Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative Part 20

Beginning with the earliest and most minute kinds of living things, we necessarily encounter difficulties in getting direct evidence; since, of the countless species now existing, all have been subject during millions upon millions of years to the evolutionary process, and have had their primary traits complicated and obscured by those endless secondary traits which the natural selection of favourable variations has produced. Among protophytes it needs but to think of the mult.i.tudinous varieties of diatoms and desmids, with their elaborately-constructed coverings; or of the definite methods of growth and multiplication among such simple _Algae_ as the _Conjugatae_; to see that most of their distinctive characters are due to inherited const.i.tutions, which have been slowly moulded by survival of the fittest to this or that mode of life. To disentangle such parts of their developmental changes as are due to the action of the medium, is therefore hardly possible. We can hope only to get a general conception of it by contemplating the totality of the facts.

The first cardinal fact is that all protophytes are cellular--all show us this contrast between outside and inside. Supposing the mult.i.tudinous specialities of the envelope in different orders and genera of protophytes to be set against one another, and mutually cancelled, there remains as a trait common to them--an envelope unlike that which it envelopes. The second cardinal fact is that this simple trait is the earliest trait displayed in germs, or spores, or other parts from which new individuals are to arise; and that, consequently, this trait must be regarded as having been primordial. For it is an established truth of organic evolution that embryos show us, in general ways, the forms of remote ancestors; and that the first changes undergone, indicate, more or less clearly, the first changes which took place in the series of forms through which the existing form has been reached. Describing, in successive groups of plants, the early transformations of these primitive units, Sachs[44] says of the lowest _Algae_ that "the conjugated protoplasmic body clothes itself with a cell-wall" (p. 10); that in "the spores of Mosses and Vascular Cryptogams" and in "the pollen of Phanerogams" ... "the protoplasmic body of the mother-cell breaks up into four lumps, which quickly round themselves off and contract, and become enveloped by a cell-membrane only after complete separation" (p. 13); that in the _Equisetaceae_ "the young spores, when first separated, are still naked, but they soon become surrounded by a cell-membrane" (p. 14); and that in higher plants, as in the pollen of many Dicotyledons, "the contracting daughter-cells secrete cellulose even during their separation" (p. 14). Here, then, in whatever way we interpret it, the fact is that there quickly arises an outer layer different from the contained matter. But the most significant evidence is furnished by "the ma.s.ses of protoplasm that escape into water from the injured sacs of _Vaucheria_, which often instantly become rounded into globular bodies," and of which the "hyaline protoplasm envelopes the whole as a skin" (p. 41) which "is denser than the inner and more watery substance" (p. 42). As in this case the protoplasm is but a fragment, and as it is removed from the influence of the parent-cell, this differentiating process can scarcely be regarded as anything more than the effect of physico-chemical actions: a conclusion which is supported by the statement of Sachs that "not only every vacuole in a solid protoplasmic body, but also every thread of protoplasm which penetrates the sap-cavity, and finally the inner side of the protoplasm-sac which encloses the sap-cavity, is also bounded by a skin"

(p. 42). If then "every portion of a protoplasmic body immediately surrounds itself, when it becomes isolated, with such a skin," which is shown in all cases to arise at the surface of contact with sap or water, this primary differentiation of outer from inner must be ascribed to the direct action of the medium. Whether the coating thus initiated is secreted by the protoplasm, or whether, as seems more likely, it results from transformation of it, matters not to the argument. Either way the action of the medium causes its formation; and either way the many varied and complex differentiations which developed cell-walls display, must be considered as originating from those variations of this physically-generated covering which natural selection has taken advantage of.

The contained protoplasm of a vegetal cell, which has self-mobility and when liberated sometimes performs amoeba-like motions for a time, may be regarded as an imprisoned amoeba; and when we pa.s.s from it to a free amoeba, which is one of the simplest types of first animals, or _Protozoa_, we naturally meet with kindred phenomena. The general trait which here concerns us, is that while its plastic or semi-fluid sarcode goes on protruding, in irregular ways, now this and now that part of its periphery, and again withdrawing into its interior first one and then another of these temporary processes, perhaps with some small portion of food attached, there is but an indistinct differentiation of outer from inner (a fact shown by the frequent coalescence of the pseudopodia in Rhizopods); but that when it eventually becomes quiescent, the surface becomes differentiated from the contents: the pa.s.sing into an encysted state, doubtless in large measure due to inherited proclivity, being furthered, and having probably been once initiated, by the action of the medium. The connexion between constancy of relative position among the parts of the sarcode, and the rise of a contrast between superficial and central parts, is perhaps best shown in the minutest and simplest _Infusoria_, the _Monadinae_. The genus _Monas_ is described by Kent as "plastic and unstable in form, possessing no distinct cuticular investment; ... the food-substances incepted at all parts of the periphery";[45] and the genus _Scytomonas_ he says "differs from _Monas_ only in its persistent shape and accompanying greater rigidity of the peripheral or ectoplasmic layer."[46] Describing generally such low forms, some of which are said to have neither nucleus nor vacuole, he remarks that in types somewhat higher "the outer or peripheral border of the protoplasmic ma.s.s, while not a.s.suming the character of a distinct cell-wall or so-called cuticle, presents, as compared with the inner substance of that ma.s.s, a slightly more solid type of composition."[47]

