On the Genesis of Species Part 12

His utilitarian Genesis of Morals, however, has been recently combated{202} by Mr. Richard Holt Hutton in a paper which appeared in _Macmillan's Magazine_.[216]

This writer aptly objects an _argumentum ad hominem_, applying to morals the same argument that has been applied in this work to our sense of musical harmony, and by Mr. Wallace to the vocal organs of man.

Mr. Herbert Spencer's notions on the subject are thus expressed by himself: "To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed moral science, there have been, and still are developing in the race certain fundamental moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the result of acc.u.mulated experiences of utility gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience. Just in the same way that I believe the intuition of s.p.a.ce possessed by any living individual to have arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of all antecedent individuals, who bequeathed to him their slowly developed nervous organizations; just as I believe that this intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by personal experiences, has practically become a form of thought quite independent of experience;--so do I believe that the experiences of utility, organized and consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been producing corresponding nervous modifications which, by continued transmissions and acc.u.mulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition, active emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold that, just as the s.p.a.ce intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of geometry, and has its rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them, so will moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of moral science, and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them."

{203} Against this view of Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Hutton objects--"1. That even as regards Mr. Spencer's ill.u.s.tration from geometrical intuitions, his process would be totally inadequate, since you could not deduce the necessary s.p.a.ce intuition of which he speaks from any possible acc.u.mulations of familiarity with s.p.a.ce relations.... We cannot _inherit_ more than our fathers _had_: no amount of experience of facts, however universal, can give rise to that particular characteristic of intuitions and _a priori_ ideas, which compels us to deny the possibility that in any other world, however otherwise different, our experience (as to s.p.a.ce relations) could be otherwise.

"2. That the case of moral intuitions is very much stronger.

"3. That if Mr. Spencer's theory accounts for anything, it accounts not for the deepening of a sense of utility and inutility into right and wrong, but for the drying up of the sense of utility and inutility into mere inherent tendencies, which would exercise over us not _more_ authority but _less_, than a rational sense of utilitarian issues.

"4. That Mr. Spencer's theory could not account for the intuitional sacredness now attached to _individual_ moral rules and principles, without accounting _a fortiori_ for the general claim of the greatest happiness principle over us as the final moral intuition---which is conspicuously contrary to the fact, as not even the utilitarians themselves plead any instinctive or intuitive sanction for their great principle.

"5. That there is no trace of positive evidence of any single instance of the transformation of a utilitarian rule of right into an intuition, since we find no utilitarian principle of the most ancient times which is now an accepted moral intuition, nor any moral intuition, however sacred, which has not been promulgated thousands of years ago, and which has not constantly had to stop the tide of utilitarian _objections_ to its authority--and this age after age, in our own day quite as much as in days gone by.... Surely, if anything is remarkable in the history of {204} morality, it is the _antic.i.p.atory_ character, if I may use the expression, of moral principles--the intensity and absoluteness with which they are laid down ages before the world has approximated to the ideal thus a.s.serted."

Sir John Lubbock, in his work on Primitive Man before referred to, abandons Mr. Spencer's explanation of the genesis of morals while referring to Mr.

Hutton's criticisms on the subject. Sir John proposes to subst.i.tute "deference to authority" instead of "sense of interest" as the origin of our conception of "duty," saying that what has been found to be beneficial has been traditionally inculcated on the young, and thus has become to be dissociated from "interest" in the mind, though the inculcation itself originally sprung from that source. This, however, when a.n.a.lysed, turns out to be a distinction without a difference. It is nothing but utilitarianism, pure and simple, after all. For it can never be intended that authority is obeyed because of an intuition that it _should be deferred to_, for that would be to admit the very principle of absolute morality which Sir John combats. It must be meant, then, that authority is obeyed through fear of the consequences of disobedience, or through pleasure felt in obeying the authority which commands. In the latter case we have "pleasure" as the end and no rudiment of the conception "duty." In the former we have fear of punishment, which appeals directly to the sense of "utility to the individual," and no amount of such a sense will produce the least germ of "ought" which is a conception different _in kind_, and in which the notion of "punishment" has no place. Thus, Sir John Lubbock's explanation only concerns a _mode_ in which the sense of "duty" may be stimulated or appealed to, and makes no approximation to an explanation of its origin.

