Pioneers of Evolution from Thales to Huxley Part 8

When seeing Mr. Spencer on the subject of this letter, he took the further trouble to point out certain pa.s.sages in the essays originally comprised in the one volume edition of 1858 which contain germinal ideas of his synthesis. That they are his selection will add to the interest and value of their quotation, revealing, as perchance they may, a fragment of the autobiography which it is an open secret Mr. Spencer has written.

"That Law, Religion, and Manners are thus related--that their respective kinds of operation come under one generalisation--that they have in certain contrasted characteristics of men a common support and a common danger--will, however, be most clearly seen on discovering that they have a common origin. Little as from present appearances we should suppose it, we shall yet find that at first, the control of religion, the control of laws, and the control of manners, were all one control.

However incredible it may now seem, we believe it to be demonstrable that the rules of etiquette, the provisions of the statute-book, and the commands of the decalogue, have grown from the same root. If we go far back enough into the ages of primeval Fetis.h.i.+sm, it becomes manifest that originally Deity, Chief, and Master of the Ceremonies were identical" (Essays, vol. i, 1883 edition; Manners and Fas.h.i.+on, p. 65).

"Scientific advance is as much from the special to the general as from the general to the special. Quite in harmony with this we find to be the admissions that the sciences are as branches of one trunk, and that they were at first cultivated simultaneously; and this becomes the more marked on finding, as we have done, not only that the sciences have a common root, but that science in general has a common root with language, cla.s.sification, reasoning, art; that throughout civilisation these have advanced together, acting and reacting on each other just as the separate sciences have done; and that thus the development of intelligence in all its divisions and subdivisions has conformed to this same law to which we have shown the sciences conform" (Ib. The Genesis of Science, pp. 191, 192).

(In correspondence with this, recognising that the same method has to be adopted in all inquiry, whether we deal with the body or the mind, the following may be quoted from Hume's Treatise on Human Nature.

"'Tis evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and that, however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one pa.s.sage or another. Even _Mathematics_, _Natural Philosophy_, and _Natural Religion_ are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN, since they lie under the cognisance of men, and are judged of by their powers and qualities.)

"The a.n.a.logy between individual organisms and the social organisms is one that has in all ages forced itself on the attention of the observant.... While it is becoming clear that there are no such special parallelisms between the const.i.tuent parts of a man and those of a nation, as have been thought to exist, it is also becoming clear that the general principles of development and structure displayed in all organised bodies are displayed in societies also. The fundamental characteristic both of societies and of living creatures is, that they consist of mutually dependent parts; and it would seem that this involves a community of various other characteristics.... Meanwhile, if any such correspondence exists, it is clear that Biology and Sociology will more or less interpret each other.

"One of the positions we have endeavoured to establish is, that in animals the process of development is carried on, not by differentiations only, but by subordinate integrations. Now in the social organism we may see the same duality of process; and further, it is to be observed that the integrations are of the same three kinds.

Thus we have integrations that arise from the simple growth of adjacent parts that perform like functions; as, for instance, the coalescence of Manchester with its calico-weaving suburbs. We have other integrations that arise when, out of several places producing a particular commodity, one monopolises more and more of the business, and leaves the rest to dwindle; as witness the growth of the Yorks.h.i.+re cloth districts at the expense of those in the west of England.... And we have yet those other integrations that result from the actual approximation of the similarly-occupied parts, whence results such facts as the concentration of publishers in Paternoster Row, of lawyers in the Temple and neighbourhood, of corn merchants about Mark Lane, of civil engineers in Great George Street, of bankers in the centre of the city" (Essays, vol. iii, 1878 edition; Transcendental Physiology, pp. 414-416).

But, divested of technicalities, and summarized in words to be "understanded of the people," the following quotation from the Essay on Progress: Its Law and Cause, gives the gist of the Synthetic Philosophy:

"We believe we have shown beyond question that that which the German physiologists (Von Baer, Wolff, and others) have found to be the law of organic development (as of a seed into a tree, and of an egg into an animal), is the law of all development. The advance from the simple to the complex, through a process of successive differentiations (i. e., the appearance of differences in the parts of a seemingly like substance), is seen alike in the earliest changes of the Universe to which we can reason our way back; and in the earlier changes which we can inductively establish; it is seen in the geologic and climatic evolution of the Earth, and of every single organism on its surface; it is seen in the evolution of Humanity, whether contemplated in the civilised individual, or in the aggregation of races; it is seen in the evolution of Society in respect alike of its political, its religious, and its economical organisation; and it is seen in the evolution of all those endless concrete and abstract products of human activity which const.i.tute the environment of our daily life. From the remotest past which Science can fathom, up to the novelties of yesterday, that in which Progress essentially consists, is the transformation of the h.o.m.ogeneous into the heterogeneous" (Essays, vol. i, 1883, p. 30).

