Darwin, and After Darwin Volume I Part 1

Darwin, and After Darwin.

Vol. 1.

by George John Romanes.

PREFACE

Several years ago Lord Rosebery founded, in the University of Edinburgh, a lectures.h.i.+p on "The Philosophy of Natural History," and I was invited by the Senatus to deliver the lectures. This invitation I accepted, and subsequently const.i.tuted the material of my lectures the foundation of another course, which was given in the Royal Inst.i.tution, under the t.i.tle "Before and after Darwin." Here the course extended over three years--namely from 1888 to 1890. The lectures for 1888 were devoted to the history of biology from the earliest recorded times till the publication of the "Origin of Species" in 1859; the lectures for 1889 dealt with the theory of organic evolution up to the date of Mr.

Darwin's death, in 1882; while those of the third year discussed the further developments of this theory from that date till the close of the course in 1890.

It is from these two courses--which resembled each other in comprising between thirty and forty lectures, but differed largely in other respects--that the present treatise has grown. Seeing, however, that it has grown much beyond the bulk of the original lectures, I have thought it desirable to publish the whole in the form of three separate works.

Of these the first--or that which deals with the purely historical side of biological science--may be allowed to stand over for an indefinite time. The second is the one which is now brought out and which, as its sub-t.i.tle signifies, is devoted to the general theory of organic evolution as this was left by the stupendous labours of Darwin. As soon as the translations shall have been completed, the third portion will follow (probably in the Autumn season), under the sub-t.i.tle, "Post-Darwinian Questions."

As the present volume is thus intended to be merely a systematic exposition of what may be termed the Darwinism of Darwin, and as on this account it is likely to prove of more service to general readers than to professed naturalists, I have been everywhere careful to avoid a.s.suming even the most elementary knowledge of natural science on the part of those to whom the exposition is addressed. The case, however, will be different as regards the next volume, where I shall have to deal with the important questions touching Heredity, Utility, Isolation, &c., which have been raised since the death of Mr. Darwin, and which are now being debated with such salutary vehemence by the best naturalists of our time.

My obligations to the Senatus of the University of Edinburgh, and to the Board of Management of the Royal Inst.i.tution, have already been virtually expressed; but I should like to take this opportunity of also expressing my obligations to the students who attended the lectures in the University of Edinburgh. For alike in respect of their large numbers, their keen intelligence, and their generous sympathy, the members of that voluntary cla.s.s yielded a degree of stimulating encouragement, without which the labour of preparing the original lectures could not have been attended with the interest and the satisfaction that I found in it. My thanks are also due to Mr. R. E.

Holding for the painstaking manner in which he has a.s.sisted me in executing most of the original drawings with which this volume is ill.u.s.trated; and likewise to Messrs. Macmillan and Co. for kindly allowing me to reprint--without special acknowledgment in every case--certain pa.s.sages from an essay which they published for me many years ago, under the t.i.tle "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution."

Lastly, I must mention that I am indebted to the same firm for permission to reproduce an excellent portrait of Mr. Darwin, which const.i.tutes the frontispiece.

G. J. R.

CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, _April 19th, 1892._

SECTION I

_EVOLUTION_

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Among the many and unprecedented changes that have been wrought by Mr.

Darwin's work on the _Origin of Species_, there is one which, although second in importance to no other, has not received the attention which it deserves. I allude to the profound modification which that work has produced on the ideas of naturalists with regard to method.

Having had occasion of late years somewhat closely to follow the history of biological science, I have everywhere observed that progress is not so much marked by the march of discovery _per se_, as by the altered views of method which the march has involved. If we except what Aristotle called "the first start" in himself, I think one may fairly say that from the rejuvenescence of biology in the sixteenth century to the stage of growth which it has now reached in the nineteenth, there is a direct proportion to be found between the value of work done and the degree in which the worker has thereby advanced the true conception of scientific working. Of course, up to a certain point, it is notorious that the revolt against the purely "subjective methods" in the sixteenth century revived the spirit of _inductive_ research as this had been left by the Greeks; but even with regard to this revolt there are two things which I should like to observe.

