The Whence and the Whither of Man Part 17

Can thus natural selection, acting upon fortuitous variations, be the sole guiding process concerned in progress? Must there not be some combining power to produce the higher individuals which are prerequisites to the working of natural selection?

We are considering the efficiency of natural selection in enhancing useful variations through a series of generations. Let us return to the distinction between productiveness and prospectiveness of social capital. Applied to variations productiveness means immediate advantage, prospectiveness the greater future and permanent returns.

Now all persisting variations must, in animals below man, apparently be somewhat productive, else they would not continue, much less increase. Now the immediate return from prospective variations is often smaller than from productive. It looks at first as if productive variations would always be preserved by natural selection, and that prospective variations would not long advance.

Yet in the muscular system variations valuable largely for their future value are neither few nor unimportant. How can the brain in its infancy develop until it gains supremacy over muscle, or muscle have done the same with digestion? Now a partial explanation of this is to be found in the correlation of organs. This is therefore a factor of vast importance in progress through evolution.

Progress in any one line demands correlated changes in many organs.

Thus in the advance of annelids to insects the muscular system increases in relative bulk, and absolutely in complexity. But a change or increase in the muscle must be accompanied by corresponding changes in the motor-nerve fibrils; and these again would be useless unless accompanied by increased complexity and more or less readjustment of the cells and fibrils of the nerve-centres.

And all these additions to, and readjustments of, the nerve-centres must take place without any disturbance of the other necessary adjustments already attained. This is no simple problem.

We will here neglect the fact that many other changes are going on simultaneously. Legs are being formed or moulded into jaws, the anterior segments are fusing into a head, and their ganglia into a brain; an external skeleton is developing. Furthermore the increase of the muscular and nervous systems must be accompanied by increased powers of digestion, respiration, and excretion. Practically the whole body is being recast. We insist only on the necessity of simultaneous and parallel changes in muscles, nerves, and nerve-centres; though what is true of these is true, in greater or less degree, of all the other organs.

You may answer that this is to be explained by the law of correlation of organs; that when changes in one organ demand corresponding changes in another, these two change similarly and more or less at the same time and rate. But this is evidently not an explanation but a restatement of the fact. The question remains, What makes the organs vary simultaneously so as to always correspond to each other? The whole series of changes must to some extent be effected at once and in the same individual, if it is to be preserved by natural selection. Fortuitous variations here and there along the line of the series are of little or no avail. That the whole series of variations should happen to occur in one animal is altogether against the law of probabilities; if the favorable variation occurs in only a part of the series it remains useless until the corresponding variation has taken place in the other terms. And while the variation is thus awaiting its completion, so to speak, it is useless, and cannot be fostered by natural selection.

Evolution by means of fortuitous variations, combined and controlled only through natural selection, seems to me at least impossible; and this view is, I think, steadily gaining ground.

Natural selection, while a real and very important factor in evolution, cannot be its sole and exclusive explanation. It presupposes other factors, which we as yet but dimly perceive. And this does not impeach the validity of Mr. Darwin's theory any more than Newton's theory of gravitation is impeached by the fact that it offers no explanation as to why the apple falls or how bodies attract one another.

For natural selection explains the survival, but not the origin, of the fittest. Given a species or other group composed of more and less fit individuals and the fittest will survive. How does it come about that there are any more and less fit individuals? This brings us to the consideration of the subject of variation.

Let us begin with a simple case of change in the adult body. The workman grasps his tools day after day, and his hands become h.o.r.n.y.

The skin has evidently thickened, somewhat as on the soles of the feet. This is no mere mechanical result of pressure alone.

Continuous pressure would produce the opposite result. But under the stimulus of intermittent pressure the capillaries, or smallest blood vessels, furnish more nutriment to the cells composing the lowest layer of the outer skin or epidermis. These cells, being better nourished, reproduce by division more rapidly, and the epidermis, becoming composed of a greater number of layers of cells, thickens.

The outer-most layers, being farthest from the blood supply, dry up and are packed together into a h.o.r.n.y ma.s.s.