And it is added that these forms having so slightly differentiated an exterior, "while usually exhibiting a more or less characteristic normal outline, can revert at will to a pseud-amoeboid and repent state."[48]

Here, then, we have several indications of the truth that the permanent externality of a certain part of the substance, is followed by transformation of it into a coating unlike the substance it contains.

Indefinite and structureless in the simplest of these forms, as instance again the _Gregarina_,[49] the limiting membrane becomes, in higher _Infusoria_, definite and often complex: showing that the selection of favourable variations has had largely to do with its formation. In such types as the _Foraminifera_, which, almost structureless internally though they are, secrete calcareous sh.e.l.ls, it is clear that the nature of this outer layer is determined by inherited const.i.tution. But recognition of this consists with the belief that the action of the medium initiated the outer layer, specialized though it now is; and that even still, contact with the medium excites secretion of it.

A remarkable a.n.a.logy remains to be named. When we study the action of the medium in an inorganic ma.s.s, we are led to see that between the outer changed layer and the inner unchanged ma.s.s, comes a surface where active change is going on. Here we have to note that, alike in the plant-cell and in the animal-cell, there is a similar relation of parts.

Immediately inside the envelope comes the primordial utricle in the one case, and in the other case the layer of active sarcode. In either case the living protoplasm, placed in the position of a lining to the cuticle of the cell, is shielded from the direct action of the medium, and yet is not beyond the reach of its influences.

Limited, as thus far drawn, to a certain common trait of those minute organisms which are mostly below the reach of unaided vision, the foregoing conclusion appears trivial enough. But it ceases to appear trivial on pa.s.sing into a wider field, and observing the implications, direct and indirect, as they concern plants and animals of sensible sizes.

Popular expositions of science have so far familiarized many readers with a certain fundamental trait of living things around, that they have ceased to perceive how marvellous a trait it is, and, until interpreted by the Theory of Evolution, how utterly mysterious. In past times, the conception of an ordinary plant or animal which prevailed, not throughout the world at large only but among the most instructed, was that it is a single continuous ent.i.ty. One of these livings things was unhesitatingly regarded as being in all respects a unit. Parts it might have, various in their sizes, forms, and compositions; but these were components of a whole which had been from the beginning in its original nature a whole. Even to naturalists fifty years ago, the a.s.sertion that a cabbage or a cow, though in one sense a whole, is in another sense a vast society of minute individuals, severally living in greater or less degrees, and some of them maintaining their independent lives unrestrained, would have seemed an absurdity. But this truth which, like so many of the truths established by science, is contrary to that common sense in which most people have so much confidence, has been gradually growing clear since the days when Leeuwenhoeck and his contemporaries began to examine through lenses the minute structures of common plants and animals. Each improvement in the microscope, while it has widened our knowledge of those minute forms of life described above, has revealed further evidence of the fact that all the larger forms of life consist of units severally allied in their fundamental traits to these minute forms of life. Though, as formulated by Schwann and Schleiden, the cell-doctrine has undergone qualifications of statement; yet the qualifications have not been such as to militate against the general proposition that organisms visible to the naked eye, are severally compounded of invisible organisms--using that word in its most comprehensive sense. And then, when the development of any animal is traced, it is found that having been primarily a nucleated cell, and having afterwards become by spontaneous fission a cl.u.s.ter of nucleated cells, it goes on through successive stages to form out of such cells, ever multiplying and modifying in various ways, the several tissues and organs composing the adult.

On the hypothesis of evolution this universal trait has to be accepted not as a fact that is strange but unmeaning. It has to be accepted as evidence that all the visible forms of life have arisen by union of the invisible forms; which, instead of flying apart when they divided, remained together. Various intermediate stages are known. Among plants, those of the _Volvox_ type show us the component protophytes so feebly combined that they severally carry on their lives with no appreciable subordination to the life of the group. And among animals, a parallel relation between the lives of the units and the life of the group is shown us in _Uroglena_ and _Syncrypta_. From these first stages upwards, may be traced through successively higher types, an increasing subordination of the units to the aggregate; though still a subordination leaving to them conspicuous amounts of individual activity. Joining which facts with the phenomena presented by the cell-multiplication and aggregation of every unfolding germ, naturalists are now accepting the conclusion that by this process of composition from _Protozoa_, were formed all cla.s.ses of the _Metazoa_[50]--(as animals formed by this compounding are now called); and that in a similar way from _Protophyta_, were formed all cla.s.ses of what I suppose will be called _Metaphyta_, though the word does not yet seem to have become current.