To this may fitly follow the "succinct statement of the cardinal principles developed in the successive works," which Mr. Spencer, as named above, prepared for Professor Youmans.

1. Throughout the universe in general and in detail there is an unceasing redistribution of matter and motion.

2. This redistribution const.i.tutes evolution when there is a predominant integration of matter and dissipation of motion, and const.i.tutes dissolution when there is a predominant absorption of motion and disintegration of matter.

3. Evolution is simple when the process of integration, or the formation of a coherent aggregate, proceeds uncomplicated by other processes.

4. Evolution is compound, when along with this primary change from an incoherent to a coherent state, there go on secondary changes due to differences in the circ.u.mstances of the different parts of the aggregate.

5. These secondary changes const.i.tute a transformation of the h.o.m.ogeneous into the heterogeneous--a transformation which, like the first, is exhibited in the universe as a whole and in all (or nearly all) its details; in the aggregate of stars and nebulae; in the planetary system; in the earth as an inorganic ma.s.s; in each organism, vegetal or animal (Von Baer's law otherwise expressed); in the aggregate of organisms throughout geologic time; in the mind; in society; in all products of social activity.

6. The process of integration, acting locally as well as generally, combines with the process of differentiation to render this change not simply from h.o.m.ogeneity to heterogeneity, but from an indefinite h.o.m.ogeneity to a definite heterogeneity; and this trait of increasing definiteness, which accompanies the trait of increasing heterogeneity, is, like it, exhibited in the totality of things and in all its divisions and subdivisions down to the minutest.

7. Along with this redistribution of the matter composing any evolving aggregate there goes on a redistribution of the retained motion of its components in relation to one another; this also becomes, step by step, more definitely heterogeneous.

8. In the absence of a h.o.m.ogeneity that is infinite and absolute, that redistribution, of which evolution is one phase, is inevitable. The causes which necessitate it are these--

9. The instability of the h.o.m.ogeneous, which is consequent upon the different exposures of the different parts of any limited aggregate to incident forces.

The transformations hence resulting are--

10. The multiplication of effects. Every ma.s.s and part of a ma.s.s on which a force falls subdivides and differentiates that force, which thereupon proceeds to work a variety of changes; and each of these becomes the parent of similarly-multiplying changes; the multiplication of them becoming greater in proportion as the aggregate becomes more heterogeneous. And these two causes of increasing differentiations are furthered by--

11. Segregation, which is a process tending ever to separate unlike units and to bring together like units--so serving continually to sharpen, or make definite, differentiations otherwise caused.

12. Equilibration is the final result of these transformations which an evolving aggregate undergoes. The changes go on until there is reached an equilibrium between the forces which all parts of the aggregate are exposed to and the forces these parts oppose to them.

Equilibration may pa.s.s through a transition stage of balanced motions (as in a planetary system) or of balanced functions (as in a living body) on the way to ultimate equilibrium; but the state of rest in inorganic bodies, or death in organic bodies, is the necessary limit of the changes const.i.tuting evolution.

13. Dissolution is the counter-change which sooner or later every evolved aggregate undergoes. Remaining exposed to surrounding forces that are unequilibrated, each aggregate is ever liable to be dissipated by the increase, gradual or sudden, of its contained motion; and its dissipation, quickly undergone by bodies lately animate, and slowly undergone by inanimate ma.s.ses, remains to be undergone at an indefinitely remote period by each planetary and stellar ma.s.s, which since an indefinitely distant period in the past has been slowly evolving; the cycle of its transformations being thus completed.

14. This rhythm of evolution and dissolution, completing itself during short periods in small aggregates, and in the vast aggregates distributed through s.p.a.ce completing itself in periods immeasurable by human thought, is, so far as we can see, universal and eternal--each alternating phase of the process predominating now in this region of s.p.a.ce and now in that, as local conditions determine.