In the first place, it seems to me, an altogether disproportionate value has been a.s.signed to Bacon's share in the movement. At most, I think, he deserves to be regarded but as a literary exponent of the _Zeitgeist_ of his century. Himself a philosopher, as distinguished from a man of science, whatever influence his preaching may have had upon the general public, it seems little short of absurd to suppose that it could have produced any considerable effect upon men who were engaged in the practical work of research. And those who read the _Novum Organon_ with a first-hand knowledge of what is required for such research can scarcely fail to agree with his great contemporary Harvey, that he wrote upon science like a Lord Chancellor.

The second thing I should like to observe is, that as the revolt against the purely subjective methods grew in extent and influence it pa.s.sed to the opposite extreme, which eventually became only less deleterious to the interests of science than was the bondage of authority, and addiction to _a priori_ methods, from which the revolt had set her free.

For, without here waiting to trace the history of this matter in detail, I think it ought now to be manifest to everyone who studies it, that up to the commencement of the present century the progress of science in general, and of natural history in particular, was seriously r.e.t.a.r.ded by what may be termed the Bugbear of Speculation. Fully awakened to the dangers of web-spinning from the ever-fertile resources of their own inner consciousness, naturalists became more and more abandoned to the idea that their science ought to consist in a mere observation of facts, or tabulation of phenomena, without attempt at theorizing upon their philosophical import. If the facts and phenomena presented any such import, that was an affair for men of letters to deal with; but, as men of science, it was _their_ duty to avoid the seductive temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, in the form of speculation, deduction, and generalization.

I do not allege that this ideal of natural history was either absolute or universal; but there can be no question that it was both orthodox and general. Even Linnaeus was express in his limitations of true scientific work in natural history to the collecting and arranging of species of plants and animals. In accordance with this view, the _status_ of a botanist or a zoologist was estimated by the number of specific names, natural habitats, &c., which he could retain in his memory, rather than by any evidences which he might give of intellectual powers in the way of constructive thought. At the most these powers might legitimately exercise themselves only in the direction of taxonomic work; and if a Hales, a Haller, or a Hunter obtained any brilliant results in the way of observation and experiment, their merit was taken to consist in the discovery of facts _per se_: not in any endeavours they might make in the way of combining their facts under general principles. Even as late in the day as Cuvier this ideal was upheld as the strictly legitimate one for a naturalist to follow; and although Cuvier himself was far from being always loyal to it, he leaves no doubt regarding the estimate in which he held the still greater deviations of his colleagues, St.

Hilaire and Lamarck.

Now, these traditional notions touching the severance between the facts of natural history and the philosophy of it, continued more or less to dominate the minds of naturalists until the publication of the _Origin of Species_, in 1859. Then it was that an epoch was marked in this respect, as in so many other respects where natural history is concerned. For, looking to the enormous results which followed from a deliberate disregard of such traditional canons by Darwin, it has long since become impossible for naturalists, even of the strictest sect, not to perceive that their previous bondage to the law of a mere ritual has been for ever superseded by what verily deserves to be regarded as a new dispensation. Yet it cannot be said, or even so much as suspected, that Darwin's method in any way resembled that of pre-scientific days, the revolt against which led to the straight-laced--and for a long time most salutary--conceptions of method that we have just been noticing. Where, then, is the difference? To me it seems that the difference is as follows; and, if so, that not the least of our many obligations to Darwin as the great organizer of biological science arises from his having clearly displayed the true principle which ought to govern biological research.

To begin with, he nowhere loses sight of the primary distinction between fact and theory; so that, thus far, he loyally follows the spirit of revolt against subjective methods. But, while always holding this distinction clearly in view, his idea of the scientific use of facts is plainly that of furnis.h.i.+ng legitimate material for the construction of theories. Natural history is not to him an affair of the herbarium or the cabinet. The collectors and the species-framers are, as it were, his diggers of clay and makers of bricks: even the skilled observers and the trained experimentalists are his mechanics. Valuable as the work of all these men is in itself, its princ.i.p.al value, as he has finally demonstrated, is that which it acquires in rendering possible the work of the architect. Therefore, although he has toiled in all the trades with his own hands, and in each has accomplished some of the best work that has ever been done, the great difference between him and most of his predecessors consists in this,--that while to them the discovery or acc.u.mulation of facts was an end, to him it is the means. In their eyes it was enough that the facts should be discovered and recorded. In his eyes the value of facts is due to their power of guiding the mind to a further discovery of principles. And the extraordinary success which attended his work in this respect of _generalization_ immediately brought natural history into line with the other inductive sciences, behind which, in this most important of all respects, she has so seriously fallen. For it was the _Origin of Species_ which first clearly revealed to naturalists as a cla.s.s, that it was the duty of their science to take as its motto, what is really the motto of natural science in general,

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

Not facts, then, or phenomena, but causes or principles, are the ultimate objects of scientific quest. It remains to ask, How ought this quest to be prosecuted?

