In seeking to define our position in regard to the theory of descent it is most important that we should recognise that, when it is looked into closely, the true problem at issue is not a special zoological one, but is quite general, and also that it is not a new growth which has sprung up suddenly and found us unprepared, but that it is very ancient and has long existed in our midst. In the whole theory the question of “descent” is after all a mere accessory. Even if it fell through and were seen to be scientifically undemonstrable, “evolution in the realm of life” would remain an indisputable fact, and with it there would arise precisely the same difficulties for the religious interpretation of the world which are usually attributed to the Theory of Descent.
Evolution or development has been a prominent idea in the history of thought since the time of Aristotle, but descent is, so to speak, a modern upstart. According to long-established modes of thought, to evolve means to pass from δυνάμει to ἰνεργεία εἴναι, from potentia to actus, from the existence of the rudiment as in the seed to full realisation as in the tree. In the course of its [pg 129] development the organism passes through many successive phases, which are related to one another like steps, each rising directly from the one beneath, and preparing for the one above. Thus all nature, and especially the realm of life, implies a ladder of “evolution.” What is “potentially” inherent in the lowest form of life has in the highest, as in man, become actual or “realised” through a continuous sequence of phases, successively more and more evolved. This view in its earlier forms was very far from implying that each higher step was literally “descended” from the one below it, through the physical and mental transformation of some of its representatives. As the world, in Aristotle's view for instance, had existed from all eternity, so also had the stages and forms of life, each giving rise again to its like. Indeed, the essential idea was that each higher step is simply a development, a fuller unfolding of the lower stage, and finally that man was the complete realisation of what was potentially inherent in the lowest of all.
This doctrine of evolution was in modern times the fundamental idea of Leibnitz and Kant, of Goethe, Schelling and Hegel. It brought unity and connectedness into the system of nature, united everything by steps, denied the existence of gaping chasms, and proclaimed the solidarity of all the forms of life. But to all this the idea of actual descent was unnecessary. An actual material variation and transition from one stage to another seemed to it a wooden and gross [pg 130] expression of the evolution idea, an “all too childish and nebulous hypothesis” (Hegel).
All the important results of comparative morphology and physiology, which the modern supporters of the doctrine of descent so confidently utilise as arguments in its favour, would have been welcomed by those who held the original and general evolution idea, as a corroboration of their own standpoint. And as a matter of fact they all afford conclusive proofs of evolution; but not one of them, including even the fundamental biogenetic law and the inoculated chimpanzee, is decisive in regard to descent. This contention is sufficiently important to claim our attention for a little. Let us take the last example. Transfusion of blood between two species is possible, not necessarily because they are descended from one another or from a common root, but solely because of their systematic (ideal) relationship, that is to say because they are sufficiently near to one another and like one another in their physiological qualities and functions. If, assuming descent, this homology were disturbed, and the systematic relationship done away with, for instance through saltatory evolution, the mere fact of descent would not bring the two species any nearer one another. Thus the case proves only systematic relationship, and only evolution. But as to the meaning of this systematic relationship, whether it can be “explained” by descent, whether it has existed from all eternity, or how it has arisen, the experiment does not inform us.
[pg 131]The same idea may be illustrated in regard to Weismann's “predicting.” This, too, is a proof of evolution, but not of descent. Exactly as Weismann predicted the striping of the hawk-moth caterpillars and the human os centrale, Goethe predicted the formation of the skull from modified vertebræ, and the premaxillary bone in man. In precisely the same way he “derived” the cavities in the human skull from those of the animal skull. This was quite in keeping with the manner and style of his Goddess Nature and her creative transformations, raising the type of her creations from stage to stage, developing and expanding each new type from an earlier one, yet keeping the later analogous to and recapitulative of the earlier, recording the earlier by means of vestigial and gradually dwindling parts.
But what has all this to do with descent? Even the “biogenetic law” itself, especially if it were correct, would fit admirably into the frame of the pure evolution idea. For it is quite consistent with that idea to say that the higher type in the course of its development, especially in its embryonic stages, passes through stages representative of the forms of life which are below it and precede it in the (ideal) genealogical tree. Indeed, the older doctrine of evolution took account of this long ago.