And now what is the general meaning of these truths, taken in connexion with the conclusion reached in the last section. It is that this universal trait of the _Metazoa_ and _Metaphyta_, must be ascribed to the primitive action and re-action between the organism and its medium.

The operation of those forces which produced the primary differentiation of outer from inner in early minute ma.s.ses of protoplasm, pre-determined this universal cell-structure of all embryos, plant and animal, and the consequent cell-composition of adult forms arising from them. How unavoidable is this implication, will be seen on carrying further an ill.u.s.tration already used--that of the shingle-covered sh.o.r.e, the pebbles on which, while being in some cases selected, have been in all cases rounded and smoothed. Suppose a bed of such shingle to be, as we often see it, solidified, along with interfused material, into a conglomerate. What in such case must be considered as the chief trait of such conglomerate; or rather--what must we regard as the chief cause of its distinctive characters? Evidently the action of the sea. Without the breakers, no pebbles; without the pebbles, no conglomerate. Similarly then, in the absence of that action of the medium by which was effected the differentiation of outer from inner in those microscopic portions of protoplasm const.i.tuting the earliest and simplest animals and plants, there could not have existed this cardinal trait of composition which all the higher animals and plants show us.

So that, active as has been the part played by natural selection, alike in modifying and moulding the original units--largely as survival of the fittest has been instrumental in furthering and controlling the combination of these units into visible organisms, and eventually into large ones; yet we must ascribe to the direct effect of the medium on the first forms of life, that character of which this everywhere-operative factor has taken advantage.

Let us turn now to another and more obvious attribute of higher organisms, for which also there is this same general cause. Let us observe how, on a higher platform, there recurs this differentiation of outer from inner--how this primary trait in the living units with which life commences, re-appears as a primary trait in those aggregates of such units which const.i.tute visible organisms.

In its simplest and most unmistakable form, we see this in the early changes of an unfolding ovum of primitive type. The original fertilized single cell, having by spontaneous fission multiplied into a cl.u.s.ter of such cells, there begins to show itself a contrast between periphery and centre; and presently there is formed a sphere consisting of a superficial layer unlike its contents. The first change, then, is the rise of a difference between that outer part which holds direct converse with the surrounding medium, and that inclosed part which does not. This primary differentiation in these compound embryos of higher animals, parallels the primary differentiation undergone by the simplest living things.

Leaving, for the present, succeeding changes of the compound embryo, the significance of which we shall have to consider by-and-by, let us pa.s.s now to the adult forms of visible plants and animals. In them we find cardinal traits which, after what we have seen above, will further impress us with the importance of the effects wrought on the organism by its medium.

From the thallus of a sea-weed up to the leaf of a highly developed phaenogam, we find, at all stages, a contrast between the inner and outer parts of these flattened ma.s.ses of tissue. In the higher _Algae_ "the outermost layers consist of smaller and firmer cells, while the inner cells are often very large, and sometimes extremely long;"[51] and in the leaves of trees the epidermal layer, besides differing in the sizes and shapes of its component cells from the parenchyma forming the inner substance of the leaf, is itself differentiated by having a continuous cuticle, and by having the outer walls of its cells unlike the inner walls.[52] Especially significant is the structure of such intermediate types as the Liverworts. Beyond the differentiation of the covering cells from the contained cells, and the contrast between upper surface and under surface, the frond of _Marchantia polymorpha_ clearly shows us the direct effect of incident forces; and shows us, too, how it is involved with the effect of inherited proclivities. The frond grows from a flat disc-shaped gemma, the two sides of which are alike. Either side may fall uppermost; and then of the developing shoot, the side exposed to the light "is under all circ.u.mstances the upper side which forms stomata, the dark side becomes the under side which produces root-hairs and leafy processes."[53] So that while we have undeniable proof that the contrasted influences of the medium on the two sides, initiate the differentiation, we have also proof that the completion of it is determined by the transmitted structure of the type; since it is impossible to ascribe the development of stomata to the direct action of air and light. On turning from foliar expansions, to stems and roots, facts of like meaning meet us. Speaking generally of epidermal tissue and inner tissue, Sachs remarks that "the contrast of the two is the plainer the more the part of the plant concerned is exposed to air and light."[54] Elsewhere, in correspondence with this, it is said that in roots the cells of the epidermis, though distinguished by bearing hairs, "are otherwise similar to those of the fundamental tissue" which they clothe,[55] while the cuticular covering is relatively thin; whereas in stems the epidermis (often further differentiated) is composed of layers of cells which are smaller and thicker-walled: a stronger contrast of structure corresponding to a stronger contrast of conditions. By way of meeting the suggestion that these respective differences are wholly due to the natural selection of favourable variations, it will suffice if I draw attention to the unlikeness between imbedded roots and exposed roots. While in darkness, and surrounded by moist earth, the outermost protective coats, even of large roots, are comparatively thin; but when the accidents of growth entail permanent exposure to light and air, roots acquire coverings allied in character to the coverings of branches. That the action of the medium causes these and converse changes, cannot be doubted when we find, on the one hand, that "roots can become directly transformed into leaf-bearing shoots," and, on the other hand, that in some plants certain "apparent roots are only underground shoots," and that nevertheless "they are similar to true roots in function and in the formation of tissue, but have no root-cap, and, when they come to the light above ground, continue to grow in the manner of ordinary leaf-shoots."[56] If, then, in highly developed plants inheriting p.r.o.nounced structures, this differentiating influence of the medium is so marked, it must have been all-important at the outset while types were undetermined.