Well, in the second place, Darwin has shown that next only to the importance of clearly distinguis.h.i.+ng between facts and theories on the one hand, and of clearly recognising the relation between them on the other, is the importance of not being scared by the Bugbear of Speculation. The spirit of speculation is the same as the spirit of science, namely, as we have just seen, a desire to know the causes of things. The _hypotheses non fingo_ of Newton, if taken to mean what it is often understood as meaning, would express precisely the opposite spirit from that in which all scientific research must necessarily take its origin. For if it be causes or principles, as distinguished from facts or phenomena, that const.i.tute the final aim of scientific research, obviously the advancement of such research can be attained only by the framing of hypotheses. And to frame hypotheses is to speculate.

Therefore, the difference between science and speculation is not a difference of spirit; nor, thus far, is it a difference of method. The only difference between them is in the subsequent process of verifying hypotheses. For while speculation, in its purest form, is satisfied to test her explanations only by the degree in which they accord with our subjective ideas of probability--or with the "Illative Sense" of Cardinal Newman,--science is not satisfied to rest in any explanation as final until it shall have been fully verified by an appeal to objective proof. This distinction is now so well and so generally appreciated that I need not dwell upon it. Nor need I wait to go into any details with regard to the so-called canons of verification. My only object is to make perfectly clear, first, that in order to have any question to put to the test of objective verification, science must already have so far employed the method of speculation as to have framed a question to be tested; and, secondly, that the point where science parts company with speculation is the point where this testing process begins.

Now, if these things are so, there can be no doubt that Darwin was following the truest method of inductive research in allowing any amount of lat.i.tude to his speculative thought in the direction of scientific theorizing. For it follows from the above distinctions that the danger of speculation does not reside in the width of its range, or even in the impetuosity of its vehemence. Indeed, the wider its reach, and the greater its energy, the better will it be for the interests of science.

The only danger of speculation consists in its momentum being apt to carry away the mind from the more laborious work of adequate verification; and therefore a true scientific judgment consists in giving a free rein to speculation on the one hand, while holding ready the break of verification with the other. Now, it is just because Darwin did both these things with so admirable a judgment, that he gave the world of natural history so good a lesson as to the most effectual way of driving the chariot of science.

This lesson we have now all more or less learnt to profit by. Yet no other naturalist has proved himself so proficient in holding the balance true. For the most part, indeed, they have now all ceased to confound the process of speculation _per se_ with the danger of inadequate verification; and therefore the old ideal of natural history as concerned merely with collecting species, cla.s.sifying affinities, and, in general, tabulating facts, has been well-nigh universally superseded. But this great gain has been attended by some measure of loss. For while not a few naturalists have since erred on the side of insufficiently distinguis.h.i.+ng between fully verified principles of evolution and merely speculative deductions therefrom, a still larger number have formed for themselves a Darwinian creed, and regard any further theorizing on the subject of evolution as _ipso facto_ unorthodox.

Having occupied the best years of my life in closely studying the literature of Darwinism, I shall endeavour throughout the following pages to avoid both these extremes. No one in this generation is able to imitate Darwin, either as an observer or a generalizer. But this does not hinder that we should all so far endeavour to follow his _method_, as always to draw a clear distinction, not merely between observation and deduction, but also between degrees of verification. At all events, my own aim will everywhere be to avoid dogmatism on the one hand, and undue timidity as regards general reasoning on the other. For everything that is said justification will be given; and, as far as prolonged deliberation has enabled me to do so, the exact value of such justification will be rendered by a statement of at least the main grounds on which it rests. The somewhat extensive range of the present treatise, however, will not admit of my rendering more than a small percentage of the facts which in each case go to corroborate the conclusion. But although a great deal must thus be necessarily lost on the one side, I am disposed to think that more will be gained on the other, by presenting, in a terser form than would otherwise be possible, the whole theory of organic evolution as I believe that it will eventually stand. My endeavour, therefore, will be to exhibit the general structure of this theory in what I take to be its strictly logical form, rather than to enc.u.mber any of its parts by a lengthy citation of facts. Following this method, I shall in each case give only what I consider the main facts for and against the positions which have to be argued; and in most cases I shall arrange the facts in two divisions, namely, first those of largest generality, and next a few of the most special character that can be found.

