Unconscious Memory Part 12

Again, I would recommend the reader to beware of believing anything in this book unless he either likes it, or feels angry at being told it. If required belief in this or that makes a man angry, I suppose he should, as a general rule, swallow it whole then and there upon the spot, otherwise he may take it or leave it as he likes. I have not gone far for my facts, nor yet far from them; all on which I rest are as open to the reader as to me. If I have sometimes used hard terms, the probability is that I have not understood them, but have done so by a slip, as one who has caught a bad habit from the company he has been lately keeping. They should be skipped.

Do not let him be too much cast down by the bad language with which professional scientists obscure the issue, nor by their seeming to make it their business to fog us under the pretext of removing our difficulties. It is not the ratcatcher's interest to catch all the rats; and, as Handel observed so sensibly, "Every professional gentleman must do his best for to live." The art of some of our philosophers, however, is sufficiently transparent, and consists too often in saying "organism which must be cla.s.sified among fishes," instead of "fish," {179a} and then proclaiming that they have "an ineradicable tendency to try to make things clear." {179b}

If another example is required, here is the following from an article than which I have seen few with which I more completely agree, or which have given me greater pleasure. If our men of science would take to writing in this way, we should be glad enough to follow them. The pa.s.sage I refer to runs thus:-

"Professor Huxley speaks of a 'verbal fog by which the question at issue may be hidden'; is there no verbal fog in the statement that the aetiology of crayfishes resolves itself into a gradual evolution in the course of the mesosoic and subsequent epochs of the world's history of these animals from a primitive astacomorphous form? Would it be fog or light that would envelop the history of man if we said that the existence of man was explained by the hypothesis of his gradual evolution from a primitive anthropomorphous form? I should call this fog, not light." {180}

Especially let him mistrust those who are holding forth about protoplasm, and maintaining that this is the only living substance. Protoplasm may be, and perhaps is, the most living part of an organism, as the most capable of retaining vibrations, but this is the utmost that can be claimed for it.

Having mentioned protoplasm, I may ask the reader to note the breakdown of that school of philosophy which divided the ego from the non ego. The protoplasmists, on the one hand, are whittling away at the ego, till they have reduced it to a little jelly in certain parts of the body, and they will whittle away this too presently, if they go on as they are doing now.

Others, again, are so unifying the ego and the non ego, that with them there will soon be as little of the non ego left as there is of the ego with their opponents. Both, however, are so far agreed as that we know not where to draw the line between the two, and this renders nugatory any system which is founded upon a distinction between them.

The truth is, that all cla.s.sification whatever, when we examine its raison d'etre closely, is found to be arbitrary - to depend on our sense of our own convenience, and not on any inherent distinction in the nature of the things themselves. Strictly speaking, there is only one thing and one action. The universe, or G.o.d, and the action of the universe as a whole.

Lastly, I may predict with some certainty that before long we shall find the original Darwinism of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (with an infusion of Professor Hering into the bargain) generally accepted instead of the neo-Darwinism of to-day, and that the variations whose acc.u.mulation results in species will be recognised as due to the wants and endeavours of the living forms in which they appear, instead of being ascribed to chance, or, in other words, to unknown causes, as by Mr. Charles Darwin's system. We shall have some idyllic young naturalist bringing up Dr. Erasmus Darwin's note on Trapa natans, {181a} and Lamarck's kindred pa.s.sage on the descent of Ranunculus hederaceus from Ranunculus aquatilis {181b} as fresh discoveries, and be told, with much happy simplicity, that those animals and plants which have felt the need of such or such a structure have developed it, while those which have not wanted it have gone without it. Thus, it will be declared, every leaf we see around us, every structure of the minutest insect, will bear witness to the truth of the "great guess" of the greatest of naturalists concerning the memory of living matter.

