, so to speak, with its
surroundings. Here natural selection works for degeneration. Sessile
animals have had a similar history. But these parasitic and sessile
forms had already been hopelessly distanced in the race for life.
Their presence cannot impede the leaders; indeed their survival is
necessary to directly or indirectly furnish food for the better
conformed. In the animal and plant world there is abundant room and
advantage at the top.
Once more, natural selection works as a rule for the survival of
individuals, only indirectly for that of organs composing, or of
species including, these individuals. It may work for the
development of a trait or structure which, while of no immediate
advantage to the individual, increases the probability of its
rearing a larger number of fitter offspring. Thus defence of the
young by birds may be a disadvantage to the parent, but this is more
than counterbalanced in the life of the species by the number of
young coming to maturity and inheriting the trait. Even here natural
selection favors the survival of the trait indirectly by sparing the
descendants of the individual possessing it. Natural selection may
always work on and through individuals without always working for
their sole and selfish advantage.
In human society we find the selection of families, societies,
nations, and civilizations going on, but mainly as the result of the
survival of the fittest individuals.
There may very probably be a struggle for existence between organs
or cells in the body of each individual. The amount of nutriment in
the body is a more or less fixed quantity; and if one organ seizes
more than its fair share, others may or must diminish for lack. But
the limit to this usurpation must apparently be set by the crowding
out of those individuals in which it is carried too far. Natural
selection, so to speak, leaves the individual responsible for the
distribution of the nutriment among the organs, and spares or
destroys the individual as this usurpation proves for its advantage
or disadvantage.
It makes its verdict much as the judges at a great poultry or dog
show count the series of points, giving each one of them a certain
value on a certain scale, and then award the prize to the individual
having the highest aggregate on the whole series. Any such
illustration is very liable to mislead; I wish to emphasize that
fitness to survive is determined by the aggregate of the qualities
of an individual.
But an animal having one organ of great value or capacity may thus
carry off the prize, even though its other organs deserve a much
lower mark. This is the case with man. In almost every respect,
except in brain and hand, he is surpassed by the carnivora, the cat,
for example. But muscle may be marked, in making up the aggregate,
on a scale of 500, and brain on a scale of 5,000, or perhaps of
50,000. A very slight difference in brain capacity outweighs a great
superiority in muscle in the struggle between man and the carnivora,
or between man and man.
The scale on which an organ is marked will be proportional to its
usefulness under the conditions given at a given time. During the
period of development of worms and lower vertebrates much muscle
with a little brain was more useful than more brain with less
muscle. Hence, as a rule, the more muscular survived; the brain
increasing slowly, at first apparently largely because of its
correlation with muscle and sense-organs. At a later date muscle,
tooth, and claw were more useful on the ground; brain and hand in
the trees. Hence carnivora ruled the ground, and certain arboreal
apes became continually more anthropoid. At a later date brain
became more useful even on the ground, and was marked on a higher
scale, because it could invent traps and weapons against which
muscle was of little avail. Just at present brain is of use to, and
valued by, a large portion of society in proportion to its
efficiency in making and selfishly spending money. But slowly and
surely it is becoming of use as an organ of thought, for the sake of
the truth which it can discover and incarnate.
Natural selection works thus apparently for the survival of the
individuals possessing in the aggregate the most complete conformity
to environment. Let us now imagine that an animal is so constructed
as to be capable of variation along several disadvantageous or
neutral lines, and along only one which is advantageous. The
development would of course proceed along the advantageous line. Let
us farther imagine that to the descendants of this individual two,
and only two, advantageous lines of variations are allowed by its
structure. Then natural selection would probably favor the decidedly
advantageous line, if such there were. But as long as the structure
of the animal allows variation along only a few lines, the
two advantageous variations would, according to the law of
probabilities, frequently occur in the same individual. The eggs and
spermatozoa of two such individuals might not infrequently unite,
and thus in time the two characteristics be inherited by a large
fraction of the species.
And now let me quote from Mr. Spencer:
"But in proportion as the life grows complex--in proportion as a
healthy existence cannot be secured by a large endowment of some
one power, but demands many powers; in the same proportion do
there arise obstacles to the increase of any particular power, by
'the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.' As
fast as the faculties are multiplied, so fast does it become
possible for the several members of a species to have various
kinds of superiorities over one another. While one saves its life
by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another
by keener scent, another by quicker hearing, another by greater
strength, another by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger,
another by special sagacity, another by special timidity, another
by special courage; and others by other bodily and mental
attributes. Now it is unquestionably true that, other things
equal, each of these attributes, giving its possessor an extra
chance of life, is likely to be transmitted to posterity. But
there seems no reason to suppose that it will be increased in
subsequent generations by natural selection. That it may be thus
increased, the individuals not possessing more than average
endowments of it must be more frequently killed off than
individuals highly endowed with it; and this can happen only when
the attribute is one of greater importance, for the time being,
than most of the other attributes. If those members of the
species which have but ordinary shares of it, nevertheless
survive by virtue of other superiorities which they severally
possess, then it is not easy to see how this particular attribute
can be developed by natural selection in subsequent generations.
The probability seems rather to be that, by gamogenesis, this
extra endowment will, on the average, be diminished in
posterity--just serving in the long run to compensate the
deficient endowments of other individuals whose special powers
lie in other directions, and so to keep up the normal structure
of the species. The working out of the process is here somewhat
difficult to follow; but it appears to me that as fast as the
number of bodily and mental faculties increases, and as fast as
the maintenance of life comes to depend less on the amount of any
one, and more on the combined action of all, so fast does the
production of specialties of character by natural selection alone
become difficult. Particularly does this seem to be so with a
species so multitudinous in its powers as mankind, and above all
does it seem to be so with such of the human powers as have but
minor shares in aiding the struggle for life--the æsthetic
faculties for example."--Spencer, "Principles of Biology," § 166.
Can thus natural selection, acting upon fortuitous variations, be
the sole guiding process concerned in progress? Must there not be
some combining power to produce the higher individuals which are
prerequisites to the working of natural selection?
We are considering the efficiency of natural selection in enhancing
useful variations through a series of generations. Let us return to
the distinction between productiveness and prospectiveness of social
capital. Applied to variations productiveness means immediate
advantage, prospectiveness the greater future and permanent returns.
Now all persisting variations must, in animals below man, apparently
be somewhat productive, else they would not continue, much less
increase. Now the immediate return from prospective variations is
often smaller than from productive. It looks at first as if
productive variations would always be preserved by natural
selection, and that prospective variations would not long advance.
Yet in the muscular system variations valuable largely for their
future value are neither few nor unimportant. How can the brain in
its infancy develop until it gains supremacy over muscle, or muscle
have done the same with digestion? Now a partial explanation of this
is to be found in the correlation of organs. This is therefore a
factor of vast importance in progress through evolution.