15. All these phenomena, from their great features down to their minutest details, are necessary results of the persistence of force under its forms of matter and motion. Given these as distributed through s.p.a.ce, and their quant.i.ties being unchangeable, either by increase or decrease, there inevitably result the continuous redistributions distinguishable as evolution and dissolution, as well as all these special traits above enumerated.

16. That which persists unchanging in quant.i.ty, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the universe presents to us, transcends human knowledge and conception--is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognise as without limit in s.p.a.ce and without beginning or end in time.

All that is comprised in the dozen volumes which, exclusive of the minor works and the Sociological Tables, form the great body of the Synthetic Philosophy, is the expansion of this abstract. The general lines laid down in that Philosophy have become a permanent way along which investigation will continue to travel. The revisions which may be called for will not affect it fundamentally, being limited to details, more especially in the settlement of the relative functions of individuals and communities, and cognate questions. Into these we cannot enter here.

Suffice it, that to those who have the rare possession of sound mental peptics, no more nutritive diet can be recommended than is supplied by First Principles and the works in which its theses are developed. For those who, blessed with good digestion, lack leisure, there is provided in a convenient volume the excellent epitome which Mr. Howard Collins has prepared.

The prospectus of the then proposed issue of the series of works which, beginning with First Principles, ends with the Principles of Sociology (1862-1896), was issued by Mr. Spencer in March, 1860. Through his courtesy the writer has seen the doc.u.ments which prove that the first draft of that prospectus was written out on the 6th of January, 1858, and that it was the occasion of an interesting correspondence between Mr. Spencer and his father--mainly in the form of questions from the latter--during that month. The record of these facts is of some moment as evidencing that the scheme of the Synthetic Philosophy took definite shape in 1857. Therefore, the Theory of Evolution, dealing with the universe _as a whole_, was formulated some months before the publication of the Darwin-Wallace paper, in which only _organic evolution_ was discussed. The Origin of Species, as the outcome of that paper, showed that the action of natural selection is a sufficing cause for the production of new life-forms, and thus knocked the bottom out of the old belief in special creation.

The general doctrine of Evolution, however, is not so vitally related to that of natural selection that the two stand or fall together. The evidence as to the connection between the succession of past life-forms which, regard being had to the well-nigh obliterated record, has been supplied by the fossil-yielding rocks; and the evidence as to the unbroken development of the highest plants and animals from the lowest which more and more confirms the theory of Von Baer; alike furnish a body of testimony placing the doctrine of Organic Evolution on a foundation that can never be shaken. And, firm as that, stands the doctrine of Inorganic Evolution upon the support given by modern science to the speculations of Immanuel Kant.

There is the more need for laying stress on this because recent discussions, revealing divided opinions among biologists as to the sufficiency of natural selection as a cause of all modifications in the structure of living things, lead timid or half-informed minds to hope that the doctrine of Evolution may yet turn out not to be true. It is in such stratum of intelligence that there lurks the feeling, whenever some old inscription or monument verifying statements in the Bible is discovered, that the infallibility of that book has further proof. For example, until the present year, not a single confirmatory piece of evidence as to the story of the Exodus was forthcoming from Egypt itself. Even the inscription which has come to light does not, in the judgment of such an expert as Dr. Flinders Petrie, supply the exact confirmation desired. But let that irrefragable witness appear, and while the historian will welcome it as evidence of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, thus throwing light on the movements of races, and adding to the historical value of the Pentateuch; the average orthodox believer will feel a vague sort of satisfaction that the foundations of his belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation are somehow strengthened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: T. H. Huxley]

3. _Thomas Henry Huxley._

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY was born at Ealing, on the 4th of May, 1825.

Montaigne tells us that he was "borne between eleven of the clock and noone," and, with like quaint precision, Huxley gives the hour of his birth as "about eight o'clock in the morning." Speaking of his first Christian name, he humorously said that, by curious chance, his parents chose that of the particular apostle with whom, as the doubting member of the twelve, he had always felt most sympathy.