I dare say the public will not object to this, and am very sure that none of the admirers of Mr. Charles Darwin or Mr. Wallace will protest against it; but it may be as well to point out that this was not the view of the matter taken by Mr. Wallace in 1858 when he and Mr. Darwin first came forward as preachers of natural selection. At that time Mr. Wallace saw clearly enough the difference between the theory of "natural selection" and that of Lamarck. He wrote:-

"The hypothesis of Lamarck - that progressive changes in species have been produced by the attempts of animals to increase the development of their own organs, and thus modify their structure and habits - has been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers on the subject of varieties and species, ... but the view here developed tenders such an hypothesis quite unnecessary... . The powerful retractile talons of the falcon and the cat tribes have not been produced or increased by the volition of those animals, neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its ant.i.types with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh range of pasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked companions, and on the first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them" (italics in original). {182a}

This is absolutely the neo-Darwinian doctrine, and a denial of the mainly fortuitous character of the variations in animal and vegetable forms cuts at its root. That Mr. Wallace, after years of reflection, still adhered to this view, is proved by his heading a reprint of the paragraph just quoted from {182b} with the words "Lamarck's hypothesis very different from that now advanced"; nor do any of his more recent works show that he has modified his opinion. It should be noted that Mr. Wallace does not call his work "Contributions to the Theory of Evolution," but to that of "Natural Selection."

Mr. Darwin, with characteristic caution, only commits himself to saying that Mr. Wallace has arrived at almost (italics mine) the same general conclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; {182c} but he still, as in 1859, declares that it would be "a serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations," {183a} and he still comprehensively condemns the "well-known doctrine of inherited habit, as advanced by Lamarck." {183b}

As for the statement in the pa.s.sage quoted from Mr. Wallace, to the effect that Lamarck's hypothesis "has been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers on the subject of varieties and species," it is a very surprising one. I have searched Evolution literature in vain for any refutation of the Erasmus Darwinian system (for this is what Lamarck's hypothesis really is) which need make the defenders of that system at all uneasy. The best attempt at an answer to Erasmus Darwin that has yet been made is "Paley's Natural Theology," which was throughout obviously written to meet Buffon and the "Zoonomia." It is the manner of theologians to say that such and such an objection "has been refuted over and over again," without at the same time telling us when and where; it is to be regretted that Mr. Wallace has here taken a leaf out of the theologians' book. His statement is one which will not pa.s.s muster with those whom public opinion is sure in the end to follow.

Did Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, "repeatedly and easily refute" Lamarck's hypothesis in his brilliant article in the Leader, March 20, 1852? On the contrary, that article is expressly directed against those "who cavalierly reject the hypothesis of Lamarck and his followers." This article was written six years before the words last quoted from Mr. Wallace; how absolutely, however, does the word "cavalierly" apply to them!

Does Isidore Geoffroy, again, bear Mr. Wallace's a.s.sertion out better? In 1859 - that is to say, but a short time after Mr. Wallace had written - he wrote as follows:-

"Such was the language which Lamarck heard during his protracted old age, saddened alike by the weight of years and blindness; this was what people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet barely closed, and what indeed they are still saying - commonly too without any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at secondhand bad caricatures of his teaching.

"When will the time come when we may see Lamarck's theory discussed - and, I may as well at once say, refuted in some important points {184a} - with at any rate the respect due to one of the most ill.u.s.trious masters of our science? And when will this theory, the hardihood of which has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from the interpretations and commentaries by the false light of which so many naturalists have formed their opinion concerning it? If its author is to be condemned, let it be, at any rate, not before he has been heard." {184b}

In 1873 M. Martin published his edition of Lamarck's "Philosophie Zoologique." He was still able to say, with, I believe, perfect truth, that Lamarck's theory has "never yet had the honour of being discussed seriously." {184c}

Professor Huxley in his article on Evolution is no less cavalier than Mr. Wallace. He writes:- {184d}

"Lamarck introduced the conception of the action of an animal on itself as a factor in producing modification."

[Lamarck did nothing of the kind. It was Buffon and Dr. Darwin who introduced this, but more especially Dr. Darwin.]

"But a little consideration showed" (italics mine) "that though Lamarck had seized what, as far as it goes, is a true cause of modification, it is a cause the actual effects of which are wholly inadequate to account for any considerable modification in animals, and which can have no influence whatever in the vegetable world, &c."

I should be very glad to come across some of the "little consideration" which will show this. I have searched for it far and wide, and have never been able to find it.