Could the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer, of Mr. Mill, or of Mr. Darwin on this subject be maintained, or should they come to be generally accepted, the consequences would be disastrous indeed! Were it really the case that virtue was a _mere kind of "retrieving,"_ then certainly we should {205} have to view with apprehension the spread of intellectual cultivation, which would lead the human "retrievers" to regard from a new point of view their fetching and carrying. We should be logically compelled to acquiesce in the vociferations of some continental utilitarians, who would banish altogether the senseless words "duty" and "merit;" and then, one important influence which has aided human progress being withdrawn, we should be reduced to hope that in this case the maxim _cessante causa cessat ipse effectus_ might through some incalculable accident fail to apply.

It is true that Mr. Spencer tries to erect a safeguard against such moral disruption, by a.s.serting that for every immoral act, word, or thought, each man during this life receives minute and exact retribution, and that thus a regard for individual self-interest will effectually prevent any moral catastrophe. But by what means will he enforce the acceptance of a dogma which is not only incapable of proof, but is opposed to the commonly received opinion of mankind in all ages? Ancient literature, sacred and profane, teems with protests against the successful evil-doer, and certainly, as Mr. Hutton observes,[217] "Honesty must have been a.s.sociated by our ancestors with many unhappy as well as many happy consequences, and we know that in ancient Greece dishonesty was openly and actually a.s.sociated with happy consequences.... When the concentrated experience of previous generations was held, _not_ indeed to justify, but to excuse by utilitarian considerations, craft, dissimulation, sensuality, selfishness."

This dogma is opposed to the moral consciousness of many as to the events of their own lives; and the Author, for one, believes that it is absolutely contrary to fact.

History affords mult.i.tudes of instances, but an example may be selected from one of the most critical periods of modern times. Let it be {206} granted that Lewis the Sixteenth of France and his queen had all the defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians; let all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Lewis the Fifteenth, and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that there are grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far exceeded those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly and evidently just? that while the two former died in their beds, after a life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth through coming time as examples of the most appalling and calamitous tragedy?

This theme, however, is too foreign to the immediate matter in hand to be further pursued, tempting as it is. But a pa.s.sing protest against a superst.i.tious and deluding dogma may stand,--a dogma which may, like any other dogma, be vehemently a.s.serted and maintained, but which is remarkable for being dest.i.tute, at one and the same time, of both authoritative sanction and the support of reason and observation.

To return to the bearing of moral conceptions on "Natural Selection," it seems that, from the reasons given in this chapter, we may safely affirm--1. That "Natural Selection" could not have produced, from the sensations of pleasure and pain experienced by brutes, a higher degree of morality than was useful; therefore it could have produced any amount of "beneficial habits," but not abhorrence of certain acts as impure and sinful.

2. That it could not have developed that high esteem for acts of care and tenderness to the aged and infirm which actually exists, but would rather have perpetuated certain low social conditions which obtain in some savage localities.

3. That it could not have evolved from ape sensations the n.o.ble virtue of a Marcus Aurelius, or the loving but manly devotion of a St. Lewis.

4. That, alone, it could not have given rise to the maxim _fiat just.i.tia, ruat coelum_. [Page 207]

5. That the interval between material and formal morality is one altogether beyond its power to traverse.

Also, that the antic.i.p.atory character of moral principles is a fatal bar to that explanation of their origin which is offered to us by Mr. Herbert Spencer. And, finally, that the solution of that origin proposed recently by Sir John Lubbock is a mere version of simple utilitarianism, appealing to the pleasure or safety of the individual, and therefore utterly incapable of solving the riddle it attacks.

Such appearing to be the case as to the power of "Natural Selection," we, nevertheless, find moral conceptions--_formally_ moral ideas--not only spread over the civilized world, but manifesting themselves unmistakeably (in however rudimentary a condition, and however misapplied) amongst the lowest and most degraded of savages. If from amongst these, individuals can be brought forward who seem to be dest.i.tute of any moral conception, similar cases also may easily be found in highly civilized communities.

Such cases tell no more against moral intuitions than do cases of colour-blindness or idiotism tell against sight and reason. We have thus a most important and conspicuous fact, the existence of which is fatal to the theory of "Natural Selection," as put forward of late by Mr. Darwin and his most ardent followers. It must be remarked, however, that whatever force this fact may have against a belief in the origination of man from brutes by minute, fortuitous variations, it has no force whatever against the conception of the orderly evolution and successive manifestation of specific forms by ordinary natural law--even if we include amongst such the upright frame, the ready hand and ma.s.sive brain of man himself. [Page 208]

CHAPTER X.