As with plants so with animals, we find good reason for inferring that while the specialities of the tegumentary parts must be ascribed to the natural selection of favourable variations, their most general traits are due to the direct action of surrounding agencies. Here we come upon the border of those changes which are ascribable to use and disuse. But from this cla.s.s of changes we may fitly exclude those in which the parts concerned are wholly or mainly pa.s.sive. A corn and a blister will conveniently serve to ill.u.s.trate the way in which certain outer actions initiate in the superficial tissues, effects of very marked kinds, which are related neither to the needs of the organism nor to its normal structure. They are neither adaptive changes nor changes towards completion of the type. After noting them we may pa.s.s to allied, but still more instructive, changes. Continuous pressure on any portion of the surface causes absorption, while intermittent pressure causes growth: the one impeding circulation and the pa.s.sage of plasma from the capillaries into the tissues, and the other aiding both. There are yet further mechanically-produced effects. That the general character of the ribbed skin on the under surfaces of the feet and insides of the hands is directly due to friction and intermittent pressure, we have the proofs:--first, that the tracts most exposed to rough usage are the most ribbed; second, that the insides of hands subject to unusual amounts of rough usage, as those of sailors, are strongly ribbed all over; and third, that in hands which are very little used, the parts commonly ribbed become quite smooth. These several kinds of evidence, however, full of meaning as they are, I give simply to prepare the way for evidence of a much more conclusive kind.

Where a wide ulcer has eaten away the deep-seated layer out of which the epidermis grows, or where this layer has been destroyed by an extensive burn, the process of healing is very significant. From the subjacent tissues, which in the normal order have no concern with outward growth, there is produced a new skin, or rather a pro-skin; for this subst.i.tuted outward-growing layer contains no hair-follicles or other specialities of the original one. Nevertheless, it is like the original one in so far that it is a continually renewed protective covering. Doubtless it may be contended that this make-shift skin results from the inherited proclivity of the type--the tendency to complete afresh the structure of the species when injured. We cannot, however, ignore the immediate influence of the medium, on recalling the facts above named, or on remembering the further fact that an inflamed surface of skin, when not sheltered from the air, will throw out a film of coagulable lymph. But that the direct action of the medium is a chief factor we are clearly shown by another case. Accident or disease occasionally causes permanent eversion, or protrusion, of mucous membrane. After a period of irritability, great at first but decreasing as the change advances, this membrane a.s.sumes the general character of ordinary skin. Nor is this all: its microscopic structure changes. Where it is a mucous membrane of the kind covered by cylinder-epithelium, the cylinders gradually shorten, becoming finally flat, and there results a squamous epithelium: there is a near approach in minute composition to epidermis. Here a tendency towards completion of the type cannot be alleged; for there is, contrariwise, divergence from the type. The effect of the medium is so great that, in a short time, it overcomes the inherited proclivity and produces a structure of opposite kind to the normal one.