Progress in any one line demands correlated changes in many organs.
Thus in the advance of annelids to insects the muscular system
increases in relative bulk, and absolutely in complexity. But a
change or increase in the muscle must be accompanied by
corresponding changes in the motor-nerve fibrils; and these again
would be useless unless accompanied by increased complexity and more
or less readjustment of the cells and fibrils of the nerve-centres.
And all these additions to, and readjustments of, the nerve-centres
must take place without any disturbance of the other necessary
adjustments already attained. This is no simple problem.
We will here neglect the fact that many other changes are going on
simultaneously. Legs are being formed or moulded into jaws, the
anterior segments are fusing into a head, and their ganglia into a
brain; an external skeleton is developing. Furthermore the increase
of the muscular and nervous systems must be accompanied by increased
powers of digestion, respiration, and excretion. Practically the
whole body is being recast. We insist only on the necessity of
simultaneous and parallel changes in muscles, nerves, and
nerve-centres; though what is true of these is true, in greater or
less degree, of all the other organs.
You may answer that this is to be explained by the law of
correlation of organs; that when changes in one organ demand
corresponding changes in another, these two change similarly and
more or less at the same time and rate. But this is evidently not an
explanation but a restatement of the fact. The question remains,
What makes the organs vary simultaneously so as to always correspond
to each other? The whole series of changes must to some extent be
effected at once and in the same individual, if it is to be
preserved by natural selection. Fortuitous variations here and there
along the line of the series are of little or no avail. That the
whole series of variations should happen to occur in one animal is
altogether against the law of probabilities; if the favorable
variation occurs in only a part of the series it remains useless
until the corresponding variation has taken place in the other
terms. And while the variation is thus awaiting its completion, so
to speak, it is useless, and cannot be fostered by natural
selection.
Evolution by means of fortuitous variations, combined and controlled
only through natural selection, seems to me at least impossible; and
this view is, I think, steadily gaining ground.
Natural selection, while a real and very important factor in
evolution, cannot be its sole and exclusive explanation. It
presupposes other factors, which we as yet but dimly perceive. And
this does not impeach the validity of Mr. Darwin's theory any more
than Newton's theory of gravitation is impeached by the fact that it
offers no explanation as to why the apple falls or how bodies
attract one another.
For natural selection explains the survival, but not the origin, of
the fittest. Given a species or other group composed of more and
less fit individuals and the fittest will survive. How does it come
about that there are any more and less fit individuals? This brings
us to the consideration of the subject of variation.
Let us begin with a simple case of change in the adult body. The
workman grasps his tools day after day, and his hands become horny.
The skin has evidently thickened, somewhat as on the soles of the
feet. This is no mere mechanical result of pressure alone.
Continuous pressure would produce the opposite result. But under the
stimulus of intermittent pressure the capillaries, or smallest blood
vessels, furnish more nutriment to the cells composing the lowest
layer of the outer skin or epidermis. These cells, being better
nourished, reproduce by division more rapidly, and the epidermis,
becoming composed of a greater number of layers of cells, thickens.
The outer-most layers, being farthest from the blood supply, dry up
and are packed together into a horny mass.
If I go out into the sunshine I become tanned. This again is not a
direct and purely chemical or physical result of the sun's rays, but
these have stimulated the cells of the skin to undergo certain
modifications. Any change in the living body under changed
conditions is not passive, but an active reaction to a stimulus
furnished by the surroundings. The same stimulus may excite very
different reactions in different individuals or species.
Early in this century a farmer, Seth Wright, found among his lambs a
young ram with short legs and long body. The farmer kept the ram,
reasoning that his short legs would prevent him from leading the
flock over the farm-walls and fences. From this ram was descended
the breed of ancon, or otter, sheep. Now the stimulus which had
excited this variation must have been applied early in embryonic
life, or perhaps during the formation or maturing of the germ-cells
themselves. Such a variation we call a congenital variation.
These cases are merely illustrations of the general truth that in
every variation there are two factors concerned: the living being
with its constitution and inherent tendencies and the external
stimulus.
The courses of the different balls in a charge of grape-shot, hurled
from a cannon, are evidently due to two sets of forces--1, their
initial energy and the direction of their aim; 2, the deflecting
power of resisting objects or forces--or the different balls might
roll with great velocity down a precipitous mountain-side. In the
first case velocity and direction of course would be determined
largely by initial impulse; in the second, by the attraction of the
earth and by the inequalities of its surface.
In evolution, environment, roughly speaking, corresponds to these
deflecting or attracting external objects or forces; inherent
tendencies to initial impulse. If we lay great weight on initial
tendencies, inherent in protoplasm from the very beginning, we shall
probably lay less stress on natural selection as a guiding,
directing process.
The great botanist, Nägeli, has propounded a most ingenious and
elaborate theory of evolution, as dependent mainly on inherent
initial tendency. We can notice only one or two of its salient
points. All development is, according to his view, due to a tendency
in the primitive living substance toward more complete division of
labor and greater complexity. This tendency, which he calls
progression, or the tendency toward perfection, is the result of the
chemical and molecular structure of the formative controlling
protoplasm (idioplasm) of the body, and is transmitted with other
parental traits from generation to generation. And structural
complexity thus increases like money at compound interest.
Development is a process of unfolding or of realization of the
possibilities of this tendency under the stimulus of surrounding
influences. Environment plays an essential part in his system. But
only such changes are transmissible to future generations as have
resulted from modifications arising in the idioplasm. Descendants of
plants which have varied under changed conditions revert, as a rule,
to the old type, when returned to the old surroundings. And in the
animal world effects of use and disuse are, according to his view,
not transmissible.
Natural selection plays a very subordinate part. It is purely
destructive. Given an infinity of place and nourishment--do away,
that is, with all struggle and selection--and the living world would
have advanced, purely by the force of the progressive tendency, just
as far as it now has; only there would have survived an indefinite
number of intermediate forms. It would have differed from our
present living world as the milky way does from the starry
firmament.
He compares the plant kingdom to a great, luxurious tree, branching
from its very base, whose twigs would represent the present stage of
our different species. Left to itself it would put out a chaos of
innumerable branches. Natural selection, like a gardener, prunes the
tree into shape. Children might imagine that the gardener caused the
growth; but the tree would have been broader and have branched more
luxuriantly if left to itself.[A]
[Footnote A: See Nägeli, "Theorie der Abstammungslehre," p. 18;
also pp. 12, 118, 285.]
Every species must vary perpetually. Now this proposition is
apparently not in accord with fact; for some have remained unchanged
during immense periods. And natural selection, by removing the less
fit, certainly appears to contribute to progress by raising the
average of the species. The theory seems extreme and one-sided. And
yet it has done great service by calling in question the
all-sufficiency of natural selection and the modifying power of
environment, and by emphasizing, probably overmuch, the importance
of initial inherent tendency, whose value has been entirely
neglected by many evolutionists.