If I go out into the sunshine I become tanned. This again is not a direct and purely chemical or physical result of the sun's rays, but these have stimulated the cells of the skin to undergo certain modifications. Any change in the living body under changed conditions is not pa.s.sive, but an active reaction to a stimulus furnished by the surroundings. The same stimulus may excite very different reactions in different individuals or species.

Early in this century a farmer, Seth Wright, found among his lambs a young ram with short legs and long body. The farmer kept the ram, reasoning that his short legs would prevent him from leading the flock over the farm-walls and fences. From this ram was descended the breed of ancon, or otter, sheep. Now the stimulus which had excited this variation must have been applied early in embryonic life, or perhaps during the formation or maturing of the germ-cells themselves. Such a variation we call a congenital variation.

These cases are merely ill.u.s.trations of the general truth that in every variation there are two factors concerned: the living being with its const.i.tution and inherent tendencies and the external stimulus.

The courses of the different b.a.l.l.s in a charge of grape-shot, hurled from a cannon, are evidently due to two sets of forces--1, their initial energy and the direction of their aim; 2, the deflecting power of resisting objects or forces--or the different b.a.l.l.s might roll with great velocity down a precipitous mountain-side. In the first case velocity and direction of course would be determined largely by initial impulse; in the second, by the attraction of the earth and by the inequalities of its surface.

In evolution, environment, roughly speaking, corresponds to these deflecting or attracting external objects or forces; inherent tendencies to initial impulse. If we lay great weight on initial tendencies, inherent in protoplasm from the very beginning, we shall probably lay less stress on natural selection as a guiding, directing process.

The great botanist, Nageli, has propounded a most ingenious and elaborate theory of evolution, as dependent mainly on inherent initial tendency. We can notice only one or two of its salient points. All development is, according to his view, due to a tendency in the primitive living substance toward more complete division of labor and greater complexity. This tendency, which he calls progression, or the tendency toward perfection, is the result of the chemical and molecular structure of the formative controlling protoplasm (idioplasm) of the body, and is transmitted with other parental traits from generation to generation. And structural complexity thus increases like money at compound interest.

Development is a process of unfolding or of realization of the possibilities of this tendency under the stimulus of surrounding influences. Environment plays an essential part in his system. But only such changes are transmissible to future generations as have resulted from modifications arising in the idioplasm. Descendants of plants which have varied under changed conditions revert, as a rule, to the old type, when returned to the old surroundings. And in the animal world effects of use and disuse are, according to his view, not transmissible.

Natural selection plays a very subordinate part. It is purely destructive. Given an infinity of place and nourishment--do away, that is, with all struggle and selection--and the living world would have advanced, purely by the force of the progressive tendency, just as far as it now has; only there would have survived an indefinite number of intermediate forms. It would have differed from our present living world as the milky way does from the starry firmament.

He compares the plant kingdom to a great, luxurious tree, branching from its very base, whose twigs would represent the present stage of our different species. Left to itself it would put out a chaos of innumerable branches. Natural selection, like a gardener, prunes the tree into shape. Children might imagine that the gardener caused the growth; but the tree would have been broader and have branched more luxuriantly if left to itself.[A]

[Footnote A: See Nageli, "Theorie der Abstammungslehre," p. 18; also pp. 12, 118, 285.]

Every species must vary perpetually. Now this proposition is apparently not in accord with fact; for some have remained unchanged during immense periods. And natural selection, by removing the less fit, certainly appears to contribute to progress by raising the average of the species. The theory seems extreme and one-sided. And yet it has done great service by calling in question the all-sufficiency of natural selection and the modifying power of environment, and by emphasizing, probably overmuch, the importance of initial inherent tendency, whose value has been entirely neglected by many evolutionists.

Lack of s.p.a.ce compels us to leave unnoticed most of the exceedingly valuable suggestions of Nageli's brilliant work.

It is still less possible to do any justice in a few words to Weismann's theory. Into its various modifications, as it has grown from year to year, we have no time to enter. And we must confine ourselves to his views of variation and heredity.