“The same step-ladder which is exhibited by the whole animal kingdom, the steps of which are the different races and classes, with at the one extreme the [pg 132] lowliest animals and at the other the highest, is exhibited also by every higher animal in its development, since from the moment of its origin until it has reached its full development it passes through—both as regards internal and external organisation—the essentials of all the forms which become permanent for a lifetime in the animals lower than itself. The more perfect the animal is, the longer is the series of forms it passes through.”
So J. Fr. Meckel wrote in 1812 in his “Handbook of Pathological Anatomy,” with no thought of descent. And the facts which led to the construction of the biogenetic law were discovered in no small measure by Agassiz, who was an opponent of the doctrine of descent.31
But the advance from the doctrine of evolution to that of descent was imperatively prompted by a recognition of [pg 133] the fact that the earth is not from everlasting, and that the forms of life upon it are likewise not from everlasting, that, in fact, their several grades appear in an orderly ascending series. It is therefore simpler and more plausible to suppose that each higher step has arisen from the one before it, than to suppose that each has, so to speak, begun an evolution on its own account. A series of corroborative arguments might be adduced, and there is no doubt, as we have said before, that the transition from the general idea of evolution to that of descent will be fully accomplished. But it is plain that the special idea of descent contributes nothing essentially new on the subject.
It is an oft-repeated and self-evident statement, that it is in reality a matter of entire indifference whether man arose from the dust of the earth or from living matter already formed, or, let us say, from one of the higher vertebrates. The question still would be, how much or how little of any of them does he still retain, and how far does he differ from all? Even if there be really descent, the difference may quite as well be so great—for instance, through saltatory development—that man, in spite of physical relationship, might belong to quite a new category far transcending all his ancestors in his intellectual characteristics, in his emotional and moral qualities. There is nothing against the assumption, and there is much to be said in its favour, that the last step from animal to man was such an immense one that it brought with it a freedom and [pg 134] richness of psychical life incomparable with anything that had gone before—as if life here realised itself for the first time in very truth, and made everything that previously had been a mere preliminary play.
On the other hand, even were there no descent but separate individual creation, man might, in virtue of his ideal relationship and evolution, appear nothing more than a stage relatively separate from those beneath him in evolution. It was not the doctrine of descent, it was the doctrine of evolution that first ranked man in a series with the rest of creation, and regarded him as the development of what is beneath him and leads up to him through a gradual sequence of stages. And his nearness, analogy, or relationship to what is beneath him is in no way increased by descent, or rendered a whit more intimate or more disturbing.
The problem of descent thus shows itself to be one which has neither isolated character nor special value. It is an accessory accompaniment of all the questions and problems which have been raised by, or are associated with, the doctrine of evolution, which would have been in our midst without Darwin, which are made neither easier nor more difficult by zoological knowledge, and the difficulties of which, if solved, would solve at the same time any difficulties presented by descent. The following considerations will serve to [pg 135] make this clear. The most oppressive corollary of the doctrine of descent is undoubtedly that through it the human race seems to become lost in the infra-human, from which it cannot be separated by any hard and fast boundaries, or absolute lines of demarcation. But it is easy to see that this problem is in fact only a part of a larger problem, and that it can really be solved only through the larger one. Even if it were possible to do away with this unpleasing inference as regards the whole human race, so that it could be in some way separated off securely from the animal kingdom, the same fatality would remain in regard to each individual human being. For we have here to face the problem of individual development by easy transitions, the ascent from the animal to the human state, and the question: When is there really soul and spirit, when man and ego, when freedom and responsibility? But this is the same problem again, only written with smaller letters, the general problema continui in the domain of life and mind. And the problem is very far-reaching. In all questions concerning mental health and disease, abnormalities or cases of arrest at an early stage of mental development, concerning the greater or less degree of endowment for intellectual, moral, and religious life, down to utter absence of capacity, and this in relation to individuals as well as races and peoples, and times; and again, concerning the gradual development of the ethical and religious consciousness in the long course of history, in its continuity and [pg 136] gradual transition from lower to higher forms: everywhere we meet this same problema continui. And our oppressive difficulty is bound up with this problem, and can be dispelled only by its solution, for the gist of the difficulty is nothing else than the gradualness of human becoming.