Lack of space compels us to leave unnoticed most of the exceedingly
valuable suggestions of Nägeli's brilliant work.
It is still less possible to do any justice in a few words to
Weismann's theory. Into its various modifications, as it has grown
from year to year, we have no time to enter. And we must confine
ourselves to his views of variation and heredity.
In studying protozoa we noticed that they reproduced by fission,
each adult individual dividing into two young ones. There is
therefore no old parent left to die. Natural death does not occur
here, only death by violence or unfavorable conditions. The protozoa
are immortal, not in the sense of the endless persistence of the
individual, but of the absence of death. Heredity is here easily
comprehensible, for one-half, or less frequently a smaller fraction,
of the substance of the parent goes to form the new individual.
There is direct continuity of substance from generation to
generation.
But in volvox a change has taken place. The fertilized egg-cell,
formed by the union of egg and spermatozoon, is a single cell, like
the individual resulting from the conjugation or fusion of two
protozoa. But in the many-celled individual, which develops out of
the fertilized egg, there are two kinds of cells. 1. There are other
egg-cells, like the first, each one of which can, under favorable
conditions, develop into a multicellular individual like the
parent. And the germ-cells (eggs and spermatozoa) of volvox are
immortal like the protozoa. But, 2, there are nutritive, somatic
cells, which nourish and transport the germ-cells, and after their
discharge die. These somatic cells, being mortal, differ altogether
from the germ-cells and the protozoa. The protoplasm must differ in
chemical, or molecular, or other structure in the two cases, and we
distinguish the germ-plasm of the germ-cells, resembling in certain
respects Nägeli's idioplasm, from somatoplasm, which performs most
of the functions of the cell. The somatoplasm arises from, and hence
must be regarded as a modification of, the germ-plasm. The
germ-plasm can increase indefinitely in the lapse of generations,
increase of the somatoplasm is limited.
When a new individual develops, a certain portion of the germ-plasm
of the egg is set aside and remains unchanged in structure. This,
increasing in quantity, forms the reproductive elements for the next
generation. The germ-plasm, which does not form the whole of each
reproductive element, but only a part of the nucleus, is thus an
exceedingly stable substance. And there is a just as real continuity
of germ-plasm through successive generations of volvox, or of any
higher plants or animals, as in successive generations of protozoa.
In certain plants there is an underground stem or rootstock, which
grows perennially, and each year produces a plant from a bud at its
end. This underground rootstock would represent the continuous
germ-plasm of successive generations; the plants which yearly arise
from it would represent the successive generations of adult
individuals, composed mainly of somatoplasm. Or we may imagine a
long chain, with a pendant attached to each tenth or one-hundredth
link. The links of the chain would represent the series of
generations of germ-cells; the pendants, the adults of successive
generations.
But any leaf of begonia can be made to develop into a new plant,
giving rise to germ-cells. Here there must be scattered through the
leaves of the plant small portions of germ-plasm, which generally
remain dormant, and only under special conditions increase and give
rise to germ-cells.
A large part of the germ-plasm of the fertilized egg is used to give
rise to the somatoplasm composing the different systems of the
embryo and adult. Weismann's explanation of this change of
germ-plasm into somatoplasm is very ingenious, and depends upon his
theory of the structure of the germ-plasm; and this latter theory
forms the basis of his theory of evolution. It would take too long
to state his theory of the structure of germ-plasm, but an
illustration may present fairly clear all that is of special
importance to us.
The molecules of germ-plasm are grouped in units, and these in an
ascending series of units of continually increasing complexity,
until at last we find the highest unit represented in the nucleus of
the germ-cell. This grouping of molecules in units of increasing
complexity is like the grouping of the men of an army in companies,
regiments, brigades, divisions, etc.
To form the somatoplasm of the different tissues of the body, this
complicated organization breaks up, as the egg divides, into an
ever-increasing number of cells. First, so to speak, the corps
separate to preside over the formation of different body regions.
Then the different divisions, brigades, and regiments, composing
each next higher unit, separate, being detailed to form ever
smaller portions of the body. The process of changing germ-plasm
into somatoplasm is one of disintegration. The germ-plasm
contains representatives of the whole army; a somatic cell only
representatives of one special arm of a special training. Germ-plasm
in the egg is like Humpty-Dumpty on the wall; somatoplasm, like
Humpty-Dumpty after his great fall.
I use these rude illustrations to make clear one point: Germ-plasm
can easily change into somatoplasm, but somatoplasm once formed can
never be reconverted into germ-plasm, any more than the fallen hero
of the nursery rhyme could ever be restored.
The germ-plasm is, according to Weismann, a very peculiar, complex,
stable substance, continuous from generation to generation since the
first appearance of life on the globe. It is in the body of the
parent, but scarcely of it. Its relation to the body is like that of
a plant to the soil or of a parasite to its host. It receives from
the body practically only transport and nourishment. It is like a
self-perpetuating, close corporation; and the somatoplasm has no
means of either controlling it or of gaining representation in it.
Says Weismann[A]: "The germ-cells are contained in the organism, and
the external influences which affect them are intimately connected
with the state of the organism in which they lie hid. If it be well
nourished, the germ-cells will have abundant nutriment; and,
conversely, if it be weak and sickly, the germ-cells will be
arrested in their growth. It is even possible that the effects of
these influences may be more specialized; that is to say, they may
act only upon certain parts of the germ-cells. But this is indeed
very different from believing that the changes of the organism which
result from external stimuli can be transmitted to the germ-cells
and will redevelop in the next generation at the same time as that
at which they arose in the parent, and in the same part of the
organism."
[Footnote A: Essays upon Heredity, p. 105.]
But if the germ-plasm has this constitution and relation to the rest
of the body, how is any variation possible? Different individuals of
any species have slightly different congenital tendencies. Hence in
the act of fertilization two germ-plasms of slightly different
structure and tendency are mingled. The mingling of the two produces
a germ-plasm and individual differing from both of the parents.
Thus, according to Weismann's earlier view, the origin of variation
was to be sought in sexual reproduction through the mingling of
slightly different germ-plasms.
But how did these two germ-plasms come to be different? How was the
variation started? To explain this Weismann went back to the
unicellular protozoa. These animals are undoubtedly influenced by
environment and vary under its stimuli. Here the variations were
stamped upon the germ-plasm, and the commingling of these variously
stamped germ-plasms has resulted in all the variations of higher
animals.
Of late Weismann has modified and greatly improved this portion of
his theory. He now accepts the view that external influences may act
upon the germ-plasm not only in protozoa but also in all higher
animals. Variation is thus due to the action or stimulus of
external influences, supplemented by sexual reproduction.