In studying protozoa we noticed that they reproduced by fission, each adult individual dividing into two young ones. There is therefore no old parent left to die. Natural death does not occur here, only death by violence or unfavorable conditions. The protozoa are immortal, not in the sense of the endless persistence of the individual, but of the absence of death. Heredity is here easily comprehensible, for one-half, or less frequently a smaller fraction, of the substance of the parent goes to form the new individual.

There is direct continuity of substance from generation to generation.

But in volvox a change has taken place. The fertilized egg-cell, formed by the union of egg and spermatozoon, is a single cell, like the individual resulting from the conjugation or fusion of two protozoa. But in the many-celled individual, which develops out of the fertilized egg, there are two kinds of cells. 1. There are other egg-cells, like the first, each one of which can, under favorable conditions, develop into a multicellular individual like the parent. And the germ-cells (eggs and spermatozoa) of volvox are immortal like the protozoa. But, 2, there are nutritive, somatic cells, which nourish and transport the germ-cells, and after their discharge die. These somatic cells, being mortal, differ altogether from the germ-cells and the protozoa. The protoplasm must differ in chemical, or molecular, or other structure in the two cases, and we distinguish the germ-plasm of the germ-cells, resembling in certain respects Nageli's idioplasm, from somatoplasm, which performs most of the functions of the cell. The somatoplasm arises from, and hence must be regarded as a modification of, the germ-plasm. The germ-plasm can increase indefinitely in the lapse of generations, increase of the somatoplasm is limited.

When a new individual develops, a certain portion of the germ-plasm of the egg is set aside and remains unchanged in structure. This, increasing in quant.i.ty, forms the reproductive elements for the next generation. The germ-plasm, which does not form the whole of each reproductive element, but only a part of the nucleus, is thus an exceedingly stable substance. And there is a just as real continuity of germ-plasm through successive generations of volvox, or of any higher plants or animals, as in successive generations of protozoa.

In certain plants there is an underground stem or rootstock, which grows perennially, and each year produces a plant from a bud at its end. This underground rootstock would represent the continuous germ-plasm of successive generations; the plants which yearly arise from it would represent the successive generations of adult individuals, composed mainly of somatoplasm. Or we may imagine a long chain, with a pendant attached to each tenth or one-hundredth link. The links of the chain would represent the series of generations of germ-cells; the pendants, the adults of successive generations.

But any leaf of begonia can be made to develop into a new plant, giving rise to germ-cells. Here there must be scattered through the leaves of the plant small portions of germ-plasm, which generally remain dormant, and only under special conditions increase and give rise to germ-cells.

A large part of the germ-plasm of the fertilized egg is used to give rise to the somatoplasm composing the different systems of the embryo and adult. Weismann's explanation of this change of germ-plasm into somatoplasm is very ingenious, and depends upon his theory of the structure of the germ-plasm; and this latter theory forms the basis of his theory of evolution. It would take too long to state his theory of the structure of germ-plasm, but an ill.u.s.tration may present fairly clear all that is of special importance to us.

The molecules of germ-plasm are grouped in units, and these in an ascending series of units of continually increasing complexity, until at last we find the highest unit represented in the nucleus of the germ-cell. This grouping of molecules in units of increasing complexity is like the grouping of the men of an army in companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, etc.

To form the somatoplasm of the different tissues of the body, this complicated organization breaks up, as the egg divides, into an ever-increasing number of cells. First, so to speak, the corps separate to preside over the formation of different body regions.

Then the different divisions, brigades, and regiments, composing each next higher unit, separate, being detailed to form ever smaller portions of the body. The process of changing germ-plasm into somatoplasm is one of disintegration. The germ-plasm contains representatives of the whole army; a somatic cell only representatives of one special arm of a special training. Germ-plasm in the egg is like Humpty-Dumpty on the wall; somatoplasm, like Humpty-Dumpty after his great fall.

I use these rude ill.u.s.trations to make clear one point: Germ-plasm can easily change into somatoplasm, but somatoplasm once formed can never be reconverted into germ-plasm, any more than the fallen hero of the nursery rhyme could ever be restored.