With but little break we come here upon a significant a.n.a.logy, parallel to an a.n.a.logy already described. As was pointed out, an inorganic body that is modifiable by its medium, acquires, after a time, an outer coat which has already undergone such change as surrounding agencies can effect; has a contained ma.s.s which is as yet unchanged, because unreached; and has a surface between the two where change is going on--a region of activity. And we saw that alike in the vegetal cell and the animal cell there exist a.n.a.logous distributions: of course with the difference that the innermost part is not inert. Now we have to note that in those aggregates of cells const.i.tuting the _Metaphyta_ and _Metazoa_, a.n.a.logous distributions also exist. In plants they are of course not to be looked for in leaves and other deciduous portions, but only in portions of long duration--stems and branches. Naturally, too, we need not expect them in plants having modes of growth which early produce an outer practically dead part, that effectually shields the inner actively living part of the stem from the influence of the medium--long-lived acrogens such as tree-ferns and long-lived endogens such as palms. But in the highest plants, exogens, which have the actively living part of their stems within reach of environing agencies, we find this part,--the cambium layer,--is one from which there is a growth inwards forming wood, and a growth outwards forming bark: there is an increasingly thick covering (where it does not scale off) of tissue changed by the medium, and inside this a film of highest vitality. In so far as concerns the present argument, it is the same with the _Metazoa_, or at least all of them which have developed organizations. The outer skin grows up from a limiting plane, or layer, a little distance below the surface--a place of predominant vital activity. Here perpetually arise new cells, which, as they develop, are thrust outwards and form the epidermis: flattening and drying up as they approach the surface, whence, having for a time served to shield the parts below, they finally scale off and leave younger ones to take their places. This still undifferentiated tissue forming the base of the epidermis, and existing also as a source of renewal in internal organs, is the essentially living substance; and facts above given imply that it was the action of the medium on this essentially living substance, which, during early stages in the organization of the _Metazoa_, initiated that protective envelope which presently became an inherited structure--a structure which, though now mainly inherited, still continues to be modifiable by its initiator.

Fully to perceive the way in which these evidences compel us to recognize the influence of the medium as a primordial factor, we need but conceive them as interpreted without it. Suppose, for instance, we say that the structure of the epidermis is wholly determined by the natural selection of favourable variations; what must be the position taken in presence of the fact above named, that when mucous membrane is exposed to the air its cell-structure changes into the cell-structure of skin? The position taken must be this:--Though mucous membrane in a highly-evolved individual organism, thus shows the powerful effect of the medium on its surface; yet we must not suppose that the medium had the effect of producing such a cell-structure on the surfaces of primitive forms, undifferentiated though they were; or, if we suppose that such an effect was produced on them, we must not suppose that it was inheritable. Contrariwise, we must suppose that such effect of the medium either was not wrought at all, or that it was evanescent: though repeated through millions upon millions of generations it left no traces. And we must conclude that this skin-structure arose only in consequence of spontaneous variations not physically initiated (though like those physically initiated) which natural selection laid hold of and increased. Does any one think this a tenable position?

And now we approach the last and chief series of morphological phenomena which must be ascribed to the direct action of environing matters and forces. These are presented to us when we study the early stages in the development of the embryos of the _Metazoa_ in general.

We will set out with the fact already noted in pa.s.sing, that after repeated spontaneous fissions have changed the original fertilized germ-cell into that cl.u.s.ter of cells which forms a gemmule or a primitive ovum, the first contrast which arises is between the peripheral parts and the central parts. Where, as with lower creatures which do not lay up large stores of nutriment with the germs of their offspring, the inner ma.s.s is inconsiderable, the outer layer of cells, which are presently made quite small by repeated subdivisions, forms a membrane extending over the whole surface--the blastoderm. The next stage of development, which ends in this covering layer becoming double, is reached in two ways--by inv.a.g.i.n.ation and by delamination; but which is the original way and which the abridged way, is not quite certain. Of inv.a.g.i.n.ation, mult.i.tudinously exemplified in the lowest types, Mr.

Balfour says:--"On purely _a priori_ grounds there is in my opinion more to be said for inv.a.g.i.n.ation than for any other view";[57] and, for present purposes, it will suffice if we limit ourselves to this: making its nature clear to the general reader by a simple ill.u.s.tration.

Take a small india-rubber ball--not of the inflated kind, nor of the solid kind, but of the kind about an inch or so in diameter with a small hole through which, under pressure, the air escapes. Suppose that instead of consisting of india-rubber its wall consists of small cells made polyhedral in form by mutual pressure, and united together. This will represent the blastoderm. Now with the finger, thrust in one side of the ball until it touches the other: so making a cup. This action will stand for the process of inv.a.g.i.n.ation. Imagine that by continuance of it, the hemispherical cup becomes very much deepened and the opening narrowed, until the cup becomes a sac, of which the introverted wall is everywhere in contact with the outer wall. This will represent the two-layered "gastrula"--the simplest ancestral form of the _Metazoa_: a form which is permanently represented in some of the lowest types; for it needs but tentacles round the mouth of the sac, to produce a common hydra. Here the fact which it chiefly concerns us to remark, is that of these two layers the outer, called in embryological language the epiblast, continues to carry on direct converse with the forces and matters in the environment; while the inner, called the hypoblast, comes in contact with such only of these matters as are put into the food-cavity which it lines. We have further to note that in the embryos of _Metazoa_ at all advanced in organization, there arises between these two layers a third--the mesoblast. The origin of this is seen in types where the developmental process is not obscured by the presence of a large food-yolk. While the above-described introversion is taking place, and before the inner surfaces of the resulting epiblast and hypoblast have come into contact, cells, or amoeboid units equivalent to them, are budded off from one or both of these inner surfaces, or some part of one or other; and these form a layer which eventually lies between the other two--a layer which, as this mode of formation implies, never has any converse with the surrounding medium and its contents, or with the nutritive bodies taken in from it. The striking facts to which this description is a necessary introduction, may now be stated. From the outer layer, or epiblast, are developed the permanent epidermis and its out-growths, the nervous system, and the organs of sense. From the introverted layer, or hypoblast, are developed the alimentary ca.n.a.l and those parts of its appended organs, liver, pancreas, &c., which are concerned in delivering their secretions into the alimentary ca.n.a.l, as well as the linings of those ramifying tubes in the lungs which convey air to the places where gaseous exchange is effected. And from the mesoblast originate the bones, the muscles, the heart and blood-vessels, and the lymphatics, together with such parts of various internal organs as are most remotely concerned with the outer world. Minor qualifications being admitted, there remain the broad general facts, that out of that part of the external layer which remains permanently external, are developed all the structures which carry on intercourse with the medium and its contents, active and pa.s.sive; out of the introverted part of this external layer, are developed the structures which carry on intercourse with the quasi-external substances that are taken into the interior--solid food, water, and air; while out of the mesoblast are developed structures which have never had, from first to last, any intercourse with the environment. Let us contemplate these general facts.