This is not the place for a thoroughgoing discussion of this problema continui. We can only call to mind here that the “evolution idea” has been the doctrine of the great philosophical systems from Aristotle to Leibnitz, and of the great German idealist philosophers, in whose school the religious interpretation of the world is at home. We may briefly emphasise the most important considerations to be kept in mind in forming a judgment as to gradual development.
1. To recognise anything as in course of evolving does not mean that we understand its “becoming.” The true inwardness of “becoming” is hidden in the mystery of the transcendental.
2. The gradual origin of the highest and most perfect from the primitive in no way affects the specific character, the uniqueness and newness of the highest stage, when compared with its antecedents. For, close as each step is to the one below, and directly as it seems to arise out of it, each higher step has a minimum and differentia of newness (or at least an individual grouping of the elements of the old), which the preceding stage does not explain, or for which it is not [pg 137] a sufficient reason, but which emerges as new from the very heart of things.
3. Evolution does not diminish the absolute value of the perfect stage, which is incomparably greater than the value of the intermediate stages, it rather accentuates it. The stages from the half-developed acorn-shoot are not equivalent in value to the perfect tree; they are to it as means to an end, and are of minimal value compared with it.
4. All “descent” and “evolution,” which, even in regard to the gradual development of physical organisation and its secrets, offer not so much an explanation as a clue, are still less sufficient in regard to the origin and growth of psychical capacity in general, and in relation to the awakening and autonomy of the mind in man, because the psychical and spiritual cannot be explained in terms of physiological processes, from either the quantity or the quality of nervous structure.
This problem, and the relation of the human spirit to the animal mind, will fall to be dealt with in Chapter XI. It is neither the right nor the duty of the religious conception of the world to inquire into and choose between the different forms of the idea of descent which we have met with. If it has made itself master of the general evolution idea, then descent, even in its most gradual, continuous, monophyletic form, affects it not at all. It can then look on, perhaps not with joy, but certainly without anxiety, at Dubois' monkey-man and Friedenthal's chimpanzee. On the [pg 138] other hand, it is obvious that a secret bond of sympathy will always unite it with the right wing of the theory of descent, with the champions of “halmatogenesis,”32 heterogenesis,33 kaleidoscopic readjustment, &c., because in all these the depth and wealth and the mystery of phenomena are more obviously recognisable. For the same reasons the religious outlook must always be interested in all protests against over-hastiness, against too great confidence in hypotheses, and against too rapid simplification and formulation. And it is not going beyond our province to place some reliance on the fact that there are increasing signs of revolt from the too great confidence hitherto shown in relation to the Theory of Descent. The general frame of the theory will certainly never be broken, but the enclosed picture of natural evolution will be less plain and plausible, more complex and subtle, more full of points of interrogation and recognitions of the limits of our knowledge and the depths of things.
It remains for us to consider what is essentially Darwinian in Darwinism, namely, the theory of natural selection as the determining factor in evolution. For, given the reality of evolution and descent, and that transformations from one form to another, from lower to higher, have really taken place, what was the guiding and impelling factor in evolution, what forced it forwards and upwards? It is here that the real problem of Darwinism begins. Only from this point onwards does the doctrine of evolution, which is not in itself necessarily committed to any theory of the factors, become definitely Darwinian or anti-Darwinian. And it is this problem that is mainly concerned in the discussions taking place to-day as to whether Darwin was right, or whether Darwinism as a hypothesis has not broken down.
The most characteristic feature of Darwin's theory was “natural teleology,” that is, the explanation of what is apparently full of purpose and plan in the world, purely as the necessary consequence of very simple conditions, without purpose or any striving after an aim. He sought to show that evolution and ascent [pg 140] can be realised through purely “natural” causes, that this world of life, man included, must have come about, but not because it was intended so to do. In this sense, indeed, his doctrine is an attempt to do away with teleology. But in another sense it is so even more emphatically. The world, and especially the world of life, is undoubtedly full of what is de facto purposive. The living organism, as a whole and in every one of its parts, is marvellously adapted to the end of performing its functions, maintaining its own life and reproducing. Every single living being is a miracle of inexhaustible adaptations to an end. Whence came these? They, too, are products, unsought for, unintended, and yet necessary, and coming about “of themselves,” that is without teleological or any supernatural guiding principles. To eliminate purpose and the purposive creating and guiding activity of transcendental principles from interpretations of nature, and to introduce purely naturalistic principles—“principles of chance,” if we understand chance in this connection not as opposed to necessity, but to plan and purpose—this is the aim of the Darwinian theory. And it only becomes definitely anti-theological because it is anti-teleological.