As explained in the Preface, the present instalment of the treatise is concerned with the theory of evolution, from the appearance of the _Origin of Species_ in 1859, to the death of its author in 1882; while the second part will be devoted to the sundry post-Darwinian questions which have arisen in the subsequent decade. To the possible criticism that a disproportionate amount of s.p.a.ce will thus be allotted to a consideration of these post-Darwinian questions, I may furnish in advance the following reply.

In the first place, besides the works of Darwin himself, there are a number of others which have already and very admirably expounded the evidences, both of organic evolution as a fact, and of natural selection as a cause. Therefore, in the present treatise it seemed needless to go beyond the ground which was covered by my original lectures, namely, a condensed and connected, while at the same time a critical statement of the main evidences, and the main objections, which have thus far been published with reference to the distinctively Darwinian theory. Indeed while re-casting this portion of my lectures for the present publication, I have felt that criticism might be more justly urged from the side of impatience at a reiteration of facts and arguments already so well known. But while endeavouring, as much as possible, to avoid overlapping the previous expositions, I have not carried this attempt to the extent of damaging my own, by omitting any of the more important heads of evidence; and I have sought to invest the latter with some measure of novelty by making good what appears to me a deficiency which has. .h.i.therto obtained in the matter of pictorial ill.u.s.tration. In particular, there will be found a tolerably extensive series of woodcuts, serving to represent the more important products of artificial selection. These, like all the other original ill.u.s.trations, have been drawn either direct from nature or from a comparative study of the best authorities. Nevertheless, I desire it to be understood that the first part of this treatise is intended to retain its original character, as a merely educational exposition of Darwinian teaching--an exposition, therefore, which, in its present form, may be regarded as a compendium, or hand-book, adapted to the requirements of a general reader, or biological student as distinguished from those of a professed naturalist.

The case, however, is different with the second instalment, which will be published at no very distant date. Here I have not followed with nearly so much closeness the material of my original lectures. On the contrary, I have had in view a special cla.s.s of readers; and, although I have tried not altogether to sacrifice the more general cla.s.s, I shall desire it to be understood that I am there appealing to naturalists who are specialists in Darwinism. One must say advisedly, naturalists who are specialists in Darwinism, because, while the literature of Darwinism has become a department of science in itself, there are nowadays many naturalists who, without having paid any close attention to the subject, deem themselves ent.i.tled to hold authoritative opinions with regard to it. These men may have done admirable work in other departments of natural history, and yet their opinions on such matters as we shall hereafter have to consider may be dest.i.tute of value. As there is no necessary relation between erudition in one department of science and soundness of judgment in another, the mere fact that a man is distinguished as a botanist or zoologist does not in itself qualify him as a critic where specially Darwinian questions are concerned. Thus it happens now, as it happened thirty years ago, that highly distinguished botanists and zoologists prove themselves incapable as judges of general reasoning. It was Darwin's complaint that for many years nearly all his scientific critics either could not, or would not, understand what he had written--and this even as regarded the fundamental principles of his theory, which with the utmost clearness he had over and over again repeated. Now the only difference between such naturalists and their successors of the present day is, that the latter have grown up in a Darwinian environment, and so, as already remarked, have more or less thoughtlessly adopted some form of Darwinian creed. But this scientific creed is not a whit less dogmatic and intolerant than was the more theological one which it has supplanted; and while it usually incorporates the main elements of Darwin's teaching, it still more usually comprises gross perversions of their consequences. All this I shall have occasion more fully to show in subsequent parts of the present work; and allusion is made to the matter here merely for the sake of observing that in future I shall not pay attention to unsupported expressions of opinion from any quarter: I shall consider only such as are accompanied with some statement of the grounds upon which the opinion is held. And, even as thus limited, I do not think it will be found that the following exposition devotes any disproportional amount of attention to the contemporary movements of Darwinian thought, seeing, as we shall see, how active scientific speculation has been in the field of Darwinism since the death of Mr. Darwin.