Who would have imagined that the nervous system is a modified portion of the primitive epidermis? In the absence of proofs furnished by the concurrent testimony of embryologists during the last thirty or forty years, who would have believed that the brain arises from an infolded tract of the outer skin, which, sinking down beneath the surface, becomes imbedded in other tissues and eventually surrounded by a bony case? Yet the human nervous system in common with the nervous systems of lower animals is thus originated. In the words of Mr. Balfour, early embryological changes imply that--

"the functions of the central nervous system, which were originally taken by the whole skin, became gradually concentrated in a special part of the skin which was step by step removed from the surface, and has finally become in the higher types a well-defined organ imbedded in the subdermal tissues.... The embryological evidence shows that the ganglion-cells of the central part of the nervous system are originally derived from the simple undifferentiated epithelial cells of the surface of the body."[58]

Less startling perhaps, though still startling enough, is the fact that the eye is evolved out of a portion of the skin; and that while the crystalline lens and its surroundings thus originate, the "percipient portions of the organs of special sense, especially of optic organs, are often formed from the same part of the primitive epidermis" which forms the central nervous system.[59] Similarly is it with the organs for smelling and hearing. These, too, begin as sacs formed by infoldings of the epidermis; and while their parts are developing they are joined from within by nervous structures which were themselves epidermic in origin.

How are we to interpret these strange transformations? Observing, as we pa.s.s, how absurd from the point of view of the special-creationist, would appear such a filiation of structures, and such a round-about mode of embryonic development, we have here to remark that the process is not one to have been antic.i.p.ated as a result of natural selection.

After numbers of spontaneous variations had occurred, as the hypothesis implies, in useless ways, the variation which primarily initiated a nervous centre might reasonably have been expected to occur in some internal part where it would be fitly located. Its initiation in a dangerous place and subsequent migration to a safe place, would be incomprehensible. Not so if we bear in mind the cardinal truth above set forth, that the structures for holding converse with the medium and its contents, arise in that completely superficial part which is directly affected by the medium and its contents; and if we draw the inference that the external actions themselves initiate the structures. These once commenced, and furthered by natural selection where favourable to life, would form the first term of a series ending in developed sense organs and a developed nervous system.[60]

Though it would enforce the argument, I must, for brevity's sake, pa.s.s over the a.n.a.logous evolution of that introverted layer, or hypoblast, out of which the alimentary ca.n.a.l and attached organs arise. It will suffice to emphasize the fact that having been originally external, this layer continues in its developed form to have a quasi-externality, alike in its digesting part and in its respiratory part; since it continues to deal with matters alien to the organism. I must also refrain from dwelling at length on the fact already adverted to, that the intermediate derived layer, or mesoblast, which was at the outset completely internal, originates those structures which ever remain completely internal, and have no communication with the environment save through the structures developed from the other two: an ant.i.thesis which has great significance.

Here, instead of dwelling on these details, it will be better to draw attention to the most general aspect of the facts. Whatever may be the course of subsequent changes, the first change is the formation of a superficial layer or blastoderm; and by whatever series of transformations the adult structure is reached, it is from the blastoderm that all the organs forming the adult originate. Why this marvellous fact?