The conclusions which Darwin arrived at as to the factors in the transformation of species, and in the production of “adaptations,” have been in part supported by the specialists he influenced, in part strengthened, but in part modified and even reversed, so that a great crisis [pg 141] has come about in regard to Darwinism in the strict sense—a crisis which threatens to be fatal to it. We must here attempt to take a general survey of the state of the question and to define our own position.
Darwin's interpretation is well known. It is the theory of the natural selection of the best adapted through the struggle for existence, which is of itself a natural selection, and results in the sifting out of particular forms and of higher forms. Darwin's thinking follows the course that all anti-teleological thought has followed since the earliest times. In bringing forth the forms of life, nature offers, without choice or aim or intention, a wealth of possibilities. The forms which happen to be best adapted to the surrounding conditions of life maintain themselves, and reproduce; the others perish, and are eliminated (survival of the fittest). Thus arises adaptation at first in the rough, but gradually in more and more minute detail. This adaptation, brought about by chance, gives the impression of intelligent creative purpose.
In Darwin this fundamental mode of naturalistic interpretation took, under the influence of the social-economic theories of Malthus, the special form of natural selection by means of the struggle for existence, in association with the assumption of unlimited and fluctuating variability in the forms of life. All living beings have a tendency to increase in number without limit. But the means of subsistence and other conditions of existence do not increase at the same [pg 142] rate; they are relatively constant. Thus competition must come about. Any organism that is, by fortuitous variation, more favourably equipped than its fellows maintains itself and reproduces itself; the less favoured perish. For all things living are exposed to enemies, to untoward circumstances, and the like. Every individual favoured above its rivals persists, and can transmit to its descendants its own more favourable, more differentiated, more highly equipped character. Thus evolution is begun, and is forced on into the ever more diverse and ever “higher.”
To Darwin this struggle for existence and this selection according to utility seemed, at any rate, the chief factor in progress. He did, indeed, make some concessions to the Lamarckian principle that new characters may be acquired by increased use, and to other “secondary” principles. But these are of small importance as compared with his main factor.
The theory of natural selection in the struggle for existence rapidly gained wide acceptance, but from the first it was called in question from many sides. Bronn, who translated Darwin's works into German, was and remained loyal to the idea of a “developmental law”—that there is within the organism an innate tendency towards self-differentiation and progress, thus a purely [pg 143] teleological principle.34 Similarly, von Baer emphasised the idea of an endeavour to realise an aim; von Kölliker, that of “heterogenesis”; Nägeli, that of an impulse towards perfection—all three thus recognising the theory of evolution, but dissenting from the view that the struggle for existence is the impelling factor and actual guide in the process. Very soon, in another direction, antagonism became pronounced between the strictly Darwinian elements of the theory (the struggle for existence and its corollaries) and the accessory Lamarckian elements. Through these and other controversies the present state of the question has emerged.
The main antithesis at present is the following. On the one side, the “all-sufficiency of natural selection” is maintained, that is, progressive evolution is regarded as coming about without direct self-exertion on the part of the organisms themselves, simply through the fact that fortuitous variations are continually presenting themselves, and are being selected and established according to their utility in the struggle for existence. On the other side—with Lamarck—the progress is regarded as due to effort and function on the part of the organism itself. (Increased use of an organ strengthens it; a changed use transforms it; disuse causes it to degenerate. Thus new characters appear, old ones pass away, and in the course of thousands of [pg 144] years the manifold diversity of the forms of life has been brought about.)