But the very constitution of the germ-plasm and its relation to the
body absolutely forbids the transmission of acquired somatic
characteristics and of the special effects of use and disuse.
Muscular activity promotes general health, and might thus conduce to
better-nourished germ-cells and to more vigorous and therefore
athletic descendants. The exercise of the muscles might possibly
cause such a condition of the blood that the portion of the
germ-plasm representing the muscular system of the next generation
might be especially nourished or stimulated. Thus an athletic parent
might produce more athletic children.
But let us imagine twin brothers of equal muscular development. One
from childhood on exercises the lower half of his body; the other,
the upper. Both take the same amount of exercise, and have perhaps
equal muscular development, but located in different halves of the
body. Now it is hard to conceive that it can make any difference in
the nourishing or stimulating influence of the blood, whether the
muscular activity resides in one half of the body or the other. The
children might be exactly alike.
One man drives the pen, a second plays the piano, and a third wields
a light hammer. All three use different muscles of the hand and arm.
How can this use of special muscles stamp itself upon the germ-cells
in such a way that the offspring will have these special muscles
enlarged? Granting that external influences of environment and
bodily condition may effect the germ-cells; granting even that some
of the most general effects of use and disuse might be transmitted,
what warrant have we for believing that the special acquired
characteristic can be transmitted? Weismann answers, None at all.
The somatoplasm can only in the most general way affect the
self-perpetuating, close corporation of the germ-plasm.[A]
[Footnote A: Weismann, Essays, p. 286.]
There is thus, according to Weismann, nothing to direct variation to
certain organs, or to guide and combine the variations of these
organs along certain lines, except natural selection. To a certain
extent variation may be limited by the very structure of the animal.
But within these limits there are wide ranges where one variation is
apparently just as likely to occur as another.
Within these wide limits variation appears to be fortuitous. Natural
selection must wait until the individuals appear in which these
variations occur already correlated, and then seize upon these
individuals. It is apparently the only guiding, directing force.
Linear variation, that is, a variation advancing continuously along
one or very few straight lines, would appear to be impossible.
In Nägeli's theory initial tendency is overwhelmingly dominant; in
Weismann's, natural selection is almighty.
Weismann's followers have received the name of Neo-Darwinians. The
so-called Neo-Lamarckian school believes in the transmissibility of
acquired characteristics, and of at least particular effects of use
and disuse. The one theory is neither more nor less Darwinian than
the other. For while Darwin emphasized natural selection, he
accepted to a certain extent the transmission of special effects of
use and disuse.
A special theory of heredity, pangenesis, has been accepted by many
of the Neo-Lamarckian school. The theory of pangenesis, as
propounded by Mr. Darwin, may be very briefly stated as follows: The
cells in all parts of the body are continually throwing off germinal
particles, or "gemmules." These become scattered through the body,
grow, and multiply by division. On account of mutual attraction they
unite in the reproductive glands to form eggs or spermatozoa. The
germ-cells are thus the bearers of heredity because they contain
samples, so to speak, of all the organs of the body.
In heredity, according to Weismann's theory, the egg is the centre
of control, the continuous germ-plasm the source of all transmitted
changes; according to Darwin's theory, the body is the source, and
the egg is derived in great part at least from it. If you put to the
two the time-honored question, Which is first, the owl or the egg?
Weismann would announce, with emphasis, The egg; Darwin would say,
The owl. One proposition is the converse of the other, and most
facts accord almost equally well with both theories.
In any family, devoted for generations to literary or artistic
pursuits, the children show, as a rule, an aptitude for such
pursuits not manifested by those of other families. According to the
Neo-Lamarckian view, this inherited aptitude is to a certain extent
the result of the constant exercise of these faculties through a
series of generations. The active efforts and voluntary disposition
of the parents have given an increased predisposition to the child.
"Quite the reverse," says Weismann, "the increase of an organ in the
course of generations does not depend upon the summation of
exercise taken during single lives, but upon the summation of more
favorable predispositions in the germ." "An organism cannot acquire
anything unless it already possesses the predisposition to acquire
it."[A]
[Footnote A: Weismann, Essays, pp. 85 and 171.]
We may accept or deny this last statement, but it is evident
that facts like these, and indeed the origin of most or all
characteristics involving use or disuse, may be explained almost
equally well by either theory.
But as far as the transmission of effects of somatic changes is
concerned, if protozoa undergo special modifications under the
influence of external conditions, will not the germ-cells undergo
special modification under the influence of changes in the
somatoplasm which forms their immediate environment? We must never
forget the close relationship between all the cells of the body, and
how slight a change in the body or its surroundings may conduce to
sterility or fertility. Such isolation and independence in the body,
on the part of the germ-cells, is opposed to all that we know of the
organic unity of the body, whose cells have arisen by the
differentiation of, and division of labor between, cells primitively
alike. The facts of bud-variation, of changes in the parent stock
due to grafting, and others, of which Mr. Darwin has given a summary
in the eleventh chapter of the first volume of his "Plants and
Animals under Domestication," have never been adequately explained
by Weismann in accordance with his theory. He has perhaps succeeded
in parrying their force by showing that some such explanation is
conceivable; they still point strongly against him.
Wilson has good reason for his "steadily growing conviction that
the cell is not a self-regulating mechanism in itself, that no cell
is isolated, and that Weismann's fundamental proposition is false."
But, granting the force of these criticisms, the question still
remains, Is the special effect of use or disuse transmissible? Would
the blacksmith's son have a stronger right arm?
1. The isolation and independence of the germ-cells, which Weismann
postulates as opposing this, can hardly be as great as he thinks. 2.
It is in his view impossible to conceive how these acquired
characteristics can in any way reach and affect the germ-cells in
such a manner as to reappear in the next generation. 3. All
variations can be explained by his own theory without such
transmission. Why then believe that acquired characteristics can in
some inconceivable way affect the germ-cells so as to reappear in
the next generation, as long as all the facts can be explained in a
more simple and easily conceivable manner?
As to his second argument, I would readily acknowledge that it is at
present difficult or impossible for me to conceive how any cell can
act upon another, except through the nutrient or other fluids which
it can produce. But though I cannot conceive how one cell can affect
another, I may be compelled to believe that it does so. And this
Weismann readily acknowledges.
Driesch changed by pressure the relative position of the cells of a
very young embryo, so that those which in a normal embryo would have
produced one organ were now compelled, if used at all, to form quite
a different one. And yet these displaced cells formed the organ
required of cells normally occupying this new position, not the one
for which they were normally intended. And the organ which they
would have builded in a normal embryo was now formed by other cells
transferred to their rightful place.
What made them thus change? Not change of substance or structure,
for the slight pressure could hardly have modified this. Not change
of nutriment. The only visible or easily conceivable change was in
position relative to other cells of the embryo.