Meaning is given to it if we go back to the first stage in which _Protozoa_, having by repeated fissions formed a cl.u.s.ter, then arranged themselves into a hollow sphere, as do the protophytes forming a _Volvox_. Originally alike all over its surface, the hollow sphere of ciliated units thus formed, would, if not quite spherical, a.s.sume a constant att.i.tude when moving through the water; and hence one part of the spheroid would more frequently than the rest come in contact with nutritive matters to be taken in. A division of labour resulting from such a variation being advantageous, and tending therefore to increase in descendants, would end in a differentiation like that shown in the gemmules of various low types of _Metazoa_, which, ovate in shape, are ciliated over one part of the surface only. There would arise a form in which the cilium-bearing units effected locomotion and aeration; while on the others, a.s.suming an amoeba-like character, devolved the function of absorbing food: a primordial specialization variously indicated by evidence.[61] Just noting that an ancestral origin of this kind is implied by the fact that in low types of _Metazoa_ a hollow sphere of cells is the form first a.s.sumed by the unfolding embryo, I draw attention to the point here of chief interest; namely that the primary differentiation of this hollow sphere is in such case determined by a difference in the converse of its parts with the medium and its contents; and that the subsequent inv.a.g.i.n.ation arises by a continuance of this differential converse.

Even neglecting this first stage and commencing with the next, in which a "gastrula" has been produced by the permanent introversion of one portion of the surface of the hollow sphere, it will suffice if we consider what must thereafter have happened. That which continued to be the outer surface was the part which from time to time touched quiescent ma.s.ses and occasionally received the collisions consequent on its own motions or the motions of other things. It was the part to receive the sound-vibrations occasionally propagated through the water; the part to be affected more strongly than any other by those variations in the amounts of light caused by the pa.s.sing of small bodies close to it; and the part which met those diffused molecules const.i.tuting odours. That is to say, from the beginning the surface was the part on which there fell the various influences pervading the environment, the part by which there was received those impressions from the environment serving for the guidance of actions, and the part which had to bear the mechanical re-actions consequent upon such actions. Necessarily, therefore, the surface was the part in which were initiated the various instrumentalities for carrying on intercourse with the environment. To suppose otherwise is to suppose that such instrumentalities arose internally where they could neither be operated on by surrounding agencies nor operate on them,--where the differentiating forces did not come into play, and the differentiated structures had nothing to do; and it is to suppose that meanwhile the parts directly exposed to the differentiating forces remained unchanged. Clearly, then, organization could not but begin on the surface; and having thus begun, its subsequent course could not but be determined by its superficial origin.

And hence these remarkable facts showing us that individual evolution is accomplished by successive in-foldings and in-growings. Doubtless natural selection soon came into action, as, for example, in the removal of the rudimentary nervous centres from the surface; since an individual in which they were a little more deeply seated would be less likely to be incapacitated by injury of them. And so in mult.i.tudinous other ways. But nevertheless, as we here see, natural selection could operate only under subjection. It could do no more than take advantage of those structural changes which the medium and its contents initiated.

See, then, how large has been the part played by this primordial factor.

Had it done no more than give to _Protozoa_ and _Protophyta_ that cell-form which characterizes them--had it done no more than entail the cellular composition which is so remarkable a trait of _Metazoa_ and _Metaphyta_--had it done no more than cause the repet.i.tion in all visible animals and plants of that primary differentiation of outer from inner which it first wrought in animals and plants invisible to the naked eye; it would have done much towards giving to organisms of all kinds certain leading traits. But it has done more than this. By causing the first differentiations of those cl.u.s.ters of units out of which visible animals in general arose, it fixed the starting place for organization, and therefore determined the course of organization; and, doing this, gave indelible traits to embryonic transformations and to adult structures.

Though mainly carried on after the inductive method, the argument at the close of the foregoing section has pa.s.sed into the deductive. Here let us follow for a s.p.a.ce the deductive method pure and simple. Doubtless in biology _a priori_ reasoning is dangerous; but there can be no danger in considering whether its results coincide with those reached by reasoning _a posteriori_.

Biologists in general agree that in the present state of the world, no such thing happens as the rise of a living creature out of non-living matter. They do not deny, however, that at a remote period in the past, when the temperature of the Earth's surface was much higher than at present, and other physical conditions were unlike those we know, inorganic matter, through successive complications, gave origin to organic matter. So many substances once supposed to belong exclusively to living bodies, have now been formed artificially, that men of science scarcely question the conclusion that there are conditions under which, by yet another step of composition, quaternary compounds of lower types pa.s.s into those of highest types. That there once took place gradual divergence of the organic from the inorganic, is, indeed, a necessary implication of the hypothesis of Evolution, taken as a whole; and if we accept it as a whole, we must put to ourselves the question--What were the early stages of progress which followed, after the most complex form of matter had arisen out of forms of matter a degree less complex?