Further, by those of the one side variation is regarded as occurring by the smallest steps that could have selective value in the struggle for existence. To the others variation seems to have taken place by leaps and bounds, with relatively sudden transformations of the functional and structural equilibrium on a large scale. In regard to these the rôle of the struggle for existence must be merely subsidiary. This saltatory kind of evolution-process is called “halmatogenesis,” or, more neatly, “kaleidoscopic variation,” because, as the pictures in a kaleidoscope change not gradually but by a sudden leap to an essentially new pattern, so also do the forms of life. Associated with this is the following contrast. One side believes in free and independent variation of any organ, any part, any function, physical or mental, any instinct, and so on, apart from change or persistence in the rest of the organism; the other side believes in the close connectedness of every part with the whole, in the strict “correlation” of all parts, in variation in one part being always simultaneously associated with variation in many other parts, all being comprised in the “whole,” which is above and before all the parts and determines them. And further, to one school variation seems without plan in all directions, simply plus or minus on either side of a mean; to the other, variation seems predetermined and in a definite direction—an “orthogenesis,” in fact, which is inherent in the organism, and which is indifferent [pg 145] to utility or disadvantage, or natural selection, or anything else, but simply follows its prescribed path in obedience to innate law. The representatives of this last position differ again among themselves. Some regard it as true in detail, in regard, for instance, to the markings of a butterfly's wing, the striping of a caterpillar, the development of spots on a lizard; while others regard it as governing the general process of evolution as a whole. Finally, there is the most important contrast of all. On the one side, subordination, passivity, complete dependence on the selective or directive factors in evolution, which alone have any power; on the other, activity, spontaneous power of adaptation and transformation, the relative freedom of all things living, and—the deepest answer to the question of the controlling force in evolution—the secret of life. This last contrast goes deeper even than the one we have already noted, that between the Darwinian and the Lamarckian principle of explanation; and it leads ultimately from the special Darwinian problem to quite a new one, to be solved by itself—the problem of the nature and secret of living matter.
In regard to almost all the points to which we have referred, the most consistent and decided champion of Darwinism in its essential principles is the zoologist of Freiburg, August Weismann.35 In long chapters on [pg 146] the protective coloration of animals, on the phenomena of mimicry—that resemblance to foreign objects (leaves, pieces of wood, bark, and well-protected animals) by which the mimics secure their own safety from enemies—on the protective devices in plants, the selective value of “the useful” is demonstrated. In regard to the marvellous phenomena of “carnivorous” plants, the still more marvellous instincts of animals, which cannot be interpreted on Lamarckian lines as “inherited habit,” but only as due to the cumulative influence of selection on inborn tendencies, as well as in regard to “symbiosis,” “the origin of flowers,” and so on, he attempts to show that the heterodox attempts at explanation are insufficient, and that selection alone really explains. At the same time the Darwinian principle is carried still further. It is not only among the individuals, the “persons,” that the selective struggle for existence goes on. Personal selection depends upon a “germinal selection” within the germ-plasm, influencing it, and being influenced by it—for instance, restrained.
In order to explain the mystery of heredity, Weismann [pg 147] long ago elaborated, in his germ-plasm theory, the doctrine that the developing individual is materially preformed, or rather predetermined in the “idants” and “ids” of the germ-cell. Thus every one of its physical characters (and, through these, its psychical characters), down to hairs, skin spots, and birth-marks, is represented in the “id” by “determinants” which control the “determinates” in development. In the course of their growth and development these determinants are subject to diverse influences due to the position they happen to occupy, to their quality, to changes in the nutritive conditions, and so on. Through these influences variations in the determinants may be brought about. And thus there comes about a “struggle” and a process of selection among the determinants, the result of which is expressed in changes in the determinates, in the direction of greater or less development. On this basis Weismann attempts to reach explanations of the phenomena of variation, of many apparently Lamarckian phenomena, and of recognised cases of “orthogenesis,” and seeks to complete and deepen Roux's theory of the “struggle of parts,” which was just another attempt to carry Darwinism within the organism.
What distinguishes Weismann, and makes him especially useful for our present purpose of coming to an understanding in regard to the theory of selection is, that his views are unified, definite and consistent. In his case we have not to clear up the ground and to [pg 148] follow things out to their conclusions, nor to purge his theories from irrelevant, vitalistic, or pantheistic accessory theories, as we have, for instance, in the case of Haeckel. His book, too, is kept strictly within its own limits, and does not attempt to formulate a theory of the universe in general, or even a new religion on the basis of biological theories. Let us therefore inquire what has to be said in regard to this clearest and best statement of the theory of selection when we consider it from the point of view of the religious conception of the world.