Concerning his father, who was "one of the masters in a large semi-public school" (the father of Herbert Spencer, it will be remembered, was also a schoolmaster), Huxley has little to say in the slight autobiographical sketch reprinted as an introduction to the first volume of the Collected Essays. On that side, he tells us, he could find hardly any trace in himself, except a certain faculty for drawing, and a certain hotness of temper. "Physically and mentally," he was the son of his mother, "a slender brunette, of an emotional and energetic temperament." His school training was brief and profitless; his tastes were mechanical, and but for lack of means, he would have started life in the same profession which Herbert Spencer followed till he forsook Messrs. Fox's office for journalism. So, with a certain shrinking from anatomical work, Huxley studied medicine for a time under a relative, and in his seventeenth year entered the Charing Cross Hospital School as a student. In those days there was no instruction in physics, and only in such branch of chemistry as dealt with the nature of drugs. _Non multa, sed multum_, and what was lacking in breadth was, perhaps, gained in thoroughness. Huxley had as excellent a teacher in Wharton Jones as the latter had a promising pupil in Huxley, and in working with the microscope, the evidence of that came in his discovery of a certain root-sheath in the hair, which has since then been known as "Huxley's layer."

Up to the time of his students.h.i.+p, he had been left, intellectually, altogether to his own devices. He tells us that he was a voracious and omnivorous reader, "a dreamer and speculator of the first water, well endowed with that splendid courage in attacking any and every subject which is the blessed compensation of youth and inexperience." Among the books and essays that impressed him were Guizot's History of Civilization; and Sir William Hamilton's essay On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned which he accidentally came upon in an odd volume of the Edinburgh Review. This, he adds, was "devoured with avidity," and it stamped upon his mind the strong conviction "that on even the most solemn and important of questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for answers; and that the limitation of our faculties, in a great number of cases, renders real answers to such questions, not merely actually impossible, but theoretically inconceivable." Thus, before he was out of his teens, the philosophy that ruled his life-teaching was taking definite shape.

In 1845, he won his M. B. London with honours in anatomy and physiology, and after a few months' practice at the East End, applied, at the instance of his senior fellow-student, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Fayrer, for an appointment in the medical service of the Navy. At the end of two months he was fortunate enough to be entered on the books of Nelson's old s.h.i.+p, the Victory, for duty at Haslar Hospital. His official chief was the famous Arctic Explorer, Sir John Richardson, through whose recommendation he was appointed, seven months later, a.s.sistant surgeon of the Rattlesnake. That s.h.i.+p, commanded by Captain Owen Stanley, was commissioned to survey the intricate pa.s.sage within the Barrier Reef skirting the eastern sh.o.r.es of Australia, and to explore the sea lying between the northern end of that reef and New Guinea. It was the best apprentices.h.i.+p to what was eventually the work of Huxley's life--the solution of biological problems and the indication of their far-reaching significance. Darwin and Hooker had pa.s.sed through a like marine curriculum. The former served as naturalist on board the Beagle when she sailed on her voyage round the world in 1831; the latter as a.s.sistant-surgeon on board the Erebus on her Antarctic Expedition in 1839. Fortune was to bring the three shoulder to shoulder when the battle against the theory of the immutability of species was fought.

During his four-years' absence Huxley, in whom the biologist dominated the doctor, made observations on the various marine animals collected.

These he sent home to the Linnaean Society in vain hope of acceptance.

A more elaborate paper to the Royal Society, communicated through the Bishop of Norwich (author of a book on birds, and father of Dean Stanley), secured the coveted honour of publication, and on Huxley's return in 1850 a "huge packet of separate copies" awaited him. It dealt with the anatomy and affinities of the Medusae, and the original research which it evidenced justified his election in 1851 to the fellows.h.i.+p of the society whose presidential chair he was in after years to adorn.

He would seem to have won the blue ribbon of science _per saltum_.