Leaving, then, these post-Darwinian questions to be dealt with subsequently, I shall now begin a systematic _resume_ of the evidences in favour of the Darwinian theory, as this was left to the world by Darwin himself.

There is a great distinction to be drawn between the fact of evolution and the manner of it, or between the evidence of evolution as having taken place somehow, and the evidence of the causes which have been concerned in the process. This most important distinction is frequently disregarded by popular writers on Darwinism; and, therefore, in order to mark it as strongly as possible, I will effect a complete separation between the evidence which we have of evolution as a fact, and the evidence which we have as to its method. In other words, not until I shall have fully considered the evidence of organic evolution as a process which somehow or another _has_ taken place, will I proceed to consider _how_ it has taken place, or the causes which Darwin and others have suggested as having probably been concerned in this process.

Confining, then, our attention in the first instance to a proof of evolution considered as a fact, without any reference at all to its method, let us begin by considering the antecedent standing of the matter.

First of all we must clearly recognise that there are only two hypotheses in the field whereby it is possible so much as to suggest an explanation of the origin of species. Either all the species of plants and animals must have been supernaturally created, or else they must have been naturally evolved. There is no third hypothesis possible; for no one can rationally suggest that species have been eternal.

Next, be it observed, that the theory of a continuous trans.m.u.tation of species is not logically bound to furnish a full explanation of _all_ the natural causes which it may suppose to have been at work. The radical distinction between the two theories consists in the one a.s.suming an immediate action of some supernatural or inscrutable cause, while the other a.s.sumes the immediate action of natural--and therefore of possibly discoverable--causes. But in order to sustain this latter a.s.sumption, the theory of descent is under no logical necessity to furnish a full proof of _all_ the natural causes which may have been concerned in working out the observed results. We do not know the natural causes of many diseases; but yet no one nowadays thinks of reverting to any hypothesis of a supernatural cause, in order to explain the occurrence of any disease the natural causation of which is obscure.

The science of medicine being in so many cases able to explain the occurrence of disease by its hypothesis of natural causes, medical men now feel that they are ent.i.tled to a.s.sume, on the basis of a wide a.n.a.logy, and therefore on the basis of a strong antecedent presumption, that all diseases are due to natural causes, whether or not in particular cases such causes happen to have been discovered. And from this position it follows that medical men are not logically bound to entertain any supernatural theory of an obscure disease, merely because as yet they have failed to find a natural theory. And so it is with biologists and their theory of descent. Even if it be fully proved to them that the causes which they have hitherto discovered, or suggested, are inadequate to account for all the facts of organic nature, this would in no wise logically compel them to vacate their theory of evolution, in favour of the theory of creation. All that it would so compel them to do would be to search with yet greater diligence for the natural causes still undiscovered, but in the existence of which they are, by their independent evidence in favour of the theory, bound to believe.

In short, the issue is not between the theory of a supernatural cause and the theory of any one particular natural cause, or set of causes--such as natural selection, use, disuse, and so forth. The issue thus far--or where only the _fact_ of evolution is concerned--is between the theory of a supernatural cause as operating immediately in numberless acts of special creation, and the theory of natural causes as a whole, whether these happen, or do not happen, to have been hitherto discovered.

This much by way of preliminaries being understood, we have next to notice that whichever of the two rival theories we choose to entertain, we are not here concerned with any question touching the origin of life.

We are concerned only with the origin of particular forms of life--that is to say, with the origin of species. The theory of descent starts from life as a _datum_ already granted. How life itself came to be, the theory of descent, as such, is not concerned to show. Therefore, in the present discussion, I will take the existence of life as a fact which does not fall within the range of our present discussion. No doubt the question as to the origin of life is in itself a deeply interesting question, and although in the opinion of most biologists it is a question which we may well hope will some day fall within the range of science to answer, at present, it must be confessed, science is not in a position to furnish so much as any suggestion upon the subject; and therefore our wisdom as men of science is frankly to acknowledge that such is the case.