Whatever else may be said as to the all-sufficiency of natural selection there can be no doubt that it presupposes two absolute mysteries which defy naturalistic explanation and every other, and which are so important that in comparison with them the problem of the struggle for efficacy and its meaning fades into insignificance. These are the functions and capacities of living organisms in general, and in particular those of variation and inheritance, of development and self-differentiation. What is, and whence comes this mysterious power of the organism to build itself up from the smallest beginnings, from the germ? And the equally mysterious power of faithfully repeating the type of its ancestors? And, again, of varying and becoming different from its ancestors? Even the “mechanical” theory of selection is forced to presuppose the secret of life. Weismann indeed attempts to solve this riddle through his germ-plasm theory, the [pg 149] predisposition of the future organism in the “ids,” determinants, and biophors, and through the variation of the determinants in germinal selection, amphimixis and so on. But this is after all only shifting the problem to another place, and translating the mystery into algebraical terms, so to speak, into symbols with which one can calculate and work for a little, which formulate a definite series of observations, an orderly sequence of phenomena, which are, however, after all, “unknown quantities” that explain nothing.
In order to explain the developing organism Weismann assumes that each of its organs or parts, or “independent regions,” is represented in the germ-plasm by a determinant, upon the fate of which the development of the future determinate depends. It is thought of as a very minute corpuscle of living matter. Thus there are determinants of hairs and scales, pieces of skin, pits, marks, &c. But every determined organ, or part, or “independent region,” is itself in its turn an “organism,” is indeed a system of an infinite number of interrelated component parts, and each of these again is another, down to the individual cells. And each cell is an “organism” in itself, and so on into infinity. Is all this represented in the determinants? And how?
Further, the individual determinate, for instance of a piece of skin, is not something isolated, but passes over without definite boundary into others. Therefore the determinants also cannot be isolated, but must be systems within systems, dependent upon and merging into [pg 150] one another. How, at the building up of the organism, do the determinants find their direction and their localisation? And, especially, how do they set to work to build up their organ? Here the whole riddle of the theory of epigenesis, which Weismann wished to do away with as a mystery, is repeated a thousand times and made more difficult. In order to explain puzzling processes on a large scale, others have been constructed, which on close investigation prove to be just the same mysterious and unexplained processes, only made infinitely smaller.
Moreover, even if the whole of “Weismannism,” including germinal selection, could be accepted, and if it were as sufficient as it is insufficient, what we advanced at the end of Chapter III. as a standpoint of general validity in relation to teleology and theology would still hold good. Even an entirely naïve, anthropomorphic, “supernatural” theology is ready to see, in the natural course of things, in the “causæ secundariæ,” the realisation of Divine purpose, teleology, and does not fail to recognise that the Divine purpose may fulfil itself not only in an extraordinary manner, through “miracles” and “unconditioned” events, but also in ordinary ways, “through means” and the universal causal nexus. Thus it is quite consistent even with a theology of this kind to regard the whole system of causes and effects, which, according to the Darwin-Weismann doctrine, have gradually brought forth the whole diversity of the world of life, with man at its head, in a purely causal [pg 151] way without teleological intervention, as an immense system of means marvellous in its intricacy, in the inevitable necessity of its inter-relations, and in the exactness of its work, the ultimate result of which must have come about, but perhaps at the same time was intended to come about. Whether I regard this ultimate result as the mere consequence of blind happenings, or as an intended purpose, does not depend, as we have seen, upon the knowledge gained by natural science, but depends above all on whether this ultimate result seems to me of sufficient value to be thought of as the purpose of a world-governing intelligence, and thus depends upon my personal attitude to human nature, reason, mind, and the spiritual, religious, and moral life. If I venture to attribute worth, and absolute worth, to these things, nothing, not even the fact of the “struggle for existence” in its thousand forms, in its gradually transforming effects, in the almost endless nexus of its causes and results, germinal selection included, can take away my right (and eventually my duty) to regard the ultimate result as an end, and the nexus of causes as a system of means. To enable me to do this, it is only requisite that internal necessity should govern the system, and that the result should not be a chance one, so that it might even have been suppressed, have failed, or have turned out quite differently. Necessity and predetermination are characteristic of the relation between means and purpose. But this requisite is precisely that which natural science [pg 152] does afford us,—namely, the proof that all phenomena are strictly governed by law, and are absolutely predetermined by their antecedents. At this point the religious and the scientific consideration coincide exactly. The hairs of our head, and the hairs in the fur of a polar bear, which is varying towards white, and is therefore selected in the struggle for existence,36 even the fluctuating variations of a determinant in the germ, are “numbered” according to both conceptions. Every variation that cropped up, every factor that “selected” the fit, and eliminated the unfit, was strictly predestined, and must of necessity have appeared as, and when, and where it did appear.37