Probably, so far as their biological value is concerned, nothing that he did subsequently has surpa.s.sed his contributions to scientific literature at that period; but if his services to knowledge had been limited to the cla.s.s of work which they represent, he would have remained only a distinguished specialist. Further recognition of his well-won position came in the award of the society's royal medal. But fellows.h.i.+ps and medals keep no wolf from the door, and Huxley was a poor man. After vain attempts to obtain, first, a professors.h.i.+p of physiology in England, and then a chair of natural history at Toronto (Tyndall was at the same time an unsuccessful candidate for the chair of physics in the same university), a settled position was secured by Sir Henry de la Beche's offer of the professors.h.i.+p of palaeontology and of the lectures.h.i.+p on natural history in the Royal School of Mines, vacated by Edward Forbes. That was in 1854. Between that date and the time of his return Huxley had contributed a number of valuable papers on the structure of the invertebrates, and on histology, or the science of tissues. But these, while adding to his established qualifications for a scientific appointment, demand no detailed reference here. With both chairs there was united the curators.h.i.+p of the fossil collections in the Museum of Practical Geology, and these, with the inspectors.h.i.+p of salmon fisheries, which office he accepted in 1881, complete the list of Huxley's more important public appointments. He surrendered them all in 1885, having reached the age at which, as he jocosely remarked to the writer, "Every scientific man ought to be poleaxed." Perhaps he dreaded the conservatism of att.i.tude, the non-receptivity to new ideas, which often accompany old age. But for himself such fears were needless. He was never of robust const.i.tution; in addition to the lasting effects of an illness in boyhood, Carlyle's "accursed Hag," dyspepsia, which troubled both Darwin and Bates for the rest of their lives after their return from abroad, troubled him. Therefore, considerations of health mainly prompted the surrender of his varied official responsibilities, the loyal discharge of which met with becoming recognition in the grant of a pension. This secured a modest competence in the evening of life to one who had never been wealthy, and who had never coveted wealth. To Huxley may fitly be applied what Faraday said of himself, that he had "no time to make money." And yet, to his abiding discredit, the present editor of Punch allowed his theological animus, which had already been shown in abortive attempts in the pages of that "facetious" journal to appraise a Roman Catholic biologist at the expense of Huxley, to further degrade itself by affixing the letters "L. S. D." to his name in a character-sketch.

His public life may be said to date from 1854. The duties which he then undertook included the delivery of a course of lectures to working men every alternate year. Some of these--models of their kind--have been reissued in the Collected Essays. Among the most notable are those on Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature. At the outset of his public career lecturing was as distasteful to him as in earlier years the trouble of writing was detestable. But mother wit and "needs must" trained him in a short time to win the ear of an audience.

One evening in 1852 he made his debut at the Royal Inst.i.tution, and the next day he received a letter charging him with every possible fault that a lecturer could commit--ungraceful stoop, awkwardness in use of hands, mumbling of words, or dropping them down the s.h.i.+rt front. The lesson was timely, and its effect salutary. Huxley was fond of telling this story, and it is worth recording--if but as encouragement to stammerers who have something to say--at what price he "bought this freedom" which held an audience spellbound. How he thus held it in later years they will remember who in the packed theatre of the Royal Inst.i.tution listened on the evening of Friday, 9th of April, 1880, to his lecture On the Coming of Age of the Origin of Species.

In 1856 Huxley visited the glaciers of the Alps with Tyndall, the result appearing in their joint authors.h.i.+p of a paper on Glacial Phenomena in the Philosophical Transactions of the following year. But this was a rare interlude. What time could be wrested from daily routine was given to the study of invertebrate and vertebrate morphology, palaeontology, and ethnology, familiarity with which was no mean equipment for the conflict soon to rage round these seemingly pacific materials when their deep import was declared. The outcome of such varied industry is apparent to the student of scientific memoirs. But a recital of the t.i.tles of papers contributed to these, as e. g., On Ceratodus, Hyperodapedon Gordoni, Hypsilophodon, Telerpeton, and so forth, will not here tend to edification. The original and elaborate investigations which they embody have had recognition in the degrees and medals which decorated the ill.u.s.trious author. But it is not by these that Huxley's renown as one of the most richly-endowed and widely-cultured personalities of the Victorian era will endure. They might sink into the oblivion which buries most purely technical work without in any way affecting that foremost place which he fills in the ranks of philosophical biologists both as clear-headed thinker and luminous interpreter.

In this high function the publication of the Origin of Species gave him his opportunity. That was in 1859. As with Hooker and Bates, his experiences as a traveller, and, more than this, his penetrating inquiry into significances and relations, prepared his mind for acceptance of the theory of descent with modification of living forms from one stock.

Hence the mutability, as against the old theory of the fixity, of species.

In the chapter On the Reception of the Origin of Species, which Huxley contributed to Darwin's Life and Letters, he gives an interesting account of his att.i.tude toward that burning question. He says--