The germ-plasm is, according to Weismann, a very peculiar, complex, stable substance, continuous from generation to generation since the first appearance of life on the globe. It is in the body of the parent, but scarcely of it. Its relation to the body is like that of a plant to the soil or of a parasite to its host. It receives from the body practically only transport and nourishment. It is like a self-perpetuating, close corporation; and the somatoplasm has no means of either controlling it or of gaining representation in it.

Says Weismann[A]: "The germ-cells are contained in the organism, and the external influences which affect them are intimately connected with the state of the organism in which they lie hid. If it be well nourished, the germ-cells will have abundant nutriment; and, conversely, if it be weak and sickly, the germ-cells will be arrested in their growth. It is even possible that the effects of these influences may be more specialized; that is to say, they may act only upon certain parts of the germ-cells. But this is indeed very different from believing that the changes of the organism which result from external stimuli can be transmitted to the germ-cells and will redevelop in the next generation at the same time as that at which they arose in the parent, and in the same part of the organism."

[Footnote A: Essays upon Heredity, p. 105.]

But if the germ-plasm has this const.i.tution and relation to the rest of the body, how is any variation possible? Different individuals of any species have slightly different congenital tendencies. Hence in the act of fertilization two germ-plasms of slightly different structure and tendency are mingled. The mingling of the two produces a germ-plasm and individual differing from both of the parents.

Thus, according to Weismann's earlier view, the origin of variation was to be sought in s.e.xual reproduction through the mingling of slightly different germ-plasms.

But how did these two germ-plasms come to be different? How was the variation started? To explain this Weismann went back to the unicellular protozoa. These animals are undoubtedly influenced by environment and vary under its stimuli. Here the variations were stamped upon the germ-plasm, and the commingling of these variously stamped germ-plasms has resulted in all the variations of higher animals.

Of late Weismann has modified and greatly improved this portion of his theory. He now accepts the view that external influences may act upon the germ-plasm not only in protozoa but also in all higher animals. Variation is thus due to the action or stimulus of external influences, supplemented by s.e.xual reproduction.

But the very const.i.tution of the germ-plasm and its relation to the body absolutely forbids the transmission of acquired somatic characteristics and of the special effects of use and disuse.

Muscular activity promotes general health, and might thus conduce to better-nourished germ-cells and to more vigorous and therefore athletic descendants. The exercise of the muscles might possibly cause such a condition of the blood that the portion of the germ-plasm representing the muscular system of the next generation might be especially nourished or stimulated. Thus an athletic parent might produce more athletic children.

But let us imagine twin brothers of equal muscular development. One from childhood on exercises the lower half of his body; the other, the upper. Both take the same amount of exercise, and have perhaps equal muscular development, but located in different halves of the body. Now it is hard to conceive that it can make any difference in the nourishing or stimulating influence of the blood, whether the muscular activity resides in one half of the body or the other. The children might be exactly alike.

One man drives the pen, a second plays the piano, and a third wields a light hammer. All three use different muscles of the hand and arm.

How can this use of special muscles stamp itself upon the germ-cells in such a way that the offspring will have these special muscles enlarged? Granting that external influences of environment and bodily condition may effect the germ-cells; granting even that some of the most general effects of use and disuse might be transmitted, what warrant have we for believing that the special acquired characteristic can be transmitted? Weismann answers, None at all.

The somatoplasm can only in the most general way affect the self-perpetuating, close corporation of the germ-plasm.[A]

[Footnote A: Weismann, Essays, p. 286.]

There is thus, according to Weismann, nothing to direct variation to certain organs, or to guide and combine the variations of these organs along certain lines, except natural selection. To a certain extent variation may be limited by the very structure of the animal.

But within these limits there are wide ranges where one variation is apparently just as likely to occur as another.

Within these wide limits variation appears to be fortuitous. Natural selection must wait until the individuals appear in which these variations occur already correlated, and then seize upon these individuals. It is apparently the only guiding, directing force.

Linear variation, that is, a variation advancing continuously along one or very few straight lines, would appear to be impossible.