PANGENESIS.

A provisional hypothesis supplementing "Natural Selection."--Statement of the hypothesis.--Difficulty as to mult.i.tude of gemmules.--As to certain modes of reproduction.--As to formations without the requisite gemmules.--Mr. Lewes and Professor Delpino.--Difficulty as to developmental force of gemmules.--As to their spontaneous fission.--Pangenesis and Vitalism.--Paradoxical reality.--Pangenesis scarcely superior to anterior hypotheses.--Buffon.--Owen.--Herbert Spencer.--"Gemmules" as mysterious as "physiological units."--Conclusion.

In addition to the theory of "Natural Selection," by which it has been attempted to account for the origin of species, Mr. Darwin has also put forward what he modestly terms "a provisional hypothesis" (that of _Pangenesis_), by which to account for the origin of each and every individual form.

Now, though the hypothesis of Pangenesis is no necessary part of "Natural Selection," still any treatise on specific origination would be incomplete if it did not take into consideration this last speculation of Mr. Darwin.

The hypothesis in question may be stated as follows: That each living organism is ultimately made up of an almost infinite number of minute particles, or organic atoms, termed "gemmules," each of which has the power of reproducing its kind. Moreover, that these particles circulate freely about the organism which is made up of them, and are derived from all the parts of all the organs of the less remote ancestors of each such {209} organism during all the states and stages of such several ancestors'

existence; and therefore of the several states of each of such ancestors'

organs. That such a complete collection of gemmules is aggregated in each ovum and spermatozoon in most animals, and in each part capable of reproducing by gemmation (budding) in the lowest animals and in plants.

Therefore in many of such lower organisms such a congeries of ancestral gemmules must exist in every part of their bodies, since in them every part is capable of reproducing by gemmation. Mr. Darwin must evidently admit this, since he says: "It has often been said by naturalists that each cell of a plant has the actual or potential capacity of reproducing the whole plant; but it has this power only in virtue of containing gemmules _derived from every part_."[218]

Moreover, these gemmules are supposed to tend to aggregate themselves, and to reproduce in certain definite relations to other gemmules. Thus, when the foot of an eft is cut off, its reproduction is explained by Mr. Darwin as resulting from the aggregation of those floating gemmules which come next in order to those of the cut surface, and the successive aggregations of the other kinds of gemmules which come after in regular order. Also, the most ordinary processes of repair are similarly accounted for, and the successive development of similar parts and organs in creatures in which such complex evolutions occur is explained in the same way, by the independent action of separate gemmules.

In order that each living creature may be thus furnished, the number of such gemmules in each must be inconceivably great. Mr. Darwin says:[219]

"In a highly organized and complex animal, the gemmules thrown off from each different cell or unit throughout the body must be inconceivably numerous and minute. Each unit of each part, as it changes during development--and we know that some insects undergo at least twenty {210} metamorphoses--must throw off its gemmules. All organic beings, moreover, include many dormant gemmules derived from their grandparents and more remote progenitors, but not from all their progenitors. These _almost infinitely numerous_ and minute gemmules must be included in each bud, ovule, spermatozoon, and pollen grain." We have seen also that in certain cases a similar mult.i.tude of gemmules must be included also in every considerable part of the whole body of each organism, but where are we to stop? There must be gemmules not only from every organ, but from every component part of such organ, from every subdivision of such component part, and from every cell, thread, or fibre entering into the composition of such subdivision. Moreover, not only from all these, but from each and every successive stage of the evolution and development of such successively more and more elementary parts. At the first glance this new atomic theory has charms from its apparent simplicity, but the attempt thus to follow it out into its ultimate limits and extreme consequences seems to indicate that it is at once insufficient and c.u.mbrous.

Mr. Darwin himself is, of course, fully aware that there must be _some_ limit to this aggregation of gemmules. He says:[220] "Excessively minute and numerous as they are believed to be, an infinite number derived, during a long course of modification and descent, from each cell of each progenitor, could not be supported and nourished by the organism."

But apart from these matters, which will be more fully considered further on, the hypothesis not only does not appear to account for certain phenomena which, in order to be a valid theory, it ought to account for; but it seems absolutely to conflict with patent and notorious facts.

How, for example, does it explain the peculiar reproduction which is {211} found to take place in certain marine worms--certain annelids?

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ANNELID DIVIDING SPONTANEOUSLY.

(A new head having been formed towards the hinder end of the body of the parent.)]

