Criticisms on The Origin of Species
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Thomas H. Huxley >> Criticisms on The Origin of Species
[footnote] * If, on the contrary, we follow the analogy of
the more complex forms of Agamogenesis, such as that
exhibited by some 'Trematoda' and by the 'Aphides', the
Hyaena must produce, asexually, a brood of asexual Dogs,
from which other sexless Dogs must proceed. At the end of a
certain number of terms of the series, the Dogs would
acquire sexes and generate young; but these young would be,
not Dogs, but Hyaenas. In fact, we have 'demonstrated', in
Agamogenetic phenomena, that inevitable recurrence to the
original type, which is 'asserted' to be true of variations
in general, by Mr. Darwin's opponents; and which, if the
assertion could be changed into a demonstration would, in
fact, be fatal to his hypothesis.
The other alternative put by Professor Kolliker--the passage of
fecundated ova in the course of their development into higher
forms--would, if it occurred, be merely an extreme case of variation in
the Darwinian sense, greater in degree than, but perfectly similar in
kind to, that which occurred when the well-known Ancon Ram was
developed from an ordinary Ewe's ovum. Indeed we have always thought
that Mr. Darwin has unnecessarily hampered himself by adhering so
strictly to his favourite "Natura non facit saltum." We greatly
suspect that she does make considerable jumps in the way of variation
now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps
which appear to exist in the series of known forms.
Strongly and freely as we have ventured to disagree with Professor
Kolliker, we have always done so with regret, and we trust without
violating that respect which is due, not only to his scientific
eminence and to the careful study which he has devoted to the subject,
but to the perfect fairness of his argumentation, and the generous
appreciation of the worth of Mr. Darwin's labours which he always
displays. It would be satisfactory to be able to say as much for M.
Flourens.
But the Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences deals with
Mr. Darwin as the first Napoleon would have treated an "ideologue;"
and while displaying a painful weakness of logic and shallowness of
information, assumes a tone of authority, which always touches upon
the ludicrous, and sometimes passes the limits of good breeding.
For example (p. 56):--
"M. Darwin continue: 'Aucune distinction absolue n'a ete et ne pout etre
etablie entre les esp_ces et les varietes.' Je vous ai deja dit que
vous vous trompiez; une distinction absolue separe les varietes d'avec
les especes."
"Je vous ai deja dit; moi, M. le Secretaire perpetuel de l'Academie des
Sciences: et vous
"'Qui n'etes rien, Pas meme Academicien;'
what do you mean by asserting the contrary?" Being devoid of the
blessings of an Academy in England, we are unaccustomed to see our
ablest men treated in this fashion, even by a "Perpetual Secretary."
Or again, considering that if there is any one quality of Mr. Darwin's
work to which friends and foes have alike borne witness, it is his
candour and fairness in admitting and discussing objections, what is to
be thought of M. Flourens' assertion, that
"M. Darwin ne cite que les auteurs qui partagent ses opinions." (P.
40.)
Once more (p. 65):--
"Enfin l'ouvrage de M. Darwin a paru. On ne peut qu'etre frappe du
talent de l'auteur. Mais que d'idees obscures, que d'idees fausses!
Quel jargon metaphysique jete mal a propos dans l'histoire naturelle,
qui tombe dans le galimatias des qu'elle sort des idees claires, des
idees justes! Quel langage pretentieux et vide! Quelles
personifications pueriles et surannees! O lucidite! O solidite de
l'esprit Francais, que devenez-vous?"
"Obscure ideas," "metaphysical jargon," "pretentious and empty
language," "puerile and superannuated personifications." Mr. Darwin
has many and hot opponents on this side of the Channel and in Germany,
but we do not recollect to have found precisely these sins in the long
catalogue of those hitherto laid to his charge. It is worth while,
therefore, to examine into these discoveries effected solely by the
aid of the "lucidity and solidity" of the mind of M. Flourens.
According to M. Flourens, Mr. Darwin's great error is that he has
personified Nature (p. 10), and further that he has
"imagined a natural selection: he imagines afterwards that this power
of selection (pouvoir d'_lire) which he gives to Nature is similar to
the power of man. These two suppositions admitted, nothing stops him:
he plays with Nature as he likes, and makes her do all he pleases."