Let us in imagination simplify Driesch's experiment, for the sake of
gaining a clearer view of its meaning. In a certain embryo at an
early stage are certain cells whose descendants should form the
lining of the intestine and be used in the adult for digestion. A
second set of cells should form muscle endowed mainly with
contractility. When these two sets of cells, or some of them,
exchange positions in the embryo, they exchange lines of
development. The first set now form muscle, the second digestive
tissue. The only change has been in their relative positions.
Driesch maintains, therefore, that the goal of development in any
embryonic cell is determined not by structure or nutriment but by
position. And this would seem to be true of the cells of the
earliest embryonic stages.
Certain other experiments point in the same direction. Cut a hydra
into equal halves and each half will form a complete animal. The
lower half forms a new top, with mouth and tentacles; the upper
half, a new base. Cut the other hydra a hair's-breadth farther up.
The same layer of cells which in the first animal formed the lower
exposed surface of the upper half now forms the upper exposed
surface of the lower half. And with this change of position it has
changed its line of development; it will now give rise to a new
upper half, not a base as before. The same experiment can be tried
on certain worms with similar results, only head and tail differ far
more than top and base of hydra. Difference in the position of cells
has made vast difference in their line of development. Now in both
embryo and adult there must be some directing influence guiding
these cells. What is it?
An army is more than a mob of individuals; it is individuals plus
organization, discipline, authority. A republic is not square miles
of territory and thousands or millions of inhabitants. It is these
plus organization, central government. Webster claimed that the
central government was, and had to be, before the states. The
organism cannot exist without its parts; it has a very real
existence in and through them. It can coerce them. The state may be
an abstraction, but it is one against which it is usually fatal to
rebel, and which can say to a citizen, Go and be hanged, and he
straightway mounts the scaffold. Now these are analogies and prove
nothing. But in so far as they throw light on the essential idea of
an organism, they may aid us in gaining a right view of our "cell
republic."
Says Whitman in a very interesting article on the "Inadequacy of the
Cell-Theory": "That organization precedes cell-formation and
regulates it, rather than the reverse, is a conclusion that forces
itself upon us from many sides." "The structure which we see in a
cell-mosaic is something superadded to organization, not itself the
foundation of organization. Comparative embryology reminds us at
every turn that the organism dominates cell-formation, using for
the same purpose one, several, or many cells, massing its material
and directing its movements, and shaping its organs as if cells did
not exist, or as if they existed only in complete subordination to
its will, if I may so speak. The organization of the egg is carried
forward to the adult as an unbroken physiological unity, or
individuality, through all modifications and transformations." And
Wilson, Whitman, Hertwig, and others urge "that the organism as a
whole controls the formative processes going on in each part" of the
embryo. And many years ago Huxley wrote, "They (the cells) are no
more the producers of the vital phenomena than the shells scattered
along the sea-beach are the instruments by which the gravitative
force of the moon acts upon the ocean. Like these, the cells mark
only where the vital tides have been, and how they have acted."[A]
[Footnote A: See articles by Whitman and Wilson, Journal of
Morphology, vol. viii., pp. 649, 607, etc.]
"Interaction of cells" can help us but little. For how can
neighboring cells direct others placed in a new position? The
expression, if not positively misleading and untrue, is at the best
only a restatement of fact. It certainly offers no explanation.
Flood-tide is not due to the interaction of particles of water,
though this may influence the form of the waves.
The centre of control is therefore not to be sought in individual
cells, whether germ-cells or somatic, but in the organism. And it is
the whole organism, one and indivisible, which controls in germ,
embryo, and adult, in egg and owl. This individuality, or whatever
you will call it, impresses itself upon developing somatic cells,
moulding them into appropriate organs, and upon germ-cells in
process of formation, moulding them so that they may continue its
sway. The muscle, modified by use or disuse, is a better expression
of the individuality of its possessor, and the same individuality
moulds similarly and simultaneously the germ-cells. Both are
different expressions or manifestations of the same individuality.
Only slowly does the individuality mould the muscles and nerves of
the adult body to its use. Still more slow may be the moulding of
the still more refractory germ-plasm, if such there be. But the
moulding process goes on parallel in the two cases.
But Weismann's argument rests not merely upon any difficulty or
impossibility of the transmissibility of acquired characteristics.
His argument is rather that all facts can be better explained by his
theory without postulating or accepting such transmission, cases of
which have never been absolutely proven. But the question is not
whether his theory offers a possible explanation of the facts, but
whether it is the most probable explanation of all the facts. No one
would deny, I think, that the continuity of the germ-plasm offers
the best and most natural explanation of heredity; and that
variations could be produced by the influence on the germ-plasm of
external conditions seems entirely probable.
But when we consider the aggregation of these variations in a
process of evolution, his theory seems unsatisfactory. We have
already seen that what we commonly call a variation involves not one
change, but a series of changes, each term of which is necessary.
Muscle, nerve, and ganglion must all vary simultaneously and
correspondingly. Correlation and combination are just as essential
as variation. And evolution often demands the disappearance of less
fit structures just as much as the advance of the fittest. Says
Osborne, "It is misleading to base our theory of evolution and
heredity solely upon entire organs; in the hand and foot we have
numerous cases of muscles in close contiguity, one steadily
developing, the other degenerating." Weismann offers the explanation
that "if the average amount of food which an animal can assimilate
every day remains constant for a considerable time, it follows that
a strong influx toward one organ must be accompanied by a drain upon
others, and this tendency will increase, from generation to
generation, in proportion to the development of the growing organ,
which is favored by natural selection in its increased blood-supply,
etc.; while the operation of natural selection has also determined
the organ which can bear a corresponding loss without detriment to
the organism as a whole."[A]
[Footnote A: Weismann, Essays, p. 88.]
Here again natural selection of individuals, not the diminished
supply of nutriment, has to determine which of many muscles shall be
poorly fed and which favored. But natural selection can favor
special organs only indirectly through the individuals which possess
such organs. Variation is fortuitous, and there is nothing, except
natural selection, to combine or direct them. And, I think, we have
already seen that any theory which neglects or excludes such
directing and combining agencies must be unsatisfactory and
inadequate. Weismann has promised us an explanation of correlation
of variation in accordance with his theory; and if such an
explanation can be made, it would remove one of the strongest
objections. But for the present the objection has very great weight.
Furthermore, as Osborne has insisted, linear variations, or
variations proceeding along certain single and well-marked lines,
would seem inexplicable by, if not fatal to, Weismann's theory. And
yet Osborne, Cope, and others have shown that the teeth of mammals
have developed steadily along well-marked lines. They have
apparently not resulted at all by selection from a host of
fortuitous variations.