The whole nexus of conditions and results, the inclined plane of evolution and the power of Being to move up it, has its sufficient reason in the nature and original state of the cosmos, in the constitution of its “matter,” its “energy,” its laws, its sequences and the grouping of its phenomena. Only from beginnings so constituted could our present world have come to be as it is, and [pg 153] that necessarily. Only because the primary possibility and fitness for life—vegetable, animal and human—was in it from the beginning, could all these have come to be. This primary possibility did not “come into being,” it was à priori immanent in it. Whence came this? There is no logical, comprehensible, or any other necessity why there should be a world at all, or why it should be such that life and evolution must become part of it. Where then lies the reason why it is, rather than is not, and why it is as it is?
To this must be added what Weismann himself readily admits and expressly emphasises. The whole theory treats, and must treat plant, animal, and man as only ingenious machines, mere systems of physical processes. This is the ideal aimed at—to interpret all the phenomena of life, growth, and reproduction thus. Even instincts and mental endowments are so interpreted, since there must be corresponding morphological variations of the fine structure of the nervous organ, and instinctive actions are then “explained” as the functions of these. But how “mechanical happening” comes to have this marvellous inwardness, which we call sensation, feeling, perception, thought and will, which is neither mechanical nor derivable from anything mechanical; and, further, how physical and psychical can condition one another without doing violence to the law of the conservation of the sum of energy, is an absolute riddle. But this whole psychical world exists, with graduated stages perhaps as close to each other as [pg 154] in the physical world, but even less capable than these of being explained as having arisen out of their antecedent lower stages. And this psychical world, which is, indeed, related to and dependent upon the corporeal life, as also conversely, has its own quite peculiar laws: thought does not follow natural laws, but those of logic, which is entirely indifferent to exciting stimuli, for instance of the brain, which conform to natural laws. But this world, its riddles and mysteries, its great content and its history, beyond the reach of mechanical theories, is so absolutely the main thing (especially in regard to the question of the possibility of religion), that the question of bodily structure and evolution becomes beside it a mere accessory problem, and even the last is only a relatively unimportant roundabout way of coming at the gist of the business. How completely the evolution of the higher mental faculties transcends such narrow and meagre formulæ as the struggle for existence and the like, Weismann himself indicates in connection with man's musical sense, and its relation to the “musical” instinct in animals. The same and much more might be alleged in regard to the whole world of mind, of the æsthetic, ethical and religious, of the kingdom of thought, of science, and of poetry.
We have for the moment provisionally admitted the theory of natural selection, in order to see [pg 155] whether it could be included in a religious interpretation of things. But in reality such an admission is not to be thought of, in face of what is at present so apparent—the breaking down of this hypothesis, which has been upheld with so much persistence. We shall have to occupy ourselves with this later on. In the meantime a few more remarks must be added to what has been already said.
It might be said, paradoxically, that the worst fate that could befall this hypothesis would be to be proved, for then it would be most certainly refuted. What we mean is this: If it is really “utility” that rules the world and things, there can be no certainty and objectivity of knowledge, no guarantee of truth. The “struggle for existence” is not concerned with selecting beings who see the world as it is. It selects only the interpretation and conception of the environment that is most serviceable for the existence and maintenance of the species. But there is nothing to guarantee that the “true” knowledge will also be the most useful. It might quite well be that an entirely subjective and in itself wholly false interpretation would be the most serviceable. And if, by some extraordinary chance, the selected interpretation should be also the true one, there would be no means of establishing the fact. And what is true of this interpretation is true also of all theories that are derived from it, for example of the theory of selection itself.