(P. 6.)
And this is the way M. Flourens extinguishes natural selection:
"Voyons donc encore une fois, ce qu'il peut y avoir de fonde dans ce
qu'on nomme election naturelle.
"L'election naturelle n'est sous un autre nom que la nature. Pour un
etre organise, la nature n'est que l'organisation, ni plus ni moins.
"Il faudra donc aussi personnifier l'organisation, et dire que
l'organisation choisit l'organisation. L'election naturelle est cette
forme substantielle dont on jouait autrefois avec tant de facilite.
Aristote disait que 'Si l'art de batir etait dans le bois, cet art
agirait comme la nature.' A la place de l'art de batir M. Darwin met
l'election naturelle, et c'est tout un: l'un n'est pas plus chimerique
que l'autre." (P.31.)
And this is really all that M. Flourens can make of Natural Selection.
We have given the original, in fear lest a translation should be
regarded as a travesty; but with the original before the reader, we may
try to analyse the passage. "For an organized being, Nature is only
organization, neither more nor less."
Organized beings then have absolutely no relation to inorganic nature: a
plant does not, depend on soil or sunshine, climate, depth in the
ocean, height above it; the quantity of saline matters in water have no
influence upon animal life; the substitution of carbonic acid for
oxygen in our atmosphere would hurt nobody! That these are absurdities
no one should know better than M. Flourens; but they are logical
deductions from the assertion just quoted, and from the further
statement that natural selection means only that "organization chooses
and selects organization."
For if it be once admitted (what no sane man denies) that the chances of
life of any given organism are increased by certain conditions (A) and
diminished by their opposites (B), then it is mathematically certain
that any change of conditions in the direction of (A) will exercise a
selective influence in favour of that organism, tending to its increase
and multiplication, while any change in the direction of (B) will
exercise a selective influence against that organism, tending to its
decrease and extinction.
Or, on the other hand, conditions remaining the same, let a given
organism vary (and no one doubts that they do vary) in two directions:
into one form (a) better fitted to cope with these conditions than the
original stock, and a second (b) less well adapted to them. Then it is
no less certain that the conditions in question must exercise a
selective influence in favour of (a) and against ( b), so that (a) will
tend to predominance, and (b) to extirpation.
That M. Flourens should be unable to perceive the logical necessity of
these simple arguments, which lie at the foundation of all Mr. Darwin's
reasoning; that he should confound an irrefragable deduction from the
observed relations of organisms to the conditions which lie around
them, with a metaphysical "forme substantielle," or a chimerical
personification of the powers of Nature, would be incredible, were it
not that other passages of his work leave no room for doubt upon the
subject.
"On imagine une 'election naturelle' que, pour plus de menagement, on me
dit etre inconsciente, sans s'apercevoir que le contre-sens litteral
est precisement la: 'election inconsciente'." (P. 52.)
"J'ai deja dit ce qu'il faut penser de 'l'election naturelle'. Ou
'l'election naturelle' n'est rien, ou c'est la nature: mais la nature
douee 'd'election', mais la nature personnifiee: derniere erreur du
dernier siecle: Le xixe fait plus de personnifications." (P. 53.)
M. Flourens cannot imagine an unconscious selection--it is for him a
contradiction in terms. Did M. Flourens ever visit one of the
prettiest watering-places of "la belle France," the Baie d'Arcachon? If
so, he will probably have passed through the district of the Landes,
and will have had an opportunity of observing the formation of "dunes"
on a grand scale. What are these "dunes"? The winds and waves of the
Bay of Biscay have not much consciousness, and yet they have with great
care "selected," from among an infinity of masses of silex of all
shapes and sizes, which have been submitted to their action, all the
grains of sand below a certain size, and have heaped them by themselves
over a great area. This sand has been "unconsciously selected" from
amidst the gravel in which it first lay with as much precision as if
man had "consciously selected" it by the aid of a sieve. Physical
Geology is full of such selections--of the picking out of the soft from
the hard, of the soluble from the insoluble, of the fusible from the
infusible, by natural agencies to which we are certainly not in the
habit of ascribing consciousness.
But that which wind and sea are to a sandy beach, the sum of influences,
which we term the "conditions of existence," is to living organisms.