I think Professor Huxley has been exercising some of his ineradicable tendency to try to make things clear in the article on Evolution, already so often quoted from. We find him (p. 750) pooh-poohing Lamarck, yet on the next page he says, "How far 'natural selection' suffices for the production of species remains to be seen." And this when "natural selection" was already so nearly of age! Why, to those who know how to read between a philosopher's lines, the sentence comes to very nearly the same as a declaration that the writer has no great opinion of "natural selection." Professor Huxley continues, "Few can doubt that, if not the whole cause, it is a very important factor in that operation." A philosopher's words should be weighed carefully, and when Professor Huxley says "few can doubt," we must remember that he may be including himself among the few whom he considers to have the power of doubting on this matter. He does not say "few will," but "few can" doubt, as though it were only the enlightened who would have the power of doing so. Certainly "nature," - for this is what "natural selection" comes to, - is rather an important factor in the operation, but we do not gain much by being told so. If, however, Professor Huxley neither believes in the origin of species, through sense of need on the part of animals themselves, nor yet in "natural selection," we should be glad to know what he does believe in.

The battle is one of greater importance than appears at first sight. It is a battle between teleology and non-teleology, between the purposiveness and the non-purposiveness of the organs in animal and vegetable bodies. According to Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Paley, organs are purposive; according to Mr. Darwin and his followers, they are not purposive. But the main arguments against the system of Dr. Erasmus Darwin are arguments which, so far as they have any weight, tell against evolution generally. Now that these have been disposed of, and the prejudice against evolution has been overcome, it will be seen that there is nothing to be said against the system of Dr. Darwin and Lamarck which does not tell with far greater force against that of Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Wallace.

Footnotes:

{0a} This is the date on the t.i.tle-page. The preface is dated October 15, 1886, and the first copy was issued in November of the same year. All the dates are taken from the Bibliography by Mr. H. Festing Jones prefixed to the "Extracts" in the New Quarterly Review (1909).

{0b} I.e. after p. 285: it bears no number of its own!

{0c} The distinction was merely implicit in his published writings, but has been printed since his death from his "Notebooks," New Quarterly Review, April, 1908. I had developed this thesis, without knowing of Butler's explicit antic.i.p.ation in an article then in the press: "Mechanism and Life," Contemporary Review, May, 1908.

{0d} The term has recently been revived by Prof. Hubrecht and by myself (Contemporary Review, November 1908).

{0e} See Fortnightly Review, February 1908, and Contemporary Review, September and November 1909. Since these publications the hypnosis seems to have somewhat weakened.

{0f} A "hormone" is a chemical substance which, formed in one part of the body, alters the reactions of another part, normally for the good of the organism.

{0g} Mr. H. Festing Jones first directed my attention to these pa.s.sages and their bearing on the Mutation Theory.

{0i} He says in a note, "This general type of reaction was described and ill.u.s.trated in a different connection by Pfluger in 'Pfluger's Archiv. f.d. ges. Physiologie,' Bd. XV." The essay bears the significant t.i.tle "Die teleologische Mechanik der lebendigen Natur," and is a very remarkable one, as coming from an official physiologist in 1877, when the chemico-physical school was nearly at its zenith.

{0j} "Contributions to the Study of the Lower Animals" (1904), "Modifiability in Behaviour" and "Method of Regulability in Behaviour and in other Fields," in Journ. Experimental Zoology, vol. ii. (1905).

{0h} See "The Hereditary Transmission of Acquired Characters" in Contemporary Review, September and November 1908, in which references are given to earlier statements.

{0k} Semon's technical terms are exclusively taken from the Greek, but as experience tells that plain men in England have a special dread of suchlike, I have subst.i.tuted "imprint" for "engram," "outcome" for "ecphoria"; for the latter term I had thought of "efference," "manifestation," etc., but decided on what looked more homely, and at the same time was quite distinctive enough to avoid that confusion which Semon has dodged with his Graecisms.

{0l} "Between the 'me' of to-day and the 'me' of yesterday lie night and sleep, abysses of unconsciousness; nor is there any bridge but memory with which to span them." - Unconscious Memory, p. 71.

{0m} Preface by Mr. Charles Darwin to "Erasmus Darwin." The Museum has copies of a Kosmos that was published 1857-60 and then discontinued; but this is clearly not the Kosmos referred to by Mr. Darwin, which began to appear in 1878.

{0n} Preface to "Erasmus Darwin."

{2} May 1880.

{3} Kosmos, February 1879, Leipsic.

{4} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 459.