Furthermore, a great part, perhaps the greatest part [pg 156] of the confidence placed in the theory of selection is due to an involuntary, but entirely fallacious habit of crediting it with the probabilities in favour of the doctrine of descent. The main arguments in favour of evolution and descent are very often, though unwittingly, adduced in support of Darwinism in particular. This is a great mistake. Take, for instance, the evidence of the “palæontological” record. It affords hundreds of proofs of evolution, but not a single proof of selection. Its “intermediate” and “connecting links” do possibly prove the affiliation of species and the validity of genealogical trees. But precisely the “intermediate links” which selection requires—the myriads of forms of life which were not successfully adapted, the unfit competitors in the struggle for existence which must have accompanied the favourably adapted variants from step to step, from generation to generation—these are altogether awanting.
Another circumstance seems to us to have been entirely overlooked, and it is one which gives the theory of selection an inevitable appearance of truth, even if it is essentially false, and thus makes it very difficult to refute. Assuming that the recognition of teleological factors is valid, that there is an inward law of development, that “Moses” or whoever one will was undoubtedly right, it is self-evident that, because of the indubitable over-production of organisms, there would even then be a struggle for existence on an immense scale, and that it would have a far-reaching [pg 157] “selective” influence, because of the relative plasticity of many forms of life. Beyond doubt it would, in the course of æons, have applied its shears to many forms of life, and probably there would be no organisms, organs, or associations in the evolution of the ultimate form of which it had not energetically co-operated. Its influence would, perhaps, be omnipresent, yet it might be far from being the all-sufficient factor in evolution; indeed, as far as the actual impulse of evolution is concerned, it might be a mere accessory. Unless we are to think of the forms of life as wholly passive and wooden, the struggle for existence must necessarily be operative, and the magnitude of its results, and their striking and often bizarre outcome, will tend ever anew to conceal the fact that the struggle is after all only an inevitable accompaniment of evolution. And thus we understand how it is that interpretations from the point of view of an inward law of development, of orthogenesis, or of teleology, notwithstanding their inherent validity, have à priori always had a relatively difficult position as compared with the Darwinian view.
It is usual to speak of the “all-sufficiency of natural selection,” yet the champion of the selection-theory admits, as he needs must, that the struggle for existence and selection can of themselves create absolutely nothing, no new character, no new or higher combination of the vital elements; they can only take what is already given; they can only select and eliminate [pg 158] among the wealth of what is offered.38 And the offerer is Life itself by virtue of its mysterious capacity for boundless and inexhaustible variability, self-enrichment and increase. The “struggle for existence” only digs the bed through which life's stream flows, draws the guiding-line, and continually stimulates it to some fresh revelation of its wealth. But this wealth was there from the beginning; it was, to use the old word, “potential” in the living, and included with it in the universal being from which life was called forth. The struggle for existence is only the steel which strikes the spark from the flint; is, with its infinite forms and components, only the incredibly complex channel through which life forces its way upwards. If we keep this clearly in mind, the alarming and ominous element in the theory shrinks to half its dimensions.
And, finally, if we can rid ourselves of the peculiar fascination which this theory exercises, we soon begin to discover what extraordinary improbability and fundamental artificiality it implies. “Utility” is maintained to be that which absolutely, almost tyrannically, determines form and development in the realm of the living. Is this an idea that finds any analogy elsewhere in nature? Those who uphold the theory most strongly are wont to compare the development of organisms to crystal-formation in order in some way to tack on the living to the not-living. Crystal-formation, [pg 159] with its processes of movement and form-development, is, they say, a kind of connecting link between the living and the not-living. And in truth we find here, as in the realm of life, species-formation, development into individuals, stages and systems. But all this takes place without any hint of “struggle for existence,” of laboriously “selective” processes, or of ingenious accumulation of “variations.” The “species” of crystals are formed not according to utility, but according to inherent, determining laws of development, to which the diversity of their individual appearances is due. If “Life” were only a higher potential of what is already stirring in crystallisation, as this view suggests, then we should expect to find fixed tendencies, determined from within, in accordance with which life would pass through the cycle of its forms and possibilities, and rise spontaneously through gradual stages.