The weak are sifted out from the strong. A frosty night "selects" the
hardy plants in a plantation from among the tender ones as effectually
as if it were the wind, and they, the sand and pebbles, of our
illustration; or, on the other hand, as if the intelligence of a
gardener had been operative in cutting the weaker organisms down. The
thistle, which has spread over the Pampas, to the destruction of native
plants, has been more effectually "selected" by the unconscious
operation of natural conditions than if a thousand agriculturists had
spent their time in sowing it.
It is one of Mr. Darwin's many great services to Biological science that
he has demonstrated the significance of these facts. He has shown
that--given variation and given change of conditions--the inevitable
result is the exercise of such an influence upon organisms that one is
helped and another is impeded; one tends to predominate, another to
disappear; and thus the living world bears within itself, and is
surrounded by, impulses towards incessant change.
But the truths just stated are as certain as any other physical laws,
quite independently of the truth, or falsehood, of the hypothesis which
Mr. Darwin has based upon them; and that M. Flourens, missing the
substance and grasping at a shadow, should be blind to the admirable
exposition of them, which Mr. Darwin has given, and see nothing there
but a "derniere erreur du dernier siecle "--a personification of
Nature--leads us indeed to cry with him: "O lucidite! O solidite de
l'esprit Francais, que devenez-vous?"
M. Flourens has, in fact, utterly failed to comprehend the first
principles of the doctrine which he assails so rudely. His objections
to details are of the old sort, so battered and hackneyed on this side
of the Channel, that not even a Quarterly Reviewer could be induced to
pick them up for the purpose of pelting Mr. Darwin over again. We have
Cuvier and the mummies; M. Roulin and the domesticated animals of
America; the difficulties presented by hybridism and by Palaeontology;
Darwinism a 'rifacciamento' of De Maillet and Lamarck; Darwinism a
system without a commencement, and its author bound to believe in M.
Pouchet, etc. etc. How one knows it all by heart, and with what relief
one reads at p. 65--
"Je laisse M. Darwin!"
But we cannot leave M. Flourens without calling our readers' attention
to his wonderful tenth chapter, "De la Preexistence des Germes et de
l'Epigenese," which opens thus:--
"Spontaneous generation is only a chimaera. This point established,
two hypotheses remain: that of 'pre-existence' and that of
'epigenesis'. The one of these hypotheses has as little foundation as
the other." (P. 163.)
"The doctrine of 'epigenesis' is derived from Harvey: following by
ocular inspection the development of the new being in the Windsor does,
he saw each part appear successively, and taking the moment of
'appearance' for the moment of 'formation' he imagined 'epigenesis'."
(P. 165.)
On the contrary, says M. Flourens (p. 167),
"The new being is formed at a stroke ('tout d'un coup') as a whole,
instantaneously; it is not formed part by part, and at different times.
It is formed at once at the single 'individual' moment at which the
conjunction of the male and female elements takes place."
It will be observed that M. Flourens uses language which cannot be
mistaken. For him, the labours of von Baer, of Rathke, of Coste, and
their contemporaries and successors in Germany, France, and England,
are non-existent: and, as Darwin "imagina" natural selection, so Harvey
" imagina" that doctrine which gives him an even greater claim to the
veneration of posterity than his better known discovery of the
circulation of the blood.
Language such as that we have quoted is, in fact, so preposterous, so
utterly incompatible with anything but absolute ignorance of some of
the best established facts, that we should have passed it over in
silence had it not appeared to afford some clue to M. Flourens'
unhesitating, 'a priori', repudiation of all forms of the doctrine of
progressive modification of living beings. He whose mind remains
uninfluenced by an acquaintance with the phenomena of development, must
indeed lack one of the chief motives towards the endeavour to trace a
genetic relation between the different existing forms of life. Those
who are ignorant of Geology, find no difficulty in believing that the
world was made as it is; and the shepherd, untutored in history, sees
no reason to regard the green mounds which indicate the site of a Roman
camp, as aught but part and parcel of the primeval hill-side. So M.
Flourens, who believes that embryos are formed "tout d'un coup,"
naturally finds no difficulty in conceiving that species came into
existence in the same way.