At first, protoplasm could have had no proclivities to one or other arrangement of parts; unless, indeed, a purely mechanical proclivity towards a spherical form when suspended in a liquid. At the outset it must have been pa.s.sive. In respect of its pa.s.sivity, primitive organic matter must have been like inorganic matter. No such thing as spontaneous variation could have occurred in it; for variation implies some habitual course of change from which it is a divergence, and is therefore excluded where there is no habitual course of change. In the absence of that cyclical series of metamorphoses which even the simplest living thing now shows us, as a result of its inherited const.i.tution, there could be no _point d'appui_ for natural selection. How, then, did organic evolution begin?

If a primitive ma.s.s of organic matter was like a ma.s.s of inorganic matter in respect of its pa.s.sivity, and differed only in respect of its greater changeableness; then we must infer that its first changes conformed to the same general law as do the changes of an inorganic ma.s.s. The instability of the h.o.m.ogeneous is a universal principle. In all cases the h.o.m.ogeneous tends to pa.s.s into the heterogeneous, and the less heterogeneous into the more heterogeneous. In the primordial units of protoplasm, then, the step with which evolution commenced must have been the pa.s.sage from a state of complete likeness throughout the ma.s.s to a state in which there existed some unlikeness. Further, the cause of this step in one of these portions of organic matter, as in any portion of inorganic matter, must have been the different exposure of its parts to incident forces. What incident forces? Those of its medium or environment. Which were the parts thus differently exposed? Necessarily the outside and the inside. Inevitably, then, alike in the organic aggregate and the inorganic aggregate (supposing it to have coherence enough to maintain constant relative positions among its parts), the first fall from h.o.m.ogeneity to heterogeneity must always have been the differentiation of the external surface from the internal contents. No matter whether the modification was physical or chemical, one of composition or of decomposition, it comes within the same generalization. The direct action of the medium was the primordial factor of organic evolution.

And now, finally, let us look at the factors in their _ensemble_, and consider the respective parts they play: observing, especially, the ways in which, at successive stages, they severally give place one to another in degree of importance.

Acting alone, the primordial factor must have initiated the primary differentiation in all units of protoplasm alike. I say alike, but I must forthwith qualify the word. For since surrounding influences, physical and chemical, could not be absolutely the same in all places, especially when the first rudiments of living things had spread over a considerable area, there necessarily arose small contrasts between the degrees and kinds of superficial differentiation effected. As soon as these became decided, natural selection came into play; for inevitably the unlikenesses produced among the units had effects on their lives: there was survival of some among the modified forms rather than others.

Utterly in the dark though we are respecting the causes which set up that process of fission everywhere occurring among the minutest forms of life, we must infer that, when established, it furthered the spread of those which were most favourably differentiated by the medium. Though natural selection must have become increasingly active when once it had got a start; yet the differentiating action of the medium never ceased to be a co-operator in the development of these first animals and plants. Again taking the lead as there arose the composite forms of animals and plants, and again losing the lead with that advancing differentiation of these higher types which gave more scope to natural selection, it nevertheless continued, and must ever continue, to be a cause, both direct and indirect, of modifications in structure.

Along with that remarkable process which, beginning in minute forms with what is called conjugation, developed into s.e.xual generation, there came into play causes of frequent and marked fortuitous variations. The mixtures of const.i.tutional proclivities made more or less unlike by unlikenesses of physical conditions, inevitably led to occasional concurrences of forces producing deviations of structure. These were of course mostly suppressed, but sometimes increased, by survival of the fittest. When, along with the growing multiplication in forms of life, conflict and compet.i.tion became continually more active, fortuitous variations of structure of no account in the converse with the medium, became of much account in the struggle with enemies and compet.i.tors; and natural selection of such variations became the predominant factor.

Especially throughout the plant-world its action appears to have been immensely the most important; and throughout that large part of the animal world characterized by relative inactivity, the survival of individuals that had varied in favourable ways, must all along have been the chief cause of the divergence of species and the occasional production of higher ones.

But gradually with that increase of activity which we see on ascending to successively higher grades of animals, and especially with that increased complexity of life which we also see, there came more and more into play as a factor, the inheritance of those modifications of structure caused by modifications of function. Eventually, among creatures of high organization, this factor became an important one; and I think there is reason to conclude that, in the case of the highest of creatures, civilized men, among whom the kinds of variation which affect survival are too mult.i.tudinous to permit easy selection of any one, and among whom survival of the fittest is greatly interfered with, it has become the chief factor: such aid as survival of the fittest gives, being usually limited to the preservation of those in whom the totality of the faculties has been most favourably moulded by functional changes.

Of course this sketch of the relations among the factors must be taken as in large measure a speculation. We are now too far removed from the beginnings of life to obtain data for anything more than tentative conclusions respecting its earliest stages; especially in the absence of any clue to the mode in which multiplication, first agamogenetic and then gamogenetic, was initiated. But it has seemed to me not amiss to present this general conception, by way of showing how the deductive interpretation harmonizes with the several inferences reached by induction.