Says Osborne in his "Cartwright Lectures"[A]: "It is evident that
use and disuse characterize all the centres of evolution; that
changes of structure are slowly following on changes of function or
habit. In eight independent regions of evolution in the human body
there are upward of twenty developing organs, upward of thirty
degenerating organs." Now this parallelism, through a long series of
generations, between the evolution of organs, their advance or
degeneration, and the use or disuse of these same organs, that is,
of the habits of the individual, is certainly of great significance.
It must have an explanation; and the most natural one would seem to
be the transmission of the effects of use and disuse.
[Footnote A: American Naturalist, vols. xxv. and xxvi.]
On the whole Osborne's verdict would seem just: The Neo-Lamarckian
theory fails to explain heredity, Weismann's theory does not explain
evolution. But, if the effects of use and disuse are transmitted,
correlation of variation is to be expected. Muscle, nerve, and
ganglion all vary in correlation because they are all used together
and in like degree. Evolution and degeneration of muscles in hand
and foot go on side by side, because some are used and some are
disused. Centres of use and disuse must be centres of evolution. And
there would be as many distinct centres of evolution in different
parts of the body as there were centres of use and disuse. And
between these centres there might be no correlation except
that of use and disuse. Brain, muscles, and jaws would develop
simultaneously in the ancestors of insects. And the effects of use
and disuse, transmitted through a series of generations, would be
cumulative. The species advances rapidly because all its members
have in general the same habits; the same parts are advancing or
degenerating, although at different rates, in all its individuals.
An animal having an organ highly developed is far less likely to
pair with one having a lower development of the same organ. The
Neo-Lamarckian theory supplies thus what is lacking in the
Neo-Darwinian.
In lower forms, like hydra, of simple structure and comparatively
few possibilities of variation, natural selection is dominant. In
higher forms, like vertebrates, and especially in man, it is of
decidedly subordinate value as a promoter of evolution. For man, as
we have seen, is a marvellously complex being. The great difficulty
in his case is not so much to quickly gain new and favorable
variations as to keep all the organs and powers of the body steadily
advancing side by side. Natural selection has in man the important
but subordinate position of the judge in a criminal court, to
pronounce the death verdict on the hopeless and incorrigible.
Both Neo-Darwinians and Neo-Lamarckians have erred in being too
exclusively mechanical in their theories. It is the main business of
the scientific man to discover and study mechanisms. But he must
remember that mechanism does not produce force, it only transmits
it. If he maintains that he has nothing to do with anything outside
of mechanism, that the invisible and imponderable force lies outside
of his domain, he has handed over to metaphysics the fairest and
richest portion of his realm. In our fear of being metaphysical we
have swung to another extreme, and have lost sight of valuable truth
which lay at the bottom of the old vitalistic theories. Cells,
tissues, and organs are but channels along which the flood of
life-force flows. Boveri has well said, "There is too much
intelligence (Verstand) in nature for any purely mechanical theory
to be possible."
Each theory contains important truth. Nägeli's view of the
importance of initial tendencies, inherent in the original living
substance, is too often undervalued. My own conviction, at least, is
steadily strengthening that, without some such original tendency or
aim, evolution would never have reached its present culmination in
man. His error lies in emphasizing this factor too exclusively. The
fundamental proposition of Weismann's theory, that heredity is due
to continuity of germ-plasm, seems to contain important truth. But
we need not therefore accept his theory of a germ-plasm so isolated
and independent as to be beyond control or influence by the
habits of the body. The importance of use and disuse, and the
transmissibility of their effects, would seem to supply a factor
essential to evolution. Weismann has done good service in
emphasizing the stability of the germ-plasm. Evolution is always
slow, and, for that very reason, sure.
If these conclusions are correct, they have an important practical
bearing. Struggle and effort are essential to progress. Not inborn
talent alone, but the use which one makes of it, counts in
evolution. The effects of use and disuse are cumulative. The
hard-fought battle of past generations becomes an easy victory in
the present, just because of the strength acquired and handed down
from the past struggle. Persistent variation toward evil is in time
weeded out by natural selection. And, while evil remains in the
world, we are to lay up stores of strength for ourselves and our
descendants by sturdily fighting it. But the effects of right living
through a hundred generations are not overcome by the criminal life
of one or two. Evil surroundings weigh more in producing criminals
than heredity, and their children are not irreclaimable.
The struggles and victories of each one of us encourage the rest.
There is, to borrow Mr. Huxley's language, not only a survival of
the fittest, but a fitting of as many as possible to survive. And in
the midst of the hardest struggle there is the peace which comes
from the assurance of a glorious triumph.
Condensed Chart of Development of the Main Line
of the Animal Kingdom leading to Man.
| | ORGANS | MOST RAPIDLY
PHYLOGENETIC | | APPROACHING | ADVANCING
SERIES. | NEW ATTAINMENTS. | CULMINATION. | ORGANS.
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Amoeba. | Cell. | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Volvox. | Somatic and reproductive | | Reproductive.
| cells | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Hydra. | Simple reproductive organs.| | Reproductive.
| Gastro vascular cavity. | |
| (Tissues). | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Turbellaria. | D | Complex reproductive | Reproductive. | Digestive.
| e | Organs. Supra-oes. | |
| v | Ganglion and cords. | |
| e | Sense organs. | |
| l | Body wall.ns. | |
| o | | |
| p | | |
-------------+---|------------------------+---------------+--------------
Annelid. | O | Perivisceral Cavity. | |
| r | Intestine. Circulatory | |
| g | system. Nephridia. | |
| a | Visual eyes. | |
| n | | |
| s | | |
-------------+---+------------------------+---------------+--------------
Primitive | Notochord. Fins. | |
Vertebrate. | | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Fish. | Backbone (incomplete). | Digestive. | Muscles.
| Paired Fins. Jaws from | |
| Branchial Arches. Simple | |
| heart. Air Bladder. Brain. | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Amphibian. | Legs. Lungs. Cerebrum | | Muscles.
| increases from this | |
| form on. | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Reptile. | Double heart. | | Muscles and
| | | appendages.
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Lower | Constant high temperature | | Muscles and
Placental | Placenta. | Muscle. | appendages.
Mammals. | | |
-------------+----------------------------+ +--------------
Ape. | Erect posture. Hand. Large | | Brain.
| cerebrum. | |
| | |
| | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
Man. | Very large cerebrum. | | BRAIN.
| Personality. | |
| | |
| | |
-------------+----------------------------+---------------+--------------
[Table continued below]
| |DOMINANT MENTAL| | |
| DOMINANT |(OR NERVOUS) | SEQUENCE OF | SEQUENCE OF | ENVIRONMENT
| FUNCTION. |ACTION. | PERCEPTIONS. | MOTIVES. | MAKES FOR.