In such creatures we see that, from time to time, one of the segments of the body gradually becomes modified till it a.s.sumes the condition of a head, and this remarkable phenomenon is repeated again and again, the body of the worm thus multiplying serially into new individuals which successively detach themselves from the older portion. The development of such a mode of reproduction by "Natural Selection" seems not less inexplicable than does its continued performance through the aid of {212} "pangenesis." For how can gemmules attach themselves to others to which they do not normally or generally succeed? Scarcely less difficult to understand is the process of the stomach-carrying-off mode of metamorphosis before spoken of as existing in the Echinoderms. Next, as to certain patent and notorious facts: On the hypothesis of pangenesis, no creature can develop an organ unless it possesses the component gemmules which serve for its formation. No creature can possess such gemmules unless it inherits them from its parents, grandparents, or its less remote ancestors. Now, the Jews are remarkably scrupulous as to marriage, and rarely contract such a union with individuals not of their own race. This practice has gone on for thousands of years, and similarly also for thousands of years the rite of circ.u.mcision has been unfailingly and carefully performed. If then the hypothesis of pangenesis is well founded, that rite ought to be now absolutely or nearly superfluous from the necessarily continuous absence of certain gemmules through so many centuries and so many generations. Yet it is not at all so, and this fact seems to amount almost to an experimental demonstration that the hypothesis of pangenesis is an insufficient explanation of individual evolution.

Two exceedingly good criticisms of Mr. Darwin's hypothesis have appeared.

One of these is by Mr. G. H. Lewes,[221] the other by Professor Delpino of Florence.[222] The latter gentleman gives a report of an observation made by him upon a certain plant, which observation adds force to what has just been said about the Jewish race. He says:[223] "If we examine and compare the numerous species of the genus _Salvia_, commencing with _Salvia officinalis_, which may pa.s.s as the main state of the genus, and {213} concluding with _Salvia verticillata_, which may be taken as the most highly developed form, and as the most distant from the type, we observe a singular phenomenon. The lower cell of each of the two fertile anthers, which is much reduced and different from the superior even in _Salvia officinalis_, is trans.m.u.ted in other _salviae_ into an organ (nectarotheca) having a very different form and function, and finally disappears entirely in _Salvia verticillata_.

"Now, on one occasion, in a flower belonging to an individual of _Salvia verticillata_, and only on the left stamen, I observed a perfectly developed and pollinigerous lower cell, perfectly h.o.m.ologous with that which is normally developed in _Salvia officinalis_. This case of atavism is truly singular. According to the theory of Pangenesis, it is necessary to a.s.sume that all the gemmules of this anomalous formation, and therefore the mother-gemmule of the cell, and the daughter-gemmules of the special epidermic tissue, and of the very singular subjacent tissue of the endothecium, have been perpetuated, and transmitted from parent to offspring in a dormant state, and through a number of generations, such as startles the imagination, and leads it to refuse its consent to the theory of Pangenesis, however seductive it may be." This seems a strong confirmation of what has been here advanced.

The main objection raised against Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is that it (Pangenesis) requires so many subordinate hypotheses for its support, and that some of these are not tenable.

Professor Delpino considers[224] that as many as eight of these subordinate hypotheses are required, namely, that--

"1. The emission of the gemmules takes place, or may take place in all states of the cell.

"2. The quant.i.ty of gemmules emitted from every cell is very great.

"3. The minuteness of the gemmules is extreme.

{214} "4. The gemmules possess two sorts of affinity, one of which might be called _propagative_, and the other _germinative_ affinity.

"5. By means of the propagative affinity all the gemmules emitted by all the cells of the individual flow together and become condensed in the cells which compose the s.e.xual organs, whether male or female (embryonal vesicle, cells of the embryo, pollen grains, fovilla, antherozoids, spermatozoids), and likewise flow together and become condensed in the cells which const.i.tute the organs of a s.e.xual or agamic reproduction (buds, spores, bulbilli, portions of the body separated by scission, &c.).

"6. By means of the germinative affinity, every gemmule (except in cases of anomalies or monstrosities) can be developed only in cells h.o.m.ologous with the mother-cells of the cell from which they originated. In other words, the gemmules from any cell can only be developed in unison with the cell preceding it in due order of succession, and whilst in a nascent state.

"7. Of each kind of gernmule a great number perishes; a great number remains in a dormant state through many generations in the bodies of descendants; the remainder germinate and reproduce the mother-cell.