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+-------------
A| | |Touch. Smell. | Hunger. |
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+-------------
V|Reproduction.| |Touch. Smell. | Hunger. |
| | | | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+
| | | | |
H|Reproduction.| Reflex. |Touch. Smell. | Hunger. |
| | | | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+-------------
|Reproduction.| Reflex. |Touch. Smell. | Hunger. |
T| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |Rapid
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------|reproduction
| Digestion | Reflex. | Touch. | Hunger. |and good
A| Muscular. | | Smell. | |digestion.
n| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------|
P| Digestion | Instinct. | ? | |
V| Muscular. | | | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+-------------
| Digestion | Instinct. | Hearing. | |
F| Muscular. | | Sight. | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------|Fear and |
A| Digestion | Instinct. | Hearing. |other |Strength and
m| Muscular. | | Sight. |prudential |activity.
| | | |considerations.|
+-------------+---------------+--------------| |
R| Muscular. | Instinct. ? | Hearing. | |
| | | Sight. | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------| |
L| Muscular. | Instinct ? ? | Hearing. | |
P| | | Sight. | |
M| | | | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+-------------
| Muscular. | Intelligence. |Mental | " | " ?
A| Nervous. | |Perception. | |(Shrewdness?)
p| | |Understanding.| |
e| | |Association. | |
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+-------------
| Mind.* | Intelligence. | Reason.* | Love of man. |Shrewdness.
M| | | | Truth. |Righteousness
a| | | | Right.* | and
n| | | | |unelfishness*
+-------------+---------------+--------------+---------------+-------------
* Apparently capable of indefinite development.
PHYLOGENETIC CHART OF PRINCIPAL TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE.
_____________________________________________________
Man.
/|\
|
| Apes.
\ | /
\|/
|
Lower Placental Mammals.\ |
\ |
\|
Marsupial Mammals.\ |
\ |
Oviparous Mammals.\ \| /Birds.
\ | /
\ | /
\|
| /Reptiles.
| /
Ampibia.\ |/
\ |
\ |
\|
Insect.\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ | /Fish.
\ | /
\ | / /Mollusca.
\ | / /
Annelid.------\ | / /
\ |/ /
\ | /
| /
| /
| /
| /
Schematic Worm.\ | /
\ | /
\ | / /Turbellaria.
\| /
| /
| /
| /
Hydra.\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ |/
\ |
\|
|
| /Volvox.
| /
| /
Magosphaera.\ | /
\ |/
\ |
\ |
\| /Amoeba.
| /
| /
| /
|/
|
|
|
_____________________________________________________
PHYLOGENETIC CHART OF PRINCIPAL TYPES OF
ANIMAL LIFE.
_____________________________________________________
INDEX
Amoeba, 32
Annelids, 61, 103
Apes, anthropoid, 91
Appetites, 137
Arthropoda, 61
Articulata, 61
Beauty, perception of, 121
Bible, 241
Blastosphere, 44
Brain, 64, 108;
of insects, 69;
vertebrates, 75, 85;
man, 96.
See also Ganglion
Cell, 34, 36
Child, mental development of, 204
Christianity, 192, 250, 252
Church, 265
Circulatory system,
worms, 62;
insects, 66;
vertebrates, 84
Classification, 20
Coelenterata, 42, 55
Conformity to environment, 150, 170, 177, 197, 243, 259, 265
Conscience, 184
Correlation of organs, 284
Darwinism, 10
Degeneration, 155, 279
Digestion, 309;
amoeba, 33;
hydra, 37;
worms, 47, 52;
insects, 66;
vertebrates, 73, 81
Ear, 50, 64
Echinoderms, 57
Ectoderm, 37, 44
Egg, 43
Embryology, 43
Emotions, 136, 230, 309
Entoderm, 37, 44
Environment, 158, 309;
God immanent in, 161, 175;
mirrored in human mind, 199
Evolution, 3;
conservative, 173
Excretion,
amoeba, 33;
worms, 48, 53;
vertebrates, 73, 81
Faith, 209, 256
Family, 180;
origin of, Cf. 88, 178, 217;
results of, 181
Flagellata, 39
Ganglion,
supra-oesophageal, 49, 54;
annelids, 64.
See Brain
Gastræa, 45
Gastrula, 44
God, 244;
knowable, 167
Head,
insect, 68;
vertebrate, 75
Heredity, mental and moral, 188
Heroism, 193, 200, 227
History, 15
Hope, 262
Huxley (quoted), 99, 171, 273
Hydra, 37
Insects, 65, 105
Instinct, 127, 131
Intellect, 117, 124
Intelligence, 117
Intelligent action, 128, 132
Jaws,
insects, 67;
vertebrates, 73
Knowledge, value of, 150, 229, 242
Law, Divine, 245
Locomotion and nervous development, 61.
See also Muscular System
Love, 139, 180, 243
Magosphæra, 40
Mammals, 85, 92;
oviparous, 86;
marsupial, 87;
placental, 88;
temporarily surpassed by reptiles, 195
Man, 210, 219;
anatomical characteristics, 92;
mental and moral characteristics, 99, 112, 147, 150, 219, 242;
relation to nature, 210;
animal, 213;
moral, 220;
religious, 224;
hero, 227;
future, 228, 231
Materialism, 165
Mesoderm, 45
Mind, 115, 144;
amoeba, 33
Mollusks, 58, 106
Motives, 136, 148;
sequence of, 143
Muscular system, 309;
hydra, 38;
worms, 62;
insects, 68;
vertebrates, 73, 108, 216
Nägeli, 288
Natural selection, 12, 152, 278
Nature, 9, 28
Neo-Darwinians and Neo-Lamarckians, 296
Nervous system, 102;
hydra, 38;
turbellaria, 48;
mollusks, 59;
annelids, 63;
insects, 69;
vertebrates, 74
Notochord, 74, 79
Ontogenesis, 26
Phylogenesis, 26, 100, 310
Placenta, 88
Prayer, 259
Primates, 91
Productiveness and prospectiveness, 193, 200, 202
Protoplasm, 32, 34
Protozoa, 39
Reflex action, 125, 135, 146
Religion, 166, 224, 262
Reproduction, 309;
amoeba, 32, 35;
hydra, 38;
magosphæra, 40;
volvox, 41;
turbellaria, 50;
annelids, 62;
insects, 66;
vertebrates, 73.
See also Size and Surface and Mass
Respiration,
amoeba, 35;
worms, 48, 63;
insects, 66;
vertebrates, 77, 84
Sequence of functions, 80, 109, 174, 309;
condensed history of, 100, 152, 221;
reversal of, 154, 205
Sexual reproduction, 33, 37, 41
Sin, 245
Size, 35, 51, 72, 76, 89, 214
Skeleton, 58, 74;
mollusks, 59;
insects, 65, 67, 71;
vertebrates, 74, 82
Social life, 182, 217
Socrates, 161, 189, 200
Specialization, 236, 239
Struggle for existence, 11, 158, 277;
mitigation of, 217
Surface and mass, 35, 50
Tissues, 42
Turbellaria, 46, 102
Vertebrates, 73, 81, 107;
primitive, 77
Volvox, 40
Weismann, 290
Will, 136
Worms, 56;
schematic, 52
* * * * *
The Morse Lectures for 1895
THE WHENCE AND WHITHER OF MAN
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MAN'S ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT, AND OF THE
EVOLUTION OF HIS MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CAPACITIES THROUGH CONFORMITY
TO ENVIRONMENT
By JOHN M. TYLER Professor of Biology, Amherst College
12mo, $1.75
* * * * *
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS
* * * * *
This work is a solidification of some new matter with the substance
of the ten Morse Lectures delivered at Union Theological Seminary in
the spring of 1895. Professor Tyler aims to trace the development of
man from the simple living substance to his position at present,
paying attention to incidental facts merely as incidental and
contributory. He keeps always in view the successive accomplishments
of life as they appear in the person of accepted general truth,
rather than in the guise of the facts of progress.
He begins by saying: "We take for granted the probable truth of the
theory of evolution as stated by Mr. Darwin, and that it applies to
man as really as to any lower animal." He assumes that an acceptable
historian of biology must possess a genealogical tree of the animal
kingdom, and adds that a knowledge of the sequence of dominant
functions or "physiological dynasties," is quite as necessary to his
inquiry as a history of the development of anatomical details. Since
the germs of the future are always concealed in the history of the
present, he claims that "if we can trace this sequence of dominant
functions, whose evolution has filled past ages, we can safely
foretell something, at least, of man's future development."
The possibility of making false trails, at times, should not deter
the investigator; for what he would establish is not the history of
a single human race, nor of the movements of a century, but an
understanding of the development of animal life through ages. "And
only," says Professor Tyler, "when we have a biological history can
we have any satisfactory conception of environment." The book
concludes with a brief notice of the modern theories of heredity and
variation advanced by Nageli and Weismann.
The Morse Lectures for 1894
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN
FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORY TO THE ERA OF THE MÉIJI
By WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D.
Formerly of the Imperial University of Tokio; Author of "The
Mikado's Empire" and "Corea, the Hermit Nation"
12mo, $2.00
"The book is excellent throughout, and indispensable to the
religious student."--_The Atlantic Monthly_.
"To any one desiring a knowledge of the development and ethical
status of the East, this book will prove of the utmost assistance,
and Dr. Griffis may be thanked for throwing a still greater charm
about the Land of the Rising Sun."--_The Churchman_.
"Already an acknowledged authority on Japanese questions, Dr.
Griffis in this volume gives to an appreciative public, what we risk
calling his most valuable contribution to the literature this
profoundly interesting nation has evoked."--_The Evangelist_.
"... The fine quality of Dr. Griffis' works. His book is fresh and
original, and may be depended on as material for scientific use....
It may safely be said that it is the best general account of the
religions of Japan that has appeared in the English language, and
for any but the special student it is the best we know of in any
tongue."--_The Critic_.
The Morse Lectures for 1893
THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN MODERN THEOLOGY
By A.M. FAIRBAIRN, M.A., D.D.
Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford; Gifford Lecturer in the
University of Aberdeen; Late Morse Lecturer in Union Seminary, New
York, and Lyman Beecher Lecturer in Yale University
8vo, $2.50
"One of the most valuable and comprehensive contributions to
theology that has been made during this generation."--_London
Spectator_.
"The knowledge, ability, and liberality of the author unite to make
the work interesting and valuable."--_The Dial_.
"It is very high, but thoroughly deserved, praise to say that it is
worthy of its great theme."--_The Critical Review_.
"The volume reveals Dr. Fairbairn as a clear and vigorous thinker,
who knows how to be bold without being too bold."--_New York
Tribune_.
"Suggestive, stimulating, and a harbinger of the future catholic
theology."--_Boston Literary World_.
"It is a book abounding in fine and philosophical thoughts, and
deeply sympathetic with the most earnest religious thinking of the
time."--_The Critic_.
"If the object of a book of theology is to stir up the heart and
mind with strong, clear thinking on divine things, no book,
certainly, of the present season surpasses Dr. Fairbairn's."--_The
Outlook_.
"An important contribution to theological literature."--_London
Times_.
"The work shows a keen insight into the relations of truth combined
with a rare power of accurate judgment."--_New York Observer_.
"Beyond question this is one of the most signally valuable books of
the season."--_The Advance_, Chicago.
The Ely Lectures for 1891
ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY
A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF UNION
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK
By FRANK F. ELLEWOOD, D.D.
Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
Church, U.S.A.; Lecturer on Comparative Religion in the University
of the City of New York
12mo, $1.75
"The volume is not only valuable, it is interesting; it not only
gives information, but it stimulates thought."--_Evangelist_.
"Thoroughly Christian in spirit.... There is a compactness about it
which makes it full of information and suggestion."--_Christian
Inquirer_.
"The author has read widely, reflected carefully, and written
ably."--_Congregationalist_.
"It is a book which we can most heartily commend to every pastor and
to every intelligent student, of the work which the Church is called
to do in the world."--_The Missionary_.
"An able work."--_Boston Transcript_.
"A more instructive book has not been issued for years."--_New York
Observer_.
"A noteworthy contribution to Christian polemics."--_Boston Beacon_.
"The special value of this volume is in its careful differentiation
of the schools of religionists in the East and the distinct points
of antagonism on the very fundamental ideas of Oriental religions
toward the religion of Jesus."--_Outlook_.
"We wish this book might be read by all missionaries and by all
Christians at home."--_Presbyterian and Reformed Review_.
The Ely Lectures for 1890
THE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
By LEWIS FRENCH STEARNS
Professor of Christian Theology in Bangor Theological Seminary
12mo, $2.00
"The tone and spirit which pervade them are worthy of the theme, and
the style is excellent. There is nothing of either cant or pedantry
in the treatment. There is simplicity, directness, and freshness of
manner which strongly win and hold the reader."--_Chicago Advance_.
"We have read them with a growing admiration for the ability,
strength, and completeness displayed in the argument. It is a book
which should be circulated not only in theological circles, but
among young men of reflective disposition who are beset by the
so-called 'scientific' attacks upon the foundations of the Christian
faith."--_Christian Intelligencer_.
"The style is a model of clearness even where the reasoning is
deep."--_Christian Inquirer_.
"His presentation of the certainty, reality, and scientific
character of the facts in a Christian consciousness is very
strong."--_The Lutheran_.
"An important contribution to the library of apologetics."--_Living
Church_. (P.E.)
"A good and useful work."--_The Churchman_. (P.E.)
"The work is searching, careful, strong, and sound."--_Chautauquan_.
"As thorough and logical as it is spiritual."--_Congregationalist_.
"A timely and apropos contribution to the defenses of
Christianity."--_Interior_.
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